I’m new to this community and was looking for some helpful distractions/ substitutes to help me begin my first week sober from Alcohol. There’s an urge to drink after work and I know nothing will kill the urge but something to help it not be as strong. Please and thank you 
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Welcome to the forum.
Keep busy. Work on hobbies or find new ones. Try things that keep your hands busy like puzzles, get some coloring books meant for adults, build models - like cars - learn to draw, paint, or to improve your handwriting. Learn woodworking or hand carving. If you like audio books or podcasts, listen to one while you engage your hands.
You can also learn other skills like a new language (duolingo is free), or an instrument like the guitar or harmonica. Learn to cook or bake something new. Exercise. Put music on and dance or simply move your body to loosen it out and bring in stretching movements.
Look up free or cheap community events and meet people. Go some places you might not normally go like the museum. Or even look up some AA meetings and go to one.
After work you might be too tired to go out or your hours don’t allow for it, so these might be better for weekends.
Keeping your hands and mind busy can help with the urges. Have a set bedtime and try to keep it as well.
You can also come and hang out on this forum. There are a bunch of resources, silly threads, and a community to be part of.
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Thank you! Such great ideas 
I’m super anxious non stop right now. I feel good about stopping this time and I am excited to make it thru each day. I’ve made some poor choices for months and months now being so over the top with drinking and blacking out and I’m embarrassed to wake up every day. I have officially lost who I am and I’m terrified. Anything to help get back on my feet is helpful
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I found going to AA meetings really helped me gives me something to do after work and takes up about 2 hrs of my down time with drive time I go 4 days a week and when I first got sober I went everyday it’s a good way to make sober friends and I would suggest finding a sponsor good luck I’m rooting for you
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Thank you very much 
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I downloaded games on my phone. Really helped distract me as they are addictive in their own way. I also take baths/showers after work to mark the end of the day, beginning of my evening.
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Im 31 days into sobriety. I drink a lot of herbal teas and sparkling water. Those tend to fill me up and keep my hands busy. My dangerous trigger times were after work and weekends so ive been making plans with family and friends, helps with the lonliness too. I also hit up a few online aa meetings during those times and force myself to share even if its just a minute or two. I lost my hobbies due to drinking and have yet to explore new ones…i’ll keep you posted.
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Then definitely having something to do with your hands should be helpful.
If you’re able and willing, something that could benefit you is to sit down at a table with a paper and a pencil (so you can erase, but not on an electronic device because there are more chances of being distracted), and really think about what seems to make the anxiety worse. Write that down. Then pick it apart. Maybe you’re worried about something–relapsing, for example.
Okay, once you have identified something that makes the anxiety come up or get worse, then ask yourself a series of “what if that happened?” questions, then answer as if you were talking with a beloved friend you wanted to help.
It could look something like this:
- So maybe you relapse. What then?
- Well, there’s no reason you can’t try again from that moment on, and work on figuring out what went wrong.
- It’s no use. I will have failed and there’s no point because I’m clearly a failure. I already screwed up so I should just have more.
- Maybe you will have failed this time, but that doesn’t make you a failure. If you keep trying, you will get there. Like any skill, sobriety can take some practice, but each time you can learn something new that will hopefully make everything stick the next time. It isn’t actually the end of the world if you don’t make it this time around.
Something like that. You can apply that to other things too. It wouldn’t hurt to write that mental conversation down to remind you so you can look at it when needed.
I deal with chronic anxiety myself and I know it’s not an easy thing, so anything you can do for yourself to get a handle on it is good.
I can sympathize with this. You’ll never be the you that you were before addiction. That person is lost to time–which is how it should be. We should never stay the same and we can’t go back. You have an opportunity to figure out who you are now, without the addiction. Try out different actions or thought processes and see how it feels–is it you. If it feels familiar and good, keep it; if it doesn’t resonate with you, let it go. Even if it is something you or society thinks you should like or not. You’ll never find yourself trying to be what others think you should be.
Accept the good with the bad as you learn about it. For example, I am vain. In the past I would deny that because so many people and groups pushed out messages that subtly encouraged me not to take care of myself in a way that would make me happy. Things like, “looks don’t matter”, or “you don’t need make up to be pretty” or even snide remarks about someone who has spent a lot of time on themselves. This crushed my self-esteem in a way that I was oblivious of. I felt browbeaten into presenting a certain image of ‘humility’ and ‘not being superficial’. I finally realized that I like dressing nice, putting on make up, spending time on my hair, and overall paying this attention to myself. I feel good when I look in the mirror and like what I see. I don’t go all out all the time, but I have accepted that this is something I genuinely like and that, yes, I am actually pretty vain. Maybe that’s “bad”, but to who? If this is something I genuinely feel, and it’s not harmful to others, then what does it matter what others think? If this is who I am, wouldn’t it be detrimental to my psyche to deny that just to fit into other people’s expectations? So I am not ashamed to say it out loud if the topic comes up.
