I quit drinking to take a month off while unemployed to find a job. Got a job where I had to get up before 5am and it was truly one of the best things to happen to me. No way in hell could I pull off that wake up time while drinking, I'd done it before and it was one of the worst stretches of time in my life.
I made it to 30 days like I'd done a handful of times before, but for the first time I kept it going. My job has cool people, the work is not terribly stressful, and it's full time, so I had way more incentive to actually be sober and enjoy my days talking to people instead of counting the minutes until I could drink again.
And let me tell you, I think it was day 33, I felt reborn. I felt like I had woken up from a coma, like I was an old man who was granted youth again, and put into a 33 year old body as a joke. A good joke! I was on that pink cloud for months, it was incredible.
Then I got injured and couldn't work, so I leaned onto weed and kratom to pass the time. Kratom started turning on me so I dropped it with no ill effects. Had some urges to drink, but made some lists, got some exercise, and made some plans to look forward to, and the urge passed. I still don't know if I want to not drink forever. I might try to have one in a healthy environment (not by myself) and see if the usual happens (back to the hangover of death cycle again).
But being "sober" has given me so much! It's like the opposite of Pandora's Box opening, where all these great things came barreling into my life and this little fart of boredom squeaked out at the end instead of hope.
Booze is a trap!