Tasma

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum and have found most of the posts very interesting. I want to use this thread to find out from others why they drink or used to drink. I went through some emotional trauma in my teens and started drinking then to escape the pain and frustration I was feeling. Since then it's been a bit of battle to break the habit of mainly binge drinking.

I feel that understanding the cause of the problem is a first and essential step in solving it. Even though some of us may have a natural weakness for uncontrollable drinking something must cause us to drink first.

Would love to hear your own ideas about this. Cheers

Tazman53

Tasma at first I drank because I loved the effects it had on me, every negative thing about me dissappeared, the feeling was euphoric, it was powerful, it was sensual. When I started at age 12 it was not to escape any thing horrible in my life, it was a way of losing any thing with me that held me back.

For an alcoholic like myself drinking alcohol is but a symptom of my disease, in order for me to be able to stay sober I need to change a lot of things about me that are also symptoms of my disease, amoung them are lying, cheating, self centeredness, egotism, etc. etc., simply not drinking for an alcoholic is either one of 2 things..... a relapse waiting to happen or a very miserable dry drunk who does nothing but sit around wanting a drink.

bye_bye_vodka

I started my drinking when I was in High School. I did it because everyone else did. Twenty years later here I am. Nothing different than any other person to be honest. To be honest a majority of my old friends are alcoholics but continue to drink. Some on a daily basis.

GlassPrisoner

That's what I thought too. I have found the complete opposite. You can't think your way out of this disease.

Anyway, my first drink was experementation. I liked it, a lot. And it worked for me for many years until the disease progressed.

Sugah

Tasma, I could give you many reasons that my drinking got started as early as it did. Like Taz, I loved the effects, from my very first remembered intoxication at age six. I could tell you that, because I was an abused child and teen, drinking helped me numb all the pain. I could tell you that drinking was just part of the culture in which I grew up. All those things are true, but they're not why I'm alcoholic.

I believe that regardless of when I picked up, regardless of what reason I first picked up, regardless of where I lived or how I was treated, I would have been alcoholic. Some are of the variety that their drinking lives begin normally and along the way, they seem to develop into alcoholic drinking; I was not of that variety. I was an alcoholic from my first drink--and most probably from my first breath. And being of that type in a society where drinking is part of many different events/celebrations/rites of passage, I have difficulty imagining living any kind of life that wouldn't have included a first drink, and for me, I believe that's all it would have taken -- all it did take.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

Astro

I could say that since my first drink at around 14 I liked the taste and the effect/high it gave me, but the fact is it filled a hole in my soul and emotions, it made me believe that I "fit in", and it gave me a feeling of power and control for the next 27 years.

Ready 2 Rock

Like others here, I was predisposed to alcoholism. I remember my first drink when I was a kid. A beer that tasted soooo good and the felling afterward -- wow! I eventually sought aquaitances that also drank because I thought that was normal. I didn't need a reason to drink other than I liked it. It took me 30 some years to figure out that it is NOT normal. Glad I did.

findingout

I drank when I was sad and I drank when I was happy.
I drank to celebrate and I drank to commiserate.
I drank to fit in and I drank to be different.
I drank the way my parents drank though I swore I'd never drink the way my parents drank.
I drank because my friends drank and I chose my friends because they drank.

Really though, I drank because I'm an alcoholic. I need to remember this just in case the rest of my life starts looking so fine I feel the need to tone it down a little by picking up a drink.

Nuudawn

Escape from myself....my discomfort... my social awkwardness... my stress... my pain...my head... my life.

laurie6781

Suffice it to say:

I loved the taste of it.

I loved the smell of it.

I loved what it did to me, and

I loved what it did for me.

Then King Alcohol became my MASTER and then he killed me.

I hope and pray that you do not have to take this affliction to the depths that I did.

Why I drank doesn't matter anymore...................................I just know I can't. So many ODAATs ago, I started working on me, and have enjoyed life now for a LONG TIME, without ANY MIND ALTERING CHEMICALS.

