Day 3 down brahs. I've had so many day 3s the past 2 years it is unreal. chit needs to stop can't achieve anything meaningful boozing hard; even 1 day a week sends me into a semi-depressive episode

I understand the consideration. The way I see it is that if you aren't able to take some time off from work to attend to your recovery, there is a good chance you will end up taking time off eventually whether that is being fired, in jail, or in the hospital. But again, treatment isn't a requirement to successful recovery. Maybe you can look into some FMLA or a leave of absence to give you some time to do a few weeks of inpatient. I was extremely resistant to doing inpatient, but when I eventually went (as a requirement of mental health court) I found it to be pretty helpful. I'll admit, it's not the most fun place to be, but it's a really good timeout in your life to give you a safe and supportive environment.Congratulations on day 3!! Big accomplishment even though it's hard to see it that way as you stated that it is not your first time hitting that milestone. It's frustrating to say the least to keep trying and falling down, over and over, and over. I believe that we do not truly fail, unless we stay down. Every time that you get up is a victory and hopefully you can take away a learning experience from each lapse/relapse. Also, a lapse/relapse doesn't take away the clean time you've had; sure you might not have a stretch of consistent clean days, but if you look at the total days then you will see you have drank/used fewer days in a month or year time span!



And I wanna throw this out to you brahs and see if there would be enough people interested to make it work. Would any of you see any value out of maybe doing a virtual misc recovery meeting daily or a few times a week? I think it would be super cool and helpful if we got enough people to meet consistently and have a good meeting. It wouldn't have to be anything formal or something like a 12 step, it could just be sharing victories and challenges as well as providing each other support. Lemme know and I can try to make that happen!

Have you considered that you may need medical attention to detox?


Joey I’ve been doing pretty good and I like this format so I wouldn’t be interested in video chats but that’s a great idea and many others may be interested in something like that!

What's up my sober brethren?? Hopefully everyone is having a good Monday morning so far! How was the weekend for you all?


I'm still doing well, continuing to get stronger in the gym and still feeling happy with my life. Met up with an old coworker yesterday; it was nice to meet and catch up! My Youtube channel hit 100 subscribers and I am pretty stoked about that lol. I woke up this morning at 6:45am to do an online study thing at 7, in which I get paid for, but I ****ing turned off the alarm, stayed in bed, and then woke up at 7:30 in a panic lol. I rescheduled the study, but it sucks because I'm tired AF for no reason and drinking copious amounts of coffee to try and wake up.

Nice bro there’s no better start do your day than getting stronger. What are you studying if I might ask?

It's not studying like going to school. I do studies/surveys on cloud research and prolific (two websites where you get paid to complete various studies/surveys). It's a way for me to make a little bit of money and is pretty easy to do.

Congrats on the YouTube man

Oh that’s cool bro anything to make money and not stress you out. And do from home!! Working from home would be the dream job.


I’m also making some strength gains slowly, very slowly.

6 months ago after I stopped drinking I could only do 3 pull-ups or 4 chin-ups with bodyweight when I started exercising again.

Tonight I got 3 pull-ups abd 4 chin-ups each with 50lbs of ankle weights (weird to use ankle weights but whatever), and at a bodyweight about 12 lbs heavier:





Minor accomplishments but makes me feel like my body isn’t completely toast yet, I didn’t 100% fuk myself up totally.

Damn, nice work dude! You are hella strong! At least stronger than me lol. I'm sure it feels super good to be getting your strength back. Definitely a good indicator that your body is still going strong!

I need to get in on this. I drink way too damn much lately and when I do drink I end up doing stupid chit and it needs to stop. Last drank Thursday 6/15/23.

My biggest challenge is I currently live alone and wfh, about 400 miles from nearest family. Maybe I need to stop wfh because while it has many advantages the disadvantage is everyone I was friends with at work has moved away and I haven’t made new friends, so i don’t have much of a life and usually just drink out of boredom more than anything. But I can’t be getting drunk and stupid every week, and I haven’t been working out because as one guy said hard to workout when you’re hungover and feeling like chit all the time.

