hughs dad

I was at a meeting last night and there were about 30 of us there. I listened to all of the stories of heart ache, tragedy, lost years, etc... and the one thing that popped into my head is how on earth is the substance even legal. Not only legal, but heavily pushed on us from a young age. I mean our society is very ingrained in alcohol. From constant adds on TV, magazines, it's placement in movies and TV shows, to the president having a beer with people in a time of crisis. All of these indicators point to all of us that alcohol will make things better, more fun, make you better looking, etc.. To me alcohol is far more influential on dumb behavior than pot. Could you imagine if you took all of the alcohol adds / spots on tv and replaced them with pot adds? Doesn't that seem just completely wrong?

The other thing is what good does booze really do? We all hear about the normal drinker. Who is that person? Everyone I know drinks to get a buzz. Now for a 25 year old woman it might mean 2 glasses of wine and she reaches the point where it took me a 5th to achieve. In other words, we're all chasing the same buzz, the longer you drink the more booze it takes to reach that buzz. I mean, we don't discuss the people who can use pot normally. There's nothing normal about pot and there is nothing normal about booze. Both are poison. If I were to smoke pot I'd need one maybe two hits and I'd be stoned out of my mind. Compare me to Snoop Dog... I bet it takes him far more pot to arrive where I can get after one hit. Does that make me normal, or do I just have a lot lower tolerance? I think you could make the same argument for booze. The normal drinker does not exist is my mind. It's all bullshiz... Everyone who drinks is knowingly / actively looking to use a mind altering drug. I hate that I am trying to quit something that is being pushed down my throat from so many different angles. I hope that with the help of AA and a higher power I can one day notice these influences less. I am on day 6.

I hate alcohol and everything it stands for...

yeahgr8

I kknow lots of normal people and they drink very rarely, when they do they will have a couple of glasses to get a buzz out of the thrill of drinking...remember when it used to be a big thing having a drink, oh go on then ill have a soandso its friday or someones birthday...so thats all good IMO.

Once you have worked the steps and spent some time sober you will not even notice alcohol, i'm only 6 months in AA and i have sat and slept in a hotel room with a fully stocked mini bar for almost the last 2 weeks, i am only saying this to make a point i don't think opps that damn alcohool is in there,, i put my diet cokes i bought from the supermarket on the miniatures they make a nice rack...its simply not relevant anymore...i hope that makes sense to you soon:-)

thisisme

Grats on day 6.
They are normal, we are exceptional and about 100 years ahead of our time(like the 60's when smoking was the way to go).
The one true reason alcohol is legal?
$

bananagrrrl

I am going to thump here:

"We are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an attitude is not helpful to anyone. Every new alcoholic looks for this spirit among us and is immensely relieved when he finds we are not witch burners. A spirit of intolerance might repel alcoholics whose lives could have been saved, had it not been for such stupidity. We would not even do the cause of temperate drinking any good, for not one drinker in a thousand likes to be told anything about alcohol by one who hates it."

BB, page 103-1st. Edition

Cowbell

Most people don't have alcoholism.

I LOVED to drink. Alcohol made me feel good when I was down, helped me fit in at parties or other social events..

Just because it turns out I have alcoholism doesn't mean that it should be illegal!
I really like the post above from the book. Explains it better than I ever could.

justanothrdrunk

As a side note - I find it a little ironic that the whole AA thing, Bill's Story, etc. all took place/started when alcohol was illegal.

I don't think it would make one bit of difference (with us who have the disease) if alcohol was still illegal.

hughs dad

My point was there is nothing "normal" about doing a drug. It doesn't matter if we're talking about crack, booze, pot, etc... I understand there are those that are able to drink and not end up where we all are just like there are people than can use cocaine, pot, ectasy, and oxy cotin on a limited basis. But think of all the bad decions, DUI's, pointless deaths, pregnancies, fights, etc... that booze causes. It doesn't produce anything positive. I don't hate the drinker and I'm not intolerant - far from it. It was more of a rhetorical question. I'm just newly sober and kind of pissed off at world - just venting... thanks for you posts, and I'll continue to go to meetings...

hughs dad

True justanotherdrunk, but we don't see commercials discussing how many chores we can get done while on Meth. Or how relaxed we are after a little bit of heroin. Or how much more the ladies love us when we do a few lines. It's just so accepted. I mean I remember growing up watching my parents drink and thinking it was completely normal. Seeing ads on tv make it seem normal as well. The way I drank was normal as well for a little while, but now is not. I just find it interesting that booze is on of the only drugs that is completely legal. I mean if people are looking for a "relaxed feeling" why not sell Xannax at the CVS. If you replaced booze w/ Xannax people would still be relaxed without the other consequences... just my two cents...

Mark75

You will...

Work the PROGRAM of AA. Be rigorously honest and do a thorough self examination. Get those first three steps down. That's what I did.

My wife has her white wine spritzer before bed, I have an herbal tea. There are wine coolers in my garage fridge leftover from a christmas party... I reach past them for my sprite zero.

I don't hate alcohol. I hate alcoholism.