Welcome to Sober Recovery. You will find some great Experience, Strength, and Hope (ES&H) to help you with your recovery journey.

Love and hugs,

Tasma

Thanks everyone for all the posts. Already I'm impressed with the amount of support and care in this forum. I understand that I drink a lot more than is good for me and pray I can give up the habit completely. One point though why I started the thread is this. If you were told you have an allergy to peanuts for instance you would most definitely avoid peanuts like the plague. Yet people like me who know a drink or two could end up in a massive binge still fall for the "just one or two drinks" line.

This is what puzzles me, could it be that there is a need psychologically for the drink. A need the far surpasses the rational reasoning that should stop you from taking the first drink. Furthermore if you don't address the reason for that need while attempting to quit are you not leaving the door open for the tendency to backslide later on. That was what I meant about finding out the cause.

It's just something I've been giving some thought too. Again I would love to read your comments on this.

chango

I loved getting high.

Astro

Alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. If you'd like answers to this check out the book Under The Influence. You can also read excerpts from it on this forum http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html

Nuudawn

Peanut allergy can result in certain and instant death... more of a deterrent than slow and uncertain suicide I guess.

hope3

As a teen I drank to be kool, as an adult I drank

to celebrate, socialize, (excuses) I drank because my

brain needed it, I just didn't know it,,,,,Now I don't drink, because

I know I would just need it all over again......More importantly to me

than why I drank, is why I don't....The list is way to long to list.

best wishes, hope3

Sugah

Many of us have found that we possess a level of discontent that may or may not have an external cause. Could be conditioning. Could just be. And many of us label it "spiritual" rather than merely "psychological."

I had a dilemma located under my skin. I found the solution to that dilemma in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

CarolD

Hi and Welcome to our Alcoholism Forum!

I started drinking as a teen to
rebel against my non drinking
very religious parents.

I never knew which day or what drink
made brain and liver enzymes s stop
processing alcohol correctly.

Here is a link to the book that convinced
me to quit...I ditto Aristo..

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html

I use God and AA to stay in recovery.

Glad to see a new member..

Tazman53

You know the explanation for your main second question can be found in the BB as well as by the testimony of fellow alcoholics and both "Under The Influence" & "Beyond the Influence". Here are a few from "Alcoholics Anonymous":

Ah yes my obsession to be able to drink like every one else, this time I can drink normally I used to tell myself.
Thank God and AA I have found a way to quit pursueing it.

Alcoholism for me has proven to be a three fold disease:

1. An allergy-If I have one drink before I am finished with it I want another one.... followed by another.... etc., etc.
2. A mental malady- I obsessed about the next time I would be able to drink, even though I had sworn and promised every one in the world I was going to quit I still continued to think/obsess about alcohol until I finally drank again.
3. A rotting of my spirit- I suffered from gangrene of my spirit due to drinking, my very soul was rotting from the inside out.

The solution for me was to

1. Get honest with myself and the world that I was powerless over alcohol, I came to beleive that a power greater then myself or alcohol could restore my sanity, and I became willing to allow that Higher Power to care for me and my will. This was the very beginning of the healing of my soul, my spirit. I started to become spiritual.

2. Working on being spiritual allowed me to slowly learn how to live life on lifes terms without alcohol which allowed me to quit obsessing about drinking.

3. As my obsession subsided I continued to get more and more spiritual which gave me the ability to not let my obsession for alcohol to become that first drink of alcohol over which I was powerless.


I had to change because if I changed nothing, then nothing changed and I always wound up drinking again, as long as I am working my AA program and progressing in being spiritually fit I gain a daily reprieve from even wanting a drink, little lone obsessing about one.

Peter

To get high.
To fit in.
To escape painful emotions.
To be able to get up in the morning and function.

tyler

To escape, be numb. To be drunk.