Counting the Days of Sobriety

When I first quit drinking, I carefully counted every single day of sobriety. For the first week or so, I even paid attention to how many hours had passed since my last drink. Tracking the time I had spent sober was a powerful motivating tool — one I often relied on to get through my cravings.

If counting the days was such a helpful strategy when I first quit drinking, then why did I stop? Because staying sober isn’t a static process. Methods that are effective in the early days of sobriety aren’t always as helpful down the road. One of the most important skills for staying sober is learning to drop tools when they stop working and pick up new tools in their place.

Even though I’ve stopped keeping careful track of my days of sobriety, I’m still glad that I counted the days when I first quit drinking. Early on in sobriety, the number of days I had gone without a drink was one of my biggest sources of pride.

The early days of sobriety are full of ups and downs. In general, I felt better as more time passed, but the weeks were packed with days when I felt like absolute crap. It’s incredibly demotivating to feel like life is getting worse despite giving up drinking. On the days like those, I constantly asked myself: “Why am I even bothering to stay sober?”

Keeping count of my days sober provided me with something tangible and concrete to balance out those negative thoughts. Even when it felt like nothing else was going right in my life, I could at least fall back on the comforting knowledge that my “days of sobriety” count was steadily increasing. It was a way for me to remember that I really was improving myself.

Midnight became a time of celebration — when I would feel a small rush as endorphins as my sobriety count increased by one. Those moments kept me going…

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