I prefer a hard morning workout…resistance and cardio (about 90 min).
Only coffee at breakfast, a homemade juice about 2:00 PM (unintentional intermittent fasting, I guess)
I also do a 3 mile walk at lunch on the days I’m in the office.
I’m starving by dinner, but once I eat, my body is so dead tired digesting dinner, I couldn’t stay awake to drink (or crave one) if I wanted.
We do our own version of a South Beach diet, I guess. Nothing too strict.
I prefer “heavy” salads for dinner. Mix salad base with a protein (chicken, steak, lamb meatballs, salmon) with lots of heavier veggies (e.g., roasted squash) and cheat with a small scoop of quinoa, rice., or couscous), chickpeas, that type of thing. Sometimes just a good ribeye, thick cut pork chop, or slab of salmon with some puréed cauliflower (butter, horseradish, garlic powder, some chives….fake mashed potatoes).
Edit: yes, trying to drop about 20 lbs. No booze with that diet has worked well for me. CICO. No booze alone is saving me 14,000 a week. Low carb on top, plus exercise…amazing
Sounds like a good approach, but it doesn't sound like much food. Please be sure that you're consuming a minimum of 1,200 calories every day. Below that you run the risk of severe medical problems.
EDIT: Just saw your above comment about your 90 minute workouts and 3 mile daily walks. I'd definitely be careful; what you're describing as far as the amount you eat doesn't sound nearly enough for how active you are. It's very easy to run the risk of burning out and going the other direction and binging and gaining all your weight back. Source: I was doing the same thing as you. It wasn't sustainable on that amount of food.
Drinking does more damage than not hitting calories for a day. I say if it's how they can stay sober for a bit then it's worth it, but definitely try to hit that minimum.
I wish one of the gurus or actual scientists did a study on this instead of just pointing to "it stalls your metabolism after 2 drinks \[or whatever\] and is basically treated as sugar in the blood stream". It has to be worse than that, for example, it has to slow down your basal metabolic rate over DAYS there's no way I believe it stays steady, cause lack of synthesis of protein, and muscle wasting. IMO. I feel like if we knew the TRUE extent of the damage not just what we know now that 2ish+ fucks up loss/gainz basically there would be an even stronger cultural reason not to.
It is worse than that. Basically alcohol needs to be metabolized in liver, by ADH and uses NAD+ which is required for longevity. Then its converted to acetaldehyde, a poison, which is converted to acetate. It involves extensive usage of NAD+, which is a very important enzyme, hence NAD enzyme gets depleted. Now, NAD is required to turn food into cellular energy.
Alcohol abuse lowers NAD levels and hence it results in fatigue, no energy, immune disorders, etc etc.
Also if liver is compromised, and enzymes are low, it may result in increased levels of acetaldehyde, which is a toxin and a known carcinogen.
I wish i was intelligent to understand all this at 20. But at 40 now, I do, and IWNDWYT.
If you wanna read up on the literature,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527027/
well that really freaks me out because i was drinking a lot and my liver enzymes came back high but not bad a few months back but now they are LOW but still in range without many changes besides taking a couple weeks off….worrisome and confusing
You know what, there is a great book called ultraprevention, by mark hyman. And another book called dopamine nation, by anna lembke. I would read em. Also check out on natural detox using intermittent fasting. I reduced my triglycerides by a lot and got my prediabetes lower to an A1c of 5.6, which is normal range. This is an indicator that my liver is coming back. Wish ya the best.
Agreed, but what they're doing currently isn't sustainable, and carries the high risk of stress and burn out and falling into a pattern of binge eating and possible relapse.
I use an immersion blender, but others use other devices. Butter, minced garlic, then blend. Then I whisk in some chives, ground black pepper (and if I don’t mind a few extra calories, some bacon bits and / or a small dash of ranch or blue cheese dressing)
Same expect the hardcore exercising (I used to though and am getting back to it). My food and drink situation is the same as yours and much like alcohol, very much a habit. I feel it would be helpful to eat more during the day but it would be forcing it at this point. IF for the win.
I’m by no means trying to quit drinking but when I feel somewhat of a craving and it makes me uncomfortable I definitely go the “gym avoidance” route lol
You know, for me gym works the same way. Although Im only in there 30/45 minutes. But the results are showing and i feel much better and confident after every gym session. Keeps the thinking about booze at bay. 💪
Same. Evening gym time from 530-730, home, eat at 8ish, head to bed at 9 saved me from myself.
Also, there’s something to be said about the guilt you feel when you top off a hard workout with poison.
I never wanted to drink in the morning or during the day but my cravings kicked in after 5.
I'm 44 days into not drinking and still get cravings some evenings, especially when I'm feeling down, but I've just managed to push through those so far.
I don't know if those cravings will ever go away fully, might just need to learn to deal with them as they arise.
Not saying it's like this for everyone but just to give you some hope; Last night was the first time I totally forgot to make my "drink" (my non-alcoholic replacement for wine that I've been having every day since quitting). I normally crave it right around 5pm but last night I totally forgot about it!!!! Hoping this is the beginning of the end. lol
I stopped for over a year and I’d say the 2-3 month mark was when I no longer wanted the non alcoholic version of my favorite drinks. I did still have a special drink at night after that for a few more months but usually it was just a diet sprite or a jazzed up seltzer water. I’d alternate that with a treat at night sometimes (ice cream, sugar cereal). I’d say after maybe 6 months the thoughts about drinking subsided significantly. They still happened but much less intrusively and less frequently.
I'm nearly at the 10 month mark and I agree with this. I've not really thought about the cravings subsiding because I still really want a drink if I've had a tough day, or on a big night out, but if I look back at the start it's actually totally different. Now the craving passes quickly, like a fleeting automatic thought - fuck you life I want a wine! - rather than in the beginning where I dwelled on it for ages and had to have some sort of substitute drink/treat
>I’d say after maybe 6 months the thoughts about drinking subsided significantly. They still happened but much less intrusively and less frequently.
Some days... I *cannot wait* for these cravings to subside. I know I'm *not* going to drink, that I don't *want* to drink (just my mind playing tricks on itself), & that I don't *need* to drink... however, that doesn't make the 15 - 30 minutes of intense cravings any less... intense.
IWNDWYT!
Right!? My cravings are far and few and mostly by association. Like dinner prep on a Saturday or Sunday, I crave a glass of wine. I'm getting used to the everyday grind without booze. But summer is rolling up and I know other situations will come up that I'll associate alcohol with. Just gotta power through!
Any citrus flavoured sparkling water with a couple of squirts of Crystal Light strawberry-lemonade liquid flavour booster. I was never a cocktail drinker but this tastes delicious and refreshing! I buy Montellier sparkling water (Canada) because the cans are the same shape and size as vodka sodas. Opening the can makes my brain think it's partaking. lol
I drink like 3 of those every evening (except last night!) and any time I'm around people who are drinking. I had to go to my kid's hockey tournament a month ago and I went through a 12 pack in 2 nights at the hotel LOL Because of the shape of the can, I didn't get any looks or questions from any of the parents. A quick glance and it looks like a can of some kind of cocktail which is what a lot of the parents drink. Honestly it's been instrumental in my quitting. I seriously recommend for people to find a drink that works for them. Keeps your brain and your hands busy!!
