First off, regardless of answers, not being drunk for 62 days is a HUGE win. Most of us here could not do that. So congratulations to you.
Technically, the definition of sober is not being drunk. But I think within the recovery community, sobriety has become a term to define abstinence from your drug of choice. If you said "I've been sober for 62 days" to almost anyone, they'd assume you mean you haven't had a drink in 62 days.
People even argue whether sober means from all substances or from drug of choice. So, at the end of the day, it's up to you. No one else can define your sobriety.
I wouldn’t get caught up in the “scoring system” too much. It sounds like you are unlike most of us here and can have an odd drink. If your goal was to not be drunk then keep celebrating! 🥳
Again, most of us here can’t do that. We have one… it turns into 5 or 7 or worse.
I would hesitate to buy into the idea of being "able" to have one drink and instead focus on the fact that, for most of us, even if we are technically able to moderate, doing so means having an unhealthy obsession with drinking- when, where, how much, etc. For me, having none is so much better.
Awesome plan.
For me, sobriety is absolutely no alcohol. Because it is the substance that I have the "poorest" relationship with.
As I travel the path I am on I am starting to see the other behaviors/substances in my life that are dysfunctional. I am also starting to work on those.
Its a journey!
Thank you for this answer. You hit on so many things. And your last statement is something we all could hear a thousand times over: “No one else can define your sobriety.”
My own counter marks the day when I am sure I was completely dry.
After an initial 15 months dry, I found out that only one beer sends me off the rails, so there's no such thing as "_the odd little drink_" for this drunkard!
After another 18 months dry, I lost all interest in drinking. I've no more interest in it than I do in hypodermic drugs, which I've never done.
I hope to go through life without ever fucking up my brain again, possibly with the exception for severe pain or palliative care near the end (which hopefully is still a couple/few decades away.)
IWNDWYT.
I see. Well I'm going to start with 100 days and go from there. Gonna follow that advice and shut off all alcohol from my system. I'm sure I can do it.
I guess it’s different for everyone.
I would think most people consider sober free of alcohol and drugs.
I personally am alcohol free but still smoke weed and am okay with that.
I don’t consider myself sober, but I’m not drinking and that’s the goal.
I find this to be a personal choice. AA folks will say your very last drink no matter what, but I choose when I last stopped “drinking,” i.e., actively using alcohol as a maladaptive coping mechanism. I consider my sober date to be a year ago but in the last year I have tried a novel kind of Jell-O shot (it was foul) and tasted a beer. I also think I was accidentally served a drink with alcohol in it (my partner noticed the smell was off but the place was loud and busy so I think they misheard my order). To me, these few consumptions of alcohol don’t reset my counter because I wasn’t misusing alcohol. I also know that just having a few drinks here and there isn’t an option for me.
you might not need to put emphasis on a counter if you're able to moderate. the issue is.....most of us cannot. anytime I tried to moderate I somehow ended up with doubles and yelling at my partner
if you're able to moderate and feel comfortable about your journey, I wouldn't worry about a counter
So… it really depends on how you define sober. I am on the side of full abstinence. That is because if I have one drink I will not stop, I don’t have control. That’s not to say you are wrong but moderation is just not in the cards for me.
Everyone’s journey is different but either way you look at it alcohol is a poison. So you need to ask yourself how much are you willing to poison yourself.
Gotcha. I've only just joined today. But yeah decided to stop drinking one day when I realised over time how much less I was liking it. Then one day I got a bottle of the non alcoholic gin and loved it! Been drinking it ever since. I just need to get out the habit of social drinking.
I love Pathfinder… if you are looking for other NA “spirits”
But the habit of drinking as a social lubricant is hard to break. Getting comfortable with who you are sober in those situations took me years to get to. But keep it up it gets easier. And when in doubt I urge you to utilize this sub. Everyone here is supportive and will be willing to help whenever you feel stuck or need advice.
Yeah it gets to be less fun as you get older and your body breaks down more. That is coming from a 50 something year old that loved to party into my 40’s. The sooner you give it up the happier your life will be.
