There is a book , can't remember title exactly but I think it was '21days to change a habit' or 30 days. Something like that , I can't remember title exactly but it makes sense in the sobriety realm. I posted earlier about my tenures of sobriety on off on off on again and so on. After reading some more posts I thought of few more things to share. You mentioned anxiety and depression. Alcohol is a depressant . Period. You are depressed because of the neurological effects and the brain chemistry changes from putting the depressant elixir in your body. Anxiety is just a neurological by product of depression. So not only does it causes depression in the life of the drinker , alcohol in my opinion is the creator of huge amounts of anxiety. Just everything about it to detoxing yourself from booze with the fear of going into delirium tremors and seizures not to mention just the type of life style that it creates for the drinker is always , in my opinion very problematic. Even though alcohol is legal , everything you do with it from the point of purchase is illegal. Whether you are walking down the street drinking or driving. Alcohol is the most destructive 'legal' thing I can think of. It destroys lives , jobs , families, your body , destroys relationships and so on . So how do I stay sober now , I mentioned this time 5 years. So I had to realize , this just for me, I am an addict , I need something to give me that special feeling , or little zest , or edge off life type of feeling. I compare it to the feeling one would get with just maybe 3 or four beers , you know that life is good buzz, but that is so not really ever happening in the life of the real problem drinker. I didn't mention it earlier so will now , that whole 3 ,4 beers , social type of drinking , I was doing that in middle school. My freshman year in highschool I basically had a near death experience after being in a drunken driving accident , I was passenger of truck that drove off a bridge 100 feet, and they shocked me back to life , just like in the movies , anyways by sophomore year I had keys to grandma s liquor cabinet and was drinking , binge drinking everyday , bc I had access to huge suums of liquor. I realize now as an adult that my childhood was just totally so bizarre and abnormal but nonetheless I am 42 now and proud as hell to be alive. Just because I've heard it my entire life from double a meetings that I was doomed. At 14 I heard I wouldn'take it to 18 , then they said 21, 30, then 40 and I barely made it there but I did. But I realized the only thing that really doomed me was the aa manuscript on life. I was hypnotized , I thought I had to drink , bc I was an alcoholic, but that's all hogwash. I was taught by the super hypnosis of double a that I was doomed , but once I really decided fuck double a , I am staying sober this time for myself meetings or no meetings , I want to live and fuck all the bullshit in the meetings and maybe once in a while self medicate with a substance that I can handle , without becoming full blown fucked up. So this time I'm on methadone. From another addiction , but it gives me that feeling full effect. Suboxone works too. When I was prescribed Suboxone I only drank one time in 2 years. So hope that helps. Good luck.