This alcoholic mind

Unbelievable how the mind works. I’ve been sober since I’ve been on this app and back into the meetings. Prior run was 1 year, then years later about 7 months. Relapsed earlier this year and it took several months to stop.

Anyways, I’m humming along pretty good, some minor cravings but today was the worst and for no conscious reason, like craving the taste of a drink. I merely went to the UPS store, about 3 slots down from the old liquor store. Looked over and thought about the waste of it all, all those days, but I carried on and came home. Didn’t think about booze at all.

I get home and start working (I work from home) and my heart starts going nuts. It hit 99 BPM on my watch. This craving was odd because I wasn’t imagining a delicious refreshing drink. It was more like my body screaming for something to calm it down.
I recalled reading a post here where someone mentioned to breathe. So I did. Deep calm breathing for about one minute. BPM dropped to 70.
Still shaking a bit but the worst is over.
This never happened to me before. My normal heart rate is 55 or so.
Anyways just wanted to share that the breathing did the trick.
Thanks to whoever posted that.

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Wow, what a scary chain of events. I’ve had several anxiety attacks over this past couple of months of alcohol free living that came with alcohol cravings. I see this as further evidence that it’s a chemical addiction and out of my power besides mind over matter. Breathing exercises really do help. Thanks for sharing these thoughts from your alcoholic mind. It helps knowing that there are others fighting this fight and that these symptoms are real biological responses to a chemical addiction and not signs of weakness. Getting through them makes us so strong!

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