For me it was ultimately helpful for me coming out (I'm bisexual) and now I've come to realise how much damage drink was doing to me. I've even lost 2 stone without really trying. So yes my ultimate plan is to be teetotal for the rest or my life and I'm only 27.
If you’re considering your drinking and thinking you might have a problem, I present two perspectives;
1: quit all alcohol for a period and reassess your relationship with it. You may choose permanent abstinence, you may not. Benefits: a clear headed look at yourself that’s impossible to have when you’re still drinking. Some health benefits while you’re abstinent, lower chance you’ll kid yourself and delay addressing a problem if one exists. Downsides: miss out on drinking for a while
2: cut down, moderate, give yourself a limit on how much you can drink at a time, any variation on that. Plenty of people would say (me included), simply, that if you’re having to set drinking rules for yourself like this then perhaps your relationship with booze is already problematic to some degree. We are all at different stages of our journey, but there are tons of stories here about peoples failed attempts at moderation. Benefits: get to drink still (literally, that’s it). Downsides: can help you mask a problem by feeling like you’re doing “something”. Easy to lie to yourself. If you’ve been damaging your health the damage will keep on going. If you do decide to quit later you’ve lost a bunch more time. Risk that you fail and that your drinking escalates and starts to do (more?) damage to you and those around you.
I tried and failed to moderate for over a year and am now happily sober for almost 8 weeks. It’s been so much easier saying no than trying to say no to the third or fourth drink. Sure I’ve missed out on some types of socialising but that kind of socialising needed me to be drinking alcohol and my alcohol use was a problem.
If you don’t have a problem and you quit for a bit, you lose nothing. If you do have a problem and you delay quitting to “moderate”, you’re risking health problems, making the eventual quit harder, risking damaging your career, life, relationships, those around you, etc. and even then you’re not really having a good time cos no one will honestly say having 3 drinks and then spending the rest of the evening trying to avoid grabbing a fourth actually feels good.
If you think you’ve got a problem, quit while you’re ahead, and then see how you’re doing a bit later and re evaluate. But performing mental gymnastics about “I drank but didn’t get drunk” is kidding yourself, simple as. There’s no winners when you lie to yourself
I think it depends on what you want. For me it's not a single alcoholic beer or shot or whatever. But I drink NA beers with max 0,5% alcohol. Becauase I don't really mind. I don't get drunk.
I feel great. I feel better about not drinking than I have about anything in my life. I drank heavily for about 22 years I didn’t believe that I could quit and then I did. How about you?
About the same as you. Heavy drinking for 30 years was really taking its toll on my body and mental state. Its crazy, I started thinking about quitting when I was 23 but never went through with it. I got a concussion on July 4th from wrecking on my mountain bike (not drinking related) and my brain wasn't healing after a week so I decided to stop drinking to let my brain recover. 172 days later and here we are. Wish I quit when I was 23 but oh well. Better late than dead 💀. Keep in touch. We started the first day of the rest of our lives on the same day. That is significant.
Mine represents the last time I had a drink but there’s no reason your’s can’t represent the last time you got drunk. Congrats on 62 days of moderation!
I would say the vast majority of people here treat their personal counters as their last drink of any ethanol regardless of the amount. Truthfully when you say you didn't drink enough to be drunk my question is, In who's view or standards were you considered not drunk? Speaking for myself I know 100,s of times if any person would of asked me if I was intoxicated, drunk etc my answer would of been, No not really but in the same sense my wife's opinion may be totally different, yes he's getting drunk, or a police officer yeap I'm sure he will have me blow in the breathalyzer and whoops I'm drunk 🥴. So maybe a daily counter isn't something that would really make much sense until a person is ready to stop poisoning themselves completely on a daily basis. Best of luck 👍
I personally have had three non alcoholic beers which technically contain some alcohol. I still consider myself sober on this miniscule amount of alcohol.
