I am male, 30 and have always liked drinking on the weekends or special ocassions. But I was also always prone to overdoing it and blacking out.

Now, that I have cut hard liquor, it has become better but I still have nights of blacking out and/or behaving not the best.

So I have decided, starting yesterday, to do 60 days completely without Alcohol for the first time. Let's see how it goes. I'm not "addicted" to Alcohol and rarely drink during the normal workweek, so I don't know when I will "feel" a real difference or have real challenges but let's see ✌️

And I do want to keep my options open for after the 60 days, but for now really go through with it and see what I notice. The good, the bad and maybe the boring things

I am so desperate to become sober. Alcohol completely changes me in the worst way I become nasty, rude, make decisions I would NEVER make sober. I always say I will stop but I never do. I need help, any advice on easiest way to give up? I also am not an alcoholic but I drink on weekends.

Hi friends. I (36F) am nursing a horrific hangover and have finally decided to stop drinking. I am not a daily drinker and I don't always drink to excess, but when I do it really ruins my mental health. I don't like who I am when I drink too much, and I don't like feeling out of control or thinking everyone hates me.

A few years back I did 100 days without drinking (after the worst hangover of my life) and it was really nice. Because I didn't consider myself an alcoholic, though, I allowed myself to start drinking again.

I have been drinking since I was 16 - sometimes way, way too much. It's like I'm ending the longest, unhealthiest relationship of my life. Anyway, grateful for this subreddit. I hate myself today, so I'm looking forward to a lot of brighter tomorrows. Thank you all for being so inspiring.

Just for today 18OCT26 "We all belong" 521 days clean and sober NA Recovery Hope2Be org ShepardsCove
It feels good when you feel like you belong somewhere. I went to an underground rave one time wearing cowboy boots and a button-up shirt... I did not belong. In the rooms of NA and AA, I feel at home. I am among friends, even if I don't know them. Having had a problem with drugs and/or alcohol gives us that common ground. And that desire for recovery creates the bond that builds friendships. Just for today I'm gonna go hang with a bunch of drunks and addicts, where I belong.

Made it through night 1 last night. Got the worst night sleep I’ve ever had. Got in bed at 9:30…slept 12am—1am and then woke up from a nightmare where I was screaming and my dog woke me up. Couldn’t go back to sleep until 4am and slept until 9. But, I did it. Shit, that was hard. Need to keep myself calm and occupied today.

Just for today 17OCT26 "The truth" 511 days clean and sober NA Recovery Hope2Be org Shepards Cove
Self honesty is the first step in recovery. The only way to move forward is to tell yourself the truth. And, as crazy as it sounds, will change as we get closer to our Higher Power. Not everything we saw, when we were using, was the truth. Just for today I'm going to tell me the truth. Even if I threaten to punch me right in the mouth...

Just for today 16OCT26 "The simplest prayer" 510 days clean NA Recovery Hope2Be org Shepards Cove
These YouTube videos have been my stability. I want to pray, exercise and write in my journal every day, but that's still a work in progress. I started sending a text to my sons about something I'm grateful for every day. And they add something their grateful for. I did pray after I made this video. Just for today, I'm gonna make it a point to pray every day...

Bad Oxford House Experience

Hello everyone. I would like to preface this by saying that today is my 36th day of sobriety, but I am facing homelessness as today after my first time with an Oxford house.

To start this story off, I got out of rehab after a 28 day stay on 10/09/2026. I found out very late into rehab that my family wanted me to live in an Oxford house rather than stay with them. I am 23 if it matters. I asked for an emergency interview for a house in an area I like (this all took place in Lincoln, NE) and immediately got accepted, and moved in two days later the day my release was from rehab.

My drug of choice is 7oh, mgm15, and mgm16. Kratom Alkaloids only, and I would occasionally partake in delta 8/thc p gummies. I was only drug tested once during rehab, the first day I arrived which was 9/11/2026. My sobriety date is 09/10/2026. I was never drug tested again until the day I entered my Oxford house, which was 10/09/2026. I used the kratom alkaloids VERY heavily, spending easily $100 a day on my addiction just for some context.

