Now it's cheeseburgers
 

Ok, so my fight against alcohol has been going great. Despite one brief lapse a month ago I am doing very well at staying away from it and filling my days and nights with other healthy things. That is, except on the weekends. I'm able to stay away from alcohol, but I have been just slacking and eating fast food. I've been exercising really hard during the week, but on the weekends I just let myself go to hell. I worked out this morning and am somewhat frustrated with myself for eating out for two days over the weekend. Maybe the key is establishing an acceptable level of unhealthy behavior. I'm not sure if I am really being irresponsible or whether I'm being overly critical of myself because of how hard it was to put down the bottle. Come to think of it, I was extremely critical of myself before I first picked up the bottle 12 years ago. I guess I'm worried that I'm now picking up the cheeseburger, fries and milkshake in place of alcohol. I'm not bingeing on food like I did on booze, but I can see that I am still being unhealthy on weekends.

be patient with yourself, and hopefully the eating balances out? i know about 30 days into sobriety, my daughter was eating like crazy. she was coming off cocaine too, so she had gotten real thin while using.

a few pounds won't kill ya. but the booze certainly will.

hugs, k

(now i want a cheeseburger :))

Glad you are doing well with the alcohol program free. I haven't seen you in a while and was hoping you were OK.
Don't beat yourself up too hard on the diet---yet.
Get more sober time in first before you split your concerted efforts in to two directions.
The addictive side of your personality will use the lack of dieting will power to get you back to drinking.
When you feel you have your addictive voice firmly under control then you can tackle the fast food voice more effectively.
I will say again, congrats on your battle with the bottle. It sounds like you are winning. Don't lose that. :)

A lot of people eat junk or sugary foods on giving up the booze. It will even out as your body adjusts. Try not to panic!

From this post it does sound like you are being kind of hard on yourself.. 12 years of the bottle is a huge thing to overcome and maybe part of the process is the cheeseburger time..

I notice that you don't post a lot but you put this post out there so maybe that will be part of the turning point. For me posting really does make things change sometimes - or helps them change. I posted to get me through a few tough situations where I knew there would be drinking and it really helped.

So, good for you for putting this out here, and be kind to FreeInMilwaukee - a very good person who has rocked :You_Rock_on getting rid of the bottle and is enjoying some burgers right now.

:c033:

Nothing wrong with cheeseburgers IMO..LOL
See my member title? I could live on them forever.
Sorry..I am no help..I saw cheeseburger and got happy.
You will find a balance in time. Like already said. Alot of people do this.
IMO..Its better than gettin wasted. Enjoy your cheeseburgers.

Whenever I've tried to get sober, it's been followed by periods of being STARVING all the time. Maybe because alcohol has a lot of empty calories?

Anyway, don't be hard on yourself; one thing at a time, etc, etc. I'm going through the same thing - I've been eating ice cream at midnight, because I can't sleep and I crave sweets, but I just tell myself "At least I'm not drinking!"

I'm going to try and motivate myself to get to the gym, both to burn off the calories I'm eating and because I've heard exercise can help with sobriety. Maybe exercise would help too?

Well, i would take weekend hamburgers over weekend whiskey, anytime! :)

Don´t be so hard on yourself! If you are working out during the week and
taking care of yourself, i would not consider as a "destructive behaviour"
to eat out on the weekends and have fun with the fries and the large sodas!

It is all a question of balance, right? So as long as you don´t go on a five-year
Quarter-Pounder binge, you will be allright!

All the best and hope you are having a great sober day!

hey! this is a great topic because I definitely think addictive personalities easily slide into new unhealthy behavior to replace old ones!

the fact that you're exercising is great - i'm an avid exerciser and absolutely love going to the gym. just make sure you arent over doing it - 3-4 times a week is really perfect, your body rebuilds on "off" days, so if you don't take "off" days, you won't gain the muscle you're craving - you'll just hurt tissue!

as with the fast food, i'm going to disagree with most of the people on here and say it's a very unhealthy behavior. there's no reason why you can't get something besides a huge, double whopper with cheese & oil or whatever it is you get..why not use the weekends to learn new cooking recipies? weekends are hard for me, too. I'm in college at a HUGE party school and literally 95% of people here are wasted all weekend. But, I don't hit up mcdonalds! I'll check out a local foreign movie at the theater, check out a local concert, etc..

