The thing about drinking was...

I never liked it.

I liked to be drunk, and the drinking was about as automatic as breathing for me, but I didn't like alcohol, didn't like the taste. That cold beer on a hot day crap, wasn't for me. The temperature of the beer or the weather never mattered anyway.

I didn't like "drinking", but I liked to be drunk. Had to be drunk.

I'll save the drug thoughts for another time, and another forum.

Just thought I'd post that...

[historyteach]

Thanks for sharing, Doug!
And welcome back; so glad to see ya again!
Shalom!

[In memory of miracle]

It made me sick,so sick,but I drank anyway. I thought I liked being drunk,if I just could have maintained that 2 drink glow,instead of waking up in jail ! The shakes,the black outs,the horror and despair of the morning after.I dont miss that!

[lulu70]

It made me absolutely crazy. As soon as I had a sip, I began to obsess--about when I would have the next drink, what I would drink, how much I would drink, would I stop at 2, 4, 6, 12, did others notice how much I was drinking. I found myself trying to gauge how much I was consuming by how others drank. Then I would spend the whole time thinking, "I wish he/she would just hurry up and finish that drink so I can have another." Pretty soon I would quit trying to do that and go ahead and go nuts. Then there were the times when I drank at home alone. I would constantly say--I will finish this task, then I will have another. I will just have one more, then I will go to bed. It was absolute insanity. I am so thankful that my life is so much more simple now.

Thanks, Doug.

[Pony]

Doug, thanks for sharing this. It's got me thinking. Those same thoughts crossed my mind. It was never about the method I used to get high with....meaning the alcohol.....but the result of downing it all day, all night! What I felt and feel is even more stupid about the whole process is that I would get so sick....you know what I mean.....and still go back for more....or again the next night or the next weekend.

And even realizing that I don't want to live that life or do that process or whatever you want to call it...even after all the sober time I had that I would even go down that road, as I did almost a year ago...or even consider it any time I am tempted.

Thank God that I have here and that I have learned some tools to use in times like that. Putting them to use is a choice I have to make each and every time......one day at a time.

Thanks for letting me share on your thread Dougie, glad you're back.

[BikerBill8]

The thing about drinking was.....
I loved the taste and the felling when i got drunk and that i just couldn't get enough. The more i drank the drunker i got. Thank's doug for the good post.

[wantneeda]

it took over every fiber of my being...till i was so stuffed into my shoes...i ddidn't know which way was up,,,and i didn't care...

the thing about drinking was...it was all about the next drink...

the thing about drinking was...it was killing me and i didn't know it..

the thing about drinking was...it made me do things, say things...go places that i wouldn't go or say or do..

the thing about drinking was...it brought me to recovery

[Millwallj]

I never really got 'drunk' toward the end. I got drunk for the first couple of years: falling over everywhere, lunging about nightclubs etc.


Toward the end it had little or no effect except depressions and headaches.

The first few drinks however, I was in mania, on top of the world, glowing with confidence and peace.

After that it just went dark and throbbingly dull.

I could drink 15 pints of stella and would just end up crying and going over the same things again and again in my head. My body would be rushing, but my head would be dead.

[Dan]

The thing about drinking was...

It took me apart, piece by piece. And since I was drinking enough to be unaware of just about everything, you could have told me that the next bottle was going to turn my organs into liquid sh**, it wouldn't have mattered.

Me too.
I had to be drunk.

[Time4Me]

The think about drinking was

that it made me feel like an alchemist, a wizard, a poet of the universe...until I was unable to figure out or follow the recipe any longer, I was unable to reverse the spell and my mad experiment went out of control and a monster was made.

[Phinneas]

The thing about drinking was...

that it made me sick, sick, sick. Yet I did it over and over again despite hating the taste, throwing up, feeling like I had wet cement in my body instead of blood. I did it for the 20 minutes or hour that it made me feel different. So sad how I poisoned my body and my spirit in order to escape for such a short amount of time. So sad that I hated the "me" so much that I repeatedly tried to destroy it.

hugs,

phinny

[wantneeda]

jeez...i can't relate to not liking the taste....i freakin' loved it!!!
but...i can relate to having the need to be drunk....

[quercusalba]

The thing about drinking was... I loved being drunk. To qualify: I loved that first part of being drunk - feeling loving and creative and happy and free and alive. Of course, all of those things were false - false happiness, false freedom... and I couldn't remember the feelings of love when I continued drinking until I couldn't think anymore... and I surely wasn't creative in my destructiveness... and I was more and more dead than alive. Madness.

Thank you for this thread, Doug. It makes me shudder to think of what I was doing to myself.

best to all,
--anne

[Andy F]

Hi Doug

I learnt to drink. There was an element of sugar addiction about beer I suspect.

I appreciated alcohol for its promise that I would soon be a carefree, brazen, uninhibited idiot. I loved it because it made me simply not care.

I thought I enjoyed the act of gorging upon as much beer as possible. In fact, I preferred drinking beer to spirits, though I turned to spirits when beer wasn't enough anymore. I didn't enjoy the taste of alcohol, I enjoyed relieving the addiction. Rather like pulling a bandaid off a wound. I confused relief with enjoyment.

The same when I stopped drinking for a while and decided to go back. I didn't enjoy the first drink. I was just relieved at giving up the fight.

Someone stuck a glass of expensive wine under my nose the other day, absolutely disgusting smell.

[Cathy31]

Great posts, everyone, thanks for the thread Doug. Anne in particular, yours resonated with me.

I too loved the STARTING POINT of being drunk.

Hated the taste. Hated not being able to read/converse/think straight. (each time I drank I got WASTED...never a day drinker...in fact , never before 7pm...EVER!!! Boy did I make up for it!) Hated that feeling of dread once (quickly!) I would progress from the 'nice' place.

The remorse, misery, self loathing, confusion the next day, the PHYSICAL sickness the next day, that terrible FEAR everytime phone or doorbell rang - what did I do>???? What did I say??!?!?! What excuse will I think up this time for work???

The DANGER I put myself and others (esp loved ones) in CONSTANTLY WHENEVER I DRANK.

Had to grit teeth to get past first few sips, hated the taste so much.

And the appeal is/was...??? What a VERY cunning, baffling, powerful disease!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the reminder...unfortunately, IMHO, rationality/logic doesn't come into it, sure if it were that easy none of us would surely be alcoholics!

Love,
Cathy31
x

[findingout]

Originally Posted by DangerousDan

And since I was drinking enough to be unaware of just about everything, you could have told me that the next bottle was going to turn my organs into liquid sh**, it wouldn't have mattered.

Ha! I can remember seriously thinking that my body was adapting to the ever increasing amounts of alcohol like some sort of comic book super hero. And this during the same period of time that my older sister was going into the hospital with a seriously failing liver.

Originally Posted by Cathy31

Thanks for the reminder...unfortunately, IMHO, rationality/logic doesn't come into it, sure if it were that easy none of us would surely be alcoholics!

Only one kind of logic these days and it's very simple and very binary:

1 - I don't use, my life gets better
0 - I pick up again, my life goes to hell but fast

One Love, One Heart, Jah Bless
Tony

[NoMoBeer]

I never wanted a drink -- I wanted to drink.