I have deep, primitive, emotional feelings about alcohol. They aren’t all positive but they are significant.
It’s hard for me to explain just how deeply and completely I gave myself to alcohol. My brain is twisted up with its tentacles, I have relied on it since my early teens to feed me emotionally, spiritually, to express myself socially, sexually, to complete myself as a human being.
I will never be free of the emotional obsession for it, but I don’t have to give in to it.
I think expecting to be free of cravings can entrap you back in its clutches easier than just accepting the want for it is there.
I’ll clarify that the want for it changes over time, because your lifestyle changes with sobriety. So you may think “I don’t think I could stand it” but when you’ve gone two years standing up to it just fine, that need for it changes.
I believe that returning to drinking after years is less “I can’t stand it anymore” and more “I think after two years I can drink without a problem.”
I think what really trips people up is not craving but people understanding the nature of alcoholism, that even after years we will return to previous levels of drinking.
People believe in healing, that they can be fixed. That we can heal cancer, clogged arteries, type two diabetes, so why not alcoholism? When the truth is, any healing we gain from sobriety only remains if we stay sober.
We can heal alcoholism, sure. But only if we don’t pick up the first drink.