MarkNS

Hi all,

I haven't posted in over a year. I'm pretty sure when i was here previously, in my mind I wasn't an alcoholic, but rather somebody who enjoyed drinking a little (ok a LOT) too much. I actually chuckled after typing that at the utter ridiculousness of it, but denial is a very strong thing I suppose.

Anyway, I have had some success on and off in recent months in cutting back my alcohol consumption including several dry days which was almost unfathomable six months or so. What I have noticed though is that every 'moderate' (for me) spell is followed by a spell of me drinking heavier than I was before the 'break.'

I can't figure out what's going on because logically one would think that with cutting back, overall consumption would on average (in the non-cutting back phase) go down eventually or at the very least stay the same. But now after each 'break' I find myself drinking more than I did after the last 'break' which was more than after the previous 'break.' You get the point.

I'm just wondering if anybody else here has gone through or is going through something similar.

Dee74

I went through something exactly like that.

I find the analogy of feeding your addiction useful here.

Diets don't work. As soon as most of us stop a diet we return to normal habits - you may even eat more than you used to.

So it was with me.

Everytime I 'starved' my addiction, as soon as I 'fed' it again, I/it went overboard.

I used to think I was learning control - but I wasn't.

The only real control, the only real solution for me was not feeding the thing at all.

D

GroundhogDay

The only other time that I stopped drinking before now was several years ago. I abstained for 6 months for medical reasons. I definitely felt like my body was trying to catch up afterwards.

Johno1967

Mark,

Read the Big Book. This phenomena is described and explained. Try a period of sobriety for a month and then have a drink. Try to remember what happened next when you wake up one or two days later. You are on a merry go round or rather riding the barrel of a revolver in a game of Russian roulette. One day your next drunk will be the one you wished you never had.
Hope you figure it out before you hit the slippery slope. Alcoholism is a slow descent into hell.

Michael66

Absolutely! The really sad thing is sometimes I would deliberately hold back for a couple of days just so I could then drink more. More often it just occurred naturally - drinking would rebound after a period of lower consumption.

For me the answer has been total abstinence. The first few months were frankly rather miserable but after that it's been brilliant.

MarkNS

Thank you all for your responses!

ElegantlyWasted

I think for a lot of us who really need to not drink the progressiveness of the "disease" is very real. Welcome back!