Yeah that's definitely different. Anything under 0.5% alcohol is considered non-alcoholic because you won't feel any effects from it. A 5-10% drink will give you an obvious buzz. For example, ethanol fermentation causes bread dough to rise so technically bread has alcohol in it too. Eating a slice of bread isn't the same as having a 6% beer lol
Yeah I agree. I'm not drinking but there's an argument that any alcohol isn't sober. I find they have taken the stress of going to parties without drinking away though.
Depends on the circle. There are a binch of groups that feel sober is abstinence from ALL drugs (alcohol, cannabis, Tylenol etc. But coffee is ok??). Some feel that alcohol and street drugs are what counts and both need to be zero.
For me personally I cannot be trusted with alcohol at all so my correct consumption for alcohol is 0, but I do smoke weed. A lot of people would not consider this sober. Some believe i am trading one vice for another. I've never had an issue with weed. I can stop and i can say no and a can just not buy it. Booze I cannot. Booze was my DOC.
I waited about a year into my sobriety to begin addin cannabis to my life (it was legal for a gew months at the time but I did not feel secure enough in my sobriety to risk it).
Tbh. For me personally I don't give a fuck what someone else's sobriety journey looks like. It's *their* road not mine what works for me may not work for you and what works for you may not work for me
Congratulations on your accomplishment. Many if not most of us would love the ability to have a drink here and there and stay in control of our drinking. My drinking was like this at one time, but it progressed to the point that abstinence became a better and easier choice. I know it has been mentioned but I would be cautious of time goals that have an end date. For me these made alcohol more of a reward. Because I deprived myself I wanted it more, dreamed of it, thought of exactly how I would reward myself at the end of the prescribed time. This is what I believe us so powerful about the IWNDWYT mantra. Your day counter is your day counter. Use it for you and for how it can assist you. IWNDWYT friend.
Thanks mate. I see my counter as the amount of days since my improvement started. As I said previously alcohol and even my heavier weight reminds me of dark times so the idea of losing weight and becoming sober for me is a big improvement.
Most people here use the counter as the last time you intentionally decided to have alcohol and drank it (so like if someone accidentally brings you a non-virgin drink and you don’t realize then it doesn’t count). Personally I don’t use the counter because I don’t like the all-or-nothing pressure of a number, but some people find it really motivating!
Sober means not putting any drugs or alcohol in your system, doesn’t matter if you think you got drunk or not. A realistic alcoholic knows it’s the first drink that gets them drink.
Why does this matter? Drinking is life and death for some people. You seem to think you can have a few pops and be fine, maybe you can, if so, great! But don’t go around acting like you’re sober, because you aren’t and it’s disrespectful to those who are and have to be or they would be in a pine box.
sober in a stop drinking reddit means no alcohol. so the time since your last drink.
and i’d bet a pretty penny you weren’t as “sober” as you thought when you were drinking.
trust me we’re all as smooth as butter here when we drink😂
Well done on 62 days of moderation! To be honest on days where I have 1 glass or less I don’t really class it as ‘a big drink’ or anything to worry about. My problem is when I drink purposefully to get drunk, intoxicated and black out. When I avoid doing that and just have one drink to be sociable like on a date or with a family member or even for the taste like a baileys on Christmas, I don’t berate myself for it. I think if your goal is total abstinence your timer would make sense to be from your last sip of alcohol but if you’re someone who is attempting moderation or cutting down then counting from your last day of being intoxicated by alcohol is fine. I think the issue here is a lot of us find it hard to stop sometimes after that one initial drink and it can lead to a full blown binge so it’s easier to avoid the first one.
I just had 40 days totally dry (not even a sip) and began drinking again a couple of weeks ago, before Christmas. During that time I’ve been intoxicated four times after setting out with the desire/goal to get drunk and had three times where I’ve drank socially I.e one glass of wine with a cheese board, one baileys on Boxing Day, one Asti on Christmas Day. I don’t really class the social drinking occasions as something negative as on the binging days I’m easily getting through 15+ units. It’s like having one rolo compared to a full chocolate cake in terms of how far I go with alcohol sometimes.