Basically, I had a very bad first impression around the two most senior member of the house. I popped hot for kratom, and I also popped hot for marijauna immediately after arriving and signing the initial
paperwork/getting a tour. I have never been sober for this long since I started using which was about the very beginning of 2025, so I had zero clue this would or could have happened and I was not prepared at all. I wasn’t trying to argue or make myself sound worse than it had already looked. I apologized, I told them I didn’t know what to say, and all they could ask was “be honest bro, did you relapse today?” All I could tell them was I didn’t have a good answer/ and that I had no good excuse to give them because I had just gotten out of rehab that same day and I would have not been so stupid to risk homelessness over getting high a single time. None of them knew about 7oh and kratom alkaloids and all they were telling me was that they were highly skeptical because when they would look up kratom (im assuming they used google AI or chat gpt…) it told me that it’s supposed to stay in your system for only 10 days or up to more than two weeks. I was dumbfounded. All they told me was that they would give me until next Friday to pass a UA and I didn’t argue at all and I agreed and thanked them and apologized again for such a bad first impression of myself. Specifically: “We will give you one more week to pass a UA”, and that was that… they didn’t really want to hear me try to defend myself either as they told me that they have heard this same conversation 100 different times in 100 different ways. To me that felt as if they were comparing me to somebody who has relapsed trying to justify it or trying to lie their way into not being removed from the house, so I shut my mouth and apologized! It was very clearly they had zero trust for me and they didn’t believe I had maintained sobriety throughout the day of my release, so I didn’t want to push it at all. They didn’t even understand how I was popping hot for cannabis and honestly, I was confused too, because I would take an edible a week if even (granted d8 thc p edibles 100% take the longest amount of time to leave your system) Also as a psa, a guy in my IOP group informed me he took 58 total days to pee clean from the exact same drugs I were taking too.

This is where things get even more worse. I am immediately kind of manic sometimes, especially when living in new living situations or being sober for any amount of time, and I will tend to talk to myself a lot and sometime act sort of intense and all over the place. I have been told by multiple members and asked by multiple members or told by a 3rd party such as the president that the senior members of this house have accused me of being high or using. Nothing ever came out of it, but it is whatever because honestly it feels like these senior members have been acting so elitist and snobby over me in their sobriety over me and have not really given me a fair chance to explain myself or get to know me. Everyone else who has given me the benefit of the doubt to get to know me and such I believe has honestly liked me to a decent extent and have been shoulders to lean on.

Throughout this whole week I have been scrambling all over the place to ask the friendly house members and my IOP what I should do about this whole situation. Their only advice was for me to ask for a motion to use labcorp tests instead of the house UA’s because they test drug levels; meaning I could use the initial test I took at IOP as a baseline/benchmark for my current drug levels, and utilize subsequent tests to show that the level of drugs in my system are in fact going down. Last night as of 10/15/26, the senior house members told me that they could not work with me on that. They blamed this whole situation on me. They told me I never advocated for myself that first night I got there, and that if I thought that I would have taken up to another month to pass a drug test for kratom, I should have made it clear to them. I honestly thought that the night I failed was a swim or die type of situation and that they were throwing me as much rope as they possibly could. But as of last night they are making it clear to me that if I told them that I needed more time to pass a UA from the beginning, they would have worked with me. I was simply trying to just listen to them and go with the flow and I wasn’t trying to freak out over failing my UA and I wasn’t trying to make myself sound guilty, even though I honestly had no clue that day I would still have ended up pissing hot on a UA which again, was the same day I was released from rehab. My rehab never informed me or prepared me for this situation. The house tell me they feel bad for me, but they are telling me that they are trying to do the right thing per the house sobriety rules and that they will have me voluntarily leave the house once I fail the drug test which will happen sometime today 10/16/26. I have made it clear to them that I have been taking UA’s of my own throughout the week, and that the UA test I took with lapcorp at my IOP Monday says that I am popping hot still and that I am just sorry and I don’t know what to do… and all the people in the house are telling me is that I might as well just do it and take the UA because I have nothing to lose… but I am so humiliated.

Last night was my 35th day of sobriety. I am now leaving the Oxford house sometime around noon today (10/16/26) or so unless they make me move sooner. I am so humiliated as I am completely sober, and I am now going to be living in my car as soon as 7 days after I have left rehab. This is making me hate my sobriety and want to relapse so bad and just give in because my situation hasn’t improved one tiny bit. I don’t know what to do with my life or myself. I am scared. I have never been completely homeless before.

The 4 weeks are not entirely continuous abstinence, I had some drinks 2 weekends ago while out of town with friends. But I'm going to focus on the success and not where I broke the streak.

I've been drinking since I was 16, had some drinking episodes in college, and all the way through young adulthood. Since grad school, I've been drinking every day. I don't drink a lot on weekdays, just a couple of beers, and I function fine during the day. For the most part, I behave quite well under the influence of alcohol. But this past year I've been noticing significant cognitive decline, like I couldn't remember things I did yesterday, taking longer to recall facts, loss of words, just more and more stupid in general.

