I can’t avoid completely thoughts about drinking. It scares me because I have heard that relapse starts in our head much earlier than our lips touch a glass with wine.
I attend 3-4 meetings a week, sometimes 2-3.
I work with my sponsor, we started step 8 recently.
But I feel that’s not enough. I need something else to make my sobriety more solid.
Any thoughts, ideas, friends?
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Taking commitments athe meetings helped me and kept me more accountable
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Just thoughts. Hopefully it passes soon. I pray on it
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Try a service position. Hear it’s a game changer. I’m new and I’m going to try the same
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It's hard not to think about it. But it'll get easier within time. I constantly dream of me drinking again. But I wake up and am sober.
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I had the compulsion to drink for about the first 6 months or so of early recovery. Now that I have a little time under my belt, the compulsion has been lifted. This worked for me by calling my sponsor, working the steps properly - especially focusing on doing a thorough step 4, going to meetings, making other sober female friends, and helping another alcoholic. I also attend therapy twice a week to assist with the trauma that led me to drink and had a recovery coach. Great suggestions about service work. If you work a strong program and trust in your higher power, the gifts will keep coming. Good luck.
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Yes, relapsing starts way before that first drink. I can only speak for myself but I try to stay in tune to my feelings. By looking back at my relapses I can see that I got lazy, angry, indifferent, etc. EVERYTHING bothered me before that first drink. Our disease is incredibly difficult to manage for me.
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I see you do yoga, it’s a great tool. I do meditations, yoga, workout, journal and try to socialize through outdoor group activities. Recently I have started answering my own questions of what is it that I look for in alcohol, I was very surprised with my answers. In any case I realized that I need to make a separation between who I was (the person that keeps thinking about alcohol because that’s all I’ve know for the last 20+ years) and the new me (the person that doesn’t need to go back to old habits because they don’t align with who I am anymore). Realizing and understanding this has helped a lot in my progress of not thinking about alcohol nearly as much, and when I do, I don’t really want it because that’s not who I am anymore.
Thanks friends for great suggestions ! I feel much better
More meetings. Surround yourself with strong sober women. Talk about your thoughts as they come.
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I read that they are called "thought bombs" and they start long before you take that first drink. I try to remind myself of that when they happen. I had one year sobriety before. I can tell you those thoughts subside over time. I think by week 5 (or less) I no longer thought about having a drink, until I intentionally picked it up again, how I regret it. It's so much easier to not take that first drink than to try not to drink all over again.
Read Alcohol Explained by William Porter. It explains what Alcohol does to keep you addicted.
Gillian Tietz has a website/podcast called Sober Powered. She is a recovering alcoholic with a wealth of information on alcoholism.
They helped me understand what was going on in my head and body. Reach out anytime Prayers always 
When I start getting the feeling I call someone and PRAY! Been working for 9 months so far.
Just force another thought it’ll stop
I don’t really have any advice beyond what’s already been given many times, but sometimes it just sucks. All you can do is just keep moving forward and remember that it sucks a lot less than the consequences of drinking will. That’s what I’m doing anyway.
What is your drug of choice
Jane I think we all have passing thoughts about drinking. What is lifted from us is the obsession to drink.
We become armed with the tools to handle those fleeting thoughts. When the “wouldn’t a glass of wine” thought comes, we now remember the truth of where that leads. The romance is gone, so to speak.
Keep doing the work. Take on a service commitment if you can, as has been mentioned. And sponsor newcomers. As soon as you are ready. Taking others through the steps is incredible. It is the best way I’ve found to stay connected to my program.
What are you using to replace the time spent drinking? Most people are shocked to find how much idle time they now have when not socializing around alcohol and those gaps of time are spent obsessing over a past life that wasn't much good for you. Find those things in life that you put on pause while you were focused on drinking and go refocus your efforts on making them a priority. Find new passions or hobbies. Pursue new interests. In time, you'll fill that time with healthy activities and there'll be no time to think about drinking anymore.
Service work and commitments are what keep me feeling part of the program. and wanting to stay sober. Helping someone else is helping yourself.
I've realized recently that all the things I thought of as positives about alcohol were an illusion. Instead of constantly reminding myself that the bad outweighs the good, I just recall that there is no positive aspect of drinking alcohol, so there's no mental struggle.
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