(Please see "What Was Lost" for the prequel)

1. How about Mondays?! (and even Tuesdays & Wednesdays...). Here I am Tuesday Morning after a 3 day weekend and I am not hungover! Didn't have 1 drink over the holiday weekend, nor did I want to have a drink. For over a decade my Mondays were miserable, with Tuesdays and Wednesday not far behind. Thursday was always the day when I began to feel better...
2. Time! Man, there is so much more time in every day when you don't drink! I get so much more done.
3. Energy! I've gotten household projects done that I have procrastinated about doing for years! I look at the completed project and wonder if a new life-force has entered and taken over my body...
4. Optimism. No more dark thoughts, no more of all the worries and fears, mostly irrational (but based on far too much alcohol consumption).
5. Health. I feel 10 years younger. Went for my annual last week: Blood pressure,weight, and cholesterol have plummeted. My Doctor very amused. He confided that after seeing my results (he was initially a skeptic when I asked him for the prescription) he has prescribed NAL for a few of his other patience. I said "They have to drink when they take it!" and he just gave me a knowing smile.
6. Confidence. I had become quite the recluse over the last decade, mostly because I knew I couldn't not drink, and I knew bad things might happen when I did, and I didn't want anyone to see me pound 6 drinks to everyone else's one. So I became a loner, my wife my only friend. I thought I was shy by nature and could only socialize with alcohol. How wrong! Now I am out in the world again! Socializing! No longer fearful of the world around me.
7. "I quit drinking". I used to be so afraid of that sentence! Not only what it would mean to me, but to others as well. Even half way into NAL I couldn't bare that sentence. But now? -who cares! I don't drink, -and I don't care who knows it. Maybe that's when you know you are really cured...

I no longer miss anything about alcohol except for the long talks I would have with my wife while drinking (which I often did not remember...). Now I get bored just talking and head off to do something. So I spend less time with her. She has not commented yet, so maybe she did not enjoy listening to me drink...

Football starts next weekend. I am curious about this. I used to spend all day & night on Sundays during the season eating, drinking, & watching football. I loved it. This was one of those things I couldn't picture without alcohol. Now I wonder how much of it I will watch? My guess is I will record and watch max 1 game in the evening, and the thought bothers me not one bit.

It is a good thing, I think, that NAL takes awhile to work, because it takes awhile to adjust to a life without alcohol. In my case the NAL worked faster than the adjustment, but the adjustment has now caught up. I love this new life without alcohol! I still think about alcohol a lot (who wouldn't after a 35 year love affair?), -but I have zero cravings and never want to have a drink any longer. Instead of buying cases of wine, I now buy cases of Sprite. Think I might look into one of those SodaStream machines...

What a miracle? Super happy for you Clarion! Standing applause!

That's awesome, Clarion. Congratulations. How long did the process take for you?

This sounds familiar, even though I've never been into watching sports. I used to think alcohol's ability to raise my tolerance for boredom was one of its many benefits, but now I see that it really just served to make me a lazy and boring person.

Thanks for documenting your journey, Clarion. Your success is inspiring.

That's great! I remember reading your 'what was lost' post. I'm so glad that you're finding the positives. It gives us all hope when someone has a change of perspective.

You are right Clarion, the adjusting to life without alcohol is what takes the time. The adjustment does happen, it just requires patience

Thought I'd check in, though I suspect I will be going away soon. I think less about alcohol every day and so less about this community as well. Still AF without any effort, no desire to drink, life going wonderfully. Couldn't be happier. Still amazing in retrospect, this total transformation.

An interesting anecdotal observation: For as long as I can remember (at least 20+ years) I have never needed an alarm clock to awake precisely at 5:00am. Didn't matter how much I drank, or how long I slept, -I always woke at 5:00am. Never later, never late for work. (Although, during heavy drinking periods, many times I would wake up much early, which I did not wish to do but could not avoid). But now, blissfully AF, -I often oversleep! Several times I have almost been late for work! And I rarely wake at 5:00 now as intended, but 5:15, 5:30, and sometimes later (and all this with early bed times and plenty of sleep hours). Don't know what it means, but I thought I'd share.

Good luck to everyone and I hope you all find what I have found!

I hope you'll still drop by from time to time, Clarion.