When I was drinking, I knew these benefits: better sleep, better skin, weight loss, improved concentration, brighter mood. In the depths of my addiction, a hard-won period of abstinence would reveal these benefits to me in what felt like a rebuke. The way, for example, I could use a keyboard without my hands shaking or the ability to answer the phone without having to lie about where I was. Each of these revelations held a thorny conundrum at their core; are you an alcoholic if you can stop, even for a day? It is my experience that alcoholics can stop drinking for certain periods of time, but they are not able to stay stopped for good. I certainly couldn’t manage more than a few days at a time, but I could, through gritted teeth, stop. See? I’m fine.
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