Mental Obsession
 

How do you get past the obsession of the first drink?

I have been attending AA meeting, when I am there I feel at peace, but once the next day starts the thoughts of drinking hit me, and hit me hard.

I always say, I will drink today and not tomorrow, but it never last.

My sponsor says to keep hitting meetings even if you are actively drinking.

I think I may just have to fight through it for a period of time, work the steps and let my HP guide me, but I am very hard headed.

Nice to be here

Sorry to say but at this point I usally have a drink.

Can you explain?

It was removed as the result of a spiritual awakening from taking the 12 Steps. Read the 10th Step promises. That's about exactly how it worked for me. (Psst. But I actually had to do those 10 Steps, not just read about them).

Welcome to our SR Alcoholism Forum...:wave:

If you are newly sober....you might be having cravings .urges
to go back to drinking...rather than an obcession.

When my cravings hit...I timed them.
They were about 5 minutes in duration.

Then I took action to distract myself....drank cold water...ate a
Lifesaver...walked....brushed my teeth....any action and prayed

The longer I did not drink....they lessened in both intensity
and time. By the end of 2 months...they had vanished.

My drinking abcession was lifted with prayer and Step work.
That also took a lot more prayers.... time and committed action.

Glad you are here....please keep posting...:yup:

I don't get them hardly ever now, but in the first few months I just developed healthier options...kept occupied during the times I would normally pick up..and tried new things...and prayed alot, which really helped me....


Best wishes

just remember how bad you will feel in the morning, since obviously you will have more than 1 drink. Is it worse the pain, the headache the next morning? Okay drinking causes you to forget the bad things, but you also forget the good things, the happy things in life, the things you can be grateful for.

Many people here might disagree but what's been working for me (albeit for a relatively short time) is telling myself the opposite, as in "I can drink tomorrow but not today."

Tomorrow is in the figurative sense of course, as in some time in the vague future.

That's what I learned to say in a meeting, and 4 months later, tomorrow still has not come yet:c014:

Here is some good information that might help you out.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-day-time.html

I would also add to the list of thinking through the drink. Don't think about having the first couple, but think about the end product. For instance, it is easy to rationalize having a "couple", but my end product was drinking to oblivion and I never want to be in that state again. I love waking up sober rather than coming to.

Here is some other additional information.
Alcoholics Anonymous - Living Sober

I had to be very stubborn (fortunately I am stubborn;)) in the first weeks and months and just refuse to give in. Then I started counting my blessings, being grateful for all I was blessed with, and being grateful replaced my desire to drink.:) Now after a year I rarely get the urge to drink and when it happens it's easy to dismiss it.:)

It also helped that the memory of my last drinking episode was burned into my memory, how sick I was and how horrible I felt and how much I hated myself for it.:( And waking up feeling good helped keep me sober cause I didnt want to go back to waking up feeling awful.

I'm with Least in the way that I had a really bad last drunk..Won't go into it but I used that memory quite a bit and it squashed any desire to drink. You know what else worked ...eat several small meals thru out the day. Eating and drinking tons of water fends off any craving.

fist bump

Well for one don't go to the store. If you don't have alcohol stocked in your home, it will be easier not to drink. For 2 as others stated, keep occupied, play some video games, go out with friends. Go to a movie, or the things you do besides drink (or is that all you used to do) just keep yourself occupied. In time the urges will go away.

For an alcoholic of the variety on page 21, a time will come where there is NO effective mental defense, a mental blank spot if you will. A time where one cannot bring into mind with sufficient force the pain and suffering of a week or a month ago. That defense must come from something greater than ourselves. Someone already mentioned those 10th step promises, what powerful promises they are. In my active disease I don't get to decide when I take a drink, the disease of alcoholism decides for me. Those promises mention feeling as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. In that position of neutrality it has been my experience that it is impossible, yup that's right...impossible to drink.

Cold water, my stationary bike & orange slices....lots of orange slices.

I think the only way to get rid of the mental obsession is to stop feeding it. I spent hours on this forum every day for a week or two to get through the cravings. It s-l-o-w-l-y got easier (because I had experienced getting through them and knew they wouldn't kill me).

I had to practice a lot of acceptance. I had terrible urges because I was/am an alcoholic. If I'm an alcoholic, there's only one thing I must not do and that is to pick up a drink. The feelings and urges were/are a part of it, but it doesn't mean I have to act on them.

Take heart, though - It really does get better (thank goodness!)

Likely you didn't develop the obsession to drink overnight, it took time. It's going to take time for that obsession to go away.

What I did was to identify my emotions associated with the cravings; think about those emotions, embrace those emotions, and then try to release those emotions. They are just emotions, they will not kill you - drinking uncontrollably and indefinitely will. I also hit the weight room as a secondary release valve for what seemed like an inordinate amount of pressure to drink.

It wasn't easy, I had to dig deep to reserves that I didn't even know I had. The good news is, it gets easier and easier. You've got to trust me when I say that, just give it time and find the strength that you have but may not be aware of. You're stronger than you think.

That's what worked for me.

Hopeless....

there are lots of tricks and techniques that work for a while. I did the "not today but maybe tomorrow thing" for a while myself and it worked, for a while. A TON of things can work for a while (exercise, diet change, trigger avoiding, dump the old drinking buddies, group support, and so on.

The bigger question is, like Omega mentioned, are these reliable long-term? And really, it's the long term that matters. I read the threads of the ppl who are constantly relapsing after days, weeks, months or years (one guy in my homegroup makes it about a year then gets loaded - he's so full of shame, guilt and self-loathing it's a shame).

Long term, someone who's a real alcoholic (aka Chronic Alcoholic) ((if you don't know the difference shoot me a PM and I'll explain)) has NO defense against picking back up. Sooner or later, they WILL get drunk again. They just don't have the ability to stop for good.

That's where the whole "higher power" / "power greater than me" comes in. Without help from SOME power greater than me (and there are looooooooots of powers greater than all of us individually) I'll get drunk....maybe today.....maybe next week...but my history shows me --- sooner or later, I allllllways go back to drinking.

I know I'm a little off the specifics of your opening post, sorry for that. I just wanted to remind you that avoiding that first drink can work for a while but please make sure you're doing something (if you're a chronic alcoholic) that will be reliable for the long-term.

When I was drinking I had really severe cravings and couldn't go for more than a day or two without picking up.

What's really helped me is taking the nutritional supplements Kudzu (an herb used for alcoholism in traditional Chinese medicine) and L-Glutamine (an amino acid). Back in November I started taking about 1000 mg of each 3 times a day and within a week my cravings had lifted enough for me to be able to resist drinking and start working on a plan for long-term sobriety.