robgt350

Deeker

our body chemistry is pretty much the same. our electrolytes, fluid volume and ph are pretty much the same. for the person who is drunk might be different. but as for a person with a history of alcoholism to take a lab test and chemistry is completely different is far from the truth. i have never seen any lap like that. in my opinion, i think it is mental dependency just like tobacco, drugs and yes alcohol.
i used to smoke for 10 years and i quit 14 years ago. well i am able to have a cigar here and there. last year i had 3 of them. just 3. i did not return to the terrible addiction of tobacco that has millions upon millions.
as of now i cannot return to drinking cause i do not have to strength do control my self. but far in the future, which might be years and years, i will be able to. but still that is a maybe. i believe that alcoholism is a self destructive chosen behavior, not a disease that we have no control over such as cancer.
but this is just my option.

least

I can't. I've tried and failed many times. Better not to tempt fate.

caboblanco

Many a heavy drinker has moderated their drinking. Maybe the definition of an alcoholic is someone who can't moderate? Some comedian said all addiction is is people who like to get drunk or high better than life itself. Well if your quality of life is poor in your eyes I would think it would be hard to moderate your drinking because on some level you really don't "want" to

Peter G

^^^ Quite facile, and a wholly incorrect description for so many thousands of alcoholics... some of whom are on this forum. I must say, such is a description of the alcoholic condition that no person alive who has experienced what I have within this so-called "self destructive chosen behavior" would ever consider vocalizing unless they were already drunk and feeling mouthy.

Your belief Rob, which - of course - you are entitled to sharing, it has to be qualified by someone like me stopping by to say ... sorry mate, but you're just wrong, at least in my case, after a certain point in my drinking 'career'. There were times when I literally have no memory of buying booze, getting drunk, or the level of destruction I caused myself and others. 0. Nada. Nothing. No recall. Can that be made more clear? I wasn't present. My rational mind was on vacation. My free will was compromised wholly, and my decision making processes were flawed to the point of complete futility. Full friking stop. Nothing was "chosen", it was simply happening, like tornadoes and tsunamis happen, and most times absolutely against my will and choices.

Your opinion inadvertently suggests that I must be prone to melodrama, lying to somehow make what happened to me more "tragic" and allow me to feel less "responsible". Well, I'm not lying, not embellishing in the least. Neither are the thousands of others who would testify to the same syndrome and occurrences within their drinking tenure. What I'm telling you is simply the singular factual description available for the level of alcoholism I experienced. My drinking problem had nothing to do with choices or behavior patterns, or wants, or desire. It was something else entirely. It was advanced alcoholism.

There were times when I woke in hospitals in critical condition with loved ones crying over my bedside from benders that started completely unknown to me, unknown up to this very day. In fact there were so many times in the late stages of my "condition" when I was not a part of the "get loaded" process in the slightest, when my choices and desires were useless and simply not present. Add to this the countless number of times when I would be drinking toxic amounts of liquor and simultaneously being disgusted and HATING what I was doing to myself. Added, I most certainly DID NOT CHOOSE to continue destroying people I loved or burn my life to the ground after knowing full well what the cause was... yet that's exactly what ended up happening.

Everyone's entitled to opinions on this subject, but 2 things that I've experienced with alcoholism make this opinion extremely facile determinism applied to an extremely complex and baffling condition. First, I've personally witnessed how this dis-EASE killed people who most certainly never wanted to die, and who's circumstance of death can only be described as the product of sheer schizophrenic insanity - if not for their documented drinking problems. Secondly, the same theft of mind and free will occurred within me later on in my addiction for years, and almost killed me a few times just as thoroughly as those now deceased.

Such statements would negate the documented pathology and evolution of the alcoholic condition as it presents itself in many. Here's the thing; trying to relegate what some of us have actually experienced as just a product of "bad choices" is just a bit too fluffy and pedestrian for my liking. Nothing personal of course, but suggesting such things on an open forum where people come looking for help is a bit too provocative to leave without offering at least a counter-point.

Certainly your opinion is popular, and it might be a belief that can keep some sober for years. It certainly would make logical sense to someone not afflicted with alcoholism or experiencing alcoholism in it's early stages. But to some of us who've ventured beyond the sublime and landed in the ridiculous progressions of this dis-EASE, it's just flat out incorrect to suggest we chose the path we landed on, considering the living hell so many of us have gone through without a single ounce of cognizance or free will available to combat it. IMO most of these types of judgments and slants on alcoholic behavior are the product of an age-old meme which continues to stand there telling us we're liars, or we're just weak and unable to admit to this weakness. Apart from being not accurate, it's quite poignant in it's sheer lack of understanding of the condition that brought us all here looking for help.

deeker

nice

gunther84

If by drinking casually one means a bottle of vodka and 12 beers a night for several days in a row, then yeah, I did and can drink casually.