But anyway in for the support and want to see how long I can go without drinking and hopefully make it longer than a week or two.

Can I ask why you feel like you need to drink?

Like what precipitates the feeling of “I need to have a beer (or 10)”? Is it to quell anxiety? To help you sleep? Due to boredom? As entertainment? You like the flavor?

Hey welcome to the thread! Please feel free to post and use this thread for support, sobriety/recovery is a tough journey and it helps to have support along the way. Definitely sounds like you need to make some significant changes other than not drinking like finding sober and/or supportive friends and family as well as finding some hobbies/interests to fill in your time. I can really relate to boredom being a huge trigger; alcohol was (I guess still could be) a cheap and easy way to fix boredom lol. It depends on your situation, but maybe some sort of treatment like inpatient and/or outpatient might be helpful. In addition to that (or other than that), maybe some local or even online AA/NA groups might be helpful. I'm not a huge fan of the 12 step meetings, but they can be helpful for some. There's also non 12 step meetings like SMART Recovery or Recovery Dharama, although those are more common online.I don't know about him, you, or anyone else, but pretty much anything was a reason to drink for me lol.




Happy Father's Day my sober fathers/brahs. I hope everyone has been having a great week and weekend! My week has been really great, still making gains in the gym, accomplishing goals, staying active, making videos, and most importantly, staying sober! Gonna call my dad in a few minutes and wish him a Happy Father's Day. It would be nice if I had the money/income to send him a gift, but I think the best gift I can currently give him is talking with him and letting him know that I am doing well!

I'll give out reps at random to people who on a good path

Hell yeah! Duke, do you live a life of recovery?

I currently live alone and get bored. Drinking gives me something to do. I have tomorrow off and wanted to drink tonight but I was able to resist and stay sober. I’ll take that as a win

If you did it once you can do it a million times.

You gotta find something else constructive to replace that dopamine hit. Buy a new video game console, or start going and getting massages twice a week, or join a gym with a pool and go for swims, or treat yourself to a nice steak or lobster meal once or twice a week, or something like that.

Who cares if it’s even a little expensive, at least you wouldn’t be drinking. Splurge a little bit and reward yourself every day for not drinking. You’d be spending it on booze anyway.

Grab a couple wins under your belt and prove to your mind that it can receive dopamine from sources other than something that will kill you.

Ever think of something like that? Just my thought, it’s worked for me so far.





And Joey bro, if your dad is anything like mine, simply knowing you’re safe and healthy and happy and on a good path, and getting a call from you is infinitely better than anything you could ever buy him for Father’s Day

I have been sober for 8+ years now. I quit everything at once even cigarettes and it brought me to my wits end but I struggled and made it through.

Thanks, I agree and appreciate that sentiment. And also, really good suggestion, implementing positive rewards can be very helpful!

Damn, congrats on the 8+ years! Do you have any good suggestions or advice for those who are beginning and/or in the early milestones?

I can only speak from my own experiences but you need to have a good enough reason to stay away otherwise you'll fall back into a comfortable routine of using again and making excuses for yourself. For example, if you have a wife and kids use them as your sole reason for being clean. They deserve for you to be healthy even if you yourself don't care about your health. Someone out there loves you and needs you to be their rock, and you need to remind yourself of that every day to rule out temptation.

Yeah, having that external motivation can be super helpful! I think it's good to have both internal and external motivations to maintain sobriety.

Did another 5K with 50lb backpack ruck/jog and beat my previous time by 3:45, pretty stoked.






I think uphill sprints are the key to life, the key to everything. Sprints, uphill. Who needs weights when you have uphill sprints? Do they possibly improve everything in your body simultaneously? Are they the fountain of youth?

