AmericanGirl

Hi!

I'm new to this message board -- signed up yesterday after reading many posts and vowing to quit permanently this time. (This is day two.) I feel shy about posting, but I figured I should get in here and bite the bullet, because I suspect my previous attempts at maintaining sobriety have failed, in part, due to lack of a support net (because I did not seek one). Here's my situation, generally: I have been drinking mostly daily, mostly heavily, for about nine years (in my late 20s now). Alcohol has definitely harmed my life and I've made many bad decisions due to abusing it. I come from a family of hard drinkers/alcoholics. In the past I've quit for weeks at a time, but always made a decision (I think it's a pesky corner of my id masquerading as something rational) to try to drink moderately, which then fails b/c everything creeps back up again to the point where I'm averaging 5 drinks a night on the nights I'm NOT going out to the bars (1-2 nights a week). I should also point out that many times I've wanted to quit temporarily, but only seldom considered permanent abstinence (This time and maybe once or twice before.) As for outside support, I'm seeing a therapist and also considering options for AA or other groups. My reservation w/AA is that I have issues with authority, religion, and being anonymous (I'm in academia and would be uncomfortable seeing students or colleagues in a group situation in my small town). I'm not ready to rule it out, though.

Anyway, that's a lot of info that really isn't relevant to my question at hand, which is mostly practical. In addition to trying to figure out the emotional cues that lead to my drinking and relapse from sobriety spells (a long list!) I have noticed there are also situations that need adjustment. For example, I love food. I cook often, not because I particularly like cooking, but because I don't have much money (spent it all on booze) and because there are few decent restaurants where I live. Thus there are some meals I make that I automatically associate alcohol with. Some of these recipes call for wine, and after cooking I'd drink the rest of the bottle. Or there are more classic things like steak and red wine that I just associate. In the past, the trigger for relapse has sometimes been that I feel like a meal isn't "nice" without the proper drink along with it. Does anyone relate to this? It seems small but I want to take care of everything I can. What do you drink instead? Seltzer water strikes me as working for some things, but I just can't imagine spending an hour preparing a fancy meal and drinking tap water. Part of what I'm going to do is just make more casual meals/ones that I don't mind drinking iced tea or water with. (Another problem is that I try to avoid caffeine from afternoon onward, due to sleeping problems which exist w/or w/out alcohol.) But does anyone have a coping mechanism for this food problem? Any recommendation for "fancy" pairings, fluid-wise, for special occasions/meals? I'd really like to untangle the process of enjoying a special meal from the accompaniment of alcohol. Having trouble imagining solutions. Is it just as simple as that I'm going to have to miss it?