Like a great many of you, I have also decided that enough is enough, and as of 3/13/10 I have decided to quit. My main issue is that my entire friend group and their activities revolve around drinking, and in order to successfully quit I may have to distance myself from them. My main issue is that as of next year I will be entering college (I took a gap year) and from what I have heard is that college life essentially revolves around drinking, how do I avoid these temptations? I of course plan to take each day as it comes for the moment and hopefully this is enough, and this problem does not ruin me. This will be my second time trying to quit, my first lasting only 3 weeks.

But when I look back at my own recovery, I still see a lot of the drama in the early days that you talk about possibly avoiding.

I agree with you that a person can avoid much of the struggle, by simply letting it all go. But I for one could not do that early on. I can remember being frustrated, and still pretty miserable at like 3 months sober. I held on, and things got better fast. But I think it is pretty normal to expect at least some struggle in early recovery.

I know I had some. I could not avoid all drama.

But you are definitely on to something with your ideas, and I think if I had known more, then I could have struggled much less.

At any rate, your ideas about recovery are awesome. Thanks for sharing them so much!