When it comes to your behaviors and personality, is it the alcohol or who you are?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2009
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When it comes to your behaviors and personality, is it the alcohol or who you are?
I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. How do you know how much of your behaviors and personality are caused by the alcohol and how much is caused by your poor choices and the way that you have always been even before the alcohol? My husband has made many poor decisions that he is admitting to. He takes full blame for them and knows that they were his fault. He says that he has always been a loner, defiant, out spoken, blunt, didn't respect authority, was an a**hole, didn't have friends and so on as a kid. Which I can see that. When we have fought he hasn't been drinking either. My husband wonders why the counselor and I point out the alcohol and that he needs to stop that, when he wants everyone to just blame him. He says he is the one to blame for his actions, not the alcohol. I'm trying to understand this. As he is responsible for his actions, so I commend him for accepting blame for this, but is the alcohol to blame as well? I'm trying to understand and make sense of this. He is a funtional drinker and drinks around 3 days a week 6 beers each time, this is cut back from last year he drank almost every day and sometimes much more. I'd love to hear from those that struggle with a drinking problem, what they have experienced and know about this. THanks
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: LA - Lower Alabama
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Alcohol is a depressant, and IMHO, can affect behavior, even if you don't have a glass in your hand at the moment.
But this question reminds me of the one of yours I just responded to about cutting back vs quitting. Is his behavior something that you are willing to accept in a husband? The fact that alcohol may or may not be a contributing factor is not relevant to you. It may well be relevant to him, assuming he wants to do something about his behavior.
You have no control over what he does, but you do have control over what you are willing to accept in a husband.
But this question reminds me of the one of yours I just responded to about cutting back vs quitting. Is his behavior something that you are willing to accept in a husband? The fact that alcohol may or may not be a contributing factor is not relevant to you. It may well be relevant to him, assuming he wants to do something about his behavior.
You have no control over what he does, but you do have control over what you are willing to accept in a husband.
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Join Date: Aug 2002
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Alcohol would amplify or suppress my moods or feelings.
If I was sad alcohol seemed to cheer me up. If I was angry alcohol could turn that anger into rage. I was less able to monitor and control my emotions with alcohol.
Your husband sounds a bit defensive about his behaviour. I would say anything to divert attention away from my drinking. Hubby is right when he says that he is ultimately responsible for his actions.
He seems to have some understanding that his drinking is but a symptom of a deeper problem.
I was a lonely kid too, with low self esteem and resentful of authority and people.
If I was sad alcohol seemed to cheer me up. If I was angry alcohol could turn that anger into rage. I was less able to monitor and control my emotions with alcohol.
Your husband sounds a bit defensive about his behaviour. I would say anything to divert attention away from my drinking. Hubby is right when he says that he is ultimately responsible for his actions.
He seems to have some understanding that his drinking is but a symptom of a deeper problem.
I was a lonely kid too, with low self esteem and resentful of authority and people.
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Toronto, ON
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Praise, I am not sure I know how to answer this, but it sounds like you are asking why the alcohol is a problem if your husband had personality issues without alcohol.
In my early days of drinking, I used alcohol as a way to cope with things not going my way, with different types of fear and also as a way of producing an extension of something good that had been experienced.
I reached a point in my life when I had made it through a series of dramas (bereavements, career, relationships, long distances and moves and so on) and was at the beginning of a new chapter. I had purged some of the past and was also in a new environment with a lot of nervous excitement (bascially good things in store for me). This is when I had begun to cross my line, because I started having beers in airports and hotels and eventually every night at home, to keep a "good thing" going. It had turned into a stabilizer for me, enabled me to be bolder and more outspoken, and I felt charged in a good way a lot of the time. It started to change in under 5 years though. In fact, the positive charge and optimism I thought I was fuelling actually did have its drawbacks, ie, I became unusually irascible too and less and less patient. Another ten years later, I had gone through more changes and spent a long time getting back up after a setback to my self-esteem and the alcohol was the only thing that seemed to be a reliable maintainer. Buzzes were still possible too. But they started to be unpleasant, and I was feeling more groggy than buzzed. I had become a lot more patient with others, but there was an underlying depression that had gotten worse and was unbeatable. I even asked myself whether I could give up alcohol if it meant being shy again.
