Soco88

Alcohol is a rough addiction

Scolova

For me and my H.S. friends it seemed like a right of passage or "this is what we are suppose to do", when young; it was what you do every time the parents went on their vacation. Turn twenty-one and it was like gaining a whole new level of freedom, buying it legally, go to clubs and bars (nudie-bars), partying at the beach on the weekends... and of course, I ended up being friends with the people who were the raging alcoholics of the bunch, who were getting DUIs, PIs and could no longer go into any of the local bars due to being kicked out so many times for causing trouble.
All downhill from there until I ended up getting drunk nightly, all alone, pissed off at the world and everyone around me and suffering the effects (DTs) daily.
I hope I can stay sober and stay away from that crowd, but I seem like a magnet around all that BS.

aussieblue

Am I alone here , I did like drinking, I enjoyed the way I felt while drinking I enjoyed the taste, I hate that I have to stop and I DO have to stop it is affecting my health .Day 38 for me.

Rift

The things I like or liked about being drunk were:

1. Stress reliever
2. Relaxes me temporarily
3. Makes me more social
4. Sometimes it made me feel more alive (only on certain occasions)
5. Carefree for the most part as long as I wasn't driving or at home alone.
6. I just loved having a good stiff drink or a nice cold brew on a summer day.
7. I enjoy music much more (concerts, or just listening at home)
8. It helped me think about things I would have never thought about (good things and bad things)
9. Sometimes it made me happy, but mostly it didn't.
10. It gave me something to do and cure my boredom.

Maybe a few others, but that's it for the most part. These may also be seen as bad, but...

Rift

But none of these were usually worth it. There is always a trade off with most everything and dire consequences. Sometimes you just don't know what might happen when you drink or what situations you will put yourself in. So, in the end those 10 things don't outweigh the cons IMO.

ExBudGal

I loved to DRINK and I was good at it! When I first started back in High School it gave me courage and made it easy to socialize. It went on that way for many, many years. Parties, clubs, bbqs - you name it..........party was the name of the game. And then it gradually became less fun. Hangovers were horrendious and blackouts were an everyday thing - normal per say. My friends and I would joke about them. Shame and embarrassment replaced the fun and games and I noticed myself avoiding all social situations unless alcohol was served. Yet i still managed to sqeeze some "fun" out of a good drunk even at a hefty price. I liked to drink that much

Yeah it started out as fun. I am still very new to recovery and sometimes still miss it, but its getting better. 53 days tick tock.........

NobleCause

To drink for me was purely to escape, whether it was escaping traumatic memories & the ghosts of the past, or simply the drudgery of school or work or a stale conversation. As a kid, I did my first line of cocaine on a whim at a roof party in middle school and the moment that the powder hit my brain, I was sold. A flip switched and I decided that this was how I wanted to feel always - impervious, secure, free. Drinking seemed to do the same, and with a lower amount of street hassle to boot. I thought I had it figured out and was pulling one over on the world, cruising, comfortably numbed, by the feelings and pain that accompany the lumps and challenges in life that allow one's character to shape and grow. Barring some months-long stints here and there, I've been largely intoxicated since age 13, so no wonder I feel as maladjusted as I do as a thirty something with single digit sobriety.

Throw in some major consequences and irreparable damage wrought and it'd appear my brilliant strategy for skating thru life unscathed would have been a tragically unsuccessful one. Yet I've relapsed pretty deeply a number of times. Needing to escape, I guess. To escape the messy, beautiful, painful, piercing, tragic, sweet, rich, and meaningful tangle that is my life without blinders, and which scares the hell out of me. Because sometimes it takes my breath away and feels like too much to take in, regardless of what's at stake.

Thank you for this thread and apologies if I've strayed from its intended direction. Hard things for me to think about right now, good things for me to think about right now...

Latte

I don't ever think I thought it was great. I was running away from my problems. I needed to forget about things for a few hours/days. Facing problems head on was never my strong suit for whatever reason.

When I quit drinking I gained so much more than the ability to deal with problems, I can't imagine going back.