Keep posting hughs dad... nice to have you here!!

Mark

littlefish

hughs dad, the fact is that there is a use of alcohol out there that is normal.

I watched a food show yesterday and it was a journey through Italy and the main theme was food but at one point the owner of a family business that goes back 3 generations took the producers of the show on a tour through the family restaurant liquor cellar.

He showed hundreds of bottles of wines, strong liquors like whiskey and cognac, liqueurs that his grandfather had collected. Note this point: his grandfather had "collected" bottles of liquor and wines, he had not drunk them.

I was intrigued to see that, because I am an alcoholic, and if it had been my mostly alcoholic family, there would not have been any bottles "collected". We would have drunk up everything on the spot.

Yet this family saw the collection of liquor as a hobby, he even admitted that many of the bottles of wine weren't even good anymore.


I simply cannot understand that kind of normal relationship to alcoholic beverages. I would have made it my life's journey to drink up the whole thing before I die.

But it is important to respect and see that other people don't have our obsession. I can't criticize that wonderful Italian family for their amazing collection of alcoholic beverages. I can only tip my hat and respect myself and them in recognizing that we are different.

meditation

People will find it no matter .. plus meth is illegal but people find it.
I remember being underage drinking my first drink in a frat house which was not allowed on the premises but it did not stop anybody.

I can say that if it wasn't alcohol it would be a substance that someone would invent, maybe the new addictive substance is yet in the making.
If we have the personality, genetics that peg us as alcoholics or addicts we will find something to obsess over and we don't ever stop at one. If one feels good then maybe 5 will feel better. I have to work on myself so that I don't overuse anything cause I am a person that does things all out.. all or nothing I am learning how to live life by having a spiritual connection that helps me to balance out the negative. If balance means don't do it then that's my balance. It gets better. I stayed angry for about the first couple of months, acceptance takes time even if I think I have fully accepted something it still is a process.

Boleo

Governments have tried making booze illegal but it proved to be a futile effort. See

Prohibition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have heard many stories about how easy it was to get bootlegged liquor when there were no taxes or controls. Any 13 year-old could buy it from the local speak-easy which was sometimes found in neighbors houses.

joedris

Hey Dad, Put your anger aside. Anger and alcoholism are a bad mix. And besides, alcohol is an inanimate product. It just sits there. You might as well be angry at a tree. The issue you're dealing with is what happens when you drink alcohol, and that's what you need to focus on. So forget about anger, forget about Snoop Dogg, forget about normal people (whoever they are) and pay close attention to Dad. Listen to what's said in the meetings, read the Big Book and get a sponsor. Work the steps. Someday you'll look back and wonder what you were so angry at. Someday you'll learn that you only get angry when you allow it to happen. But anger is dangerous in that it can lead to resentment, and that , Sir, will lead you to drinking. So calm down. Hugh needs you sober.

Clutch B

They say "alcohol is but a symptom" of a bigger problem.

The longer I stay sober, the more I see that alcohol was never my problem. My problem is ME and my absolute necessity to escape even the slightest discomfort at all costs.

When I stopped using alcohol to retreat from my problems, I found myself starting to just use other things, even innocent things like addictive video games, TV, movies, books -- whatever escape I could find.

The problem is with me.

chango

You are confusing negative with not normal. It's totally normal for people to drink and use mind altering substances. It's been happening for thousands of years. It may or may not be positive though.

Also, they tried to make it illegal, and it didn't work.

Pinkcuda

Allow me to help you thump.

Big Book Pg 151
"For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good".

Dime

It's a huge industry with tremendous power.

$$$$

Drk

I agree with you 100%.

The fact that this product is being sold is absolutely bizarre. I challenge anyone to state how alcohol has made society better.

Would anyone buy cereal if the box boasted that every bowl was guaranteed to cause some brain damage?

Crazy land...

NoelleR

I was going to post to this thread sooner, but I decided to wait it out for a while. As others have mentioned, there does seem to be a lot ire/anger regarding alcohol, along with a fair degree of misinformation and misconception. I may address these at a later time (for right now, I'll put it down to a lot of newcomer perception).

I do, however, want to address one thing said by hughs dad.....:

"...I was at a meeting last night and there were about 30 of us there. I listened to all of the stories of heart ache, tragedy, lost years, etc..."

Hugh, it sounds like that whole meeting was taken up with old war-stories and drunkalogs. If this is the case, perhaps you might want to find another meeting where the focus is more on the solution (the what it's like now) than on the past (what it was like)................just a suggestion.........when I was a newcomer, I didn't need to hear drunkalogs; I'd lived them; I needed to hear a solution.


NoelleR

Pinkcuda

It was illegal at one time. From our fear and intollerance we got Al Capone and The Kennedys.
We also can attribute countless deaths due to lead poisoning because stills were being made with radiators for cooling condensors.
They finally realized that legal alcohol was the better solution and alcohol isn't the problem for most people. People are the problem.
The Book of Proverbs mentions alcoholism and was written some 800 years BC
I guess people were the problem even back then.
Remember. Not everybody has a problem.