in my early 20s and feeling peace and gratitude at 201 days

I knew that my 6 month mark was july, but i just realized that today is my 201st day sober (badge is a day off.) And I wanted to first of all thank you all for being here. I honestly couldn't have done it without this group. Ive been to AA, but not consistently. I just went to therapy independently and used this group, sometimes posting and sometimes just lurking.

I am in my early 20s and spent the last couple of years "partying" but really just self medicating and self destructing. I couldn't deal with the hangovers and constant panic anymore, and finally broke myself enough to break through in Jan.

It was really hard for a while. I holed up, freaked out, avoided people, avoided home, etc... Did HALTS 20x a day for months. Ate ice cream and drank a lot of diet coke. Grew to love carbonated water like I never knew was possible. Followed advice given in posts on here to a T. Set the photo from [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/comments/43kqb8/sunday_solutions_recognizing_and_refusing_my/?ref=share&ref_source=link) post as my lock screen. Taught myself to laugh again. And got through it. I started tackling personal issues that have cast shadows over my life for years. I talked to people I trusted and stopped talking to others. I distracted and grew outside of partying.

Even though it was and still is painful and difficult in many ways, I can say now that I can't remember ever being more satisfied with my life. I have a ton of things to work on, but I also feel more ready and capable of tackling them than ever before. It's like a veil was lifted. I don't think about drinking every day. I don't want to drink.

I say all this because when I first got sober, I loved reading stories of people who were happy and fulfilled and hopeful. I especially loved hearing from people my age. So this is also for the young people out there. :) Thanks so much SD <3

Happy to not be drinking with you tonight