Delilah1

I feel the same way, the first month I couldn't look at wine without thinking about pouring a glass. Now I know I can go out to dinner or survive a family gathering without a drink.

I think I miss the idea of a nice glass of wine more than the consumption.

RevivingOphelia

Just today, I passed by a posh hotel while visiting a nearby city and imagined myself sitting there with a chilled glass of sauv blanc, reading stuff on the web and letting the booze ease my day/mind. God, how I wanted to do it. I could taste the wine and SEE myself sitting there -- in my mind, I am looking oh-so-classy and fetching -- my how that image is the opposite reality by the end of the night.

Then, I thought of Dee and his recommendations to try urge surfing. I thought of how I'd have to drive to the wine store after a couple at the hotel...drive home...and proceed to drink two bottles. I'd eventually get melancholy, depressed, listen to sad songs on YouTube, feel sorry for myself, mourn my marriage, miss all my exes...wonder why me why me why me. Then, I wouldn't be able to sleep. I'd pass out, wake up with a deadly thirst, headache and crushing anxiety, be a wreck at work, and eat crap food all day long. I'd also have to wreck my calendar and mark it with an X for drinking after so many circles. I'd feel defeated and hopeless. I may start drinking again just b/c I obviously can't manage a sober life. After thinking it through to this awful end, I got my arse home--sober--and put myself on the treadmill.

So, um, I don't know if I love alcohol. I hate it, but I love how it made me feel for a few hours at a time. Those few hours don't seem worth the hours more of all kinds of agony.

It's not been two months, yet, so I'm hoping that the longing to immerse myself in a numb alcoholic haze diminishes with time.

soberlicious

Well, technically Midlife, you don't love the drugs...you love the high. I used to love the high...getting lost in the deeeeep pleasure. But after I quit, like Dee said, my perspective changed. What feels good, what feels right...has changed. I have experienced hard times and horrible pain and gotten through it head on. It makes me feel like a warrior, like a winner, to have done so. I have also experienced natural highs I thought not possible. I have become so empowered by the authenticity of life without chemical highs, that my whole thinking has shifted. I do not want to be high anymore. I have grown to love the crispness of life, the sharp edges.

It's just a different way of thinking...

Midlifecrisis

I can't wait to experience that. It's been 13 years since I've had the drugs I really 'love', or as you say, the highs I love. But (and I fear sounding like a broken record) I haven't really been in recovery because I've still had an active eating disorder this whole time - one of the major reasons I used was to forget I had an eating disorder - and so the whole idea of getting artificially high has never lost its appeal. And still seems like a better option than reality. I still obsess, sometimes for hours/days about the needle, recently got 'forgiven' tattooed on my forearm to help me remember. I'm rambling but I've found it helpful to be able to come here and ramble!

So I feel like in doing recovery for the first time after giving up the pills and alcohol a few weeks back and now the Ed seems to be under control or in remission or something...I feel like I have the chance to come out of that purgatory as someone else described it and get some real recovery. I like your description soberlicious about the crispness of life...I've never, ever liked reality but I can see now it might be possible. And I can imagine its liberating. And real.

Midlifecrisis

And. You're right I don't love the drugs....all those nasty chemicals that destroy brain and body alike.

sugarbear1

My drug of choice is pot.
I still love the smell and effect. It stopped working for me.

Another drug of choice was cocaine, which I absolutely fell in love with. I won't touch that again, it took me down pretty fast each time I picked it up. I haven't touched that in about 8 years now.

My two drugs of choice, well, I was able to give them up.

My drug of no choice is alcohol. The effect had it's place until it didn't work any more for me.

The drug of no choice, well, I wasn't able to stop that on my own or to stay stopped from that until I found a replacement.

I won't touch either one of them today!

Midlifecrisis

Thanks for sharing sugar bear