Originally Posted by vulcan30

Hello again,

One of the problems I'm facing when I try to stop drinking is missing it. The problem I’m having is that the more of those lonely miserable evenings I go through without drinking, the more I desire it. The thing is, I can grind through maybe two or three without alcohol, but come the third evening, it’s just too much. Not drinking on a string of lonely evenings is akin to breath holding, by the time that second or third lonely evening approaches, it’s like I’m gagging to surface.

The problem is for me, not drinking=torture, emptiness, misery, boredom, gluttony for punishment. I’ve put myself through the hell of enduring the gut-wrenching loneliness, I’ve had enough and I also feel that I’ve been ‘good’. It’s this that’s a major barrier.

The longer I've gone without alcohol, the more I feel I've been 'good'.

I think that the right question to ask is, how to make those alcohol-free days less painful. Grinding through on sheer willpower is clearly not a sustainable solution.

As I've rightly identified, the only solution is to get my needs met for the right sort of social contact, intimacy and activity. That's the only way to reduce the pain on those no alcohol days. The problem is, my situation is so painful, that those evenings of not drinking=horrible, don't want to go through that again' to my brain.

Has anyone had this problem? Feeling like stopping is depriving you?