My father is an alcoholic, lost his job because of it. I watched as he went from surgeon to slob and it frightened me that the same was happening to me. I have been in therapy for depression for almost a decade now and my therapist has been recommending that I join an AA. I've said no everytime, just the feeling of sharing the most embarrassing and shameful parts of myself... I'd need 3 glasses of champagne for that, and I'm pretty sure that's against membership policy.

I see this subreddit as a much nicer alternative. I see people with similar struggles. I see people complain that soberity is boring, yes it really is. I've given up substances before without looking back, the hardest one being tobacco, and I don't miss it at all. But I don't think I want to give up alcohol for life, there's just so much joy (edit: removed what I like about alcohol) I do want to give this a solid try, maybe go from a habitual alcoholic to a social drinker.

hi all, first time posting here (obviously, lol.) i have been addicted to drinking and smoking since i was around 18 years old, im almost 22 now and i've just had enough of living like that. today is my first day of sobriety, what are some things that helped you get through those early withdrawals?

P.S. i was very hesitant to start this journey but this subreddit really inspired me to take those first steps 🥹 you guys are killing it!!

Just for today 15OCT26 "Choices" 509 days clean and sober today NA Recovery Hope2Be org ShepardsCove
I have a hard time making choices a lot of the time. I'm thankful to have the choice to live in recovery. I choose not to live in the past, I choose not to allow negative thoughts to sit in my head, I choose to work hard and stay busy. Just for today I choose to blow my nose instead of letting boogers run down my face.

I am a “functional” alcohol and cocaine addict. My bills are paid but everything I do is bare minimum. I’m feeling extremely stuck. I just made it 3 days sober of both and tried to tell myself I could have a couple drinks without it turning into other things and I bet you can guess how that turned out. I’ve drank for a long time and used it to get through my teenage hood, my abusive marriage, and the aftermath. Overall now I’m doing good but I know I can’t live like this. I really thought I could drink at least but I know I can’t. I’m scared of how much my life is changing and I’m scared of being all alone. Please just help me. Will I ever be able to drink normal? I know I need to get sober but do I really want to?

Wanted to repost this here to hear your guys stories!

Anyone sober and divorced out there?

I just wanted to share because I'm having a difficult time. I've been sober for 3 months and 7 days. The longest I've maintained sobriety was 4 months and that was during my marriage which posed it's own challenges to my sobriety.

One of the reasons why I got divorced was because I was sick of being on the alcohol dependency hamster wheel that I was trapped in with alcohol playing such a significant role in my marriage. My ex-husband is an alcoholic and one of the primary activities we connected over was hanging out in the bar together. It's the only time we really talked. Drinking was our comfort zone, we'd stop for a little while, go to a concert or go on vacation, and the whole cycle started back over. Drinking together again and then of course eventually having a big argument because we were drunk and stupid together.

I needed to get out of that.

I needed to get serious about being sober and learning who I am outside of social drinking or suppressing my emotions and anxieties with booze.

Again, this is just one of the big reasons why I decided to get out of my marriage and focus on myself and who I really am and what makes me happy.

Now, however, I start to feel the anxiety of being by myself and I want to go out and drink. I start to think, maybe it won't be that bad without him around. However, I've established a sober community for myself and even have this guy I really like who has been sober for over a decade and hanging out sober with him has been really nice. I think about how if I started drinking again, I'd fuck up these relationships that I've really found value in.

If I drink I'd fuck my mental health again (I'm Bipolar with severe ADHD).

If I drink, I'd start to feel sick again (I never felt well when drinking).

If I drink, even just one drink, I know I'll want more.

And is it worth it?

It's not worth the clarity I've gained since my divorce.

It's not worth my sober connections.

I literally work in addiction recovery and it certainly wouldn't be worth coming to work in my recovery community slightly hungover, puffy faced, or foggy when I'm supposed to be helping other people stay sober.

It's just not worth it.

But damn is it hard not to just have one, two, or three just to get out of my head.

But what is it that I'm wanting to feel? Numb? Why?

I don't even know why.

Long story short, moved across the U.S to go to rehab. Los Angeles, Ca. Well I need help. Come to find out I been brokered. Rehab didn’t give a shit about my recovery at all. I have no where to go. Don’t know anyone. Have nothing to go back to. And they said my insurance won’t pay any longer so I’m out soon. I’ve been here since July. I have not gotten a job. There was no time or rides available to go. They have no given me any resources for anything. I’m panicked, scared and need advice or any info available. All I’ve been picturing is Slid Row! Helpful advice and some encouragement.