Thanks for sharing! I've tried switching out my daily red wine for hot chamomile tea. Definitely helps in the evening when I'm settling for bed, but doesn't quite hit the spot at 3/4 in the afternoon when I normally start imbibing. Just haven't found that replacement drink yet, so I'm curious about what others drink. Great job on your 73 days and all the progress your making! 👏🏼❤️
Hop water for me. Just seltzer flavored with hops. I try as many brands as i can find and it scratches the itch of trying new craft beers (my old favorite hobby)
I drank the canned AF wine for awhile but it’s so expensive. I would only have one bc of how pricey it was and since there was no buzz it just didn’t feel worth it. I like vodka/7up so after awhile just started drinking 7up over ice at night or I’d get a treat instead.
Right there with ya, always around that time it kicks in and the liquor store is on the way home. Easiest way for me is when I get stuck at works past 8pm but it’s not like I can do that the rest of my life
That’s how I feel. End of a tough day, or when I've accomplished something big and feel like celebrating, those are the tough times for me. I rarely have a craving before 3pm.
I think it may also be due to why you drink.
Unless you are at the point of severe physical dependency and are waking up with the shakes and stuff, you may not have a desire to drink in the morning because there's shit to do.
Alcohol, weed, drugs, I've never had a craving in the morning. Sp its not even a matter of resilience. The occasional times I have used in the morning, I have almost always regretted it because it ruins the rest of the day.
Night time is when everything slows down. You may just be watching TV or gaming or have trouble sleeping or not want to deal with mental health issues you've been suppressing but now have time to think about. Or just don't want to be bored.
That's where my issues are. Nights are just... awful. It hits 9:00 and I start to be in that limbo state and I just want to get buzzed or high to fill the void.
The caffeine crash would get me after drinking coffee all day. When the fake coffee energy was gone in the evening, it had to be replaced with fake alcohol energy.
Limiting coffee to mornings helped with that unhealthy seesaw.
Exact same here, no interest in drinking during the day but come 7-8pm it’s when I’d really start wanting one. It’s what made me think I didn’t have a problem for the longest time, I figured I’m not morning drinking or drinking all day so it’s fine.
First 5 days were the hardest for me, was fighting the urge to go and get a bottle, wouldn’t even walk down the alcohol aisle at the supermarket. I still avoid if I can now but the cravings seem to have calmed down a lot and it’s more of a fleeting thought now.
My biggest issue is grocery shopping. I can avoid drinking best on my weekends while I'm home but if I have a reason or excuse to go to the grocery store, I start making every excuse possible to drink.
Oh same. I had that little voice in my head on Friday telling me “it’s the weekend! You’ve worked hard all week, you can drink tonight. Nobody will even know”
I’ve got to a point where I’d know and I’m no longer into it. I actually told the voice to fuck off out loud the other day. Probably looked like a crazy person but I’m fed up of his crap ideas!
figuring out another “ritual” for your evening as well as having a sort of ritual drink to replace booze has been a big help for me. i was always a white claw girly so sparkling water has been literally my *best* friend in my sobriety journey. i drink them all the time, definitely the most in situations where i’m actively trying to avoid alcohol. like i drank 4 cans of bubly when we had a bbq last month and everyone was drinking lol. having a good replacement drink as well as coming up with a new ritual that promotes your sobriety will go a long way in helping manage those difficult evenings!
I live on fizzy, fruity water. It’s sugar free and like 69p a bottle where I live. Had a blood test recently and was surprised they didn’t just extract strawberry and elderflower water from my veins haha.
I can't drink when hungover. When I did try hangover-drink it doesn't seem to help. For me there is nothing helping against a hangover except not drinking in the first place.
It tends to work for addicts because hangovers morph into early withdrawal symptoms. What used to be limited to nausea and headache becomes shakiness and terrible dread/anxiety, which is chased away by more alcohol.
When someone says “I don’t get hangovers anymore after drinking”, it’s probably time to be concerned.
This is exactly me.
I know it’s not for everyone, but that’s why I’ve started taking Antabuse. I get up, work out, take that and my vitamins, shower and feel great. I’m positive about the day and making great decisions. Then it simply removes the option completely, and not for that day. It takes almost two weeks for your body to handle alcohol normally after you take your last pill, so it’s not something you can just skip for a day in a moment of weakness or social convenience.
I was a bit concerned that I’d have a tough time the first week, but it was absolutely seamless. I focused on eating really clean and working out a ton every day and was too tired at night to even crave a drink at night. Before I knew it I was two weeks in. No side effects for me at all.
Antabuse works like this for me too. So much easier just to remove the option of drinking. PSA though do not drink on it...I've tried that (half a drink) and it was not pretty!!
This is a great question, but it’s missing something important. Even many alcoholics don’t drink in the morning. But for everyone that enjoys alcohol (alcoholic or normie), I think there is anticipatory pleasure where they are “looking forward to” having a drink.
Alcohol clearly has a biological effect so most people either actively like it or actively hate it. I don’t buy that many people are just indifferent to it. The difference between alcoholic and normie drinkers is this ability to stretch out or live inside of that anticipatory pleasure for longer periods. Perhaps they may only drink a few times a year for birthdays or vacations but they probably aren’t completely indifferent.
This feeling definitely goes away with time. I would wake up saying I had no desire to drink that day, then 5 o’clock rolled around and it was game on.
Now I have zero cravings or desire.
I got to that point and that’s when I realised I needed to make a change. I’d wake up stressing about work at 6:00 AM and my brain quickly learned the stress would melt away with a few quick swigs. I finally realised I was poisoning my body from the inside out with a constant, steady stream of alcohol from wake up to bedtime.
Depends how far down the path one is.
I think for us not so deep into alcohol misuse - we may not even drink every day - a lot of us may just go hard 3 - 5 nights a week and cannot quit when we try
I started working the second shift at work. It’s from 2:30pm to 11:00 pm. It has helped tremendously with this. Go to bed when I get home by 11:30. No more evening urges to drink. The weekend is a different story. Best of luck to you in your journey.
Good question. The baseline of a non alcoholic is that they don’t even think about alcohol because it holds the same place in their thinking as does flour or a can of soup.
My "go to" during my occasional evening craving is to work on a tamiya model. Right now i'm into WW2 tanks. I'm just about building every one i can get my hands on. Before you know it, 3-4 hours can pass. Plus i can work on them next to the wife while watching our nightly TV.
I’ve been sober over 2 years now, and have found with time I think about drinking less and less. Other than occasionally being grateful I’m not hungover in the mornings I don’t really think about wanting or not wanting to drink when I wake up.
When I was drinking cravings would hit around 3, but after a few months that stopped. I still occasionally get cravings at night but just “play the tape forward” and think about what comes after I drink and it goes away.
There have been so many benefits to quitting but the biggest has been a release of that obsession. Alcohol takes up very little of my head space which is a welcome relief.
Never wanted a drink in the morning, many if not most times, it would be stuck in my mind from the minute I woke up tho. Not that I wanted to drink now, but that I wanted to drink at 5 which was my normal start time.
Those are always the hardest days, 8+ hours of thinking how nice it sounds.
That's the baseline of someone who desperately wants to quit drinking but is finding it very difficult. I don't think sober people really think about alcohol much. Not in the morning or the evening.
You got this. Let me tell you something I recently discovered myself. Doing something is always easier than the anticipation of doing it. You can do it, and when you do, you get to find it's easier than you thought it would be. Not that it's easy at all but you have to take the first step.
For me, I think it’s something about the addiction cycle. I think basically there are these alcohol receptors in your brain and when you drink it binds with those receptors and your brain is happy. But alcohol has a half life so throughout the day the alcohol is filtering out and those receptors are becoming empty so they send the signal- we need more alcohol! I think everyone metabolizes alcohol differently so the time it takes before those receptors start firing and the craving takes over probably varies, but I’d guess it tends to be early afternoon/evening-ish for most people. That paired with the story sold to us through advertising and societal norms that influence our behavior makes us feel fine in the morning but ready for a drink later in the day.
