Originally Posted by Notmyrealname

Problem drinking is really short-term-thinking behavior. Is it worth a bad hangover to be drunk? Ehhh, maybe, if you're young, and in college, but that's a pretty short-term analysis.

Is it worth damaging your organs, gaining extra weight (not healthy), wrecking relationships, virtually burning dollars you could be saving for your retirement, tarnishing your reputation and good name, and I haven't even gotten to all the missed opportunities--all of the positive things you could be doing for your family, your career, your body.

Is it worth waking up one day and realizing that you essentially were asleep at the wheel for large parts of your daughter's childhood, to be drunk all the time? Worth it?

These are pretty easy questions to answer, I assume.

That's why I say that drinking is short-term thinking. When you start thinking longer-term, and start asking yourself, is what I get from the bottle worth all the awful crap that comes along with it, the answers get a lot more obvious. When you start with the full-on, long-term thinking, and ask yourself, "is this drinking thing worth it, long-term?" only a fool would say "yes." But a drunk man's denial tends to keep his view short.

As I have become sober, I've realized it is either a cause or an effect of a change in my own thinking, from short-term thinking to long-term thinking.