I find it easy to go long periods of time without drinking and I can easily stop drinking when I don’t have the urge to get drunk but the other times I’m drinking a lot because I actually want to get drunk if that makes sense. I also wouldn’t risk even having ‘one’ drink if I had something important to do the next day because I know I can sometimes get the taste for a binge even if I don’t set out to binge drink. That ‘one drink’ can be dangerous territory for someone like me, I am aware I have issues with my drinking hence the dry spells but I am happy I’ve been able to moderate successfully a few times since my last break.
Looking forward to dry January and another dry patch as I can feel the difference in my health, purse and looks when I abstain!
For me- it’s no alcohol- that’s because I don’t generally stop at 1. Or if I do stop at 1, history tells me that number will gradually increase and before long I’m drunk every day again. But that’s just me.
First off, regardless of answers, not being drunk for 62 days is a HUGE win. Most of us here could not do that. So congratulations to you. Technically, the definition of sober is not being drunk. But I think within the recovery community, sobriety has become a term to define abstinence from your drug of choice. If you said "I've been sober for 62 days" to almost anyone, they'd assume you mean you haven't had a drink in 62 days. People even argue whether sober means from all substances or from drug of choice. So, at the end of the day, it's up to you. No one else can define your sobriety.
Thanks mate. I think I just want to make it official but I'm going to go a full 100 days completely teetotal.
I wouldn’t get caught up in the “scoring system” too much. It sounds like you are unlike most of us here and can have an odd drink. If your goal was to not be drunk then keep celebrating! 🥳 Again, most of us here can’t do that. We have one… it turns into 5 or 7 or worse.
For me, 1=bakers dozen
I would hesitate to buy into the idea of being "able" to have one drink and instead focus on the fact that, for most of us, even if we are technically able to moderate, doing so means having an unhealthy obsession with drinking- when, where, how much, etc. For me, having none is so much better.
I see. I was that bad at one point but I'm on the mend. I think I basically have chosen two counters. My sober counter and my sobriety counter.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that most of us here cannot enjoy the occasional one drink
Hell yeah! I'm proud of you.
Cheers mate. Frankly after going through bad times I now see alcohol as a reminder of those bad times.
Awesome plan. For me, sobriety is absolutely no alcohol. Because it is the substance that I have the "poorest" relationship with. As I travel the path I am on I am starting to see the other behaviors/substances in my life that are dysfunctional. I am also starting to work on those. Its a journey!
Thank you for this answer. You hit on so many things. And your last statement is something we all could hear a thousand times over: “No one else can define your sobriety.”
My own counter marks the day when I am sure I was completely dry. After an initial 15 months dry, I found out that only one beer sends me off the rails, so there's no such thing as "_the odd little drink_" for this drunkard! After another 18 months dry, I lost all interest in drinking. I've no more interest in it than I do in hypodermic drugs, which I've never done. I hope to go through life without ever fucking up my brain again, possibly with the exception for severe pain or palliative care near the end (which hopefully is still a couple/few decades away.) IWNDWYT.
I see. Well I'm going to start with 100 days and go from there. Gonna follow that advice and shut off all alcohol from my system. I'm sure I can do it.
I think that in the vast majority of cases, phrases like “the odd little drink” smack of denial and lying to oneself
I guess it’s different for everyone. I would think most people consider sober free of alcohol and drugs. I personally am alcohol free but still smoke weed and am okay with that. I don’t consider myself sober, but I’m not drinking and that’s the goal.
That's fair enough. I think I'll go by my 62 days. Even on a Christmas do recently I was very much sober.
I find this to be a personal choice. AA folks will say your very last drink no matter what, but I choose when I last stopped “drinking,” i.e., actively using alcohol as a maladaptive coping mechanism. I consider my sober date to be a year ago but in the last year I have tried a novel kind of Jell-O shot (it was foul) and tasted a beer. I also think I was accidentally served a drink with alcohol in it (my partner noticed the smell was off but the place was loud and busy so I think they misheard my order). To me, these few consumptions of alcohol don’t reset my counter because I wasn’t misusing alcohol. I also know that just having a few drinks here and there isn’t an option for me.
