It takes about 18 months for the brain to recover from long term alcoholism after sobriety. I was always impressed by the similarities between PTSD and the first long period of sobriety, though I have no idea why the similarity would exist....
Asa recovered alcoholic who has been sober for over a year and a half now, I’m frequently asked what to expect by those looking to give up the bottle.
Of course, I tell them about the good stuff: the energy (both mental and physical), the sharpened mental focus, the euphoria that comes with that happy convergence of sobriety and an uptick in physical exercise, and the waybetter sex (trust me on this one!).
But I’m also honest about the negatives. Namely, a sharp contraction in your social life, newfound awkwardness in longstanding relationships with friends and family, and, of course, the rage. The unfettered, unrelenting, oftentimes blinding anger. The kind of rage that makes you want to put your fist through absolutely everything.
I don’t care how “chill” you think you are. In your first year of sobriety there will be many, many times when you’ll fantasize about beating the shit out of absolutely everything. I know this from first-hand experience: your inner Gandhi will, upon (probably) the first month of kicking the bottle, be transformed into Floyd Mayweather. Virtually every person I’ve ever talked to who’s kicked an addiction has some version of this Jekyll-Hyde story to report. And if you’re the sort of living Buddha who can completely sidestep emotional toxicity, you probably wouldn’t have developed a dependency on booze or some other agent of stupefaction to begin with.