Having a really rough day with the cravings today. I’m on day 12 and it’s been easier than I thought it would be to get here, but now it’s getting hard. This is the longest I’ve gone without drinking in years. Didn’t have withdrawals and only had cravings for the first few days. Then it was like I barely thought about it, and even made it through a long thanksgiving weekend alone with hardly a thought about it. Now I’m at the beginning of a three-day weekend and it’s all I can think about. Going to drink some beet juice and read more posts on here for support and inspiration. Just posting this helped some. I appreciate everyone on this forum! Thank you!
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If you drink enough bret juice your pee will turn red. It happened to me. 
. Mixing beet and carrot is a favorite of mine.
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I’m learning so many different things to drink these last couple days 
beet juice and carrots…sounds interesting… im working on day 5 right now and first day back to work. Standard day would be get home, sit in the garage and have a few and smoke a couple cigarettes…then just keep going. Instead I hit the store and bought bout $30 of seltzer water, juices, and water additives (crystal light, mix, etc)… feeling pretty good sitting here drinking Starburst water and a smoke! Congrats on the 12 days, and I hope you work through tonight!
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It’s pretty common to struggle during this period of time. You’ve come down off of the determination and now your body and mind may be saying, “So, now what?” Basically, it’s just the lying bitch AV (alcohol voice) and the AV doesn’t deserve your time or attention.
Keep at it. Drink your beet juice and review why the hell you are doing all of this in the first place. This has been a downfall of mine during my stops and starts - the not remembering “why” and instead focusing on “why not?” If you investigate the first, you’ll have the answer to the second.
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I named my craving a few days ago - he is the drinking demon Damon & i really kicked his ass that day with a good sweaty workout & lots of seltzer.
He hasn’t come back in a few days. 
I’m going to kick his ass next time too.
Although tomorrow is going to be hard, my best friend is putting down her dog & she loves to drink a lot of wine - I’m sure tomorrow will be a bad day, but I’m going to try & tell Damon to be quiet so i can take care of her
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Dave you got this man I’m on day 6 and I already have withdraws but you made it this far dont give up yet !! Hold fast and strong !!
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Thank you everybody! Good ideas, all! Beachy, I like the idea of naming it! I’ll have to come up with something…
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Most of us have …
Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally. But here is a man who at fifty-five years found he was just where he had left off at thirty. We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.’’ Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol.
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Remember why you stopped… my why is still clear to me 404 days later. Cravings can usually be handled with using H.A.L.T. best wishes
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Boy, isn’t that true. 18 years sober and I drank. Big mistake. Colossal mistake!! But 18 years or 18 days or 18 minutes…same result. Drinking too much and finding yourself back where you were. Just don’t start and you will keep adding days. Stay close and get the support you need.
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I like to do my angry gangsta rap, power walk. I remember nearing the end of my first month and I was all pissed off cuz I can’t drink like a normy. And I was working so hard to be sober. I cranked the angriest of tunes on my iPod iPhone whatever and walk as fast as I could for an hour. Sometimes twice a day. Did a lot of angry house cleaning too. And hot hot late afternoon or early evening showers when I generally would have been drinking.
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Hang in there, you can do this. Focus on something more productive, healthy and enjoyable.
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Having a new drink of choice really helped me. My new drink of choice is seltzer water!
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Been drinking A LOT of decaf hot teas. It’s helping quite a bit! The cravings tonight have passed and I am so happy I didn’t cave.
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Good job! Good for you!
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Nice work DV… I would say to you that from my experiences in quitting drinking … my worst times for cravings were between the 2-4 week stage.
I felt very healthy and good from not drinking and was past most of the physical withdrawals.
My mind started telling me lies. " You are doing so good, you should celebrate with a drink". “You dont really have a problem. If you did you wouldn’t have been able to stay sober this long”. “Are you really planning on not drinking forever?”. “So you are not even going to drink at tye super bowl party?”
I got through this time by really focusing on one day at a time. I also thought about the things I was grateful for in life and what might happen to those things if I drank like I did before. Finally, I stopped romanticising drinking and everytime I wanted a drink I reminded myself of the bad things that happened even though my intentions were to just have fun.
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That is exactly where my mind goes. “I’m doing good, let’s celebrate! We don’t have a problem anymore!” Yes, we do. It’s tough!
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It’ll get easier!
And not just your pee!! 
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