hypochondriac

I was just wondering how people would describe their cravings/urges?

I have the usual conditioned responses, wanting to drink when I get home, after meals, when happy, sad etc, all totally expected and easy to dissipate.

Then there's the weird physical 'craving'... it usually feels like a pang in my stomach or throat or an empty feeling in my head, which for some reason I think drinking will solve.

It's been 6 weeks since I stopped drinking so I figure this can't be a physical craving for alcohol and I'm guessing it is anxiety. Obviously I've never been sober before so not quite sure if this is normal or related to recovery. Has anyone else had something similar?

Change4good

Goodness, I know what you mean! I have never really liked liquor, but I absolutely love the taste of really good beer. (We have a lot more money now, because we always bought expensive micro brews.) If I could have the taste without the intoxication, I would do it in a heartbeat.

During my first week, I found it really hard when I got home. I was used to having a beer, or a glass of wine while cooking dinner. There was an emptiness. But now it is quite okay. I just get busy doing something with a glass of club soda or water, and it passes.

We are going to a champagne brunch this weekend (annual event), and I anticipate that being difficult. But I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Long winded answer. To put it shortly, I redirect myself like I do with the kids. :-)

RevivingOphelia

My cravings are still pretty fierce (24 days). They always come after work...as I drank before I ate (if I did eat at all) dinner.

My cravings aren't really for the taste of wine but the high, the temporary respite from my hectic mind.

The only way I can overcome them (as of now) is changing directly into workout clothes and hopping on the treadmill and then taking a hot bath.

SOBERINNEPA

Ditto the microbrews. It's the one thing I miss. My DOC was vodka from a bottle in the freezer and I'm sure I could drink one or two beers and leave the table, but I'm also sure I'd be stopping at the liquor store for a handle of Stoli. If not that night, then a night or two later. So it's not a viable choice.

I haven't had, what I call, big "C" cravings. I have flashes of memory when I'd habitually have a drink. Like after working in the yard or coming home on Friday night.

I work out of town and my heavy drinking was done alone right after work so I try diligently to be somewhere and busy from 4:30 until 6:30. The time of day is my trigger and I don't want a big "C" craving so I make an effort to not be in a position to allow myself to be tempted.

I hope this helps.

ohgod247

I can only describe it as feeling like you have just been caught for doing something very bad. I know, sounds weird. Hard to explain I'll be completely calm and relaxed....drink being the last thing on my mind...and then BOOM! Feels like I drank 10 5 hour energy's and I take 2-3 poops, pee a ton, and walk around the house aimlessly with my head thinking about a billion things going 1000 miles an hour. My palms get sweaty and all I can think about is alcohol. Can't focus on ANYTHING else. Can't ENJOY anything. What's weird is I couldn't care less about alcohol for 2 weeks straight and then it just HITS me out of nowhere. I've been addicted to a lot of different things throughout my life and kicked them all with relative ease. Alcohol, on the other hand, has got me by the balls.

hypochondriac

Not weird at all! I've had that a ton. But for me, that's an anxiety attack and not an alcohol craving right? And your conditioned response to anxiety is to drink... I'm just trying to figure out if I should be trying to find a coping mechanism for anxiety or whether it's a response to alcohol withdrawal...

ohgod247

I've had severe anxiety disorder even before I started drinking (one of the reasons I started-to self medicate)...when I drink...I'm 'myself.' Make out with hot girls, have a good time, make people laugh, etc. When I'm sober, I'm quiet and feel "out of place." I think if I got my anxiety under control it would be easier, but it's very hard.

Dee74

There's two types of cravings IMO - one is the physical stuff of the early days...almost a hunger/fire in the belly/shaking feeling for booze...

the other is that mental obsession we all have with drinking and wanting to drinking...that's the one that really hangs in there, in my experience.

Of course sometimes the obsession, or the anxiety of wanting, can get so much you get the belly pangs as well...

D

Spawn

chocolate helps with cravings

hypochondriac

Genius Chocolate is now actually my best friend...

The thing with the pangs really confuses me though. I get it usually in the middle of the day (not when I normally drank) and it is definitely not a conditioned response or lack of drink related anxiety...It probably seems like I'm over thinking this but I just find it interesting and don't want to let things trip me up. The only other thing I can relate it to is excess of adrenaline, which is obviously more likely to happen at work and maybe I'm used to pouring alcohol on my hyperactivity. Ok, that makes sense, problem solved

FreddyBear

Yes, sweets do help in the short term. Yesterday I had such bad cravings so I almost gone to the beer shop. Then decided to drop an sms to a friend and thought: if he doesn't reply, I'd go for beer. He replied and we went and had some desserts with coffee.

