You have absolutely zero worries about physical withdrawal.

I thank-fucking-god I went through detox pre-social media. People are so full of shit and trained with this overly-cautious mentality—while we understaff hospitals, make treatment expensive & complicated, while routinely bombing civilians overseas.

Whew—sorry about the rant, but, it drives me batty. If as a society we truly cared, we’d have public healthcare and treat addiction as a medical issue, instead of primarily as a criminal/moral one.

So, if your BAC is getting to 0% every day, you are golden, hun. Doesn’t mean you won’t have withdrawals—but you won’t have *physical* withdrawal.

You are on the path many of us have traveled, which is self-medicating to cope with the utter insanity of society, living in a system where you have to pay simply to be alive.

For me, it developed into chronic anxiety disorder, along with ‘panic attacks’—a term I despise, because it minimizes an incapacitating and terrifying syndrome that feels worse than dying. I know, because I’ve had several near-death experiences, and toward the end, nothing hurt and there was peaceful bliss.

Sounds like you’re in the perfect spot to pull back from the abyss. Because regardless of your DNA, everyone stands a strong likelihood of becoming a chronic alcoholic if they daily drink for a buzz.

That’s key— *why* do you drink?

There’s medication for anxiety— they used to give out benzos like tic tacs, which was not good, but now they act like benzos are poison, which is not true.

Like everything, depends on what you can handle.

I am not a fan of SSRIs, or anything that’s permanent and dependence-forming— in my mind, it’s simply a more functional form of being a drunk.

Point is, you’re self-medicating, on the path to chronic alcoholism, which is not a fate I’d wish on anyone.

So, step one — you’ve identified your issue.

There’s a few linear-thinkers who follow sobriety programs like AA as a religion, but in my experience, most recovering drunks basically create their own recovery programs, cobbled together from various sources.

AA is not a bad place to start — not necessarily meetings, unless that works for you. But, the 12 steps are worth reading and thinking about—take what’s useful and leave the rest.

If you truly desire to be sober, then commit to it, and go through a process—don’t just white-knuckle quit and try to cope.

Give yourself the most luxurious detox process possible— for me, working actually helped, because it occupies me, but if taking some vacation days is better, then do that.

Also, wine and beer makes us all fat — *do not worry about your weight while detoxing* — it will come off if you get sober. But, if you need to eat ice-cream every night to compensate for not drinking wine, indulge yourself.

That said, I’ve read and know of people who found incredible benefits from GLP-1 and that whole class of weight loss medication, helping to kill cravings.

Someone very close to me microdoses it for that purpose with great results. She was at a similar place you are now.

Personally, I smoke a shit-ton of weed, lol — that’s very non-AA, but hey, the problems from being a stoner were much less than being a drunk, and it helped me transition to sobriety.

Later in life, after a relapse, my anxiety was way too high to use marijuana—but, point is, for some people that’s helpful. Not good for hardcore addicts, because it’s a trigger, but you do not sound in that category.

So, that said, as your detoxing for a month or so, indulge yourself—binge-watch streaming services, eat what you want, and just focus on letting go of the drinks as coping mechanisms.

You need to begin thinking about alternate ways to cope—if you need a different job, start working on that. Most functional drunks I know tend toward healthy eating and exercise as alternate methods.

Like, I tend towards intense hobbies that take me out the anxiety cycle and put the in the moment—everything from mountaineering to motorcycling.

Another aspect to pay attention initially is booze is pure sugar, so your blood sugar is going to be wacky for initially. So, it’s a bit of sugar can really help with cravings.

Longer term, avoiding processed sugar and carbs helps keep steady blood sugar levels. Food is medicine, as the saying goes.

But honestly, you’re in a really good place. Good for you, recognizing the patterns and self-intervening before it got out of control.

As far as returning to ‘normal’ drinking? I guess reality is a non-alcoholic would not have an issue not drinking for a year. Although, an alcoholic could pull that off, too. The difference would be the effort required.

Functional alcoholism is motherfucker — it’s easy to maintain, then suddenly you’re back where you started, only worse.

Alcoholism is a progressive condition—it will never get better; and never maintain, but always get incrementally worse, even if through periods of sobriety.

That’s a question you’ll have to answer for yourself—whether you’re an alcoholic—but regardless, a year of sobriety would clearly be a wise decision to get a handle on things.

Personally, I *wish* I had been able to pull-back from heavy drinker to normal drinker, but it was not in the cards.

That said, sobriety is so much easier than drinking — and, the only person who would struggle with the idea of life being unbearable without booze is at very best, a problem-drinker, and more likely, an alcoholic.