Are these cravings???
 

So three times today the most unpleasant thing has happened. I am minding my own business then I come across,say, a corkscrew and this giddy,excited,ecstatic feeling hits me like "Oh YES, I cant wait to drink tonight!!" then BAM the realization hits me."opp! nope, no you're not, sorry bout that.."
And then I'll be in a stressful situation and its really getting bad and then I get this calm anticipation of "its OK, you'll be catching a buzz soon" big breath of relief then... BAM!
Then I see a favorite show will be on TV tonight and I smile and really,really look forward to my drinking tonight with the most excited anticipation ever, yay!! Then yeah you guessed it. BAM.
It really hits hard and makes me want to crumple up in ball and cry, because damnit it sucks.
I dont have the personal experience, but I liken it to someone who has lost say, a sister, and they go to pick up the phone to tell their sister really exciting only she would get, and then you realize, that person has died. And your heart just sinks.
Alcohol was my friend. And my enemy, Why can't we just get along?? Be like normal friends without all the messed up stuff. Its just not fair.

Are these cravings Im experiencing?? Does this happen to other people?

In my experience that sounds normal. The first few weeks the head games are pretty challenging, but you're going great. I also had big time cravings for sweets, big appetite, and drinking dreams every night. It gets A LOT easier. One day at a time.

I had lots of stuff like that Arctic. I think they're just conditioned responses, like pavlov's dogs. Once I had that response and didn't drink I cancelled it out... took a while but now there's hardly anything that reminds me of drinking x

I'm on Day 19. For the first week, I was acutely aware every evening that I couldn't have a drink, which made me miserable. That seems to have passed, which is great.

But its been replaced with those "sudden entry" thoughts of "ooo, a beer would nice! Oh. Bugger. you don't do that any more".

In my very short experience I'd say there seems to be two themes I'm dealing with at the moment - these "sudden entry" moments and and emptiness/boredom/analysing my life part (this bit is quite hazy so far). I'm hazarding a guess that the sudden entry parts will subside quite quickly but the other stuff is why I started drinking in the first place and thus where the real work is.

I would say those are cravings, or triggers.

Over time, you do get numb to them, and switch to enjoying other things instead.

If you liken it to a loss, you can heal and get past it in the same way. Grieve, then move forward.

Sounds suuuuuper normal. It was the same for me when I quit smoking cigarettes, too. They say that yeah, it kind of *IS* like losing a friend. A really, really sh*tty friend, though.