Originally Posted by Vanduara

Hi everyone, from a long time lurker to this site. What a fantastic and supportive place this is.

I'm looking for some help. I have never been an every day drinker, but have always had the tendency when I do drink to go overboard.

I went through a bad divorce last year (I am in my late 30s, female, no children) and that made the drinking go a little more out of control in order to cope.

I am at the stage now where I can go days and weeks without drinking, but just occasionally I get the urge and it is like nothing else will do, I just have to go on a kind of mini-bender. I am a keen runner and love being fit, and I know logically that drinking does nothing for me, and indeed I am happier in the periods when I don't drink, but sometimes I just get this almost uncontrollable urge.

I also reminisce sometimes about the happy days I had drinking in the past.....cold beers by the pool on a sunshine holiday, that kind of thing.

Anyway, I am in a really lovely new relationship now with a partner who really loves me, and I love him very much, but he is, understandably, finding it hard to cope with my occasional drunken binges (he is the kind of drinker who can have one beer and leave it at that.....a sign of my alcoholic mind is that I think, "who does that? And why would you want to do that? I'd rather go without than have one.")

Well, that's my introduction, I guess. My question is, I am at the stage where I know I am happier being a non-drinker, but how do I get past those times where it feels like nothing else will do?

Thanks for reading!