When I first tried to stop drinking, quitting for 100 days was completely inconceivable. In July 2013 when I first committed to Belle’s 100 Day Challenge, all I saw ahead of me was a long summer of Birthdays and BBQS and Reasons to Drink. Needless to say, I didn’t make it past the first month.
With time and patience and getting things wrong, I have learnt to string together sober days so that NOT drinking is normal to me. I’m 265 days sober which means it’s 100 days until I celebrate a year, if I keep it together. That feels wonderfully achievable where once it was unthinkable.
The battle is never won, but I can say that for me it gets easier every day. Time really does count for so much. Time and practice and strong sober routine has been my saviour.
So I suppose what I want to say today is this: if you convince yourself sobriety isn’t possible, it stays out of reach. Days seem too long to commit, there’s always a reason to drink in those early painful weeks of sobriety.
But those reasons to drink will fade and you’ll develop a whole wonderful arsenal of reasons to stay sober in their place.
Keep putting one foot in front of the other. I know I will. I want to feel what being sober a whole year is like 🙂
Happy Monday!
FitFatFood- Blogging to Stay Sober 
SMILING.
love this post so so much. ‘not drinking is normal to me.’ who’d have thought it but it is true, true true! *whirls around in circle like the park scene from Enchanted*
Hahahaha I LOVE this. Never seen it before but now it’s my trademark move.
I was just like you. I had tried so many times, in my head, to quit before. Never making it very long. Always ending with-f it. I know I’ll drink eventually.
This year started out for me as a birthday gift to myself. A year sober. Now it is my new normal. And it’s so much better I don’t think a year is anywhere near long enough for me!
Thanks for the reminder! 265 is a big number!
I completely agree- I would carry on after a year if that had been my target…
I’m day 34 on the 100 day challenge! Good for you!!!
And good luck to you 🙂 it’s so doable once you’ve done it, but remember how hard it was x x x
Congratulations on your 265th day!! That is HUGE!!! I’m on day 50, myself – if I had known the peace of mind and freedom from anxiety, self-loathing, and constant inner turmoil, I would have stopped YEARS ago. You’re absolutely right: NOT drinking is normal now – yay!
Freedom is precisely the right word, what a joy eh?
Oh FFF Yay yay yay!!! F**king awesome chick 🙂 xx
Thank you Luce x x x
Hurrah! 100 days to go! My first thought was, wow, 265 days is amazing, and then I realised that I’m barely a month behind you … hot on you heels 😉 How on earth did that happen? I know what you mean about it all feeling normal now… I was out at the theatre the other night and we were all ordering drinks for the interval. I couldn’t imagine trying to neck down a large glass of warm white wine in ten minutes flat before getting back to my seat – it seemed an absurdly silly idea – and yet that is exactly that I’d have done last year.
Yay you! I’m so excited for you. Having read your blog for quite a while, it is so amazing to see you come so far. xo
Thank you CL- it’s great to see others in our community soldiering on or picking themselves up if they fall. There’s always a way through
So beautiful. You are such my inspiration. It does become normal. Whatever life throws your way you just don’t drink. Love the full circle of your experience these past 265 days. xox Lisa
And you mine Lisa 🙂
Fantastic! Only 100 days away. As I watch my day count go up every day, I constantly say, go figure. How am I doing this? Oh yeah, one day at a time 🙂
Hahah indeed! I hated that saying when I was creeping up to a week but now it helps 🙂
FFF this is so awesome~ so PROUD of you! I can’t wait till your big 1 year soberversary! It does get easier~ Belle was right, just don’t drink that day and soon enough they will accumulate! I wouldn’t trade sober for booze any day~ so much better here! Hugs!
Ahhhh yay! Sober sisters!
This is so so so helpful. Because I’ve been worrying that I’m not going to make it! 265 days is amazing. I’m at day 38 and I’m going to really try and keep going. Annie x
You will- one foot in front of the other and it just gets easier and easier. People said it to me and I sort of didn’t believe them but it was absolutely true.
Congratulations! 265 is something to be very proud of! Looking forward to your 1 year post. 🙂
Ahhh thank you! Great to see you pop up on here 🙂
Hey hey, I love your blog – very thoughtful and relatable. I’ve just started and am fairly new to this – if you have a moment, please check it out.
http://soberinlondon.wordpress.com// xx
Good to have you stop by and thank you 🙂 look forward to reading more!
Amazing blog, I started one of these a year ago, I failed miserably after just a week, and every other blog I read was about people at day 40, day 90, etc etc and it frustrated me why I couldn’t even get to 2 weeks. I spoke to Belle lots, but I just went into my own little shell and felt I was not capable of doing it and disappeared. I’ve tried various methods since, hypnotism, online video blogs, reading books, yet I find myself back with Belle again almost a year to the day I first discovered her blog. Then today I read your blog, and I was gobsmacked, never have I been able to relate to something so much, its quite scary, some of the things you say about when you slipped up, its like you were inside my head, this has helped me massively, I even created a document of quotes from your blog because even by the time I got to your entries for May 2013, there were so many things that were written almost like I could have written them myself, yet I’d never seen these thoughts on other blogs, I thought I was unique in my failures.!.. The one about eating first, thats SO me, I can have the biggest craving in the world and want to spend the whole night down the pub, but I if go home first after the office, and eat, its gone, I wont even want one drink….
Thanks for being someone I can relate too 🙂
Paul
http://refusetogiveup.wordpress.com/
Amazing amAzing amazing to read this Paul. Thank you.
When I wrote those struggling blogs I was stuck in the moment, never feeling I’d get out. They’ve helped me hugely, but it’s good to hear others have benefited too.
It’s great you’re choosing to get sober- it will enrich life massively. Try to really dig in and know it will inevitably be really hard (Lord I know it is!) but that light is around the corner.
Being sober this time last year was an impossibility, now it’s a way of life. X x x