DriGuy

The old standby becomes a learned default response, and it's easy to learn because reaching for a bottle requires no creativity. It requires no learning to drink and swallow. You just do it and allow whatever it does to you to think you're getting away from your emotional gut punch. And as you keep relying on it, it comes up with a punch of it's own where you begin to feel edgy and off when you don't drink. At that point, you are drinking because you need to drink, rather than because your emotions took a punch.

Frankly, I never found any emotional relief from alcohol, but I did find a tremendous amount of relief from cravings to drink, even though taking a drink set off an immediate craving for a second drink and a third, etc. I would become engaged in drinking and craving to drink more. I had something to do. How satisfying (Sarc). Maybe that helped me not think about my emotions, but they were always still there when I woke up the next morning, along with a load of guilt and sense of hopelessness.

You're in a vicious cycle responding to a gut punch with a response that doesn't help, but being determined, you keep responding with the same unhelpful response. It's only one manifestation of alcoholism, but you can change this. Not drinking is the first step. It's bothersome at first, but when the cravings subside, and they will, you will begin to see your way out of the cycle. Then you have to learn to never reenter the cycle expecting new results from a response you have already proven to be useless and dangerous.