I struggle with internal motivation. My motivation comes from keeping people around me happy otherwise I would of went off the rails years ago. I don't care too much what happens to me but I do care about keeping the people closest to me happy and healthy.Congrats man. I would die if I tried that now... Back when I graduated Highschool I joined the army reserves and within a year I was doing 10 mile weighted rucksack marches. Not so much a jog or sprint...

I need to get back into shape, I would love to be able to do this again.

Oh I did a very slow pace with the 50lbs, 13:49 pace. A decent pace if you’re going 10 or 12 miles. I only did 3.2, but for me it’s pretty good so far. I really enjoy the weighted ruck/march thing, I can see why people would enjoy it. I bet you were a frickin beast back then dude.

You could get back into it, I never tried this before about a month and a half ago and seeing progress on it is so rewarding. Imagine how much progress you’d make, it would be like riding a bike.

Back then I had 10% bodyfat at 140lbs(ish), I had stamina for days but lacked in overall physical strength. I felt genuinely unhealthy because no matter how I ate I couldn't gain weight. Now I am about 180ish and haven't trained in over a decade. It would be interesting to see what my body does if I decided to start training again because I was never able to bulk up my entire life until recently.

It won't let me post pictures until my post count is at 50... maybe if I take out the https part and the (dot)com

You haven’t done any form of exercise in over a decade? Imagine the type of progress you could make if you started up again bro…

You definitely were shredded back then for sure

It looked more impressive in better lighting. That was just a ceiling fixture in the center of the room behind me on a poor quality camera haha. Not exactly professional down lighting.

No, I haven't really been doing any strength training or cardio. Just whatever physical activity I do at work and my leisure time at home...

You're making me want to start training again though.. Maybe i'll dig my weights out of the garage this week and give it another try. I would love to get rid of the belly and love-handles I have developed over the years. Some serious dad-bod going on now.

Do any of you guys practice positive affirmations? Like saying out loud "I am a person worthy of love". The topic came up for me today and I'm curious if other people use this. And then, I saw a thought provoking video on Youtube about the strange secret to success:



They didn't say so in the video, but sounds similar to the law of attraction. Where if you think of success and happiness, it will come to you.


I felt inspired with the idea of speaking things into existence, especially speaking positivity and success into existence to help with your recovery, so I made a video lol.



Nothing really interesting to watch, but I enjoy making these videos and processing things.

You should get back into it, why not?

Good video bro you should keep making them.

No I don’t do positive affirmations, if anything I run a constant mantra of doom and/or apathy in my brain at all times. Or at least that’s how I have been used to doing it for years.

I only really accomplish things when I write them down. Not sure what exactly happens but if I write a list of goals I seem to achieve them. Even if it’s something simple like taking out one bag of trash.

Which is first, though…the choice to do it, which is followed by the making of the plan, and then the action? Or the making of the plan, followed by the choice to do it, and then the action? Not sure if that makes sense.

Going into the whole power of positive thinking or the law of attraction or creating your own reality or whatever gets into supernatural stuff. But one thing most people would agree on is that we don’t necessarily “create” our thoughts willingly, and don’t really have a clue where they “come from”, nor are we REALLY in control of all our thoughts and actions.

But something about stating a thought loud, or in some people’s case, writing it down, causes an actual change in behavior, or if not caused by it is at least associated with it.

There’s definitely something to it. Do you notice a difference in your life if you utilize positive affirmations?

Yeah, I believe there is a lot too it. And like I mention in my video, maybe some metaphysical and/or spiritual principles coming into play. I have noticed a pretty solid difference when I use positive affirmations and say stuff out loud. It seems so silly and so scientifically baseless, but as I also mention in the video, there really isn't any downside to using positive affirmations and practicing the law of attraction. So far, I have been obtaining what I want, reaching my goals, and living a more positive and happy lifestyle. What you mentioned is also really good food for thought; where do our thoughts come from and how in control of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are we? Lots to think about hahaha.

Great video. Your positive attitude is contagious. It's a very good mindset to have, you gave me a lot of food for thought.

anyone here recover from a serious benzo addiction?