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Old 05-12-2017, 05:35 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
Gottalife
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
 
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
Are you an alcoholic? Well, there is one sure sign in your post, the loss of control after taking the first drink. This happens because of a craving, so powerful it is beyond our ability to control, that is activated when we take even a small amount of alcohol into our system.

It never occurs in ordinary temperate drinkers, only in alcoholics. This is how your drinking will be in the future. You will never be able to predict accurately what will happen after you take the first drink. You may be able to have one or two and enjoy them at times, but at other times you will lose control with unpredictable consequences.

Two predictions I can make is that alcoholics who continue to drink always get worse over time, and the problem always gets harder to solve.

It has been suggested you don't drink. That would be a sensible course of action. There are people, like you and me, who should never drink.

But our alcoholic mind may not accept that view point. It is goin to say "yes, but I am not that bad yet (YET YET) and anyway I still enjoy having a couple now and then." It will stay with the obsession that the enjoyable couple of drinks is still possible, even in the face of the evidence you have seen, where at times you completely loose control.

What can you do?
Try and stop for, say, a year. If you are a real alcoholic you might find that a tough goal. If you succeed and life seems good, saty stopped.

Or next time the urge is upon you, try and have just a couple and stop, every time. Become a responsible drinker. If you are like me that will prove impossible to do consistently.

If you find you cant stop and cant control, then SR, AA, or some other help may be needed. For myself, I was almost dead from alcoholism by 22, and I got sober by joining AA. I just had my 60th birthday and have not needed to drink in all that time. So there are permanent solutions out there.
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