LadyBlue0527

I am such a fan of analogies, not sure why but sometimes it helps if you can perceive something in an alternative fashion.

With that being said here's my foolish tip for today. It might seem comical or silly but if it even helps one person it's worth putting out there.

We talk about cravings and powering through them. Easier said than done isn't it? We find things to do to take our minds off to try to get through the time. For those who can't seem to find their way through and fall off there is an extreme sense of failure and guilt over it. The plus side is that they come back here. Some wonder what it would be like to get to the other side of that having made the right choice.

When I think back to what it felt like in the beginning when I quit unconditionally and had a craving how I felt put me in mind of something.

Think back to your childhood. Think of something you really really really wanted to do, someplace you wanted to go, or something that you wanted to have really badly. Then, your parents or parent said no. At first you cried, or you bargained. Remember the words "I'll clean my room every day, or I'll do chores without being asked"? How about "If you get that for me I'll never ask for another thing again!" However, there were times that no amount of bargaining, begging, or reasoning worked. The answer was still NO. Then we resorted to what I call boo boo face. Some of us kicked things. Some of us went to our bedroom and slammed the door. Then there was the folding of the arms and standing in front of them with as much of an angry look as a child can muster. Nothing worked, it was maddening. Didn't even matter that there was no logical explanation why they would deny us something that we wanted oh so badly.

Well, powering through a craving successfully is very much the same feeling. However, under this circumstance you have to play both roles. YOU have to be the parent. No amount of bargaining or reasoning is going to change the answer. Once you understood that as a child you eventually got over it didn't you? So you recognize that the feeling passes and that whatever it was that you wanted in the first place really didn't matter after a while right? Same boat here.

BE THE PARENT

Aellyce

Interesting post, LadyBlue. I'm trying to think hard on this... in my case, as far as I can recall, my most typical reactions to my parents denying something I *really* wanted (not just for a moment but recurring, more stubborn wishes) was most often ignoring the "rules" and still finding my way around it. I was pretty rebellious as a kid, but not in the directly arguing, drama queen, aggressive, angry way. I still rarely have anger problems as an adult. Instead, I would usually think about a way, my way, often quite creative ways, of doing what I wanted - approved or not. Lots of things. I'd had pretty stubborn problems with rules, with fitting in, being part of hierarchical systems, etc etc also as as a young adult, started to truly changing this in my early thirties consciously because this thinking and behavior got in the way of my more mature, different, more evolving standards of living too often then.

So if your reasoning is correct and this has something to do with how we relate to our drinking and drug use urges, in my case explains a bit of why I seem to have such a hard time with cravings. I feel like a bit more than average. Can resist them or neutralize them, but still get sometimes strong cravings for alcohol after 3 months of sobriety.

Not sure.... This is an interesting topic to bring up in a therapy session, I think!

Upward2Enlightenment

My parent were divorced and my father was not really in my life so my mom tried to make up for that by getting me almost anything I wanted, that screwed me up as an adult. But I know the reactions when I had to tell my children No! So I think next time I have to tell the craving NO I will picture it standing there, arms crossed trying to give me the mad+pouting look. I was so hard not to laugh in my kids faces.

biminiblue

I've known this about myself for a few years now. I had to lose 70 pounds. The only way to do it was to be hungry for part of every day. I had to eliminate sugary treats as I approached my goal, because I wasn't willing to try to out-exercise my eating on a daily basis. That was when I realized I had not said "No" to myself in a very long time. It is the delayed gratification that most people learn in early adulthood, but which I tended to rebel against.

haennie, never was there a more rebellious creative child than me. I even ran away for a couple months when I didn't like the way things were going. It doesn't serve an adult well to always have my way. It was much harder for me to control my eating than it has been to quit smoking or drinking. Food can't be bad, right? It is used as love. It is necessary. I was obviously eating too much of it because I was 70 pounds over weight.

When mom said, "don't touch the hot stove," I listened. When she said, "don't eat all the potato chips," I didn't. Of course I think alcoholics have a physiological problem with sugars anyway, so it makes sense that I ate all the ice cream when there was any in the house.

KAD

Interesting analogy. I've often likened the addictive drive to being an undisciplined, out-of-control child, and looked at this thing as a child/parent relationship, with myself playing both roles. I grew up under the rule of an abusive, overpowering, domineering, controlling, religious-zealot father. I and my siblings weren't allowed to do much of anything, so when there was something I really wanted, I had to sneak to get it.

I can recall once when I was about 9, one of my brothers was selling candy for school. At the time, they were 10 cents each. I found myself alone in the room with the box of candy. I had some change so I bought a piece. I had a few more dimes, so I bought one more, and then another, then another. They were so good, but I had no more money. Nonetheless, I decided I'd have a few more and then just "find" the money later. Eventually, my brother broke up this maddening cycle and I got in a lot of trouble.

I've treated drinking the same way. For 26 years, I hid it. I ended up marrying someone just like my father, and I hid it from her. Everything I wanted, I had to sneak to have it. We divorced and now I'm involved with someone who isn't nearly as controlling but still doesn't understand the nature of addiction well enough to get that my drinking, whether I'm doing it or not, is really not about her at all.

Anyway, good post. It gives me a lot to think about.