I finally picked quitting, no matter what I thought it meant, and the virtues would be there naturally (I had hope they would be). I wasn't an evil person for all the years of drinking per se, but I was a suffering one and I was only making it harder to deal with emotions with the surrogate normal (alcohol in my body). I have the virtues to the extent that I accept that I do, and I also have to deal with the same things I did not like about myself. I am doing it with a new outlook though, and I am coaching myself on not hating but addressing, not perfection but progression.
Perhaps there is something in that to explain what the problem with alcohol is from a mentality or relationship perspective. Your husband doesn't have to be similar to me to the T for him to have had similar experiences with alcohol. It's all about the relationship with alcohol and how it takes over with no sense to it when we cross the line, whether we were/are meanies or angels without it.
In my early days of drinking, I used alcohol as a way to cope with things not going my way, with different types of fear and also as a way of producing an extension of something good that had been experienced.
I reached a point in my life when I had made it through a series of dramas (bereavements, career, relationships, long distances and moves and so on) and was at the beginning of a new chapter. I had purged some of the past and was also in a new environment with a lot of nervous excitement (bascially good things in store for me). This is when I had begun to cross my line, because I started having beers in airports and hotels and eventually every night at home, to keep a "good thing" going. It had turned into a stabilizer for me, enabled me to be bolder and more outspoken, and I felt charged in a good way a lot of the time. It started to change in under 5 years though. In fact, the positive charge and optimism I thought I was fuelling actually did have its drawbacks, ie, I became unusually irascible too and less and less patient. Another ten years later, I had gone through more changes and spent a long time getting back up after a setback to my self-esteem and the alcohol was the only thing that seemed to be a reliable maintainer. Buzzes were still possible too. But they started to be unpleasant, and I was feeling more groggy than buzzed. I had become a lot more patient with others, but there was an underlying depression that had gotten worse and was unbeatable. I even asked myself whether I could give up alcohol if it meant being shy again.
I finally picked quitting, no matter what I thought it meant, and the virtues would be there naturally (I had hope they would be). I wasn't an evil person for all the years of drinking per se, but I was a suffering one and I was only making it harder to deal with emotions with the surrogate normal (alcohol in my body). I have the virtues to the extent that I accept that I do, and I also have to deal with the same things I did not like about myself. I am doing it with a new outlook though, and I am coaching myself on not hating but addressing, not perfection but progression.
Perhaps there is something in that to explain what the problem with alcohol is from a mentality or relationship perspective. Your husband doesn't have to be similar to me to the T for him to have had similar experiences with alcohol. It's all about the relationship with alcohol and how it takes over with no sense to it when we cross the line, whether we were/are meanies or angels without it.
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Hi Praise
If my guess is right, it's your hope that if/once your husband stops drinking your life and your marriage will improve. My experience, things in my personal relationships got worse when I first quit. Alcohol consumption is just a symptom of a 3 pronged illness. An alcoholic is physically, mentally and spiritually sick. Although they don't know WHAT'S wrong, even in their disease, every alcoholic I've spoken to (myself included) just KNEW there was more to it than the liquid consumption of alcohol.
Quitting (aka: getting dry) only addresses part of the problem. Most recovered alcoholics would tell you that the actual drinking was 10% to maybe 20% of the problem. The rest of the issues are in the mind and in the soul. (IF one is they type of alcoholic described in the AA book).
If my guess is right, it's your hope that if/once your husband stops drinking your life and your marriage will improve. My experience, things in my personal relationships got worse when I first quit. Alcohol consumption is just a symptom of a 3 pronged illness. An alcoholic is physically, mentally and spiritually sick. Although they don't know WHAT'S wrong, even in their disease, every alcoholic I've spoken to (myself included) just KNEW there was more to it than the liquid consumption of alcohol.
Quitting (aka: getting dry) only addresses part of the problem. Most recovered alcoholics would tell you that the actual drinking was 10% to maybe 20% of the problem. The rest of the issues are in the mind and in the soul. (IF one is they type of alcoholic described in the AA book).
