Most people who walk into AWNA have had a first day before. They have quit smoking, quit drinking, quit the brownies, quit the coffee. They have started over many times. The first day is not unfamiliar territory; it is, in fact, where many of us have lived most of our lives.
This is not a guide to the perfect first day. There isn't one. This is a guide to letting today be the first day without dressing it in armour it cannot wear.
Before anything else, see a doctor
If you have been drinking heavily, taking benzodiazepines, or using opioids, please do not begin recovery without medical guidance. Withdrawal from some substances can be dangerous — sometimes fatal. AWNA is not a medical program. The fellowship will be here when you are ready. Talk to your doctor first.
If you are coming off caffeine, nicotine, or sugar, the withdrawal is uncomfortable but generally safe. Members report headaches, low mood, irritability, and disrupted sleep, lasting from a few days to a few weeks. All of it passes.
What the day might feel like
Different members describe the first day differently. Here are some of the things we have heard, in various combinations:
- Relief. The decision has been made. The arguing in the head — should I, shouldn't I, just one more — has gone quiet for a moment.
- Dread. Tomorrow morning will arrive without the coffee, the cigarette, the breakfast pastry. The mind starts auditioning the discomfort in advance.
- Sadness. A small grief for the substance, even the one that did the most damage. It was, in its way, a companion.
- Boredom. Whole stretches of the day that used to be organised around the substance now feel structureless.
- Restlessness. The body looking for the thing it was used to having.
None of these is a sign that you are doing it wrong. They are signs that you are doing it.
Three small acts that help
Get to a meeting
AWNA meets online every day at 3:00 PM Eastern on WhatsApp. The meeting link is on the homepage. You do not have to introduce yourself. You can sit quietly and listen. Many of us did, the first time.
Tell someone
It does not have to be a sponsor. It does not have to be your closest friend. It has to be one human being who knows that today, you are doing this. The AWNA WhatsApp group works — people will answer at any hour. The bare fact of saying it out loud begins to break the privacy that addictions live in.
Let the day be ordinary
Resist the urge to make today special. Don't plan a fast. Don't reorganise the kitchen. Don't try to also start exercising, journalling, meditating, and writing a moral inventory. Eat something. Drink water. Walk a little. Go to bed earlier than feels necessary. The first day is not the day to add anything. It is the day to subtract five substances and leave the rest of the day alone.
When the craving comes
It will come. For most members, it comes in waves rather than as one continuous siege. A wave rises, peaks, and falls. Each one is typically twenty minutes long, often much less. The trick — and it is a trick most of us learned the hard way — is to stay in the wave until it falls, rather than fixing the discomfort by reaching for the thing that started it.
The closing reading of every AWNA meeting says it directly: we ask for the serenity to accept the craving, and the courage not to act on it. Not to defeat it. Not to argue with it. Not to fix it. To let it pass.
Practical things members do during a wave:
- Drink a glass of water and wait.
- Step outside for two minutes.
- Call or text someone in the fellowship.
- Put the kettle on for herbal tea.
- Read a page of recovery literature aloud.
- Say the Serenity Prayer.
None of these is magic. All of them buy time. Time, in the first day, is the only thing recovery needs.
If the day ends sober
It is enough. You do not have to feel better. You do not have to have learned anything. You do not have to be ready for Day 2. You only have to have arrived at the end of Day 1 without using.
Tomorrow is its own day. Go to bed. The work, such as it is, is done for now.
If the day ends with a slip
Read the piece on what to do after a slip. The short version: come back. Tomorrow is still available. Day 1 does not become harder for having had to start again. It becomes, if anything, more honest.