this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
10 points (100.0% liked)

Stop Drinking

1415 readers
19 users here now

This is a place to motivate each other to control or stop drinking. It is also a place for non drinkers to discuss and share.

We welcome anyone who wishes to join in by asking for advice, sharing our experiences and stories, or just encouraging someone who is trying to quit or cut down.

Please post only when sober; you’re welcome to read in the meanwhile.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Zerlyna@lemmy.world
rosamundi@lemmy.world
10
Are gradual, but significant, personality changes normal after muti-year sobriety? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by remotelove@lemmy.ca to c/stopdrinking@lemmy.world
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So, yeah. It's been a few years sober now, so that is nice.

One thing I have noticed about myself is the actual existence of a personality. It wasn't a change that happened within the first few months of being sober, but over the following years.

Strangely enough, a bizarre trait is that if given the chance, I can talk about just about anything for hours. My saving grace is that I was always a repository for massive amounts of random information, but now, I can string all of that data together into coherent sentences then easily pivot into all related sub-topics and associated information on top of that.

I make a ton more off-the-cuff jokes now and I don't even know where they come from. It seems I have the ability to make people laugh, which I never thought possible.

Overall, my personality has become extremely broad these days and the above is just a couple of examples. One might say that I am a pleasant person to be around? (That is a very strange feeling, BTW.)

Has anyone else seen themselves or others go through massive personality shifts like I describe? I am not understating "massive". I surprise myself nearly every day with how intense I can get.

FWIW, I was an extremely heavy drinker when I quit and was about a year into serious dependency.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And not always nice

There have only been one or two people I have met that were more tolerable when they drank, so I get what you mean.

Still, I find it hard to believe that long term sobriety wouldn't be a net positive unless it wasn't a person's own decision to stop drinking in the first place.

[–] Lembot_0004@discuss.online -1 points 1 week ago

I find it hard to believe that long term sobriety wouldn’t be a net positive

Depends on many nuances. If you're talking about straightforward alcoholic -- yes, almost always the result would be better. But sometimes moderate drinkers stop drinking for medical or other reasons. These people just lose an additional way to have fun, lose a good chunk of social interaction, which easily may lead to deterioration.