For Linz, I write all kinds of quotes and post them all over the home I share with my family. It's kind of cute when your 9 year old daughter comes to tell you you're beautiful and so is she because she read my positive affirmation on the card next to the bathroom mirror. Sticky Notes are fun. LOL

BackToSquareOne

This is a response I wrote to a similar post in 2008, my last drink was 8/28/2008. I saved the wristband from the hospital as a reminder that vodka and valium are a bad combination.

Anyhow this is my old post : I think that since the begining of time people have sought out altered states of consciousness. Take alcohol for example, after several drinks your inhibitions slowely slip away, your problems all seem less important and the warm glow of drunken bliss slowely takes over. You now have that sense of well being that you sought out.

The problem of course is that the warm glow of drunken bliss is short lived. Your old friend alcohol now starts to turn on you. As the alcohol wears off the exact opposite happens, your nervous system is now in a state of hyper arousal, noises seem louder, our senses more acute. The warm glow has been replaced with a sense of impending doom, panic, anxiety and depression. These things are our brains way of compensating for the lack of sedation, the warm glow is gone and there is something wrong that only more and more alcohol can fix.

This is the point where the alcoholic gets on the merry go round, he is no longer drinking to achieve that warm glow. He now needs the alcohol to calm his over active mind, a brief reprieve from the withdrawal symptoms is what he now seeks. Alcohol has taken another prisoner and will not free him without a fight. This cycle has been repeating itself since alcohol was discovered. For the alcoholic the booze will always win, it is an equal opportunity destroyer and complete surrender is the only answer.

I wrote that several years ago and can remember that warm glow and release of inhibition, that was the good part. When it wears off, that's the bad part and for me complete surrender was the only answer.

CarolD

I began drinking to appear sophisticated
and ended up being a depressed woman I detested.

All my fun bottles were long empty before I quit
and still I drank.....I'm an alcoholic.

Hope everyone finds their joy in recovery....

oak

I thought it made me more social. But very quickly I just drank alone even if people were there. It was all about the alcohol; I ignored the people.

And I drank to not feel pain and to feel good in my body. That did not work so well either.

MrDavid

Amen...

BullDog777

i drank for oblivion everytime because i didn't want to feel the feelings i felt.

whether it be anxiety or anger, i only seemed to ever have the 2 emotions.

the 17 months i've been sober, the real joy has been experiencing the different ranges and not just the hot and cold aspect. i was a pretty bad drug addict too. i had OCD and severe paranoia and i drank over that too. then came the sleep disorders because of the constant state of intoxication or withdrawal i was in.

all that's gone now. i have peace.

fulminouscherub

Drink was my tonic for misery for 25 years. It didn't really work. I was still often miserable. Eventually I was miserable enough to see if trying something different might yield different results.

I'm still miserable sometimes, but the quality of my problems is improving. I have a strange sense of optimism that I didn't have when I was drinking.

I'm definitely healthier, stronger, and sleeping better. Out of credit card debt. Back in school. Got to date the hottest one yet (though it didn't last).

Thriving in sobriety is a skill that gets better with practice, one day at a time.

azureseas

It seems that a lot of us here needed a drink to deal with social situations. I know I did when I started 25 years ago.
I am now a different person (a lot more comfortable in my own skin). Maybe it did help me in the beginning, although at a cost, many cringe worthy moments along the way.
Billsaintjames comment about it being a gateway to friends resonated loud and clear with me.
Thanks for the post Shantra, I am also feeling moments of pure happiness (as opposed to 'drunk happiness') that I haven't felt in a long time.
It was interesting to read someones comments in another post about how drinking drains serotonin

Drexo

Many thanks for this post shantra!... Wonderful story and it gives me a lot of motivation.

Stimmed

A great comment seen clearly only in sobriety, at length...

Well done on your sober time and getting your life back :-)

TheEnd

There was a time we thought it was great. I will never go around demonizing alcohol, just because I can't drink it. I'm allergic to peanuts, if I eat them I will die, but I don't go around talking bad about it. The fact is, we did like it at one point or we wouldn't haven't indulged for so long. However, as they say, all good things must come to an end, so this is the next stage of my life.