Question for long-term recovering alcoholics
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posts: 47
Question for long-term recovering alcoholics
Do you ever still get cravings or will they go away with time? If you don't have anymore cravings, why are you still going to meetings? Do you think you would get those cravings back if you didn't go to AA? I was able to stay sober for 9 months at a time due to pregnancies and never had cravings during that time but started drinking every time right after the births. I'm just trying to find some hope for a long-term outlook. Because, unless I'm pregnant, I could never get rid off those beer cravings. They'd creep up within a few days of sobriety...
Administrator
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Dancing in the Light
Posts: 61,469
Hi,
I don't ever get cravings anymore (I've been sober 6 yrs), and I never did go to AA meetings. AA helps a lot of people stay sober, but there are other ways. I do work every day at staying positive, which is hard for me. I know that negativity will lead me to the beginning of the slippery slop. It takes work every day - physically, mentally and spiritually to stay sober.
There is lots of inspiration here, so keep reading and posting.
I don't ever get cravings anymore (I've been sober 6 yrs), and I never did go to AA meetings. AA helps a lot of people stay sober, but there are other ways. I do work every day at staying positive, which is hard for me. I know that negativity will lead me to the beginning of the slippery slop. It takes work every day - physically, mentally and spiritually to stay sober.
There is lots of inspiration here, so keep reading and posting.
Cruelty-Free
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Body: South Florida Heart: Yosemite National Park
Posts: 914
Good question...
Cravings come and go, as might any obsession. AA doesn't make cravings go away, but meetings provide a safe and supportive place to find solutions to what to do if and when they arise. Probably every recovering alcoholic has had cravings in sobriety (easy, folks... I said "probably"
), and each has had to find coping skills for managing to stay sober despite this. Meetings are a great forum for getting this kind of knowledge, knowledge that saves lives.
As for continuing to go to meetings, I feel it has very little to do with whether one has cravings or not. It has more to do with a "craving", or desire, for getting and maintaining a serene and healthy life...
Cravings come and go, as might any obsession. AA doesn't make cravings go away, but meetings provide a safe and supportive place to find solutions to what to do if and when they arise. Probably every recovering alcoholic has had cravings in sobriety (easy, folks... I said "probably"
), and each has had to find coping skills for managing to stay sober despite this. Meetings are a great forum for getting this kind of knowledge, knowledge that saves lives.As for continuing to go to meetings, I feel it has very little to do with whether one has cravings or not. It has more to do with a "craving", or desire, for getting and maintaining a serene and healthy life...
Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Gainesville, FL
Posts: 36
with my experience, I was sober for a year and a half a few years ago. I had cravings the entire time. They would come and go, and would vary from high to low with no apparent pattern. I've only been sober six days now and the cravings are ever present. Well, I suppose when it comes to being an alcoholic, that demon may not always be on your back, but it's always waiting around the corner............
same planet...different world
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Butte, America
Posts: 10,946
hi german -
I've only got a year in, but ... although the obsession might still be there ... our saying is that the disease is always doing pushups in the backyard while we're at meetings or something like that ...
when that kind of thing does hit ...
a great deal of the POWER of it is diminished any more.
maybe we don't ever stop, I don't know.
I do know ... the whatever it is ... hasn't hit me in quite a while.
It's a personality ...long before it's a substance.
I've only got a year in, but ... although the obsession might still be there ... our saying is that the disease is always doing pushups in the backyard while we're at meetings or something like that ...
when that kind of thing does hit ...
a great deal of the POWER of it is diminished any more.
maybe we don't ever stop, I don't know.
I do know ... the whatever it is ... hasn't hit me in quite a while.
It's a personality ...long before it's a substance.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: anomaly
Posts: 2,180
I don't have cravings anymore. but i did manage to experiment
after being 11 years clean and sober and relasped and lived
to tell about it. I highly don't recommend it.
All I can say is the incurable part is not a myth for me anymore.
And the part people say about it's like you never stopped or you
pick up where you left off, is true too. Acatually i felt sicker than
I ever did when i was drinking in my younger days. So yes, in a
sense the allergy or disease stills continue to progress even thou
I wasn't using for all those years.
I work the 12 steps becuase i lacked coping skills and the way
I was raised or the way I process informations was a bit wacked.
My perceptions of life is like looking through a pair of fracture
glasses. Bascailly I get dizzy if I walk a straight line.lol
Noramal wasn't normal anymore and to begin with, normal
wasn't normal (healhty).
In other words, i'm not a saint to begin with, adding alcohol
in my system amplifies my funkiness into overdrive.
or in short.. i wanted a better quility of life or didn't want
misery anymore. Removing alcohol and drugs from my system
is but a start, but a very, very important step or foundation.
It never solved any of my living problems. It dosen't add
compounded wreackage to it. Plus i also needed to clean up some
mess i made. Being sober allows me to see that.
Or I'm trying to out grow my dis-ease beuase it still grows inside
of me.
Plus, i was taught I can only keep what I have by giving it away.
Plus a lot of old timers with decade and decade of recovery
helped me when I first came into recovery.
after being 11 years clean and sober and relasped and lived
to tell about it. I highly don't recommend it.
All I can say is the incurable part is not a myth for me anymore.
And the part people say about it's like you never stopped or you
pick up where you left off, is true too. Acatually i felt sicker than
I ever did when i was drinking in my younger days. So yes, in a
sense the allergy or disease stills continue to progress even thou
I wasn't using for all those years.
I work the 12 steps becuase i lacked coping skills and the way
I was raised or the way I process informations was a bit wacked.
My perceptions of life is like looking through a pair of fracture
glasses. Bascailly I get dizzy if I walk a straight line.lol
Noramal wasn't normal anymore and to begin with, normal
wasn't normal (healhty).