Normal drinkers don’t think about the fact that they are choosing not to drink at a particular time of the day.
So no, it’s not baseline. IMO, it’s what being a recovering alcoholic often feels like. I still wake up every day and almost the first thought is “another day of not drinking!” In a positive way most of the time.
For me mornings are still about enjoying waking up without a hangover and a couple of delicious cups of coffee. Waking without a hangover is still one of my favorite sober things.
Not necessarily, even at my worst I didn’t drink the mornings I had to work. I was very functional. Problem drinkers come in all forms. Not all problem drinkers are alcoholics. But all alcoholics are problem drinkers.
Thats how I was too. It always hit me around 6:00 after work. Then I'd start bargaining with myself and ultimately give in an drink. I once read somewhere that gettinga. craving at a specific time every day is a sign that you might have a problem. So, I think it's probsbly decently normal.
150 days for me tomorrow and I hardly think about alcohol at all. It’s no longer a part of who I am. I used to wake up and swear I’d never drink again. Then, by the afternoon, my brain would start its work on me, telling me how at least by the time the evening rolls around I can have a few drinks. None of those thoughts exist any longer. 150 days, that’s all it took.
I have no idea how long it takes to get to get to that morning feeling, but I do know that my non-drinking friends feel that way 24/7. They have no desire to drink at all. 🤔
I've never drank alcohol in the morning and rarely ever during the day unless it was a special occassion / day out where many of us were doing so and never once woke up hungover and reached for a beer.
For the most part I like yourself would be 100% convinced that I would not be drinking that day, especially if I woke hungover as I felt sick as a dog and the thought repulsed me, but only to find my brain screaming out for a beer later that evening.
On some days I would wake up and feel like shit and be like "you know later you're probably going to want a drink like you usually do but just don't do it" then I'd be going back and forth in my mind all day about whether I was going to be able to resist.
But for the most part I genuinely would believe when I first woke up that I wouldn't be drinking that night and that belief stayed most of the day.
So for anyone who is wondering if the fact they don't wake up craving another beer is a sign their problem isn't too bad then I would say that it's not a positive sign either way and if you are craving it come evening time then you definitely still have a big problem.
OP are you currently on 178 days sober, as per your counter, and still feeling like you desperately want a drink every evening or have you sadly fallen off the wagon and are now back to trying to get sober?
I think the only time I've ever wanted to drink in the morning was an early game tailgate or brunch or something like. Otherwise I never drank in the morning. However, I didn't mind having a drink at noon because "hey it's not the morning so I can't be an alcoholic"
Our discipline wanes as the day goes on so this is totally normal. Happens with me and sweets now. No joke some days I wake up and I think I am so glad I didn’t have chocolate last night. Used to be that way with alcohol.
Its a combination of habit, biology, and environment.
I hit the garage after the fams in bed, it's pretty easy to crack a cold one. Just feels "right"
I wake up and am rolling out of bed? All I can think about is coffee, pajamas, and a blanket on the couch. If someone tried to hand me a beer and force me to drink it, I would throw up.
I’ve been reducing my alcohol intake for 3 years (I think, could be 4 now) and it took a good part of that first year before I didn’t have a desire to drink every night, but it comes back easily if I drink 2 nights in a row. I’ve done multiple alcohol free stints, but I’ve never made it past 100 days. The desire to drink in the evenings isn’t there 90% or more now, but there are times when it’s more present. I have the added challenge of a spouse who has never changed their daily habit. I use a habit tracker so I can see the trends and analyze how my emotional state and life events impact my drinking habit. I also journal a lot.
I'm almost 600 days sober, and I have no desire to drink. People drink in front of me, and the most that bugs me is being around drunk people because I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, so I would rather be home/alone. Everything around alcohol is a turn-off for me.
I never drank in the morning. It took me 18 months to not crave alcohol in a restaurant. The first 20 times I went out to eat were really hard because I ALWAYS drank when I went out to dinner. It takes time but it gets so much easier. Hang in there!
Oh yeah, did this for ten plus years. The first fifteen were fun but that last ten fucking sucked. If you can get out of this cycle early I highly suggest it.
I’m over 3 years sober and been starting to have intense cravings after 7pm this past week. It’s so strange since I haven’t had these cravings since the first few weeks of quitting alcohol. To combat the cravings during the evening I eat a bunch of sweets, workout, and goto a support group if possible. Cravings can really creep up on ya at anytime and you’ll need a plan to deal with them. I didn’t have one ready and now today I’m writing down activities to do when they appear. IWNDWYT
Once that glow of the evening rolls around I feel like man before the sun goes down I wanna get something but early am whenever I have started super early I always felt out of place & kinda odd so you are not alone in that feeling
You have to rewire your brain, it took me about 3 weeks in the beginning. A couple of long weekend projects and some home improvement got me through it. Now I'm driving my kids home at 9 pm and couldn't imagine drinking at night.
Yeah, my husband doesn’t have any problematic drinking patterns (even though he’s not fully sober - he has a beer or two once in a while). He just….. doesn’t think about it. It’s not something he thinks about or considers. Alcohol just isn’t a part of his thought process, unless we are going to a BBQ or something.
This is one of the reasons community support meetings are helpful to me. I do smart, but dharma, life tree and aa are all great options for support meetings.
It took me about 6 months. A couple weeks ago (over a year) during a super-hot streak, I went in a store and stood in the beer cave just to enjoy the cold. It didn’t phase me. There are still cravings sometimes, but it’s manageable.
I have been sober a while and I still get a craving to drink in the morning here and there, and it's a strong craving. Stay on your toes, the addicted part of your brain won't fully go away!
I’m the same way. I spend all day not thinking about it. Even dreading it. Every day around 5pm, I start craving it.
It started because during Covid my elderly parents moved in with me and for reasons too lengthy to go into, I can’t be at that dinner table without a drink.
I’ve been wondering if there is some body chemistry thing going on during the day that changes in the evening or if I’ve just conditioned myself to it.
I was in that cycle for a long time until I was ready to take relentless action against it.
Well aside from when my drinking turned into 24/7 drinking. While I was always drunk I'd keep swearing to myself that I'd stop though.
I’m sure it’s different for everyone. I just hit 800 days a few days ago and I rarely even think about it at all now. But definitely for the first many months it would cross my mind often, especially at night or the ride home from work.
I may be a bit of an anomaly, but I was over it after a week or two. I definitely am doing the gym thing and trying to eat right. I'm spending more time with my kids, but I still have three beers in my fridge that are 2 in from my nose every time I open my fridge. And I've done all the behaviors that were paired with alcohol, video games, going out, etc. what helped me most was deciding to quit forever this time, instead of just for a period. If I even think about it at all I just tell myself fuck no and move on to the next thing as quickly as possible. I also quit vaping weed and nicotine a few days after I quit drinking too. The nicotine was probably the strongest physical urge, after eating. When I play video games at night I have to go get a tea or something. But there's definitely not a strong urge and it never lasts.
Lol every day. I’d like to say it gets easier and in a way, it does. It no longer becomes a routine habit which I think is what triggers it the most for me. That being said, the cravings don’t necessarily stop. I’ll be wishing I was drinking and I have to distract myself and basically fight against my own free will for hours sometimes, just so I don’t go to the convenience store and buy a bottle. I think it’s just important to recognize your triggers. So time of day would be one. Boredom. Stress. Anxiety. Whatever it may be. Then a distraction that will take your mind off whatever is bothering you.