I think, if you have a kitchen and interest, you should try listening to some fun music and cooking yourself a healthy meal. It'll be time consuming AND fun - maybe invite some friends to join you?

If I had a kitchen, I'd definitely be doing that!

Hey there!!

I don´t see anyone on this thread saying that is HEALTHY!

Everyone is just saying that he should not be so hard on himself for indulging on
some fast food and consider it a continuum of his destructive behavior, as he
stated that he is working out and keeping up with his sobriety. Anything else would
be reinforcement of the thought that he is "killing himself through hamburgers" when he is NOT!

Let the man be happy with Wendy! :D

I agree with you on the cooking - i love to cook but f**k me i drank all my money! ;)
As soon as things get better the pans will start flying back in the kitchen.

Hope you are doing great and have a sober, kickass day!!! :)

LMAO!!

Cheeseburgers rock!!

My thinking is add some lettuce and tomato and it just got healthier.
Happy is all that matters. And cheeseburgers make me happy.

For me..After killing myself for over 14 yrs in the street smoking cocaine. A little cheeseburger habit is a blessing.

But I was addicted to cheeseburgers way before drugs. Wish they had a friggin Checkers up here.

But seriously...I odnt see anyhting wrong with comforting yourself in early sobriety with things like cheeseburgers. As long as you dont go having a heartaatck from eating 20 a day.
Like all things. It will work itself out in time. The worse thing I could do to myself is try and overwhelm myself with stopping all bad habits at once. Thats a setup for disaster for me.
Prioritise..For me drugs first..smoking and bad eating habits can wait for now.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me! Bread = grain & cheese = dairy + vegetables & protein makes for a perfectly healthy meal! Well, not exactly, but it could be much worse.

I started with two addictions, tobacco & booze. I gave up the tobacco and my drinking tripled, gave up the booze and I cross-addicted to donuts, cookies, peanut-butter & jelly sandwiches, frozen meals, and misery. Put on 30lbs. and kept it on for 4 years.

6 weeks ago I started Weight Watchers, I love the program and what I can eat. It's given me an awareness of what I'm putting in my body and how it makes me feel. I've already lost 18lbs and dropped a pants size. That makes me feel pretty good about sticking with it.

My point.......Be gentle on yourself. For now stay focused on your recovery, do your best to eat healthy and get as much exercise as possible. There'll be plenty of time later to work on your diet, the most important thing now is your sobriety.

What the heck???? Hate when that happens!:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao Tryin' it again...

Oh crap!

I think sometimes when we quit drinking we want to be super-healthy too. Too perfect all at once.

We are quitting drinking so why not stop smoking, eat better and exercise too? We want to be this new person all at once.

Eat your burgers, for the first 6 months you can go easy on yourself when it comes to junk food etc....just concentrate on the PROBLEM.....alcohol. :)

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I am trying to change alot at once. Come to think of it, the fast food usually went with my weekend booze binges so I may not really be replacing anything. I think I'm just more aware of how unhealthy I was being before. I too will take weekend burgers over weekend whiskey! I'm in my 3rd month of sobriety now and really do have to watch my addictive side. On the positive side, restaurants were a huge risk factor for me - I always drank with dinner when eating out - and now I can actually go out to eat without drinking. The next step will be replacing the weekend eating out with weekend eating in. One day at a time though. Thanks all!

congratulations on finding sobriety.....

In my experience a short while after stopping drinking my other excesses started to become apparent to me...

It took a while to get a balance with other "stuff".....

sometimes I'm fanstatic at it..........sometimes i can be found with my face in a strawberry cheesecake again..lol..lol...

But lets be realistic......i didn't sleep in doorways...become voilent....lose everything that mattered.....and need medical intervention....
Because Ive got a thing for strawberry cheesecake....

If you have too many cheese burgers...the chances are you gonna feel sick.

If you return to drinking your gonna find yourself in a whole world of pain again...

Dont set the bar to high my friend...balance comes with time...sometimes..

Keep up the good work............trucker

I too ate stuff to raplace the booze intake Free. Time will pass and you'll stabilize. Next time I want a cheeseburger I'll come to you. It's not that far of a drive.
http://americandigest.org/wimpy1.jpg

I have lost 25 pounds since the middle of January eating cheese burgers.

My own personal modified Atkins diet plan calls for them, of course, only 1/2 bun and no fries allowed:c015:

You are going to be fine.