124 days sober and I still want a drink

Can’t ditch the desire for a drink … Watching someone on tv enjoying a drink … Watching a football game on TV and relaxing … How do I make the need so offensive that I don’t even think about it?

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It’s not about making it “offensive” as you say it’s more to do with acceptance. Accepting where we find ourselves and making our piece with it.
The way I live my life now is that I have made a choice not to drink. I did this from a very early point in my journey so that I could then just crack on with the other side of recovery.
You are only 124 days. That’s very early in your journey , these thoughts are still going to be there and strong as well.
I still get thoughts now, little niggly “you can have one now, your good” but now it easy to ignore it
We need to make new habits for when we are relaxing.

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It’s about rewiring our brains so we don’t think about drinking. You’re early in sobriety and it’s going to take time. Changing habits and routines will help with that rewiring.

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I don’t know, to me it’s offensive that advertisers are attempting to prey on people’s addictions to make money by portraying alcohol as some kind of necessary life ingredient. Think about the people who sit in a room coming up with ways to get consumers to buy something. Then think about the product they’re trying to get you to buy. TV and movies often portray alcohol as a key ingredient to fun and good times. If your experiences with alcohol are anything like mine, you know what a crock of shit that is.

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I don’t think you can make yourself so repulsed by the idea of drinking that you stay away from it. If we could, I think most of us would sign up to be repulsed ASAP. I think (and hope) that it gets better. Or, that the cravings get to a point where I can treat them with respectful distance. Sort of like nodding to an old workmate that you did not care for very much as you walk past them on the street. You acknowledge them, but you sure as hell don’t stay to relive the misery. In my mind, that is where I picture my sober self in the future. Today, I just take deep breaths and say, “Nope. I am not going to drink today, either!”

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Let’s never forget that cravings are so powerful because that’s where you get the strongest surge of dopamine. It is BS. The reality of using is completely different. There is a reason why we quit!!
Still, indeed, it sucks. It’s everywhere. It helps to think of the fact that this is just the one thing that we can’t do. A diebetic person would probably like to eat cake, but hey, they can’t!

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Well yes I totally agree Allie, but it’s not going to go away is it so there’s no point in getting upset about it. You know that. I know that.

Love your reply! Good to see your still here :heart:

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Very much!!! 15 months and counting. Beennaway from the app, focussing on my writing mostly these days even made national radio last week :100: sublimeFM

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Please don’t tell me what I know.

The OP asked for motivation to make drinking offensive so they don’t want to do it anymore. Recognizing that we are being manipulated by advertisers to continue drinking so they can profit is a handy motivator for me. Maybe it can be for the OP as well.

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Cool. But it’s such a angry way of looking at things.
I don’t like it anymore than the next person on here. It’s everywhere we look, but being angry about it doesn’t help to my mind.
But each to their own. I’ve got a great respect for you. You’ve got some serious story that is good for all to know.
Peace.

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Way to go!!! Had to highjack the thread for couple minutes to do a happy dance for you! :dancer:

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I think it’s definitely possible to recalibrate your thinking about alcohol (and same for cigarettes, probably also other drugs but those are the ones I have experience of quitting). You can retrain yourself to keep all the negatives at the front of your consciousness. That doesn’t mean never getting cravings again. Those are always going to surge back sometimes and you need plans for how to deal with them.
I agree with @Alliecat: I personally find it really helpful to think about corporations that make money off alcohol (and nicotine) advertising, and how little I want to be part of their systematic exploitation. Even beyond that, I find it helpful to think about the fact that society and its norms can be wrong: just because something is normalized in our culture, like numbing yourself with booze, doesn’t make it OK or good.

I don’t think recognition of social wrongs is necessarily about anger; it can be just about truth. And I don’t see anger as necessarily a negative. It can feel empowering and good, to harness that energy to something you truly believe is bad. There’s something liberating and beautiful about recognizing something you believe to be wrong, and naming it, whether or not you can fix it. It can feel good to realize, this isn’t just my problem: it’s bigger than me. YMMV.

If the cravings are still really bad, seems like finding a way to reorient your thinking is important, however you do that. Meetings, or yoga, or therapy, or meditation, or exercise, or a new sense of purpose, from whatever works for you.

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Day 473 and i still think about it. I always find myself thinking “well maybe you can just have a 12 pack now” and that kind of thinking is what got me time and time again on my previous relapses. I know there is no casual drinking with me. And thats what i use as strength when i start the stinkin thinkin.

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Yeah cool. I totally agree with this. I also don’t buy anything from big corporations and hate the massive commercialised way that Christmas is shuffed down our throats. But me getting angry isn’t going to change anything so I accept it and get on with my life.
I think that there’s been a misunderstanding here. Yes it’s wrong and we can turn our anger into a positive, of course we can.
But it doesn’t stop the urges. That comes down to acceptance to my mind.
I’d rather not get angry every time I see an advert or someone drinking. I would spend an awful amount of time angry! :grin:
This is where I think the misunderstanding is. I guess I thought the idea was to be angry all the time at something we have no control over.
I know it’s there, I’m angry that it is so socially ok, but I don’t do it anymore.
As you say ymmv but what I’ve been doing has worked for two years and I’m comfortable in my sobriety.

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For me - and I’m not speaking for anyone else here - sobriety is like breaking up with a no-good ex boyfriend. My ex boyfriend was never abusive, but he was a jerk and my life is so much better without him.
And, yet, I can get lonely and miss him - even though he wasn’t good for me. I romanticize the best moments, choosing to overlook the bad, viewing our past relationship through a glittery gaze. So, as I did when I was dating, I slipped at Thanksgiving hoping maybe ex boyfriend and I could achieve a rapprochement. But like an unsatisfying one-night stand with a lousy ex, the glass of wine was meh. It didn’t even taste very good and I forgot how nasty it was. The next morning I was disappointed, but I resolved not to be hard on myself. After all, one thing ex-boyfriend excelled at was manipulation. I’ll try to remember that the next time I am tempted to give him another chance.

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Allen Carrs “easy way to control alcohol” audio book did it for me, it shifted my thinking. But i had already been in the game of trying to quit for a while and failed miserably at every attempt to keep alcohol in my life. I know that i will never be able to control it, if i pick up it will destroy me again.

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I hope you’re doing better tonight. I think of it as something I used to do and now I don’t. Nothing good ever came from it. Think of why you joined here. Life is meant to be lived with all the ups and downs. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::raising_hand_woman:

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Get mad at being manipulated! By the commercials yes, but especially by alcohol itself. Humiliate those cravings! Embarrass them so much that slink away in shame. : )