I made it through the holidays without a drink! That was a milestone for me. In 2021, I had quit drinking *except* for the last two weeks of the year, so I did have an alcohol-induced holiday season. I had been planning the same, more or less, for 2022, and had allowed myself to drink during a summer vacation. Thoughts on this thread led me to decide to do a full 2 years alcohol-free before revisiting the question of whether I wanted to drink again. So in August, I decided to commit to that. And thereby had an AF holiday period. I had some cravings but was overall so much better off in abstaining. Cheers to all of you AF posters!
This is awesome!!!
Also what a great goal. My goal was to get to a point where if I ever chose to drink, it wouldn't be in response to a craving.
I've solidly learned to differentiate between legitimately wanting something because it has a tangible benefit for me and a craving something.
I learned this with caffeine first. I quit coffee shortly after quitting alcohol. It was the pandemic and I was retired. I had no reason to force myself to have artificial energy. If I was tired, I just rested.
Quitting coffee was mind blowing, and in the short term, way more intense than quitting alcohol; but I drank a lot more coffee than I did alcohol, so that makes sense.
But coffee cravings disappeared pretty quickly. After a few months I had none. However, I'm very aware when I actively, consciously want some caffeine. I might feel lethargic and want a boost because I'm in the mood to be more alert or I have something to do.
It's not exciting at all, it doesn't feel very satisfying, it's like taking an acid reducer if I have reflux, or eating a crappy protein bar because I'm hungry and it's what's available. I proactively want it, it does the job reasonably well, but there's zero excitement, because it's just not objectively that great.
Cravings make consumption exciting and very, very satisfying.
Looking back, it now feels weird and uncomfortable to remember how excited I would get about my daytime coffee and evening wine. Like, who gets that jazzed over beverages that both cause heartburn and fuck with my sleep??
I'm back to having caffeine every morning because my MD wanted to put me on narcotic stimulants for narcolepsy-ish symptoms and I was like "uh, no, I'll try some tea first, thanks ya frickin' pusher" and the tea has been sufficient. I need an addiction to narcotic stimulants like I need a bullet in the head. Fuuuck.
But I don't "love" the tea the way I LOVED the morning coffee, or the way I LOOOOOOVED the evening wine. That was downright fetishistic, and that's the kind of blissed-out response that cravings create when the brain gets it's fix.
It's one of the great ironies of life that finding something extremely satisfying is a strong indicator that you may have a pathological relationship with it.
Now that I can so clearly identify cravings, I'm very, very careful which ones I reinforce by giving in to them. If it's something u I really healthy, like getting out in nature, then I lean in whole heartedly into the craving and satisfaction. But if the craving is for something that can cause harm??? I now give it a serious side eye.
It's that old overdone wolf parable. You strengthen the wolf you feed. You strengthen whatever cravings you give in to.