Originally Posted by
Hope1989 
Well, first of all I want to begin telling everyone that I appreciate your replies, insights and the respectful way this thread was addressed. This is awesome.
I believe I have perhaps not expressed myself correctly or completely. But no means I want to say that I was going to keep drinking until I fix my problems. However, it is because of this problems that I keep drinking, so it becomes a vicious cycle.
My pattern, as a binge drinker, is that I drink a lot and then feel like crap for around a week or two. Ironically, as I start "Recovering" I have a sensation of peace... I feel so miserable because of the hungover that all my other problems go away and I just focus on how awful I feel because of the drinking. One the long hungover starts to disappear, my other problems pop up... around a month or so after it, and that's when I break.
So it is more about how to break that cycle. I have engaged in a lot of things now, counselling, got into sports, dedicated to work, so I'm putting everything in line. And I will keep going from time to time to AA, as I mentioned in the thread, I think it's wonderful, depending on how one use it.
Have a beautiful day everyone
I've addressed this issue so many times from my personal experience that I feel like I should boilerplate it and keep it in a file so I can just cut and paste it. At the risk of being seen as the old duffer who keeps repeating himself:
I spent months talking to counselors trying to find the cause of my drinking, thinking that once I understood the causes, I would quit. Now my life wasn't perfect, and I had plenty of flaws (and still do), but I could find nothing buried in me that warranted excessive drinking, nothing lacking really, and my potty training years were a wonderful success.
Think about it. As an addictive substance, alcoholism needs no outside causes. Addiction can be and usually has a biochemical origin. No emotional issues need to exist for this to happen naturally. Not saying they never play a role, but they don't need to be there for addiction to occur.
As already pointed out, we can and often do make this seem a lot more complicated than it is. I sure did. Granted after I quit, I did work out some major life issues, but I'm not sure I even needed to quit to do that. It may have just been the right timing and the right environment for it to happen.
Alcoholism is a problem. It can be put into remission by abstinence. Mental health issues can be addressed by personal growth, psychiatry, or treated chemically. I wouldn't say it's a mistake to put them all in the same stew and treated as one, but I don't think this is absolutely necessary. I'm not in favor of putting the plug in the jug, and hating the rest of my life, either. Personal growth should be a life long journey. Mine was arrested during my drinking years but was given new life when I quit drinking.
Drinking was my problem. Alcoholism was my problem, and I needed to fix that more than anything else. And I've been making headway on those other personal issues ever since. And personal growth is best done with a clear head, not in a drunken fog.