nigey1

Moderation is a long ago youthful phase, a past and unrepeatable lifestyle - like playing certain sports well or sending your phone bills to your parents, or having 19 girlfriends at once, or skipping algebra for a Nine Inch Nails concert. There was a time when we could do many things that simply aren't available to us anymore, physiologically speaking. It's human nature. It's called 'aging' for normal folk. For an alcoholic, drinking is just one more of those things we need to put on that "I'm too old for that $h!t" list.[/QUOTE]

Loving this going to steal it and use it.

ru12

So Peter, who exactly was responsible for your drinking? Who exactly controls your hands? Do you really believe that YOU aren't responsible for what beverage you put to your lips and swallow? I'm just curious as to who you hold responsible for your poor life choices.

Michael66

I think addictions of all types can progress to a point where a person has effectively gone beyond the type of "neutral" choice we are familiar with in other aspects of our lives, and their power of choice is now far outweighed by the power of the addiction, leading us to that "powelessness" that AA recognises. But it's likely that lots of little choices led the way to that state. This is perhaps why St. Paul talks of sin as "enslaving", recognizing how destructive choices lead to destructive habits, which lead to an enslavement to destructive behaviour. At that point we need something, or someone, outside of ourselves to redeem us, as we have gone beyond our own strength.

ru12

And in a court of law, how do you think this denial of responsibility woud fair?

Michael66

When we were/are in that state we need mercy more than justice. And as Portia (or Shakespeare) said "We all do pray for mercy. And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy."

Peter G

Who's responsible for my best mate, who drank as heavily as I did for years, NOT becoming an alcoholic? Me? In fact, tell me if you would; who is responsible for the difference between anyone who can drink heavily there entire lives and NOT have it destroy them; versus those like me who were utterly bulldozed by it? Is it the alcoholics responsibility for a drinker being able to quit-at-will as much as those who just can't manage the feat? Or is it really your contention that we're just folks with weaker/flawed resolve and psychological makeups than those who can put down the bottle at will?

Ultimately I am responsible of course, but only for allowing a lifestyle of heavy drinking to come to the point where that substance took over complete control of my life. With my family's history of alcoholism, I should have known I would succumb eventually. (Pathology hint there: genetic disposition)

That said, I was as judgmental and disagreeable as anyone that drinking issues were "character flaws", as I grew up hating my father and brother for their seeming insane and abusive behaviors... only to become as bad or worse down the road. In a way, it was this same maligned opinion you now own that led me to be cocksure enough to drink my face off years ago, thinking that I could stop anytime because I wasn't "weak" like them, I wasn't "selfish", or "flawed".

The mitigating factor you're utterly ignoring; this phenomenon/condition/illness/disease/dis-ease/whatever; this thing that makes my desires and choices exactly NOT a part of cognizant decision making processes? It's called Alcoholism. Have a look. It's out there, it exists, and it's as real and as tragic and as faultless as a heart attack. It's what has most of us on this forum who are literally dumbfounded at our own behaviors, panicked, scared half to death, come here in desperation to seek solutions for. And it's what has some of the most strong-willed, disciplined, centered people on earth fall to their knees in pain being destroyed by, with rope burns around their necks fresh from suicide attempts, crying tears that no longer form from tragedies they caused, never having made a single choice to initiate them. And it's opinions like yours, continually judging them 'guilty' of some sort of simple case of "bad decisions" that is just about as irresponsible and asinine as my blaming people who die in a car crash for the icy road conditions that sent them off a cliff.

So yeah, until this ugly, malevolent, disgusting condition that occurs in the 4 to 6% of the population who do drink can be properly explained, detailed, diagnosed, it's most certainly not YOUR place to tell me I'm solely responsible for what happens to me and not 90+% of the rest of us human beings when they drink liquor. Moreover, that I need to take on and own some kind of character flaw or irresponsible behavior pattern that others don't as the sole reason for my life being tanked and my loved ones hearts broken. I've stood tall through a gunfight, a tsunami, and a 7.8 earthquake, and watched the people you'd consider "responsible", you know, "NON alcoholics", break down like school-girls during those same circumstances.

Your point, I'm afraid, is incredibly pedestrian. As I've said, it's facile. It scratches the surface of the surface of the tipping point of alcoholism. It's no different from looking at quantum physics and deeming it a paint-by-numbers coloring book puzzle. You give us a black vs white false choice, and given all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such attitudes become merely straw-man arguments that perhaps serves to offer a personal (and perhaps necessary) validation for you, that such closed thinking is exactly correct and it will keep you sober. If it keeps you sober have at it. But it's not even a thousand miles from the town that houses the ballpark that is alcoholism. To ignore all the mitigating factors, pathological road maps, overwhelming evidence, statistics, sheer volumes of lives destroyed, and the history of this condition all to tell me this lands solely on my back? That goes beyond facile determinations. It's personally insulting.

