One of the biggest challenges I faced when I was stopped drinking was getting over the trigger to buy booze on the way home from work. My commute was pretty long (about an hour) so it gave me plenty of time to raise the drama bar and substantiate my reason for drinking. My after work wine shopping was so regular, that I had to rotate the shops I stopped at so that I didn’t look like the town drunk.
This is how the diologue in my head went:
- I need a drink because ‘It was a tough day’ – actually it was a normal day!!!
- I need a drink to slow my brain and body down – Usually I was in a rush – I didn’t actually need to rush that much – I firmly believe this was me laying out a reason to drink.
- I need a drink because I’m Feeling guilty that I was skipping off work – I had a high pressured job but I’m a single parent and I had no one else to pick up my son.
- I’m need a drink because I’m hungry and have no time to eat most of us like the high of drinking on an empty stomach
- I need a drink because I’m unsatisfied and bored with feeling like THE RAT in the rat race
I tried to bust this home commute trigger a good few times before I manged to get it. The good news was that this was such a strong, deeply entrenched trigger, once I had put the focus on it and busted through it once, it was immediately easier to do the next day. The first time was a bit painful, but after that it was really significantly easier not to be triggered to buy booze on the way home from work.
Here’s how I did it:
- I chose a day very soon to beat the trigger.
- To reduce stress and keep motivation high, I logged onto the on-line community a lot ( I did lots of posting and discussing this issue especially in the leading up days).
- I had very relaxing music to play in the car.
- I ate a good meal just before leaving work, as this dampens cravings really well (sort out the healthy eating once this is all a bit more settled).
- I logged on to the on-line community just before leaving work and promised no matter what to log on again when I got home.
- I prepared myself mentally and I accepted that I would get a craving in all likelihood but it would only have a life of 2 hours (they tend to bugger off after 2 hours or so).
- Once home I planned to settle in for a very no house-work, chill-out evening.
So I got in my car and it was all fine and dandy until I got about 5 miles from home. Suddenly a power craving hit my neck, shoulders and head. I was fizzing and aching with THE WANT.
The first point to note is that this craving used to hit me way earlier in the commute so all my efforts had bought me a lot of positive change, but there was still an awful lot of struggle to go through. I had my fall back plan, surf the craving, eat more, do not do any ‘prepping’ jobs at all – just Netflix.
Fall back plans that are simple are invaluable because cravings get messy mentally, and we fall back to old tried and tested methods to get rid of the mess (i.e. get wine! Again), this is what the fuck it switch is all about.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, it wasn’t easy but it was doable.
The next day’s commute was much much easier. Very quickly the trigger was effectively dead – triggers can change though (sneaky buggers) and I found that if I were driving home and I had the thought ‘god this used to be so difficult by now I’d be craving…’ that would set off a craving – by that stage I was just able to tell that little voice in my head to shut up!
More Great Strategies to Stay Sober from the author of this post
Make This the Week That Your Sobriety Takes Off