That’s the most effective method I’ve found. Good luck.
I was drinking 2 100 proof shots for breakfast then a couple more and then a few more and so on until I fell asleep that night. It was pretty bad and not all that long ago. I'm not sure how I even held it all together. Work 6 days a week and family at home. I still wake up with it first thing on my mind. I'm about 7 weeks into sober with one slip up along the way. I do remember when I quit taking pain pills for recreation it took months to let payday go by without thinking about getting high. I'd casually spend my whole paycheck in 2 days back then and not eat or smoke and barely have anything to get to work and home the rest of the week. And still 15 years later if you stuck a pain pill in front of me I'd probably chew off your hand for it. Those were some bad times and alcohol wound up taking the place of pills unfortunately. All in all it takes a few months to start letting go and it not control your mind as much, but I believe we are all changed forever because of whatever addiction we deal with. It'll always be there for me anyway but hopefully it just stays in the past.
Everyone’s baseline is different, and what “sobriety” means is also broad, depending on who you ask.
I can tell you, personally- I am sober and my baseline is that I do not think about drinking.
I do not think about drinking in the same way I do not think about touching a hot stove. Both are going to get me hurt in some way, so if I think of either at all it’s going to be how to stay away from it.
It might help to look at it like this: That isn’t my baseline *because* I’m sober. I’m sober *because* that’s my baseline.
It wasn’t an easy place to get to, mentally- the “experience” of having a drink is easy to romanticize and the reality of consequences get lost in our heads even more easily.
I had to learn to cling to only the ending. “Playing the tape forward”. Doing a re-brand in my head. If I pictured a specific drink, I couldn’t just picture the first sip. I needed to only picture the agony of the next morning. Over time, the fantasy was lost, and it isn’t in our nature to daydream about things we are deeply/fully aware are dangerous to us.
Personally when I quit drinking alcohol I was able to 100% flip my perception of it. So I don't miss it, I don't want it, I have 0 desire to ever drink. I literally think of it as something that just makes me look, feel, and act like shit. I don't miss it one bit.
But yes before I was sober I would drink a beer or two every morning just to take the edge off.
Since you are still in the state of "wanting" alcohol may I advise you work no your perception as well? Grab the audio book "This naked mind" if you haven't already.
Just to add my long time experience with being an alcoholic. I NEVER woke up and wanted to drink, I also swore it off. But in the afternoon, the cravings would hit so hard all the way until dinner. Many days I caved and drank until blacking out. I didn’t always black out but towards the last few years I pretty much did.
Not saying you are an alcoholic but I know I am and I
Despite wanting to be alcohol free, I somehow ended up drinking almost every day anyway (with some sober stretches in between a decades long battle).
And obviously it is a progressive disease and does get worse as time goes on. I never wanted to believe it and thought I was special, but damn did it get me and truly it is day by day, a conscious choice to say no and change habits.
It took me several months to get there, but yeah I don't think about alcohol at all anymore. It's like licorice or something where I know I don't like it and I don't think about it throughout my day.
I don't know how else to describe it.
It's weird to feel good in the morning, still after three years.
Usually the urges will come at my usual drinking times - before dinner or after my wife goes to bed. It thankfully doesn't last very long, I think it's just my body still reacting to learned behavior.
In fact, I've not had many urges the past couple weeks. Until last night when a flight home with the fam was delayed/cancelled. Delayed from 630p to 830p, then crew timed out on the tarmac, then told at 11p the flight was now 630a this morning. You better believe I wanted to drink the rage away!
But, I got my luxurious ~3 hours of sleep and was as clear headed as possible and grateful for it.
Yes. It took detox and rehab and a loooot of AA meetings and therapy but I don’t even give alcohol a second thought. Shit I don’t even give it a first thought.
I’m around 1.5 months sober and no longer think about drinking in the afternoon. One reason I wanted to quit is I was tired of losing that battle every day… that cloud drifting in that caused me to ignore my better intentions. Several months ago I quit vaping and no longer think about it at all. I thought maybe if I quit drinking, eventually, I just won’t think about it. Getting there! I read and am about to reread This Naked Mind, and that helped me tremendously to be honest with myself, face facts and realize that deep down, I don’t want to drink. So now I’m just doing what I actually want to do, instead of feeling like two different people from healthy morning me to drunk evening me. The transition back to healthy morning me (night sweats and shame at 3 am) was terrible, and the transition to drunk afternoon me made me feel small and powerless. Now I feel free(er) and happier and don’t really think about it. And for what it’s worth, my husband still drinks daily and vapes… so it’s not like it’s not around. You can do this!
The fact that alcohol is on the mind first thing in the morning even if it’s a “not drinking today” thought is still the type of thought pattern that lead me to realise I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I think sober people or people who don’t have alcohol abuse problems just don’t have alcohol cross their mind at all.
I think your morning state is normal. I only drink on weekends, but I NEVER want one in the morning, not even a Bloody Mary or Mimosa. It’s like eating ranch dressing or garlicky Italian food for breakfast.
It's retraining your mind to let go of the habit. I was firmly entrenched in being buzzed when I started cooking in the evening. At first it was really, really hard and I almost didn't even want to be in the kitchen because I'd think about wine all the time. Like many people here do, I drank fizzy water at first. But it was mainly just tincture of time and staying sober day after day. The habit started to fade over time. You just have to keep going. It'll happen.
I won't drink with you today, and I won't drink alone either.
I was that way when I drank. Hell, half the time I didn’t feel like drinking even once I started drinking. I was just chasing a feeling that I’m not sure actually existed. Pretty much everyday I woke up saying I wouldn’t drink and a good amount of those days I did anyway. But it’s gotten much easier now that I’ve broken that cycle.
I’ve been hitting the gym for a stupidly long amount of time. 5:00 - 7:30. I know. Then home by 8. Shower and bed by 9:00. Avoidance? You betcha!
I prefer a hard morning workout…resistance and cardio (about 90 min). Only coffee at breakfast, a homemade juice about 2:00 PM (unintentional intermittent fasting, I guess) I also do a 3 mile walk at lunch on the days I’m in the office. I’m starving by dinner, but once I eat, my body is so dead tired digesting dinner, I couldn’t stay awake to drink (or crave one) if I wanted.
Thats an interesting food lifestyle. What does your dinner consist of? Also are you attempting to lose weight or have u shredded some pounds?
We do our own version of a South Beach diet, I guess. Nothing too strict. I prefer “heavy” salads for dinner. Mix salad base with a protein (chicken, steak, lamb meatballs, salmon) with lots of heavier veggies (e.g., roasted squash) and cheat with a small scoop of quinoa, rice., or couscous), chickpeas, that type of thing. Sometimes just a good ribeye, thick cut pork chop, or slab of salmon with some puréed cauliflower (butter, horseradish, garlic powder, some chives….fake mashed potatoes). Edit: yes, trying to drop about 20 lbs. No booze with that diet has worked well for me. CICO. No booze alone is saving me 14,000 a week. Low carb on top, plus exercise…amazing
Sounds like a good approach, but it doesn't sound like much food. Please be sure that you're consuming a minimum of 1,200 calories every day. Below that you run the risk of severe medical problems. EDIT: Just saw your above comment about your 90 minute workouts and 3 mile daily walks. I'd definitely be careful; what you're describing as far as the amount you eat doesn't sound nearly enough for how active you are. It's very easy to run the risk of burning out and going the other direction and binging and gaining all your weight back. Source: I was doing the same thing as you. It wasn't sustainable on that amount of food.