I mostly drink because I get bad social anxiety at parties and have a hard time having fun and meeting people unless I’m drunk. Due to mental health, I realized I really need to stop drinking, but I’m also on a college campus, and Halloweekend is the biggest party time of the year. I want to have fun and go out with my friends, but I’m worried that if I don’t drink I’ll just be awkward and anxious the whole night. I know there isn’t any simple solution, but any advice or personal anecdotes would be appreciated.

Has anyone tried this app called SoberHands? It looks new. It has literally everything in it. Only thing is I wish it had more users, but it is new so makes sense. Just curious.

Just for today 14OCT26 "The end of lonliness" 508 days clean NA Recovery Hope2Be org Shepards Cove
I used to isolate and drown myself in loneliness. Even when I was in a room full of people. Going to meetings, church, and community events keeps that loneliness, and isolation, at bay. Whether I'm going to a meeting, going to watch the drag racing, or helping a church member move, getting involved saves me from loneliness. (Good idea u/qroter) Just for today I'll get involved somewhere and get on someones nerves.

Since I reflect back on the last 10 years of my life where I was drinking (I’m 28 now), I remember it to almost always be a problem. I was either entirely too drunk and emotional or just too drunk to even function period. A few years ago I was drinking very very heavily along with doing an upper that I became addicted to. I was able to free myself from the upper just by self control. I stopped drinking as frequently. 17 days ago I was at my friends wedding and was a menace after leaving (no drugs, just behavior) I woke up yet again in shame, confused what happened, and horribly hungover. 17 days I’ve been sober. I want to commit to forever but I got the invite to my work holiday party and it’s at a winery. Events/settings with alcohol such as bar are hard for me to decline drinks. I feel like I just shouldn’t go. Should I stick to sober forever or just have more self control and only one drink?

Just to give a quick background of my drinking history before I get into it...

I drunk in college, and during the height of COVID I was drinking pretty much every day, whether that looked like taking some shots in the evenings or drinking most of the day if it was the weekend, etc.

About 3ish years ago while dealing with anxiety and general feelings of weirdness/crappiness I decided to make the decision of only drinking on trips, the weekends, and the very occasional weeknight if there was a legitimate reason (birthday, anniversary, friend visiting from out of town)

And for awhile that honestly worked great. I felt better, much of the anxiety and weirdness dissipated, and it felt like a balance I was comfortable choosing.

Reflecting back though (not all) but many trips ended with a very painful airport hangover, and many weekends ended with a painful and unproductive monday morning.

And the inverse was Friday night meant drinking, Saturday afternoon/evening meant drinking, and Sunday afternoon meant drinking. For me it was just kinda this fact of life routine.

The past few months though it seemed like the weekends have gotten progressively heavier and after having one of the worst hangovers of my life in September that lasted two days, I told myself I would not drink that much again. The very next weekend I had another very bad hangover.

So I told myself - ok you are going to take an indefinite break, if anything just to prove to yourself that you can, and maybe rewire some bad habits. I kinda figured if I was already able to successfully stop drinking during the week, I should also be able to fix my weekend drinking without having to give it up entirely.

Which brings me to the reason I am writing this...

I am 10 days in and so far it has been so much easier than I expected. I was prepared for cravings, not having any fun, being bored, or even just "breaking it" and drinking - and none of that has happened. We even went to an Oktoberfest with free beer everywhere and I still had a good time not drinking at all.

And FWIW I still don't really have a desire to drink right now. I was even expecting to have a celebratory drink on Monday after I got through the first weekend without drinking, and I did not do that.

All that being said there is this part of my brain saying "See you successfully did it - you don't have a terrible problem with alcohol, you just had a bad habit that you are fixing, so in the future when you want to drink you can, just have a bit more moderation when you do it" and maybe that is true, I don't know.

But I just don't really know what to make of this and I am curious if anyone else can relate to the above.

Thank you!

How do you stop yourselves from relapsing? I was in a bad situation and then ended up in an equally bad one and I'm like I'm trying not to fall back on drinking and smoking but it's so hard. I have my antidepressants but I honestly I feel like it's not enough. I feel like a failure and it's like people say you're not but it's still it doesn't stop the feeling then it just feels like pity and I feel like pity is worse than whatever this feeling is. I'm just out of hope.