Good morning, fellow sobernauts, IWNDWYT, 😁!
We may be anonymous strangers on the internet, but we have one thing in common. We may be a world apart, but we’re here together!
Welcome to the 24 hour pledge! I’m pledging myself to not drinking today, and invite you to do the same. Maybe you’re new to c/stop drinking and have a hard time deciding what to do next. Maybe you’re like me and feel you need a daily commitment or maybe you’ve been sober for a long time and want to inspire others.
It doesn’t matter if you’re still hung over from a three day bender or been sober for years, if you just woke up or have already completed a sober day. For the next 24 hours, let’s not drink alcohol!
Well done for developing plan before the cravings hit, that’s excellent.
I found it helpful to break habits. So before I started cycling to work, I changed the bus I caught from the station, because the stop for that bus wasn’t near the supermarket where I’d go in to buy wine. If I’m working from home, I mark the end of the working day with an exercise session instead of a glass of wine.
I got more organised and started meal planning and getting groceries delivered, so I always had food in the house and didn’t go to the supermarket for a ready meal and “I’ll just get wine while I’m here.”
Saving up the money I wasn’t spending on booze and buying myself rewards for milestones.
Cycling to and from work, which in combination with the meal planning means that once I’m home, I’m not leaving the flat and there’s no wine in here but there are food and books and my bed.
Playing the tape forward - yes, it’s a lovely sunny day and a glass of wine sounds nice, but think forward to tomorrow morning when you’ve drunk the entire bottle and you’ve got a murderous hangover and you can’t cycle to work and you’ve got to get the Tube, with other people, and you with a hangover. Eurgh.
Going to bed. Nothing like being under the duvet in your pyjamas with your teeth clean for stopping a booze run. When you’re an adult, you can go to bed whenever you like and nobody can stop you.
HALT the BS - am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, Bored, Stressed/Sad? Address those and you may well find you’ve addressed the craving, because the craving is a symptom of something else.
I very rarely get cravings these days, and if I do, I just sort of watch it as it crosses my mind and then disappears out of sight. I’ll then consider what brought that on, and usually it’s the ghost of a habit, or an association, like the aforementioned lovely sunny day.