What evolved from my drinking days, to become the condition I was afflicted with most certainly did not happen because I chose it, it happened because alcoholism happens.

As an aside, I find it quite amusing (in a tragic sort of way) how it is folks can wash up on these shores occasionally, blaming the afflicted for their sickness/malady/whatever, as if by choosing to imbibe we fully accepted the life destroying events that would follow. That opinion is utterly nonsensical to most folks like us who have woken up with an empty bottle in hand not knowing how in blue he!! it got there, or why we are suddenly puking out our stomach lining and looking at a wrecked car, a jail cell, or maybe a dead body.

Suggesting fully that we're supposed to know our own future and have enough psychic precognition to stop ourselves from getting sick with something that others do not get sick from is pipe-dream rationalization. At (or around) 6 years before I finally did stop drinking successfully, I would have literally done anything to stop drinking. Anything. I would have become a card-carrying heroine addict if someone proved to me it would stop me from drinking. I would have worn a tunic and prayed to a Lady Gaga idol for 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But alas, I couldn't stop. And according to you, that's my responsibility alone, and there is no existing, proven, mitigating paradigm called alcoholism responsible for my affliction at all. It's on us only. Nonsense.

Lastly, to respond to your direct point Ignoring the many other occurrences I could cite for missing time/memory; The last time I drank myself into the ICU, with a stopped heart, in a coma, and with a diagnosis of certain death? I have NO recollection of anything that started that particular "bender". NONE. Quite simply, I do not remember spending my salary to get a CASE of vodka, or of the incredible heavy weight that case must have been - carrying it 4 blocks to my flat, nor of drinking them. Full stop. I walked to the store for cigarettes 15 minutes before a Stanley Cup finals match and my very next memory is waking up in the hospital 6 days later with my wife and Uncle crying over my hospital bed and a doctor telling them I likely won't live through the night. So you tell me; who's responsible for that? Was I abducted by aliens and force-fed alcohol? Or perhaps me, along with the many other posters who come here and say "I have no idea how it happened" are just being dishonest? Nope. Thanks for playing but you're flat out wrong.

So yeah, so sorry, but you can't paint a box around alcoholism from this overly-simplistic, flawed, and IMO crass personal judgment. It's a condition that affected me long beyond me wanting it NOT to, and brought me to the brink of death more than once. Taking your broad-stroked logic as an apt explanation for something I know I didn't have control over is what leads some of us "weaker" people to suicide from the undeserved guilt of what amounts to a populist meme with very little applicable validity.

ru12

"Ultimately I am responsible of course", this is the only really important part of the long-winded justification for your behavior that you posted above. You are indeed responsible for what you drink. Why, oh why, do people like you need to craft yourselves as some kind of victim?

If you drove drunk during one of these episodes where your 'alcoholism' made you do it, and if you happened to kill someone, how much weight do you think this diatribe that you created would hold? You would find yourself in jail for an very long time, and perhaps you would take that time to consider that just maybe you indeed had some part in your behavior. Or you might just see yourself again oppressed by forces beyond your control . . . you are but a puppet upon the string.

Yes alcoholism is tragic. Yes the compulsion to drink, the craving can seem impossible to control. But you are responsible for what you do Peter. As am I.

Peter G

Aside from the unnecessary, dismissive, and insulting digs ("diatribe"..."long winded" ... "craft yourselves as some kind of victim") you're certainly entitled to believe anything you want. It's quite obvious I strongly disagree. Reading comprehension is subjective after all.

I'd only suggest that you leave off these lump-sum negative connotations about how alcoholics gravitate towards a "VICTIM" mentality. That is another in a growing list of arrogant assertions towards an entire demographic, an analysis you're just not qualified to make towards me or any other person on this board or in the world at large.

To briefly respond; I don't consider myself a victim of anything. I'm simply someone who has bore the brunt of a condition called alcoholism, and who must remain ever-vigilant of this condition in order to be assured I don't relapse. What steps I must take to curb this condition, normal people don't have to be concerned with at all, which is also something that is not my "fault" or "responsibility", it just is. Go figure.

I'm not willing to blame myself for things that occur beyond my control, any more than I or anyone else here should accept that you have some sort of enlightened insight into an incredibly complex condition that has baffled medical professionals, psychiatry, scholars, and most of the rest of us for centuries. Yes I take responsibility for my part to play, but I also understand that there's much more within the alcoholism paradigm than mine or your limited purview can possibly adequately explain. And therein lies the fundamental difference between yours and my opinion. I can't judge another alcoholic's intent or actions arbitrarily, whereas you seem to have figured the culpability portion out for the whole lot of us. Awesome. Not.

