Hi Dennis. Sorry about the difficult day. I had bad cravings off and on in early sobriety, for a good while. What worked best for me in the beginning was using physical "tools" to combat them -- eating food was my favorite. I never picked up a habit of eating junk or sweets, just smalls portions of whatever healthy foods or snacks I liked, throughout the day. It really shut down the cravings for me (there is well-known scientific reason behind this) and probably saved my life. I also did a lot of walking, which often helped as well (if for nothing else, to remove me from the environment where I most comfortably used to drink, my home). I doubt I could have succeeded battling the kinds of cravings I had initially, using only cognitive methods such as urge surfing. I quite quickly learned to apply that though after a few weeks of successes.
Btw, my own dad also just had a stroke recently, and was in a very bad shape initially, but seems to be improving. My best wishes to your father and yourself in this tough situation