In other words, i'm not a saint to begin with, adding alcohol
in my system amplifies my funkiness into overdrive.
or in short.. i wanted a better quility of life or didn't want
misery anymore. Removing alcohol and drugs from my system
is but a start, but a very, very important step or foundation.
It never solved any of my living problems. It dosen't add
compounded wreackage to it. Plus i also needed to clean up some
mess i made. Being sober allows me to see that.
Or I'm trying to out grow my dis-ease beuase it still grows inside
of me.
Plus, i was taught I can only keep what I have by giving it away.
Plus a lot of old timers with decade and decade of recovery
helped me when I first came into recovery.
Last edited by SaTiT; 11-02-2007 at 03:12 AM.
Community Greeter
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Mid-Life Express
Posts: 9,930
I don't have cravings anymore, I only need to go back in my mind and no I never want to go there ever again. That's what I did in early recovery, now I seem to see things diferently.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: my room in ct.
Posts: 58,110
german, for me, i wouldnt say cravings... it would be more like thoughts, or strong thoughts... the cravings dont happen til after i have a drink...
and i have to say, havent had any thoughts in along time...
i go to meetings to be with my own kind, to remember that i'm a recovered alcoholic, to help give hope to the new ones coming around hopeing for a chane at a booze/drug free life...
to be of service to the fellowship that helped save my life...
ohoh, yes, the meetings can be a pain in the ass at times...
so was my bottom!!!!
i'll take the meetings!
never herd of the B.A. program before (Babys Anonymous)
is there just one step?
all good wishes german
welcome!
love
rusty
and i have to say, havent had any thoughts in along time...
i go to meetings to be with my own kind, to remember that i'm a recovered alcoholic, to help give hope to the new ones coming around hopeing for a chane at a booze/drug free life...
to be of service to the fellowship that helped save my life...
ohoh, yes, the meetings can be a pain in the ass at times...
so was my bottom!!!!
i'll take the meetings!
never herd of the B.A. program before (Babys Anonymous)
is there just one step?
all good wishes german
welcome!
love
rusty
Member
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: anomaly
Posts: 2,180
plus another part of it is...
A part of me feels every immature and the other part of me
feels like a grown up that's very strick on myself.
I think a recovery alcoholic can kind of understand that.
I feel like a child with the responsiblities of an adult.
It was every overwhelming for me especially in the first
couple of years because i didn't know what hell was wrong with me.
The term use is . " i nail the kid to the cross".
There's people in recovery that can explain stuff like that to me.
Talking to other people outside of recovery about it such as my friends would be a joke
I have so , so much to learn still.
Getting to know my innerchild and loving it instead of condeming it.
Sometimes i react in my childhood behavoirs as an adult.
Sometimes the kids comes out at most improproate times and i react
or make mistakes..then the adult side of me shows up and comdem
the kid to death. Not getting too deep into it..
bascailly sometime that why alcoholics beat up on themselve to the extreem.
So I'm still leaning to deciplne the child and the adult.
The child side of me is actaully what keeps me sane,but irrresponsible.
The adult side of me is responsiable but don't know what the hell rule #62 is.lol
A part of me feels every immature and the other part of me
feels like a grown up that's very strick on myself.
I think a recovery alcoholic can kind of understand that.
I feel like a child with the responsiblities of an adult.
It was every overwhelming for me especially in the first
couple of years because i didn't know what hell was wrong with me.
The term use is . " i nail the kid to the cross".
There's people in recovery that can explain stuff like that to me.
Talking to other people outside of recovery about it such as my friends would be a joke
I have so , so much to learn still.
Getting to know my innerchild and loving it instead of condeming it.
Sometimes i react in my childhood behavoirs as an adult.
Sometimes the kids comes out at most improproate times and i react
or make mistakes..then the adult side of me shows up and comdem
the kid to death. Not getting too deep into it..
bascailly sometime that why alcoholics beat up on themselve to the extreem.
So I'm still leaning to deciplne the child and the adult.
The child side of me is actaully what keeps me sane,but irrresponsible.
The adult side of me is responsiable but don't know what the hell rule #62 is.lol
Old & Sober Member of AA
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Nursing Home in Brick, New Jersey
Posts: 5,174
I never have cravings...occasional thoughts perhaps...but, I never dwell on them. After almost 28 years of continuous sobriety, I'm still an alcoholic, and alcohol was such a big part of my life for such a long time, it's just a part of my past, the memories of which sneak in once in a while. No big thing!
I'm no longer able to get to meetings...a fact I truly regret. If I were still able to go, it would be because I miss the comraderie...used to love walking into an AA room anywhere in New Jersey, and see at least a half-dozen people I knew by name, and they knew me. It was sort of an AA version of "Cheers"...a place where everybody knows your name. It always gave me a warm, comfortable feeling of belonging...being a part of something which has helped hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of folks to a sober life.
Coming to SR, as a substitute for f2f meetings, helps to keep my memory green. I'm reminded daily of "how it was, what happened, and how it is today". I bless the day I found this place.
I'm no longer able to get to meetings...a fact I truly regret. If I were still able to go, it would be because I miss the comraderie...used to love walking into an AA room anywhere in New Jersey, and see at least a half-dozen people I knew by name, and they knew me. It was sort of an AA version of "Cheers"...a place where everybody knows your name. It always gave me a warm, comfortable feeling of belonging...being a part of something which has helped hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of folks to a sober life.
Coming to SR, as a substitute for f2f meetings, helps to keep my memory green. I'm reminded daily of "how it was, what happened, and how it is today". I bless the day I found this place.
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