Some great experience shared here, but you know me, if I have something to add I will!!! LOL
Sometimes my AA sponsor nor a meeting is always available at that very moment.
My sponsor told me and I have passed this on to my sponsee's develop a network!! There is no way a sponsor can always be available for many reasons, but if you have a cell phone full of folks to call and you are in the habit of calling people just to chat when things are good, then calling these same folks when your butt is on fire for a drink will be far easier! This saved my butt at the 2 month mark!
Funny thing, but if you have a big enough network even if no one answers, by the time you have tried to call them all the craving will have passed!!
Have you started taking the steps with your sponsor yet? If not I strongly suggest it, for me in early sobriety I had no real solution except go to meetings, call people and do not drink no matter what!!!
I, and hundreds of thousands of others have found a good solid long term solution to life by taking the steps! Long before I was finished taking the steps the insane obsession I had for a drink was lifted, the idea of a drink became but a fleeting thought.
You see as it says in the BB, I had quit fighting anyone or anything, even alcohol because thanks to taking the steps and applying them to my life daily SANITY had returned to me!
I would be lying if I said I NEVER think of a drink, I do on occasion, but I do not even have to fight the urge, I just think to myself "Yea if I was still insane a beer would be nice in this heat, but not today" POOF no cravings, no obsession and all I have to do is apply 12 simple principles to my daily life.
Funny thing, when I first got into AA and started taking the steps I thought "Man this is tough!", well after I started to apply the steps I realized that in reality taking and applying the steps in all areas of my life was actually "The easier, softer way" I had been looking for all those years.