Day 4 - Where are the cravings?

Hello friends, especially the many awesome folks in the LDB group who have started this Alcohol Free mission with me this week! The group admin lady posted a list earlier of all the people starting the 100 day challenge and it's inspiring to see how many of us are partaking in this journey together! So here's a cheers to all of us that we stick to the plan and reach that 100 days together through supporting each other, inspiring each other and holding each other up when times get tough so we remain on that sober bus to a better, happier, healthier life with more cash in our wallets.

This was added after the rest of this entry was posted:

I did a little spontaneous experiment this evening. I popped in to my local supermarket to get some stuff to cook for dinner after my hill training run. It was hot, I was thirsty and wanted something alcohol and sugar free that was not water or milk or diet soda to drink on the way out the store. You know what I found? NOTHING!!!! Everything to drink was one of the above, the vast majority being drinks containing added sugar! Fruit juice is laden with sugar too. I was actually angry, ended up with a cold Energade. This is the dilemma we face going alcohol free and opting for healthier choices. So it seems I have to stick to water for quick cold drinks on the go. Or take my own home made drinks when I go out!

So my journey into day 4 so far has been a bizarre one. The first time I did this AF thing for 54 days, I remember the first few days and weeks being ridiculously difficult with cravings for alcohol, it was driving me crazy at times. This time I'm not experiencing that. I do notice feeling this stranger hunger of sorts in my gut for much of the day, and it's not manifesting into that mentally brainwashed desire and crave for booze, it feels more like a hunger for food, which I feed every now and then and it doesn't quite go away, but it's not strong, it's just there and mildly noticeable. I'm not craving alcohol, at no point do I feel like going to the liquor store or the pub!

Having given this some thought I'm realising the probable reason is that I'm on holiday and relaxed. The usual stresses and triggers of daily life in a normal working week are not there at the moment. Examples being my job which I hate, it's boring and mind-numbingly repetitive and quite uninteresting, and frustrating because it's a dead end in the company with no scope to go anywhere ever, as long as I'm there I'll be doing the same thing forever, frustrated further by my dickyleak asshole obnoxious bully of a boss who treats people like shit and pushes my blood to boiling point regularly which constantly stresses my anger to the point of "needing" a strong drink. The traffic to work and (especially) back is equally as stressful, the sheer volume of dimwitted idiots driving vehicles on our roads gets my hackles raised every day, which on the way home gets the foul mood fired up which gets me aching to get home fast and my head into a bottle of whiskey! Of course my wife's bad moods in the evenings and the yelling and loud squabbling between the 3 females in my house seals the deal to get drunk after a shit day at work!

These are the main triggers which normally get me drinking, none of which are a factor right now, I only return to work next Thursday. For the moment is peace and relaxation, recharging the soul.

I did have one mild trigger today, my shitty old laptop keeps crashing. Since a Windows 10 update earlier in the week it keeps bombing out randomly and Windows won't allow me to revert back to a previous restore point, nothing works despite wasting much of this day trying to fix it. At one point I lost my cool and punched the damn thing hard, fleetingly feeling the need for a drink, but that was over fast enough. I am in control of the desire to drink at the moment!

You can imagine my last AF period, quitting the booze yet all the triggers remained in full force from day 1, compounded by an even more irritable attitude because I couldn't escape to my old solace of the dark fog of being drunk, it was a difficult time despite all effort and intention to be positive. I'm generally quite short tempered, it was easy to get into the mood to drink!

This time I reckon the timing is perfect for starting this thing - after the drunken chaos of Christmas and New Years, with enough of a head start to get into the sober vibe before the hell of my regular daily routine gets back into full swing again, it should be enough time to get comfortable not drinking before then without.

Maybe, just maybe, if I'm not drinking, and relaxed about not drinking, the desire to smash some people's faces in won't be fueled by an overpowering desire to self-destruct with alcohol, which will make dealing with said people's bullshit a lot easier!

Saying all this now, I'm realising that this is the year I need to find another job. I'm dreading going back to the misery of my job, dreading it, but work is scarce, particularly as a white male in a racist, politically and economically corrupt country dominated by affirmative action, BEE, etc. My boss knows this, and plays this card regularly. It will be near impossible to find a decent job which is why I continue to hang onto my crap employment and the psychological bullying of my boss who is a big driver of my alcohol problem.

Anyway, I don't mean to be negative. I WILL REMAIN POSITIVE THROUGH THIS EXPERIENCE!!! (LOL)

Finding new employment is just one of my goals for 2018. Other big goals are to register for and embark on studying for a degree through Unisa, a distance learning university, and I have some huge goals in my running, as mentioned before.

Back to the drinking, up to now I don't feel any desire to drink alcohol. There's been one minor test so far, after a run with my club mates on Tuesday evening, another sweltering hot summers evening running on the beachfront, my buddy pulled out a box of cold beer. It was tempting, but I found it oddly easy to say no without regretting doing so and enjoyed the ice cold water I had in my car instead.

Yesterday I took the family to the beach, opposite one of my favourite old drinking holes, the Blue Peter, we usually end up there after a trip to the beach. Yesterday all I could think of was how ridiculously expensive the place has become and that thought was a complete turn off from any desire to go there. I did not miss the place as we walked past to get back to the car, knowing the likelihood of some of my good friends being there was strong.

Tomorrow will be a big temptation. Wife and I have tickets to go and watch the first day of a 5 day cricket test match between South Africa and India at Newlands Cricket Stadium. It's a long day in the sun, the tradition is guys go spend a day drinking copious amounts of cold beer enjoying a festive vibe watching cricket and partying from 9am to 6pm. I've done it before, it's great fun but a solid pissup. I will find alternatives to the booze, of course, but again it's the dilemma of what to drink instead! I'll figure it out, we may only go for half the day and leave when it gets too rowdy.

Right now I'm going for a run, hill repeat training with my training group, then I come home and format my laptop with a full re-install of Windows, I'm going back to Windows 7 because W10 fucks up my equipment!

Have a nice evening!