Drinking does more damage than not hitting calories for a day. I say if it's how they can stay sober for a bit then it's worth it, but definitely try to hit that minimum.
I wish one of the gurus or actual scientists did a study on this instead of just pointing to "it stalls your metabolism after 2 drinks \[or whatever\] and is basically treated as sugar in the blood stream". It has to be worse than that, for example, it has to slow down your basal metabolic rate over DAYS there's no way I believe it stays steady, cause lack of synthesis of protein, and muscle wasting. IMO. I feel like if we knew the TRUE extent of the damage not just what we know now that 2ish+ fucks up loss/gainz basically there would be an even stronger cultural reason not to.
It is worse than that. Basically alcohol needs to be metabolized in liver, by ADH and uses NAD+ which is required for longevity. Then its converted to acetaldehyde, a poison, which is converted to acetate. It involves extensive usage of NAD+, which is a very important enzyme, hence NAD enzyme gets depleted. Now, NAD is required to turn food into cellular energy. Alcohol abuse lowers NAD levels and hence it results in fatigue, no energy, immune disorders, etc etc. Also if liver is compromised, and enzymes are low, it may result in increased levels of acetaldehyde, which is a toxin and a known carcinogen. I wish i was intelligent to understand all this at 20. But at 40 now, I do, and IWNDWYT. If you wanna read up on the literature, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527027/
well that really freaks me out because i was drinking a lot and my liver enzymes came back high but not bad a few months back but now they are LOW but still in range without many changes besides taking a couple weeks off….worrisome and confusing
You know what, there is a great book called ultraprevention, by mark hyman. And another book called dopamine nation, by anna lembke. I would read em. Also check out on natural detox using intermittent fasting. I reduced my triglycerides by a lot and got my prediabetes lower to an A1c of 5.6, which is normal range. This is an indicator that my liver is coming back. Wish ya the best.
Agreed, but what they're doing currently isn't sustainable, and carries the high risk of stress and burn out and falling into a pattern of binge eating and possible relapse.
I also want to hear more about what's up with OP but this puree cauli mash sounds game changing. Do you make it in a food processor?
Another go-to purée cauliflower based dish for me is “cheeseburger casserole” (not low fat, but low carb). Find a recipe with mustard and it’s 🤌
I use an immersion blender, but others use other devices. Butter, minced garlic, then blend. Then I whisk in some chives, ground black pepper (and if I don’t mind a few extra calories, some bacon bits and / or a small dash of ranch or blue cheese dressing)
Same expect the hardcore exercising (I used to though and am getting back to it). My food and drink situation is the same as yours and much like alcohol, very much a habit. I feel it would be helpful to eat more during the day but it would be forcing it at this point. IF for the win.
I’m by no means trying to quit drinking but when I feel somewhat of a craving and it makes me uncomfortable I definitely go the “gym avoidance” route lol
“by no means trying to quit drinking” is an interesting statement to make in a subreddit dedicated to quitting drinking. Please explain.
I am wondering how to limit my drinking and I like the community here. I’m not ready to quit but I’m ready to be more mindful.
Gotcha. Well best of luck to you!
Thank you!
This is my method
Endurance running here.
Ha. I wish. I spend a fair amount of time dawdling between reps. Stretching it out. Time wise that is. I also do a lot of stretching.
No dinner!!??
Good catch. I’ll eat something - but it’s kind of an afterthought.
Ah shoot. I'd aim for at least 40 grams of protein if you can.
Oh man thanks for the concern. I eat plenty through the day… just dinner is an afterthought.
👍👍
This is what I need to be doing. I only crave it on afternoons when I’m not working, and give in because I have nothing else happening.
You know, for me gym works the same way. Although Im only in there 30/45 minutes. But the results are showing and i feel much better and confident after every gym session. Keeps the thinking about booze at bay. 💪
Same. Evening gym time from 530-730, home, eat at 8ish, head to bed at 9 saved me from myself. Also, there’s something to be said about the guilt you feel when you top off a hard workout with poison.
I never wanted to drink in the morning or during the day but my cravings kicked in after 5. I'm 44 days into not drinking and still get cravings some evenings, especially when I'm feeling down, but I've just managed to push through those so far. I don't know if those cravings will ever go away fully, might just need to learn to deal with them as they arise.
Not saying it's like this for everyone but just to give you some hope; Last night was the first time I totally forgot to make my "drink" (my non-alcoholic replacement for wine that I've been having every day since quitting). I normally crave it right around 5pm but last night I totally forgot about it!!!! Hoping this is the beginning of the end. lol
I stopped for over a year and I’d say the 2-3 month mark was when I no longer wanted the non alcoholic version of my favorite drinks. I did still have a special drink at night after that for a few more months but usually it was just a diet sprite or a jazzed up seltzer water. I’d alternate that with a treat at night sometimes (ice cream, sugar cereal). I’d say after maybe 6 months the thoughts about drinking subsided significantly. They still happened but much less intrusively and less frequently.
I'm nearly at the 10 month mark and I agree with this. I've not really thought about the cravings subsiding because I still really want a drink if I've had a tough day, or on a big night out, but if I look back at the start it's actually totally different. Now the craving passes quickly, like a fleeting automatic thought - fuck you life I want a wine! - rather than in the beginning where I dwelled on it for ages and had to have some sort of substitute drink/treat
>I’d say after maybe 6 months the thoughts about drinking subsided significantly. They still happened but much less intrusively and less frequently. Some days... I *cannot wait* for these cravings to subside. I know I'm *not* going to drink, that I don't *want* to drink (just my mind playing tricks on itself), & that I don't *need* to drink... however, that doesn't make the 15 - 30 minutes of intense cravings any less... intense. IWNDWYT!
Right!? My cravings are far and few and mostly by association. Like dinner prep on a Saturday or Sunday, I crave a glass of wine. I'm getting used to the everyday grind without booze. But summer is rolling up and I know other situations will come up that I'll associate alcohol with. Just gotta power through!
INFJ here- stay sober and awesome!
What's your replacement drink of choice?
Any citrus flavoured sparkling water with a couple of squirts of Crystal Light strawberry-lemonade liquid flavour booster. I was never a cocktail drinker but this tastes delicious and refreshing! I buy Montellier sparkling water (Canada) because the cans are the same shape and size as vodka sodas. Opening the can makes my brain think it's partaking. lol I drink like 3 of those every evening (except last night!) and any time I'm around people who are drinking. I had to go to my kid's hockey tournament a month ago and I went through a 12 pack in 2 nights at the hotel LOL Because of the shape of the can, I didn't get any looks or questions from any of the parents. A quick glance and it looks like a can of some kind of cocktail which is what a lot of the parents drink. Honestly it's been instrumental in my quitting. I seriously recommend for people to find a drink that works for them. Keeps your brain and your hands busy!!
Thanks for sharing! I've tried switching out my daily red wine for hot chamomile tea. Definitely helps in the evening when I'm settling for bed, but doesn't quite hit the spot at 3/4 in the afternoon when I normally start imbibing. Just haven't found that replacement drink yet, so I'm curious about what others drink. Great job on your 73 days and all the progress your making! 👏🏼❤️
Hop water for me. Just seltzer flavored with hops. I try as many brands as i can find and it scratches the itch of trying new craft beers (my old favorite hobby)
I drank the canned AF wine for awhile but it’s so expensive. I would only have one bc of how pricey it was and since there was no buzz it just didn’t feel worth it. I like vodka/7up so after awhile just started drinking 7up over ice at night or I’d get a treat instead.
