Morning all. Oh, bless your heart @WendyWagon I'm sorry you've had a hellish night, but glad the tum has gone down. That was proper scary. Hopefully it was trapped wind, which can be utterly horrible all by itself. Hope that it was a one-off and you're continuing to mend.
@Anna73moose I'm sorry you were so sad in Tesco's. I can well associate with that. When I was in the earliest days of giving up, back in 2017, I burst into tears in Aldi when I walked past a cut-price whisky display (Scotch was my toxin of choice).
I think it's helpful to call it a form of grief. You are grieving for the loss of what you formerly thought was your comfort and "fun friend", and for the realisation that it had been deceiving you all that time. Like a "best mate" who's been trying to poach your OH on the sly for ages, or a work colleague who you thought was an ally but who had actually been slagging you off in the coffee room and sniping about you to your boss. Betrayal hurts. And losing something that you thought brought you joy (although it didn't) is hard. Plus feeling angry and humiliated that you let it dominate you and draw you into its insidious grip. These are all things that I have felt, and still feel sometimes.
I think it's important to allow yourself to grieve the loss of the drink. Look up a grieving website and follow the stages of grief - allow yourself to feel and process them, with the loss of drinking being the body-casing in the casket, if that might be helpful. And know that you are not here because you are weak, stupid or easily led. You are here because you are strong and you deserve the better future that you are making for yourself.
I've said this before in a previous thread, but I'll paraphrase myself again. Sorrow and grief at the loss of drinking and the drinking-feelings in the early stages of the first few glasses is a bit like attending the funeral of a much-loved aunt. She's gone and you are beside yourself at the loss of her warm, witty persona, her funny anecdotes, her crazy adventures. But after the last vol-au-von at the wake has been cleared away, your mind starts to turn, and it occurs to you - actually she wasn't that much fun. She had a nasty, cruel streak, which laughed at the misfortune of others. Her jokes were at the expense of "lesser" people. Sometimes too much time in her company made you feel physically sick. She humiliated herself and others and her funny anecdotes delighted in this. Her crazy adventures generally revolved around drunken misadventures in public that could've had unpleasant consequences for herself and others (like the time she puked on a Policeman or wet herself on the night-bus to Camden! Hilarious!). Actually, looking back, when you think about it - Fun Aunty was really rather a bit of a sh~t. Part of you isn't sorry she's gone, quite frankly.
But that's also quite a simplistic view. Booze has gripped us all in different ways, at different levels. Sometimes it has "helped" us (even if only superficially). It's OK to feel wretched without it. But we've started to see it for what it really is and that's never nice, about anything. So do give yourself permission to grieve, cry and mourn the loss of the drinking days. You are infinitely better off without them, but it's still allowed to feel hurt and be sad. Sometimes being very sad indeed is the step towards being happy again.
And I have never found an AF wine that I liked. I tend to steer clear of AF alternatives, as I worry I might find them triggering. Although I was pleasantly surprised by an AF Peroni "beer" that a friend let me have a swig of in London last week, which was very nice (although at around £7 a pop, I would have enjoyed every last drop on principle).
Strength and love to you. Here's a little weekend kiss from Sid, to wish you all well. Keep going; it will be alright soon, honest. x