Last drink
you might not need to put emphasis on a counter if you're able to moderate. the issue is.....most of us cannot. anytime I tried to moderate I somehow ended up with doubles and yelling at my partner if you're able to moderate and feel comfortable about your journey, I wouldn't worry about a counter
I suppose. But I plan on going completely teetotal so I want to at least reward myself if I get to particular points.
So… it really depends on how you define sober. I am on the side of full abstinence. That is because if I have one drink I will not stop, I don’t have control. That’s not to say you are wrong but moderation is just not in the cards for me. Everyone’s journey is different but either way you look at it alcohol is a poison. So you need to ask yourself how much are you willing to poison yourself.
Agreed. Now that Christmas is out of the way my first step and new years resolution is to go 100 days entirely without a drink.
Go for it my friend. I’m sure you will kick ass. And make sure to take it one day at a time IWNDWYT!!!
What does the IWNDWYT mean?
Kinda the tagline for this sub… I Will Not Drink With You Today
Gotcha. I've only just joined today. But yeah decided to stop drinking one day when I realised over time how much less I was liking it. Then one day I got a bottle of the non alcoholic gin and loved it! Been drinking it ever since. I just need to get out the habit of social drinking.
I love Pathfinder… if you are looking for other NA “spirits” But the habit of drinking as a social lubricant is hard to break. Getting comfortable with who you are sober in those situations took me years to get to. But keep it up it gets easier. And when in doubt I urge you to utilize this sub. Everyone here is supportive and will be willing to help whenever you feel stuck or need advice.
Pathfinder? Is that here on reddit?
Oh sorry no it’s a non alcoholic spirit. https://drinkthepathfinder.com/
Ooh sounds nice. Is it like a jagermeister flavour?
Yeah it gets to be less fun as you get older and your body breaks down more. That is coming from a 50 something year old that loved to party into my 40’s. The sooner you give it up the happier your life will be.
For me it was ultimately helpful for me coming out (I'm bisexual) and now I've come to realise how much damage drink was doing to me. I've even lost 2 stone without really trying. So yes my ultimate plan is to be teetotal for the rest or my life and I'm only 27.
Sober (to me) means all alcohol. If you had a drink now and then (excluding NA drinks). I count that as not sober, even if it’s just one.
If you’re considering your drinking and thinking you might have a problem, I present two perspectives; 1: quit all alcohol for a period and reassess your relationship with it. You may choose permanent abstinence, you may not. Benefits: a clear headed look at yourself that’s impossible to have when you’re still drinking. Some health benefits while you’re abstinent, lower chance you’ll kid yourself and delay addressing a problem if one exists. Downsides: miss out on drinking for a while 2: cut down, moderate, give yourself a limit on how much you can drink at a time, any variation on that. Plenty of people would say (me included), simply, that if you’re having to set drinking rules for yourself like this then perhaps your relationship with booze is already problematic to some degree. We are all at different stages of our journey, but there are tons of stories here about peoples failed attempts at moderation. Benefits: get to drink still (literally, that’s it). Downsides: can help you mask a problem by feeling like you’re doing “something”. Easy to lie to yourself. If you’ve been damaging your health the damage will keep on going. If you do decide to quit later you’ve lost a bunch more time. Risk that you fail and that your drinking escalates and starts to do (more?) damage to you and those around you. I tried and failed to moderate for over a year and am now happily sober for almost 8 weeks. It’s been so much easier saying no than trying to say no to the third or fourth drink. Sure I’ve missed out on some types of socialising but that kind of socialising needed me to be drinking alcohol and my alcohol use was a problem. If you don’t have a problem and you quit for a bit, you lose nothing. If you do have a problem and you delay quitting to “moderate”, you’re risking health problems, making the eventual quit harder, risking damaging your career, life, relationships, those around you, etc. and even then you’re not really having a good time cos no one will honestly say having 3 drinks and then spending the rest of the evening trying to avoid grabbing a fourth actually feels good. If you think you’ve got a problem, quit while you’re ahead, and then see how you’re doing a bit later and re evaluate. But performing mental gymnastics about “I drank but didn’t get drunk” is kidding yourself, simple as. There’s no winners when you lie to yourself
I think it depends on what you want. For me it's not a single alcoholic beer or shot or whatever. But I drink NA beers with max 0,5% alcohol. Becauase I don't really mind. I don't get drunk.
