I quit drinking four years, one month, and twenty-five days ago. In my first few weeks sober, I never expected to make it this long. Sobriety felt nearly impossible, and I couldn’t comprehend how I’d maintain it long-term.

One of the hardest parts of going without alcohol was the overwhelming depression that I felt. It was such a debilitating experience that I seriously doubted my ability to function if I remained my sober.

My depression has long been intertwined with my alcoholism, and the key to my long-term sobriety has been to finally address my mental health.

Addiction as a Symptom

Addiction used to…

I’ve been writing about sobriety for over two years, and blogging about it daily for the past four months. I know many people keep daily sobriety journals, but I’ve never heard of anyone else writing a daily reader-focused sobriety blog, so I thought it might be helpful to share my experiences with anyone thinking about doing something similar.

Beginning to Blog

I quit drinking in December 2016. Roughly two years later, in October 2018, I began blogging about my experiences with addiction and sobriety.

Initially, I had only planned to write one post. My first article was about how I use to put…

One of the most common pieces of advice for sobriety is to talk to other people about what you’re going through. I can say without a doubt that it’s been one of the most important tools that I’ve used to quit drinking and stay sober for the past four years.

The only trouble with this advice is that for many recovering addicts, it’s far easier said than done. It wasn’t so easy to open up about my addiction after spending years doing everything I could to keep it hidden.

Seeing a Therapist

When I first became concerned about my drinking habit, I was…

Simon Pegg has had an impressive career as both a writer and an actor. He’s created cult comedy hits like Shaun of the Dead and been an integral part of two major film franchises: Star Trek and Mission Impossible. For science-fiction fans like myself, his full list of credits is truly awe-inspiring.

Throughout much of his public success, though, Pegg was also secretly struggling with depression and addiction. In an interview with The Guardian’s Tim Jonze, Pegg said that he had realized he had depression at just 18 years old, which was well before his film career had even begun.

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I used to be a daily, heavy drinker with very little self-awareness. I was far more interested in getting drunk than developing my mindfulness.

Getting sober helped me to better understand myself, but I wasn’t always happy with what I discovered. One of my most upsetting realizations was that my years of drinking had dulled my personality.

I had spent years filling up the bulk of my free time with alcohol. Early on, I had managed to balance my drinking with a rich social life and interesting hobbies, but over the years these had all faded away without me noticing.

…

When I was in college, I started drinking and smoking heavily — far more than the typical college student. By the time I graduated, I had developed strong addictions to both nicotine and alcohol.

I smoked a pack of cigarettes and drank plenty of beer every day throughout my twenties. I made several attempts to quit each of my habits during that time, but it wasn’t until I was 29 that I started making any headway.

Initially, I just quit smoking. But then, shortly afterward, I was able to stop drinking also.

Sadly, that isn’t where the story ended. Breaking…

I’m a recovering alcoholic. I started drinking heavily in college and became a daily drinker around the time I graduated. I continued to drink every day for years, until finally quitting just before I turned thirty.

Throughout that time, I tried countless approaches when it came to my drinking habit. Ultimately though, they can be distilled down to three basic strategies: the first was to ignore it, the second was to reduce my drinking, and the third was to cut out drinking entirely.

Ignoring the Problem

I used to think that the easiest option was to simply ignore my drinking problem. Of course…

I had a headache last night, and nowadays, that’s a noteworthy event. It had been months since my last one, and it will likely be months before I have another.

These days, headaches are simply not a part of my daily life. However, that hasn’t always been the case.

When I think back to five years ago, I remember getting headaches almost every day. Some days, I’d wake up with my head already pounding. Other days, it would take a few hours for the headache to kick in.

Sometimes the pain was awful, other times fairly mild. But although the…