That was a slight tangent, but I wanted to give you an example so that as you work on “finding yourself”, hopefully you will not push away parts of who you really are just to please other people, or just so that you can perfectly fit in. As you figure yourself out, and you will, accept who you are. If you really dislike something you discover about yourself, you can work to change it.
In essence, you get to create the you that you want to be. Just give it time, and don’t let stumbling stones along the way stop you.
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I’m actually crying reading this. I appreciate all the advice… It’s so scary feeling like the parts of me I liked are now gone. I have always been so giving and kind and it kinda hurts that I’ve gotten so selfish… but for so long people took advantage of me and I felt like I deserved to take care of myself. I just feel like I went overboard. Which I think was accompanied by the drinking. I was like ‘for so long I took care of others and how they feel. Why can’t I enjoy myself’ but then I would go out and get trashed and find myself about to make huge mistakes that could ruin my relationship and this life I spend years building. I am thankful I’ve never slept with anyone besides my significant other but I’ve gotten too close for comfort on black out nights and I feel like I’m dying inside. It’s One of the many reasons I am done being this person. I am not the person to ever hurt someone else and I feel like I’m self distracting and am trying to take the people in my life down with me. Is it possible to recover from All of this grief? I don’t want to lose myself further and being sober is the only way I feel stable. I had my dad pass away a year and a half ago and since then I’ve dove deeper and deeper into self destruction and I don’t even realize it’s happening when it is. I notice it when I’m 3 months into straight getting drunk every night. Do you think I will be able to forgive myself for my mistakes? That I will be able to love myself again?
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Thank you! I’ve been drinking cbd tea to help with my anxiety and to relax my body but haven’t tried sparkling water. That would def help! How are you feeling 31 days in? Has the urges gone away any?
I have been thinking about AA meetings but Im honestly a little nervous because I feel like it’s admitting I really have a problem. Im sure that sounds dumb… it’s just like saying it out loud makes it so real…
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Ohh the baths idea after work sounds like a great idea! Thank you I would have not thought of that I love relaxing in the tub and reading a good book 
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Try working out after work exertion of energy into something new or fresh or try a new project or something that’s always been on your mind. I myself am only 5 days sober and we can do this!!! Mind over matter!!! It’s love always let’s #BeatAlcoholism
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Don’t capitalize alcohol. It doesn’t deserve it.
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You are absolutely right
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Thank you! Congrats on 5 days tho that’s amazing
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I am going to reply to you but before I do, I want to ask about your relationship with your dad. Were you close? Was he someone you felt like you could always rely on, that you could go to when you needed to feel like someone was there to take care of you–even if it was just that lingering emotional childhood memory of dad?
31 days in im more joyful, more energy, better concentration, losing weight, and more patient with myself and others…i dont want to drink today.
Of course thoughts of drinking come up but i ask myself why and usually its HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) — learned that one here. I make the decision early in the day that I am not going to drink today and then when thoughts come up they get shot down, decision has already been made, no room for negotiation or addict rationalizations. I can drink tomorrow, just not today. Rinse and repeat.
Reading your thread I see you are struggling with the word alcoholic and ive gone through that journey myself here
As far as AA goes, i was wary too, but have found some amazing positivity in the rooms. The only requirement to attend is to have a desire to stop drinking. Check out some online zooms…you can have your video and audio off and just listen. Ive just recently started going to in person meeting this week because they are more intimidating to me, but i find comfort and fellowship there. Going to a womans meeting tomorrow.
Can someone add a link to the online aa meetings??
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My dad and I weren’t close for a very long time. He was an alcoholic as well and would get abusive to us and my mom. He got sick in 2015 and I stayed with him because my grandpa and uncle he was taking care of after he moved out both died within 6 months of each other. He drank himself into a stupor and was on a vent for a week or so. I went every day and sat with him. When he came off the vent I sat with him… no matter how weird it was since we didn’t talk very much before this. He found out he had cancer and was in a nursing home for a while relearning to walk after being in the hospital for a month. We ended up talking more and more thru my visits and we got really close. I caught him drinking a few months later and snapped and told him how shitty he’d been and he was honestly apologetic for the first time, he said he would never let himself get like that again and he never did. We spent 4 years together almost every day… he was like my best friend. His chemo didn’t work and the radiation made him sicker. He took a turn for the worse and eventually passed from the cancer. I miss him more then I can ever explain
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That would be great. Having this forum has literally gotten me thru my day today
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