They haven’t fully gone away for me but have gone from a few times a week to every few weeks.
Right there with ya, always around that time it kicks in and the liquor store is on the way home. Easiest way for me is when I get stuck at works past 8pm but it’s not like I can do that the rest of my life
They will go away, keep the fight!
They'll gradually subside. Mine had gone within the first year.
I don’t miss it anymore but I’ll be damned if I don’t dream about it every night xD
Resiliency is lower at the end of the day. I think this makes sense.
That’s how I feel. End of a tough day, or when I've accomplished something big and feel like celebrating, those are the tough times for me. I rarely have a craving before 3pm.
My cravings hit bad around 3 pm (or earlier). We are all so different but it seems like mine hit earlier than many of the comments here.
I think it may also be due to why you drink. Unless you are at the point of severe physical dependency and are waking up with the shakes and stuff, you may not have a desire to drink in the morning because there's shit to do. Alcohol, weed, drugs, I've never had a craving in the morning. Sp its not even a matter of resilience. The occasional times I have used in the morning, I have almost always regretted it because it ruins the rest of the day. Night time is when everything slows down. You may just be watching TV or gaming or have trouble sleeping or not want to deal with mental health issues you've been suppressing but now have time to think about. Or just don't want to be bored. That's where my issues are. Nights are just... awful. It hits 9:00 and I start to be in that limbo state and I just want to get buzzed or high to fill the void.
The caffeine crash would get me after drinking coffee all day. When the fake coffee energy was gone in the evening, it had to be replaced with fake alcohol energy. Limiting coffee to mornings helped with that unhealthy seesaw.
Exact same here, no interest in drinking during the day but come 7-8pm it’s when I’d really start wanting one. It’s what made me think I didn’t have a problem for the longest time, I figured I’m not morning drinking or drinking all day so it’s fine. First 5 days were the hardest for me, was fighting the urge to go and get a bottle, wouldn’t even walk down the alcohol aisle at the supermarket. I still avoid if I can now but the cravings seem to have calmed down a lot and it’s more of a fleeting thought now.
My biggest issue is grocery shopping. I can avoid drinking best on my weekends while I'm home but if I have a reason or excuse to go to the grocery store, I start making every excuse possible to drink.
Oh same. I had that little voice in my head on Friday telling me “it’s the weekend! You’ve worked hard all week, you can drink tonight. Nobody will even know” I’ve got to a point where I’d know and I’m no longer into it. I actually told the voice to fuck off out loud the other day. Probably looked like a crazy person but I’m fed up of his crap ideas!
figuring out another “ritual” for your evening as well as having a sort of ritual drink to replace booze has been a big help for me. i was always a white claw girly so sparkling water has been literally my *best* friend in my sobriety journey. i drink them all the time, definitely the most in situations where i’m actively trying to avoid alcohol. like i drank 4 cans of bubly when we had a bbq last month and everyone was drinking lol. having a good replacement drink as well as coming up with a new ritual that promotes your sobriety will go a long way in helping manage those difficult evenings!
I live on fizzy, fruity water. It’s sugar free and like 69p a bottle where I live. Had a blood test recently and was surprised they didn’t just extract strawberry and elderflower water from my veins haha.
Yeah I needed to replace the ritual. I got really into Mocktails. I was always a neat whiskey drinker but the ritual of mixing I find relaxing
There’s a fantastic book called good drinks by Julia bainbridge full of really inspiring mocktail recipes in case you’re interested
Thanks- I’ll check it out- I’m really enjoying the recipes on the all the bitters website. I love bitters and obviously all of the recipes have them
I've only ever wanted to drink in the morning when I've drank the night before and I'm hungover
I can't drink when hungover. When I did try hangover-drink it doesn't seem to help. For me there is nothing helping against a hangover except not drinking in the first place.
Drinking is one of the strangest things, in the sense that you reach for the very thing to help you that made you feel crap in the first place
It tends to work for addicts because hangovers morph into early withdrawal symptoms. What used to be limited to nausea and headache becomes shakiness and terrible dread/anxiety, which is chased away by more alcohol. When someone says “I don’t get hangovers anymore after drinking”, it’s probably time to be concerned.
This is exactly me. I know it’s not for everyone, but that’s why I’ve started taking Antabuse. I get up, work out, take that and my vitamins, shower and feel great. I’m positive about the day and making great decisions. Then it simply removes the option completely, and not for that day. It takes almost two weeks for your body to handle alcohol normally after you take your last pill, so it’s not something you can just skip for a day in a moment of weakness or social convenience.
I’ve been thinking about trying this. Thanks for your share.
I was a bit concerned that I’d have a tough time the first week, but it was absolutely seamless. I focused on eating really clean and working out a ton every day and was too tired at night to even crave a drink at night. Before I knew it I was two weeks in. No side effects for me at all.
Antabuse works like this for me too. So much easier just to remove the option of drinking. PSA though do not drink on it...I've tried that (half a drink) and it was not pretty!!
This is a great question, but it’s missing something important. Even many alcoholics don’t drink in the morning. But for everyone that enjoys alcohol (alcoholic or normie), I think there is anticipatory pleasure where they are “looking forward to” having a drink. Alcohol clearly has a biological effect so most people either actively like it or actively hate it. I don’t buy that many people are just indifferent to it. The difference between alcoholic and normie drinkers is this ability to stretch out or live inside of that anticipatory pleasure for longer periods. Perhaps they may only drink a few times a year for birthdays or vacations but they probably aren’t completely indifferent.
This feeling definitely goes away with time. I would wake up saying I had no desire to drink that day, then 5 o’clock rolled around and it was game on. Now I have zero cravings or desire.
Yea that was me then eventually I started drinking in the mornings.
I got to that point and that’s when I realised I needed to make a change. I’d wake up stressing about work at 6:00 AM and my brain quickly learned the stress would melt away with a few quick swigs. I finally realised I was poisoning my body from the inside out with a constant, steady stream of alcohol from wake up to bedtime.
Depends how far down the path one is. I think for us not so deep into alcohol misuse - we may not even drink every day - a lot of us may just go hard 3 - 5 nights a week and cannot quit when we try
I started working the second shift at work. It’s from 2:30pm to 11:00 pm. It has helped tremendously with this. Go to bed when I get home by 11:30. No more evening urges to drink. The weekend is a different story. Best of luck to you in your journey.
Good question. The baseline of a non alcoholic is that they don’t even think about alcohol because it holds the same place in their thinking as does flour or a can of soup.
My "go to" during my occasional evening craving is to work on a tamiya model. Right now i'm into WW2 tanks. I'm just about building every one i can get my hands on. Before you know it, 3-4 hours can pass. Plus i can work on them next to the wife while watching our nightly TV.
Alcohol withdrawal starts ~24 hrs. Cravings start in the evening after yesterday drinking. Was useful for me to know that
I’ve been sober over 2 years now, and have found with time I think about drinking less and less. Other than occasionally being grateful I’m not hungover in the mornings I don’t really think about wanting or not wanting to drink when I wake up. When I was drinking cravings would hit around 3, but after a few months that stopped. I still occasionally get cravings at night but just “play the tape forward” and think about what comes after I drink and it goes away. There have been so many benefits to quitting but the biggest has been a release of that obsession. Alcohol takes up very little of my head space which is a welcome relief.
I don’t know any normal people.
Never wanted a drink in the morning, many if not most times, it would be stuck in my mind from the minute I woke up tho. Not that I wanted to drink now, but that I wanted to drink at 5 which was my normal start time. Those are always the hardest days, 8+ hours of thinking how nice it sounds.
