Glad to hear from you Generic. I must say I'm doing well. I have not been on in a while, but perhaps I should get back online more frequently, and read up some newbies and veterans post for support. It is good support, reading and posting hear, but does bite into productivity at work, and I generally, need all the help I can get avoiding distractions when at work. However, TSM, and this board is great, and any newbies, I encourage you to read up on my horrible consumption levels 2 years ago.

I've been on the program for 2 years now. Following the daily rule.

Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm 100% cured. For this to happen, I truly believe the only way would be to move away to avoid all of the drinking situations I created for myself over the last couple decades. However, I'm in a way better position than 2 years ago. An example of a recent pitfall I had was a Monday night sports group business meeting. We met at a private room in back of a local pub. Everything was going good, looking like 2 beers between 7-8pm, then off to home. Near end of the meeting, a large contingencies of high school buds show up to use this meeting room to plan a happy hour type wake for one of their recently deceased fathers, who all of us new and loved. So my 2 beer and exit plan, ended up lasting until 12:30pm and I probably had 14 beers. So I'm not cured.

Drinking every day is gone. I no longer have hidden vodka in house for slugs to supplement my beer fridge. The beer in the beer fridge sits there for days and weeks at a time sometimes, waiting for a real party that we host. I can go to happy hours after work, say I'm staying for 2 hours or less, stick to the plan, drop a $20 and leave with coworkers still planning on staying another hour or two, and go home, eat dinner at home with a water and be done drinking for remainder of evening at home. 2 years ago, I would have had a half pint on the ride home, a beer before dinner, with dinner, and kept on going until I was fuzzy most nights.

I'm still not cured because I can still get in situations with buddies/events and consume way more than I should. Wife still may need to drive me home from an event like this, so I do over indulge. So I'm not cured, but still following the golden rule, I still take the pill.

I do not have "The Crave" I have had anymore when in situations like I used to. Example: No matter what I had going on at home on Saturdays or Sundays, I would always start drinking a beer at noon, occasionally sooner, every Saturday or Sunday. Now, if I'm home, alone or not, I don't get the crave and don't start drinking, and find myself with more and more AF weekend days. I'm probably still only at 50% AF days per week, but that is way better than myself 2 years ago, drinking on average 18-24 daily.

I'm still not cured, but I can say that I don't recall any situation I have put myself in that required myself to drive with 1 eye closed. I'm guessing this happened possibly weekly, at least twice a month 2 years ago. I know if I have had 8 beers, in 2 hours, that I'm probably at the 0.08 limit for a guy my size, and will make that drive, but it nothing compared to when I would have a pint of vodka before a happy hour, with another 8-10 there and then make my trek home.

So, I may be repeating myself, saying I'm not cured. Reminding myself of this, however, this program is a no brainer for me. I'm sticking with it, and still notice gradual change to the good, with slow but positive reduction in weekly consumption, and disappearing gluttony. Beer still doesn't taste bad to me, but it also doesn't call to me like it used to, and definitely doesn't sound as good as it used to. I don't like beer with my food anymore, with perhaps buffalo wings as an exception. If I do over indulge, I now get hangovers like "normal" people, and don't drink the next day. No more, "hair of the dog". I used to never get hangovers. I probably did have them in some form, but I believe I was so used to them, it must have felt normal to me, and I suppressed any bad feelings the hangover had been giving me, until I could start drinking the next afternoon.

I probably need to recreate my spreadsheet and logging units again, I stopped several months ago, and then got a new workstation at work, and didn't bother saving the spreadsheet. The unit logging and graphing was a huge helper to the pill.

Hey Christopher,
Haven't heard from you in a while, just wondering are you still doing the program or have you quit. It would be great to know whats going on. I always looked forward to your post.