AlericB

Reading further into TFM, the point is made that it's important to realise that this is not to say that alcohol or other drugs don't affect you but that of course they do, it's just that the effect is different from what we usually believe.

Just going more from the book, while alcohol self-evidently has an affect on our CNS as well as a myriad other pharmacology affects it cannot actually control the contents of our thoughts and feelings.

So, the last time I drank followed several months of abstinence and was because I thought it would help me get through a time of emotional pain. Looking back, this was just a belief I had about the power of alcohol. I was reaching out for something to help me and I decided on drink because of my own 'romantacising' of drink and, as you describe in an earlier post, the powerful images that society gives us in films etc. that drink can wash away our troubles.

Did this help me? Well, I got through the sadness so the answer may seem to be "yes" but I believe I would have got through it anyway. Actually I think I would have got through it a lot easier if I had allowed myself to experience my grief and so come to terms with it rather than trying to avoid or delay this through drinking.

Looking back on this experience, I guess I could take the attitude and say "Well look, drinking got me through that so it will get me through anything" so of course leading the way to drinking again if anything else like that happens again which of course is inevitable. Or I could more honestly say "Well no, it didn't really help did it? What did help was the support I got from my friends, my personal faith, and just holding on and getting through that time."

TFM helped me too