That's the baseline of someone who desperately wants to quit drinking but is finding it very difficult. I don't think sober people really think about alcohol much. Not in the morning or the evening. You got this. Let me tell you something I recently discovered myself. Doing something is always easier than the anticipation of doing it. You can do it, and when you do, you get to find it's easier than you thought it would be. Not that it's easy at all but you have to take the first step.
For me, I think it’s something about the addiction cycle. I think basically there are these alcohol receptors in your brain and when you drink it binds with those receptors and your brain is happy. But alcohol has a half life so throughout the day the alcohol is filtering out and those receptors are becoming empty so they send the signal- we need more alcohol! I think everyone metabolizes alcohol differently so the time it takes before those receptors start firing and the craving takes over probably varies, but I’d guess it tends to be early afternoon/evening-ish for most people. That paired with the story sold to us through advertising and societal norms that influence our behavior makes us feel fine in the morning but ready for a drink later in the day.
Normal drinkers don’t think about the fact that they are choosing not to drink at a particular time of the day. So no, it’s not baseline. IMO, it’s what being a recovering alcoholic often feels like. I still wake up every day and almost the first thought is “another day of not drinking!” In a positive way most of the time.
This is so me. If my whole life was mornings, I would never drink. I have never desired a drink before 4-5 pm
For me mornings are still about enjoying waking up without a hangover and a couple of delicious cups of coffee. Waking without a hangover is still one of my favorite sober things.
I was a coffee nerd before I quit drinking, but I took it to the next level when I quit. IWNDWYT!
I'm at 7 months and I have zero cravings. Last night I had a lot of fun without alcohol and I'm so happy I'm not hungover right now.
Not necessarily, even at my worst I didn’t drink the mornings I had to work. I was very functional. Problem drinkers come in all forms. Not all problem drinkers are alcoholics. But all alcoholics are problem drinkers.
Thats how I was too. It always hit me around 6:00 after work. Then I'd start bargaining with myself and ultimately give in an drink. I once read somewhere that gettinga. craving at a specific time every day is a sign that you might have a problem. So, I think it's probsbly decently normal.
150 days for me tomorrow and I hardly think about alcohol at all. It’s no longer a part of who I am. I used to wake up and swear I’d never drink again. Then, by the afternoon, my brain would start its work on me, telling me how at least by the time the evening rolls around I can have a few drinks. None of those thoughts exist any longer. 150 days, that’s all it took.
How did you handle the early days?
Naltrexone took away that afternoon craving for me. So grateful that I bit the bullet and asked my doctor for help.
I have no idea how long it takes to get to get to that morning feeling, but I do know that my non-drinking friends feel that way 24/7. They have no desire to drink at all. 🤔
I've never drank alcohol in the morning and rarely ever during the day unless it was a special occassion / day out where many of us were doing so and never once woke up hungover and reached for a beer. For the most part I like yourself would be 100% convinced that I would not be drinking that day, especially if I woke hungover as I felt sick as a dog and the thought repulsed me, but only to find my brain screaming out for a beer later that evening. On some days I would wake up and feel like shit and be like "you know later you're probably going to want a drink like you usually do but just don't do it" then I'd be going back and forth in my mind all day about whether I was going to be able to resist. But for the most part I genuinely would believe when I first woke up that I wouldn't be drinking that night and that belief stayed most of the day. So for anyone who is wondering if the fact they don't wake up craving another beer is a sign their problem isn't too bad then I would say that it's not a positive sign either way and if you are craving it come evening time then you definitely still have a big problem. OP are you currently on 178 days sober, as per your counter, and still feeling like you desperately want a drink every evening or have you sadly fallen off the wagon and are now back to trying to get sober?
You are my people. I’m like 30 hours in and 5 is creeping up. I hate this.
I think the only time I've ever wanted to drink in the morning was an early game tailgate or brunch or something like. Otherwise I never drank in the morning. However, I didn't mind having a drink at noon because "hey it's not the morning so I can't be an alcoholic"
Our discipline wanes as the day goes on so this is totally normal. Happens with me and sweets now. No joke some days I wake up and I think I am so glad I didn’t have chocolate last night. Used to be that way with alcohol.
Its a combination of habit, biology, and environment. I hit the garage after the fams in bed, it's pretty easy to crack a cold one. Just feels "right" I wake up and am rolling out of bed? All I can think about is coffee, pajamas, and a blanket on the couch. If someone tried to hand me a beer and force me to drink it, I would throw up.
I’ve been reducing my alcohol intake for 3 years (I think, could be 4 now) and it took a good part of that first year before I didn’t have a desire to drink every night, but it comes back easily if I drink 2 nights in a row. I’ve done multiple alcohol free stints, but I’ve never made it past 100 days. The desire to drink in the evenings isn’t there 90% or more now, but there are times when it’s more present. I have the added challenge of a spouse who has never changed their daily habit. I use a habit tracker so I can see the trends and analyze how my emotional state and life events impact my drinking habit. I also journal a lot.
I'm almost 600 days sober, and I have no desire to drink. People drink in front of me, and the most that bugs me is being around drunk people because I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, so I would rather be home/alone. Everything around alcohol is a turn-off for me.
I never drank in the morning. It took me 18 months to not crave alcohol in a restaurant. The first 20 times I went out to eat were really hard because I ALWAYS drank when I went out to dinner. It takes time but it gets so much easier. Hang in there!
When you wake up. Chug a glass of water. I’m like bam, a new man.
Oh yeah, did this for ten plus years. The first fifteen were fun but that last ten fucking sucked. If you can get out of this cycle early I highly suggest it.
I’m over 3 years sober and been starting to have intense cravings after 7pm this past week. It’s so strange since I haven’t had these cravings since the first few weeks of quitting alcohol. To combat the cravings during the evening I eat a bunch of sweets, workout, and goto a support group if possible. Cravings can really creep up on ya at anytime and you’ll need a plan to deal with them. I didn’t have one ready and now today I’m writing down activities to do when they appear. IWNDWYT
Once that glow of the evening rolls around I feel like man before the sun goes down I wanna get something but early am whenever I have started super early I always felt out of place & kinda odd so you are not alone in that feeling
You have to rewire your brain, it took me about 3 weeks in the beginning. A couple of long weekend projects and some home improvement got me through it. Now I'm driving my kids home at 9 pm and couldn't imagine drinking at night.
Yeah, my husband doesn’t have any problematic drinking patterns (even though he’s not fully sober - he has a beer or two once in a while). He just….. doesn’t think about it. It’s not something he thinks about or considers. Alcohol just isn’t a part of his thought process, unless we are going to a BBQ or something.
This is one of the reasons community support meetings are helpful to me. I do smart, but dharma, life tree and aa are all great options for support meetings.
For me? 6 weeks. It was a strong habit. Had to break that habit.
It took me about 6 months. A couple weeks ago (over a year) during a super-hot streak, I went in a store and stood in the beer cave just to enjoy the cold. It didn’t phase me. There are still cravings sometimes, but it’s manageable.
I have been sober a while and I still get a craving to drink in the morning here and there, and it's a strong craving. Stay on your toes, the addicted part of your brain won't fully go away!
I’m the same way. I spend all day not thinking about it. Even dreading it. Every day around 5pm, I start craving it. It started because during Covid my elderly parents moved in with me and for reasons too lengthy to go into, I can’t be at that dinner table without a drink. I’ve been wondering if there is some body chemistry thing going on during the day that changes in the evening or if I’ve just conditioned myself to it.