One day is won, but I can't imagine I can handle this for the whole life time.

Spawn

Just tackle one day at a time..............it does get easier.

Zencat

The most troublesome cravings I have had come early in sobriety. Their the mental obsession type that if I pay attention to them they become more troublesome. I know its my choice to act on them or not, but yea they can get out of control if I keep my mind on them.

Terminally Unique

You posted this in another thread, which sheds some light on your current dilemma. Consider changing your perspective on this "choice" matter. AVRT is not about choosing not to drink one craving at a time. If you have really made a Big Plan for permanent, unconditional abstinence, you no longer have a choice. You have, in effect, decided never to choose. This shift may help you with the "cravings" you are experiencing.

It takes the anticipation of gratification of desire to cause any type of back and forth struggle. We don't "crave" what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will never have. This is why some people want antabuse -- it removes the choice, ending the inner debate and struggle. AVRT is intellectual antabuse. Consider also that you crave nothing, but rather, your Beast does. What do you care if it suffers? Be glad it does, for it means it is dying.

hypochondriac

Thanks TU

I actually ripped this bit... 'My thoughts and feelings are transient and I have the choice whether to act on them or not.'...from a mindfulness book I'm reading so I'm totally going to deny that that was part of my own consciousness It's just been my mantra a bit because it had never occurred to me before. I really believe the words we use reflect and represent so much of what we don't acknowledge so thanks for pointing it out though.

I'd be interested how you'd deal with what I said at the start of this thread though, the physical pang which doesn't seem to be the beast in any way. I think I may have argued it into being a conditioned response now but it did throw me for a bit.

BelizeDiver

I completely accept AVRT and it will always, with out a doubt work for me as intellectual antabuse for addiction.

Not to get to psychological about the BEAST but in my opinion the BEAST has many voices as if each thing you crave is a voice, although I will gratefully allow the addictive voice to die off. The other voices still serve a healthy purpose for basic survival, eating, thirst (water), fight or flight, etc etc, so to address the craving, I do ignore the addictive voice of the beast as it dies off but often find myself giving the other healthy voices some water/tea or food/sweets. Of course this is a once in while thing as if I did it every time I would have an eating disorder, so ignoring the addictive voice of the beast is GOOD, DIE-DIE sucker but giving the healthy cravings something in moderation is "OK" including tea or chocolate.

Just my opinion...

Terminally Unique

Remember, the Beast is an artificial, perverted survival drive that originates in the Limbic system. The same part of the body responsible for the fight or flight response, body temperature control, thirst, hunger, etc. The Beast has feelings, and as with the rest of your survival drives, you will feel what it feels. Right now, your Beast feels like it is dying from asphyxiation as your body re-acclimates itself to not having alcohol in your blood. Like a newly caged wild animal, it is rattling the cage, trying to find a weak link.

The AV is saying "you are have a craving -- that is just awful! -- you need to have a little drink to take care of that," but you don't need a drink at all, your Beast does. Problem is, your Beast is a quadriplegic, a harmless little troll trapped in a cage (your body), and it can't get a drink unless you feed it, so it will use the AV to try and sucker you into doing so. As for how to deal with this, see this post:

AV Chatter & Separation:

Terminally Unique

The Beast is an artificially created survival drive that originates in the Limbic system, but it is not the entire Limbic system, nor are your legitimate survival drives the Beast. Thirst, or the drive for oxygen, for example, are not the Beast.

hypochondriac

Thanks, that really helps x

forabetterlife

Physical cravings, for me, were not that strong, ever, and usually gone within a day or two. I never went through "withdrawl", once the hangover was gone, I felt like my body immediately started healing. I think I am just lucky with that, because I surely did not drink any less than most people here.
Mental cravings, I look at as a habit for me. I was "used to" drinking after work, and began thinking about it at work by about 1. It was relaxing gor me at work to just think about having that wine to come home to. All of my evening routines revolved around drinking: tv, making dinner, eating dinner, being with my kids (hate admitting that), computer, household chores, you name it. I read somewhere that you can break a habit in 21 days. I am at 15 days now and I can say honestly, that it has become more of a routine NOT to drink for me now. I am far from out of the woods, but I feel so much more free.
In the beginning, its so hard to believe that it gets easier, but it really does.