Additionally, I notice you gravitate towards applying the legal system as if it's some sort of grand epiphany, or bottom-line proof of the validity of your assessment. It's not. Laws are broad-stroked, applying to everyone equally, regardless of extenuating conditions and circumstances - necessarily so and applied in such a way for the safety of society at large. It's why we have those pesky things called trials, so that the specifics aren't completely ignored. To suggest that the legal definition of "responsibility" is the final word on a medical/psychological/personal dilemma is absurdly quick elementary logic being applied to vast complexities, and seeks to negate the thousands of physiological mysteries and mitigating factors involved in alcoholic behavior. Otherwise you're by default suggesting the law is always right, full stop. If such is the case then we should seriously consider outlawing aging, so we can all live forever.

All that said, you can walk down every road you travel thinking yours is the right approach/answer to the causes of destruction that arrive from alcoholism, as long as it keeps you sober. Hats off to ya. Keep it up, and stay off the booze. Thing is; since you obviously have little idea what I'm on about, I sincerely hope you never experience the other side of being a drunk, wherein you can do everything right, make every right move, and focus on your 'personal responsibility' as belligerently as humanly possible, yet still on one dark day end up one step from death, from a condition you couldn't control no matter your best intentions, judgments, or your seeming "expert" status, which IMO amounts to what us "long-winded" folks call hubris.

Again, sorry if this reply is also unnecessarily verbose according to your specifications, but I often find that quick replies towards complex and often tragic problems is a lot like rushing to the sort of boorish judgmental myopia we often find in your wonderfully flawed legal system; mostly that kind of outlook ends up creating more problems than it solves.

Ngokpa

A couple of drinks can sound glorious, but in reality they're terrible. They just prime the pump.

There was a time in my life when a couple of drinks was fun, but that ship has sailed and been dynamited into kindling.

I have much better ways of enjoying myself these days--but they took some getting used to.

ru12

Again Peter, another long-winded missive where you try to deflect responsibility for YOUR BEHAVIOR.

For what it is worth, I am glad you stopped killing yourself with alcohol. Really I am! Hell, I'm glad that I stopped killing myself with alcohol too!

But seriously, you still certainly consider yourself as a victim here!!! As if you weren't responsible for getting yourself drunk. .

I'm sorry you have issues with the legal system. But it is the thing that protects innocents from people like you who think they aren't responsible for their behavior because that have this invention call 'alcoholism'.

Here are the facts: you drank enough to addict yourself. You behaved atrociously again and again whilst drunk Peter. YOU DID THAT! Stop trying to make something other than yourself culpable for your poor behavior. The Devil didn't make you do it, and being an alcoholic didn't make you do it. You did it Peter!

But I doubt that you will ever really recognize who is responsible for what befell you. And that is a damn shame. I admit it must be fell freeing and emancipating not blaming oneself for one's own behavior. But that is a fabrication that I'm not willing to entertain. I am responsible for my own behavior. And if I reach the point where I am not, I need to be restrained and imprisoned so that I don't injure and innocent party unawares.

ImperfectlyMe

Brothers don't shake hands brothers hug...... Tommy boy
Trying to lighten the mood

You both make valid points and perhaps you can both be right. I read all thee pages and my head turned like I was watching a US open match. I don't think there is a owners manual for being an alcoholic. Everyone's affliction is there own. Leave it that way. Peter has his own truth as do you ru.

ru12

Hi In.

Last thing and then I need to put the little ones to bed.

I think blaming something other than ourselves for our own behavior hurts people. I think sometimes it kills people.

I am responsible for what I do. Even if I am a drunk, or a junkie, or just a plain old a$$hole.

ScoobyWoo

I know myself well enough to know that I can't do ANYTHING in moderation, especially alcohol.

And in my experience (after 4 years of continuous sobriety), I have realized that it can be dangerous for me to have those thoughts or fantasies about some day being able to drink again! It's not your fault if you have these thoughts -- there is a good chance if you are on this website that your brain is chemically addicted. You've been feeding it alcohol for a long time, and it has been taught to always want more. Luckily that's not the real YOU talking, it's the addicted you.

I used to have those fantasies a lot -- I found it helpful to get into a habit of stopping those thoughts in their tracks, and to reorient and think of them as a voice of "the beast" speaking, separate from my own voice. The more I did this, one day at a time, that voice of the beast became softer and softer until I rarely heard it at all. And today I almost never hear those thoughts, and I am thankful that the SOBER me doesn't have to listen to the beast anymore!

artsoul

I think this thread has outlived its usefulness, due to getting off-topic and Rule 4 (see below).

Rule 4: No posts that attack, insult, "flame", defame, or abuse members or non-members. Respect other members of the community and don’t belittle, make fun of, or insult another member or non-member. Decisions about health and recovery are highly personal, individual choices. "Flaming" and insults, however, will not be tolerated. Agree to disagree. This applies to both the forums and chat.