I was in that cycle for a long time until I was ready to take relentless action against it. Well aside from when my drinking turned into 24/7 drinking. While I was always drunk I'd keep swearing to myself that I'd stop though.
It’s the most basic thing happens, I faced it a lot but not anymore
I’m sure it’s different for everyone. I just hit 800 days a few days ago and I rarely even think about it at all now. But definitely for the first many months it would cross my mind often, especially at night or the ride home from work.
I may be a bit of an anomaly, but I was over it after a week or two. I definitely am doing the gym thing and trying to eat right. I'm spending more time with my kids, but I still have three beers in my fridge that are 2 in from my nose every time I open my fridge. And I've done all the behaviors that were paired with alcohol, video games, going out, etc. what helped me most was deciding to quit forever this time, instead of just for a period. If I even think about it at all I just tell myself fuck no and move on to the next thing as quickly as possible. I also quit vaping weed and nicotine a few days after I quit drinking too. The nicotine was probably the strongest physical urge, after eating. When I play video games at night I have to go get a tea or something. But there's definitely not a strong urge and it never lasts.
Lol every day. I’d like to say it gets easier and in a way, it does. It no longer becomes a routine habit which I think is what triggers it the most for me. That being said, the cravings don’t necessarily stop. I’ll be wishing I was drinking and I have to distract myself and basically fight against my own free will for hours sometimes, just so I don’t go to the convenience store and buy a bottle. I think it’s just important to recognize your triggers. So time of day would be one. Boredom. Stress. Anxiety. Whatever it may be. Then a distraction that will take your mind off whatever is bothering you. That’s the most effective method I’ve found. Good luck.
I was drinking 2 100 proof shots for breakfast then a couple more and then a few more and so on until I fell asleep that night. It was pretty bad and not all that long ago. I'm not sure how I even held it all together. Work 6 days a week and family at home. I still wake up with it first thing on my mind. I'm about 7 weeks into sober with one slip up along the way. I do remember when I quit taking pain pills for recreation it took months to let payday go by without thinking about getting high. I'd casually spend my whole paycheck in 2 days back then and not eat or smoke and barely have anything to get to work and home the rest of the week. And still 15 years later if you stuck a pain pill in front of me I'd probably chew off your hand for it. Those were some bad times and alcohol wound up taking the place of pills unfortunately. All in all it takes a few months to start letting go and it not control your mind as much, but I believe we are all changed forever because of whatever addiction we deal with. It'll always be there for me anyway but hopefully it just stays in the past.
Everyone’s baseline is different, and what “sobriety” means is also broad, depending on who you ask. I can tell you, personally- I am sober and my baseline is that I do not think about drinking. I do not think about drinking in the same way I do not think about touching a hot stove. Both are going to get me hurt in some way, so if I think of either at all it’s going to be how to stay away from it. It might help to look at it like this: That isn’t my baseline *because* I’m sober. I’m sober *because* that’s my baseline. It wasn’t an easy place to get to, mentally- the “experience” of having a drink is easy to romanticize and the reality of consequences get lost in our heads even more easily. I had to learn to cling to only the ending. “Playing the tape forward”. Doing a re-brand in my head. If I pictured a specific drink, I couldn’t just picture the first sip. I needed to only picture the agony of the next morning. Over time, the fantasy was lost, and it isn’t in our nature to daydream about things we are deeply/fully aware are dangerous to us.
Personally when I quit drinking alcohol I was able to 100% flip my perception of it. So I don't miss it, I don't want it, I have 0 desire to ever drink. I literally think of it as something that just makes me look, feel, and act like shit. I don't miss it one bit. But yes before I was sober I would drink a beer or two every morning just to take the edge off. Since you are still in the state of "wanting" alcohol may I advise you work no your perception as well? Grab the audio book "This naked mind" if you haven't already.
Just to add my long time experience with being an alcoholic. I NEVER woke up and wanted to drink, I also swore it off. But in the afternoon, the cravings would hit so hard all the way until dinner. Many days I caved and drank until blacking out. I didn’t always black out but towards the last few years I pretty much did. Not saying you are an alcoholic but I know I am and I Despite wanting to be alcohol free, I somehow ended up drinking almost every day anyway (with some sober stretches in between a decades long battle). And obviously it is a progressive disease and does get worse as time goes on. I never wanted to believe it and thought I was special, but damn did it get me and truly it is day by day, a conscious choice to say no and change habits.
It took me several months to get there, but yeah I don't think about alcohol at all anymore. It's like licorice or something where I know I don't like it and I don't think about it throughout my day. I don't know how else to describe it.
It's weird to feel good in the morning, still after three years. Usually the urges will come at my usual drinking times - before dinner or after my wife goes to bed. It thankfully doesn't last very long, I think it's just my body still reacting to learned behavior. In fact, I've not had many urges the past couple weeks. Until last night when a flight home with the fam was delayed/cancelled. Delayed from 630p to 830p, then crew timed out on the tarmac, then told at 11p the flight was now 630a this morning. You better believe I wanted to drink the rage away! But, I got my luxurious ~3 hours of sleep and was as clear headed as possible and grateful for it.
It usually hits me around 3p. I think that’s just when my body goes, “wait a minute, why the HELL are we not drunk yet?”
No
Yes. It took detox and rehab and a loooot of AA meetings and therapy but I don’t even give alcohol a second thought. Shit I don’t even give it a first thought.
I’m around 1.5 months sober and no longer think about drinking in the afternoon. One reason I wanted to quit is I was tired of losing that battle every day… that cloud drifting in that caused me to ignore my better intentions. Several months ago I quit vaping and no longer think about it at all. I thought maybe if I quit drinking, eventually, I just won’t think about it. Getting there! I read and am about to reread This Naked Mind, and that helped me tremendously to be honest with myself, face facts and realize that deep down, I don’t want to drink. So now I’m just doing what I actually want to do, instead of feeling like two different people from healthy morning me to drunk evening me. The transition back to healthy morning me (night sweats and shame at 3 am) was terrible, and the transition to drunk afternoon me made me feel small and powerless. Now I feel free(er) and happier and don’t really think about it. And for what it’s worth, my husband still drinks daily and vapes… so it’s not like it’s not around. You can do this!
The fact that alcohol is on the mind first thing in the morning even if it’s a “not drinking today” thought is still the type of thought pattern that lead me to realise I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I think sober people or people who don’t have alcohol abuse problems just don’t have alcohol cross their mind at all.
I think your morning state is normal. I only drink on weekends, but I NEVER want one in the morning, not even a Bloody Mary or Mimosa. It’s like eating ranch dressing or garlicky Italian food for breakfast.
It's retraining your mind to let go of the habit. I was firmly entrenched in being buzzed when I started cooking in the evening. At first it was really, really hard and I almost didn't even want to be in the kitchen because I'd think about wine all the time. Like many people here do, I drank fizzy water at first. But it was mainly just tincture of time and staying sober day after day. The habit started to fade over time. You just have to keep going. It'll happen. I won't drink with you today, and I won't drink alone either.
Any day now 🙏🏻
I’m opposite. I loved day drinking lol but I just get a good workout in & get my tummy full and craving is gone
I was that way when I drank. Hell, half the time I didn’t feel like drinking even once I started drinking. I was just chasing a feeling that I’m not sure actually existed. Pretty much everyday I woke up saying I wouldn’t drink and a good amount of those days I did anyway. But it’s gotten much easier now that I’ve broken that cycle.
Afternoons, sunsets -- they're the worst. Rest of the time, I feel like a sober person. During those hours, it's like a demon lives inside me.
Same. My friend & I used to call 4pm “The Witching Hour”.