Hodd

I’m doing a teacher training course after years doing another type of job, and it’s not going too badly, but it’s a huge change and I’m not yet always confident of the subjects I’m teaching. It sounds odd, but teachers can’t know everything and will often have to brush up on knowledge before teaching a new topic. Now imagine doing that almost every lesson and being watched by a senior teacher every time plus having to do postgraduate assignments. Luckily I enjoy it, but there are late nights and serious deadlines.

Anxiety can be an issue if I have a lesson in the morning and I’m not 100% confident on the topic and it’s a naughty class I don’t have any bad kids, but they will play up if my lesson isn’t up to scratch. I really could’ve done with a glass of red wine to calm the nerves, but as we all know, that’ll 100% guarantee a return to drinking every day. My brain will get used to having alcohol again, and without it, anxiety will result and you know the rest.

Fast forward 24 hours, I’m chilling with a cup of tea. No stress.

That’s the way it’s going to be for the next 8 or 9 months. I’ll get anxious about a lesson or one of my naughty kids and crave for a drink. It’s very unlikely I’ll succumb as I’ve built a great life now and that’ll fall apart if I drink.

The message is - if you crave a drink, just chill. That craving will go away if you ignore it

least

I'm so grateful that after several years sober, I completely lost the desire to drink. Never enters my mind anymore. If anything, the thought of drinking repulses me rather than tempts me.

Hodd

I hadn’t had any cravings until the workload ramped up recently. I reckon all ex-drinkers have a limit, a point where stress may become too much and they succumb to having a drink.

Any ex-drinker should be wary. Our circumstances can change. We might lose a job or a loved one or there might even be a pandemic! Any of these things might be a trigger. The longer the period of sobriety, the less likely a relapse, but I still reckon everyone has that limit.

tomls

Thanks for the heads up! Great job getting control!

Dee74

Hey Hodd

unlikely? make that impossible.

I get that people can be pressed to their limit and I get that feeling that urge again can knock our confidence but...you're not a passive player here, We're not leaves being carried down a gutter.

Keep pushing back.

Thoughts are thoughts and cravings are cravings - its what we do with them that counts Hodd - that's the real measure of recovery

D

Anna

Hodd, I'm glad you're getting through the teacher training and feeling good about things.

BornSurvivor

You are lucky! I still get them but very rarely.

I know for me I won't ever take it for granted or underestimate how powerful addiction can be. Just because it is easy now doesn't mean it always was and it doesn't mean I can't relapse. I can and I will if I don't take this seriously and be on guard every single day. That said, each day clean I get stronger and my AV gets weaker...

Here's to a sober Friday!

Hodd

Thanks Dee, that’s true. If my limit were ever reached so to speak and I succumbed, I’d have to leave the house, purchase the alcohol and get home and open it. I don’t think I’d ever go through with that. It’s too unpleasant to think of, and that’s why I don’t get why relapsers on here talk about having bottles and bottles. They must have gone out with a pick up trick to get that lot home.

Also, my other point was that my cravings passed quickly. The next day I was chilling out. It’d be a very different story if I’d had a drink. It’s a cruel irony that drinkers get stressed because their body needs alcohol.

Dee74

I can only speak for myself. Once the madness started I'd go out as many times as was needed to keep the party going.
I lost weeks, sometimes weeks. In fact I still don't remember anything of 1996-8.

Thats another very good reason why I can't afford that first drink. The price is astronomical.

Thanks for reminding me

D

Hodd

Cheers Dee

Now it’s 8am, it’s freezing cold and I’m off to do 2 hours of outdoor yoga

That sort of thing would be the first to go if I’d had a drink.

That craving I had on Thursday evening is long, but if I’d had that drink, I guarantee 100% it’d be back tonight and every night.

saoutchik

I'm glad you rode it out without picking up Hodd. I find it irritating that I occasionally have cravings after close to six years but I have to remind myself they are not nearly as strong or as frequent as they were to begin with.

Good luck with the outdoor yoga.

Hodd

100%

The cravings I get are minuscule compared to what an “active” drinker gets. I wouldn’t say they’re easy to ignore, but they last literally minutes.

I think any ex-drinkers needs to be wary of cravings popping up if any stress is likely to happen. If I was established in a job and had no outside stress, I doubt I’d have any cravings, but this teacher training is a whole new level of overload and as my brain has been rewired due to my drinking past, I’m likely to get cravings when stressed.

Hodd

Just to say, last Thursday was when I had the craving, and it’s not been back since. Cravings really do pass if you ignore them. Feeding them, though, is a sure way of making sure they’ll come back daily.

I’m sure my craving will be back, probably the next time I’m struggling with my training, but the message is to ignore the cravings as they will go away. The worst thing you can do is feed them.

boreas

I do a fair bit of teaching/public speaking for my job, and it sends my anxiety levels through the roof. So much so that I know eventually I’ll find other work that doesn’t go so against the grain of what makes me tick. My speaking gigs always involve travel, so there are occasions driving home that my brain remembers that picking up a bottle (or three) was part of the ritual and “reward”. Thankfully, the rest of my brain knows we just don’t do that anymore.

One thing I learned when I sobered up was that alcohol use made that same anxiety so much worse. My baseline coping skills were so friggin’ poor that I was almost sick for each performance. I am thankful that now, even with the pit-sweat and racing heart, I can soberly examine my body’s response and consciously try to mitigate the effects. It is rough though, and there are times I wistfully remember the days when I believed the lie that sitting on the couch drinking made it all better. In reality, it was like more anxiety in liquid form.
-bora

tornrealization

Hodd,

I think our sobriety dates are close to each other based off the threads I’ve read and posts I’ve seen from you. I also encountered some stress that I usually drank away and I also had some Tiny comparisons to when I first quit. I was sure it could help me sleep, but I used my tools to get through it.

I just figure that as we go through the gambit of life, the sobriety firsts will still cause the brain to think maybe the old way we dealt with the situation will work... we know it won’t. Once we go through it, it’s no longer a first...the new tools taking over. So I agree with your message the cravings will get less without active drinking!

Hodd

Thanks Torn, yes I’m coming up to two years. I’d never quit for more than 3 weeks prior to that, so it was a whole new lifestyle that got me here. That’s another message for anyone struggling to quit; you need to change at least two other things such as your free time activities. Trying to quit whilst watching TV every night just wont work.

But as for these infrequent cravings, they’re minor. I wouldn’t, for example, snap at someone as a result which I’d probably have done as an active drinker. The cravings I’d have every night as a drinker were many times worse than last Thursday’s. It’ll be fine, but ex-drinkers need to be wary of anxiety and stress.