What craving alcohol and a supermarket meltdown have in common

I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!!

I was planning on writing on a different subject this week, and then yesterday turned to crap. A project I’ve been working on for nearly a year took a brutally disappointing turn, leaving me in a lose-lose professional situation. One of my goats is sick. My 15-year-old dog, Sally, refuses to eat any food that doesn’t give her the runs. Someone wrote me a mean email about a story I published. My plans for knocking tasks off my ever-increasing to-do list went out the window; any free time was dedicated to the solemn and important work of feeling sorry for myself. 

And I thought longingly about how good it would feel to do what other people do when they have a bad day—get drunk. 

I wasn’t in real danger of drinking; as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m well aware that when I drink, I turn the good things in my life into what comes out of Sally when she’s had too much turkey. It’s why—even more than 16 years after my last drink—my partner and I have agreed that he can’t keep hard alcohol in the house. Because I have bad days. Because I still get cravings. And when those things happen, I don’t want hard alcohol close at hand. 

I want there to be multiple, active steps between me and a bottle of booze. I’m an alcoholic, but I’m also lazy. If I want to drink, I need to get off the couch, drive down to the store, wait in line, and buy a bottle. 

The more distance I put between myself and that bottle of vodka, the more likely it is that the craving will have passed by the time I reach the checkout counter. 

I think about my cravings like a small child throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. This fussy, underdeveloped, immediate gratification-centric part of my brain screams and cries, demanding my mom buy frosted princess sugar-Os instead of the standard, boring Cheerios. 

When I become this little brat called Craving, I have no shame. Shrieking and red-faced in the cereal aisle, I’m utterly immune to my mom’s mortification and the people around me. All I know is I’m not leaving the store without a box of frosted princesses. Then, one of two things happens:

1. Mom buys the sugar cereal, and my tears disappear. My craving dissipates into excitement, and eventually—once I shove those sweet little princesses down my throat—I’m temporarily satiated.  

2. Mom doesn’t buy the cereal. My wails get louder. I stomp my feet. I scream. I fall dramatically to the floor, completely unaware that everyone in the store thinks I’m the only four-year-old on the planet who deserves to be shipped off to military school. I pout on the way home. I eat a snack and watch some cartoons. By dinner time, all is forgotten. 

Regardless of whether I get what I’m craving, the craving itself passes. But what happens next time I’m in the grocery store? Or outside the grocery store? Or want literally anything I can’t or shouldn’t have?

If my mom took option one (and she would still want me to be clear that she would never take option one), the craving toddler in my brain would know exactly what to do to get what she wants: throw a fit worthy of Veruca Salt. If my mom chose option two, my demonic four-year-old self might still throw a fit, but with much less certainty in a successful result. Each subsequent grocery store trip would get easier. 

Listen, I’m not a parent, and this is an analogy about substance use and craving. As an aunt to two little girls, I understand that sometimes staying sane necessitates caving to a child’s demands. This is not a post about parenting. It’s about the devious and demanding part of your brain that tells you the only way to alleviate the discomfort of craving is to give it what it wants. It’s lying.

Cravings suck, but cravings pass. Bad days also suck, but those pass too. Today, I’m feeling better than I did yesterday. I’m not great; I still have to shovel my way out of the mess that buried me, but I’m working on it. The shoveling might be putrid, frustrating, and exhausting work, but I’m making progress. And it’s significantly easier to accomplish because I’m not doing it with a mind-bending, stomach-churning hangover. 

I’d love to hear about your strategies for dealing with cravings—so please comment below!

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I’m not a doctor or mental health professional, so my advice shouldn’t be construed as medical or therapeutic advice. You are free to take or leave it.