Hi! I wanted to document my new journey here. Hope you don't mind!

I've been drinking quite a bit since I was 21. I'm now in my mid 40's and COVID really pushed me over the edge - lots of day drinking. I've tried to stop drinking a number of times now, but the most I usually ever made it was a couple days or at most a week. I got to the point where I think I was getting on the edge of DT's when I tried to stop sometimes. I made it a few weeks (not consecutively) this summer. I slipped the week before last and was drinking quite a bit from about 10AM/2PM until I passed out later in the evenings. On Monday (July 24) I thought I'd try to stop again. I quit drinking sometime in the early afternoon. I wasn't feeling too bad when I went to bed, but then I started to feel the dread/doom creeping over me. I spent the night not being able to sleep and feeling like I was going to die until about 2AM when I felt I had to break into my "emergency stash" I had gotten in case this were to happen. I drank 3/4 of bottle of wine by 4AM Tuesday morning and felt I'd see what would happen. I was able to fall asleep for a few hours. I woke up later that morning and worked, did my normal routine for Tuesday. That night I had the same experience, but it wasn't quite as bad. I couldn't sleep and still felt the impending doom, but I managed not to drink any. I held strong on Wednesday, and was actually able to get a good night's sleep (thank goodness!). Now it's Thursday. I was feeling pretty good which of course my brain was telling "just a few drinks tonight won't hurt anything". I was able to ward it off though and I'm looking forward to another good night of sleep tonight! Stay strong friends!