A big humongous thank you to every one of you who posted your helpful hints. EQ, thank you for starting it and keeping it going. I am on Day 5, and up until tonight at around 5:30 I was doing pretty well. But there I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting for my daughter to get examined because she was in an accident this afternoon and I was tired and I was hungry and my chronic neck pain started to act up, and I could feel myself getting restless, edgy, and definitely "I want a drink-y." I could feel my mood change, and what came into my head was "Thank God I spent two hours reading SR posts before I came here," because I knew what was going on was a craving I had to ride, and now I want to say Thank God for this thread because it kept me from going to the Chardonnay aisle tonight.
What helped me tonight:
I was hungry in the doctor's office and I ate some snack I had in my purse and I ate again when I got home. I didn't wait for hubby - I just helped myself.
I gave myself permission to go off the Weight Watchers wagon that I'm also currently on and had cheese and crackers and two WW ice creams. It helped to eat something comforting, but since I have really no extremely decadent food in the house, it didn't completely blow my diet.
I drank water.
I put my pajamas on early and gave myself permission to act as if I had a cold or a virus - just lounge around, read, drink tea.
I spent another three hours on SR and read this whole thread.
I thought about all the times I felt sorry for myself for not having any time to myself to express my creativity and realized that what dampened my creativity and put my life into a holding pattern was myown hand and a bottle opener.
I repeated to myself, I know what my life looks like when I drink. Let's see what it will look like when I'm sober in evenings.
That's it. My restlessness and lasted for about two and a half hours. It's 9:00 p.m. and I've just ridden through my first non-drinking stressful event (child in accident) and subsequent craving and DID NOT DRINK! Yay! It feels good to know I can!
Again, thank you to EQ and all of you here. You really helped me tonight.