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by praiseHim 
... How do you know how much of your behaviors and personality are caused by the alcohol and how much is caused by your poor choices and the way that you have always been even before the alcohol?
1. Do you drink more than you intend to?
2. Do you drink more often than you intend to?
3. Do you cause more trouble than you intend to?
If you INTEND to get pi$$faced drunk every day and cuss-out everyone, you are NOT suffering from alcohol-ism. You are just a mean-mouthed drunk!
Member
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: southern U.S.
Posts: 153
Originally Posted by praiseHim
I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. How do you know how much of your behaviors and personality are caused by the alcohol and how much is caused by your poor choices and the way that you have always been even before the alcohol?
Alcohol use made my behaviors and personality nearly unrecognizable to me (in those rare flashes of clarity). Sure, there was a semblance of how I had "always been even before the alcohol", but drinking on a regular basis really screwed up my thought processes and decision-making capabilities---not to mention IDENTITY. And I don't necessarily mean while I was drunk-- the next day, during the hangover, and well after the hangover had worn off, I was capable of being pretty damn irrational.
Anyway, I hope that helps in some way. (i hope i understood your question)
I'm only a couple months sober, so I'm still trying to figure this stuff out.
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Originally Posted by praiseHim
I'm asking this because I'm trying to understand. How do you know how much of your behaviors and personality are caused by the alcohol and how much is caused by your poor choices and the way that you have always been even before the alcohol?
Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 626
My RABF did everything in his power to defend the alcohol. He readily admitted to being an alcoholic, but as was said, insisted that he's all the things that were described - arrogant, loner, shy, *******, obnoxious and it was NOT the fault of alcohol. Now it remains to be seen what he is like with some long-term sobriety and recovery work under his belt. He's been sober for three months. I never, EVER thought he would darken AA's door (see arrogance), but for now, he's going.
He often tells me that I may not like him sober, but right now, I'm seeing a lot less of those behaviors listed above. While we no longer live together, we did go as a couple to a friend's house for a BBQ. It was so nice just be able to relax and not wonder what he was going to say or do next. And to be able to wake up this morning and not CRINGE! If this is what he's like sober, I'll take it. Just for today.
He often tells me that I may not like him sober, but right now, I'm seeing a lot less of those behaviors listed above. While we no longer live together, we did go as a couple to a friend's house for a BBQ. It was so nice just be able to relax and not wonder what he was going to say or do next. And to be able to wake up this morning and not CRINGE! If this is what he's like sober, I'll take it. Just for today.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Florida
Posts: 66
For years alcohol made me happy. I was a happy drunk. But, eventually it caused issues even when I was sober, mostly social anxiety. This eventually turned into flat-out paranoia and made for some interesting public interactions. By finally admitting alcohol had caused a change in my behavior was one of the major reasons I started trying to quit. I've made good progress on my anxiety so it's a learned behavior for me, and when I'm finally sober I hope to be free of that.
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Yeah course it is him, the alcohol will make him do stupid things like it does with any non-alcoholic if they have too much...i tended to do more stupid and extreme things than other non-alcoholics because i was as crazy as can be in the first place...so i had to change me, and of course had to stop drinking first to be able to change...alcoholics/addicts are actually very sick people...couple of cans short of a six pack...the good news is if you get sober and change you have the opportunity to start filling up those 2 cans to have a better and more balanced life!
As for the functioning alcoholic bit, that IMO is a ridicualous term made up by drunks for drunks...like they should get a medal for having job, wife and car...chimpanzees do that in their enviroment, have a mate, a family, a route to colect food and provide shelter etc...sorry but the ridiculous statements and analogies that dance around the simple fact that someone is a drunk, needs to stop drinking and change is nuts!
As for the functioning alcoholic bit, that IMO is a ridicualous term made up by drunks for drunks...like they should get a medal for having job, wife and car...chimpanzees do that in their enviroment, have a mate, a family, a route to colect food and provide shelter etc...sorry but the ridiculous statements and analogies that dance around the simple fact that someone is a drunk, needs to stop drinking and change is nuts!
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