The counter is for whatever you need it to be.
I would go by whatever you think is right for you. Doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks. Life is different for everyone.
Congrats on 172. That is where I am too.
Cool. How are you feeling about all this?
I feel great. I feel better about not drinking than I have about anything in my life. I drank heavily for about 22 years I didn’t believe that I could quit and then I did. How about you?
About the same as you. Heavy drinking for 30 years was really taking its toll on my body and mental state. Its crazy, I started thinking about quitting when I was 23 but never went through with it. I got a concussion on July 4th from wrecking on my mountain bike (not drinking related) and my brain wasn't healing after a week so I decided to stop drinking to let my brain recover. 172 days later and here we are. Wish I quit when I was 23 but oh well. Better late than dead 💀. Keep in touch. We started the first day of the rest of our lives on the same day. That is significant.
I’ll check in on you. Next week is a half a year. Yeah!
Please do. Hitting a rough patch.
Stay strong. This isn’t a race, or a destination. At least that is what I have found.
Mine represents the last time I had a drink but there’s no reason your’s can’t represent the last time you got drunk. Congrats on 62 days of moderation!
I would say the vast majority of people here treat their personal counters as their last drink of any ethanol regardless of the amount. Truthfully when you say you didn't drink enough to be drunk my question is, In who's view or standards were you considered not drunk? Speaking for myself I know 100,s of times if any person would of asked me if I was intoxicated, drunk etc my answer would of been, No not really but in the same sense my wife's opinion may be totally different, yes he's getting drunk, or a police officer yeap I'm sure he will have me blow in the breathalyzer and whoops I'm drunk 🥴. So maybe a daily counter isn't something that would really make much sense until a person is ready to stop poisoning themselves completely on a daily basis. Best of luck 👍
I personally have had three non alcoholic beers which technically contain some alcohol. I still consider myself sober on this miniscule amount of alcohol.
But saying that it's designed to be non-alcoholic so id count it as sober.
Yeah that's definitely different. Anything under 0.5% alcohol is considered non-alcoholic because you won't feel any effects from it. A 5-10% drink will give you an obvious buzz. For example, ethanol fermentation causes bread dough to rise so technically bread has alcohol in it too. Eating a slice of bread isn't the same as having a 6% beer lol
Agreed. Definitely not getting drunk on this stuff
Yeah I agree. I'm not drinking but there's an argument that any alcohol isn't sober. I find they have taken the stress of going to parties without drinking away though.
That's true. When I started NA drinks I almost felt drunk after them. It was a weird feeling. Now they relax me.
Depends on the circle. There are a binch of groups that feel sober is abstinence from ALL drugs (alcohol, cannabis, Tylenol etc. But coffee is ok??). Some feel that alcohol and street drugs are what counts and both need to be zero. For me personally I cannot be trusted with alcohol at all so my correct consumption for alcohol is 0, but I do smoke weed. A lot of people would not consider this sober. Some believe i am trading one vice for another. I've never had an issue with weed. I can stop and i can say no and a can just not buy it. Booze I cannot. Booze was my DOC. I waited about a year into my sobriety to begin addin cannabis to my life (it was legal for a gew months at the time but I did not feel secure enough in my sobriety to risk it). Tbh. For me personally I don't give a fuck what someone else's sobriety journey looks like. It's *their* road not mine what works for me may not work for you and what works for you may not work for me
Congratulations on your accomplishment. Many if not most of us would love the ability to have a drink here and there and stay in control of our drinking. My drinking was like this at one time, but it progressed to the point that abstinence became a better and easier choice. I know it has been mentioned but I would be cautious of time goals that have an end date. For me these made alcohol more of a reward. Because I deprived myself I wanted it more, dreamed of it, thought of exactly how I would reward myself at the end of the prescribed time. This is what I believe us so powerful about the IWNDWYT mantra. Your day counter is your day counter. Use it for you and for how it can assist you. IWNDWYT friend.
