How long have you been sober or substance-free?

Posted by trellg132 @trellg132, Aug 11, 2019

6 months sober

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Thank you and all my best wishes,

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I have been sober for forty plus years, December 11, 1982. Ten years into my sobriety I realized I was suffering from complex PTSD I use AA and PATH, path2recovery.org, and Internal Family System (IFS) for my sobriety and CPTSD.
Good luck to all and take care of yourselves every day...it is a privilege to be alcohol & drug free,

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@coachdavid

I have been sober for forty plus years, December 11, 1982. Ten years into my sobriety I realized I was suffering from complex PTSD I use AA and PATH, path2recovery.org, and Internal Family System (IFS) for my sobriety and CPTSD.
Good luck to all and take care of yourselves every day...it is a privilege to be alcohol & drug free,

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Hi. Congrats on your length of sobriety. I, too, have PTSD. Probably had it since childhood as grew up with a mean alcoholic father who made my siblings and me miserable on a daily basis. I forgave him many years ago. However, I am left with a lifetime of PTSD symptoms. Overall, I have had a great life full of many types of journeys, been able to help many others and continue to do so. Tx for sharing path2recovery.org as I am going to contact it. Have a blessed day.

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I got sober the first week of August in 1982 at the age of 35. My body simply wouldn't synthesize alcohol anymore and I had no idea what was going to happen when I drank. Sometimes nothing happened and other times I was down and out after a pint of liquor. I fully understand dfb's post as I was fired from a fairly decent position, lost my house, was divorced, and the final straw was losing my two children. Their leaving was the day I got sober. I often muse at the fact that during my drinking I had one wife and two jobs. During sobriety I have had any number of jobs and or businesses and am on my fifth wife. Do not get nervous, this one will stick. I would strongly encourage anyone to use alcoholics anonymous. I have known people that have stayed sober without it but it makes life a lot easier with a support group.

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I will be sober 40 years on Aug. 13th. this year. I was able to quit cold turkey not to say it was easy because it wasn't. I was white knuckling it for a long time. I would say I was abstinent but not really sober. I consider my sobriety a gift from God and I gives thanks often for my gift. I came from a large alcoholic family and I was second youngest of 8 kids so I came by it naturally. I always described myself as being 14 years old for 19 years. Found myself married with three kids and I was class president at clown school. It was time to quit and I think I was blessed with what is described as a high bottom.

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Since 1996 Oct 13th … I used alcohol to medicate my GAD but not knowing that I am GAD. General anxiety disorder. I’m on lexapro but I’m going to work on getting off it because it makes me sweat all day and night. It also is making me tired so I think it’s time (75 years old) to get off Lexapro.

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We should get the class of '82 together.

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Was a blackout drunk from 13-17,been completely sober since 1990. I always think of all the things I want to remember and how a sober life is how you get things done and can enjoy life.

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Dr. Thomas Insel, a psychiatrist, who led the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), the largest funder of mental-health research in the world, for 13 years, suggest 3Ps; People, Place, Purpose. (Not Prozaic, Paxil, Pschotherap

Social connections -- with others on matters that interest us and we find enjoyable, a place to make your own food, and most of all, finding WHAT would be the best use of my always uncertain life-span on earth. It seems to have helped me stay away from "distraction" of all kinds for 8 decades: problem drinking, p-eating, p-smoking, p-shopping or -gambling...even p-book reading!

Did you notice that All is free -- including likely a place because you would be doing what is good for you-and community.

Maybe we need parents and teachers who would instill in us the value of finding purpose. It will make the other two Ps more within reach.

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October 1981...good to see some "contemporaries" here. The people who get sober with you always understand in a special way. I have bipolar 2; I have to treat both. If I let the bipolar get the better of me I doubt I could stay sober, although there was 1 time I was contemplating suicide but it never occurred to me to drink.

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