Sober for well over a year. Not even one gulp. 

Recurring dream. 

I drank. I feel terribly disappointed in myself. I try to find excuses for why this doesn’t reset my streak to zero. 

In the dream I feel drunk, really drunk, I feel the guilt of falling off the wagon, but also the relaxation, the euphoria of just the right amount of alcohol. Some days alcohol hits that right spot and everything is fine. It rarely did that for me, it almost only did that for me in my early twenties. Not before and not after. It just depressed me or made me angry. 

But not in these recurring dreams now. It’s that original euphoria. Connection. Everything fits. There are wonderful people in my life. Am young and wild. Am not too old to die young. 

Then I wake up. And I feel relief. I didn’t drink, I didn’t slip, I didn’t fall for it. Cause in real life alcohol doesn’t give me that euphoria. I know. I tried rigorously in months long binges. Apart from making me run out the door to talk to strangers it did me no good. 

I have been told by ChatGPT that my brain and dopamine system won’t fully reset until 5 years will have passed. 

I have also been told that the period I am is the most dangerous one for relapse. 

Cause after one year you are like: I have been sober for a year, where is my reward? 

But there is no major reward. 

You have only stopped speeding up nature’s degradation. 

Expect no miracles. 

The dividends of quitting come in slowly. 

Meanwhile you have removed the world’s fastest and most readily available off switch. 

Almost any frustration in life feels a little more tolerable with alcohol. Most times. 

Occasionally it does the opposite and it makes you rage. 

But most times it creates imaginary bonds, a lighter mood, things feel possible, music might hit differently, a summer night feels like a piece of heaven. You look at a woman and instead of the usual self-doubt, you feel only attraction and she appreciates that, feels your lightness and smiles back. 

You pay a heavy price for all this, but let’s not lie, it’s nice to eliminate those demonic inhibitions and this by simply sipping some liquid, which if the alcohol is masked well enough, even tastes ok. 

But when I look at a woman I want to be drunk from looking at her, I don’t want to be drunk so I can look at her. 

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