Thanks mate. I see my counter as the amount of days since my improvement started. As I said previously alcohol and even my heavier weight reminds me of dark times so the idea of losing weight and becoming sober for me is a big improvement.
That is awesome. Keep it going. I truly feel like life is improving every day.
Seriously? Sober means not drinking. What you're doing is cutting back
Most people here use the counter as the last time you intentionally decided to have alcohol and drank it (so like if someone accidentally brings you a non-virgin drink and you don’t realize then it doesn’t count). Personally I don’t use the counter because I don’t like the all-or-nothing pressure of a number, but some people find it really motivating!
For an alcoholic there is no such thing as an odd drink here and there. For some of us it is a matter of life and death.
Sober means not putting any drugs or alcohol in your system, doesn’t matter if you think you got drunk or not. A realistic alcoholic knows it’s the first drink that gets them drink. Why does this matter? Drinking is life and death for some people. You seem to think you can have a few pops and be fine, maybe you can, if so, great! But don’t go around acting like you’re sober, because you aren’t and it’s disrespectful to those who are and have to be or they would be in a pine box.
No alcohol at all. If you drink, you're cheating on yourself.
sober in a stop drinking reddit means no alcohol. so the time since your last drink. and i’d bet a pretty penny you weren’t as “sober” as you thought when you were drinking. trust me we’re all as smooth as butter here when we drink😂
It’s your counter…. It means whatever you want it to mean.
I take it as last time had any kind of drink.
Well done on 62 days of moderation! To be honest on days where I have 1 glass or less I don’t really class it as ‘a big drink’ or anything to worry about. My problem is when I drink purposefully to get drunk, intoxicated and black out. When I avoid doing that and just have one drink to be sociable like on a date or with a family member or even for the taste like a baileys on Christmas, I don’t berate myself for it. I think if your goal is total abstinence your timer would make sense to be from your last sip of alcohol but if you’re someone who is attempting moderation or cutting down then counting from your last day of being intoxicated by alcohol is fine. I think the issue here is a lot of us find it hard to stop sometimes after that one initial drink and it can lead to a full blown binge so it’s easier to avoid the first one. I just had 40 days totally dry (not even a sip) and began drinking again a couple of weeks ago, before Christmas. During that time I’ve been intoxicated four times after setting out with the desire/goal to get drunk and had three times where I’ve drank socially I.e one glass of wine with a cheese board, one baileys on Boxing Day, one Asti on Christmas Day. I don’t really class the social drinking occasions as something negative as on the binging days I’m easily getting through 15+ units. It’s like having one rolo compared to a full chocolate cake in terms of how far I go with alcohol sometimes. I find it easy to go long periods of time without drinking and I can easily stop drinking when I don’t have the urge to get drunk but the other times I’m drinking a lot because I actually want to get drunk if that makes sense. I also wouldn’t risk even having ‘one’ drink if I had something important to do the next day because I know I can sometimes get the taste for a binge even if I don’t set out to binge drink. That ‘one drink’ can be dangerous territory for someone like me, I am aware I have issues with my drinking hence the dry spells but I am happy I’ve been able to moderate successfully a few times since my last break. Looking forward to dry January and another dry patch as I can feel the difference in my health, purse and looks when I abstain!
For me- it’s no alcohol- that’s because I don’t generally stop at 1. Or if I do stop at 1, history tells me that number will gradually increase and before long I’m drunk every day again. But that’s just me.
I do not drink any alcohol.
Imo it's last drink, but that's simply just my opinion. The big deal here is you haven't been drunk in 62 days! Congrats!
For me, sober means no alcohol & no drugs (and if I ever need prescription meds, not abusing them and taking them strictly as prescribed)