Integrating sobriety into my life

So when I decided to quit drinking in May I had a very very weak goal of making it to one year and then re-evaluating things. The idea of quitting forever was so terrifying that I settled on a year to start and even THAT seemed pretty impossible.

Being now that I’m a little over halfway through, the year goal seems much more obtainable than it did in the beginning. That’s not to say I haven’t had a hard time getting here though. So many times the little voice in my head says I’ve proved I can abstain and I can just go back to drinking very rarely.

I just want that little voice to stop telling me that. I want to just feel okay with never drinking again- in fact I want to feel elated about that decision. Right now I’m just hanging on hoping that one day it will click, telling myself that it took years to create these deeply addicted pathways in my brain so it’s going to take some time to undo all of that.

My question for the long timers out there, when does it get easier? When do things shift and being alcohol free just becomes a part of your life? When does the new way of living finally replace the old?

Year 1? Year 2?