Originally Posted by
firestorm090 
I simply cannot recall a day where I was relaxed and comfortable in my own skin.
I think my problems are much more than just a drinking problem, they lie deeper in the layers of my life, and that's where I get lost. I keep thinking that if I could just not drink, life would be rosy, but it seems more confusing to me when I'm sober, so I drink again to return to the known quantity of misery vs the unknown misery of sobriety. When I get lonely, instead of learning how to relax, I find a lady to call, date, see and ultimately get drunk with. It's another form of escape, and all along I think I'm chasing love.
When I stop drinking, I'm confronted with life and don't know how to do it well. It's a mystery to me; like love, what is that, how do you experience it, and what does it really feel like?
don't know how to have a "home", nor do I know how to be with someone else 100%, and that stuff scares the daylight out of me. What's frustrating is wanting to live a good life, but not knowing how to do that, how to connect with someone and just listen, how to be a real friend, what does that mean?
That's fabulous D..... really, it is. And you're absolutely right. Alcohol is NOT your problem.....and I don't mean "it's a solution" (although it IS a form of a solution for most of us).
Everything you wrote up there.....all of it..... it describes your problem......and IT IS NO ALCOHOL. Your problem, my good friend, is
alcoholism, chronic alcoholism if you will.
If alcohol was your problem, then stopping drinking would end the pain, the misery, the uncomfortable feelings, the "not fitting in," the love interest issues, peace and serenity would return, and.....as you said...life would be rosy again. This would be an example of acute alcoholism.....alcoholism that stops when the drinking stops. In acute alcoholism, once you stop drinking life starts to get better. For this sort of alcoholic, a lot of the catch phrases you hear in meetings will work: just don't drink, just say no, don't drink no matter what, meeting makers make it, find a support group, fake it till you make it, and so forth. For some alcoholics though, this doesn't cut the mustard.
Chronic alcoholism, on the other hand, is the sort that continues even when you're not drinking. It's not like a cold where you take a treatment and it goes away. It's like herpes...it never goes away. Life seems to get
worse after a period of abstinence. You may be able to follow the phrases above BUT......life just seems to pile and pile and PILE up on you. I've heard it described as in invisible spring in your gut that gets turned just a little bit every single day till, eventually, it snaps......and then you find yourself drunk under the guise of any one of a number of "excuses" (love, anger, fear, celebration, etc).
For some people, the act of "not drinking no matter what," combined with some improved nutrition, a workout regime, getting out of the house and working on some social phobias, and getting involved in some group activities (maybe even group therapy) works wonders. When the alcohol intake stops and some basic social skills are used, the problem of dealing with life starts to disappear. The chronic alcoholic (or, as the BB calls them, the real alcoholic) however, they can do these same things and they'll still find no real true lasting happiness.
For the chronic alcoholic there is ONE solution.......PERIOD.......the chronic alcoholic MUST find a power greater than human power to relieve them of the obsession to drink and to relieve them from the pain and suffering of their alcoholism. By definition, an acute alcoholic (aka a "heavy drinker" in the BB)can find solutions in the human-based world and by definition a chronic alcoholic can't....ever.
If you think you're of the second variety......the chronic alcoholic.......the one who can't seem to manage their life well drunk OR sober...... you're in luck. There's this program of action that, IF TAKEN (in other words, IF YOU DO THE WORK), will take those problems away.
And I KNOW you've heard this a 1000 times.....and I'm sure you're sick of hearing it......but you came online and asked so I'll tell you. You're probably a
real alcoholic. And if you are, that will never change (remember, it's like herpes) but if you do what the recovered folks in AA are doing you can put it into remission.......and keep it there forever.......if you're willing to do what we are doing and what we've done.