Awesome post! Fantastic! Hats off to you!

second chances-
rock on! that is amazing. sounds like almost an otherwordly experience.
may the trail continue to rise to meet you!!!!!!!!!!!

Chance - What an incredible post! Good for you. To have that realization is amazing and I wish you the very best in your future. My goal is to be AF permanently so your post is really encouraging to me. Congratulations.

Sticky, thanks for the kind words but I'm not amazing. I should have stopped drinking years ago. But better late than never, right?

I always had it in my head that I loved alcohol and everything it did for me. Even when it was destroying my life. I'd give up drinking for a week, or a month, or several months but the feeling of loss always gnawed at me. Now I know that there is no loss.

Overcoming the physical addiction to alcohol has always been easy for me. It's the mental addiction that kept me prisoner for years. And it was a prison that I constructed in my own mind. I was both jailer and prisoner.

I know now that alcohol never did anything for me. I just thought it did. It never solved any of my problems, it just made them worse. Once I realized this something inside me changed. I lost the taste and desire to drink and get drunk.

My next statement will probably be very controversial but I feel compelled to say it. Nal on it's own will not "cure" anyone. Our own minds fuel the addiction, and it is our minds that will ultimately free ourselves from the very same addiction. In my case, I needed to come to the realization that I didn't need or even want alcohol. Once I realized this the hunger vanished.

So, am I cured? I loathe this word. I don't know if I am going to relapse, but I keep promising myself not today. Not today. I do know this, I have given up nothing by not drinking. My life is so much better now. If I could just impart just one idea it is that you are giving up nothing by living without alcohol. There is nothing to fear about living without alcohol. Lot's of people do it.

-Chance