newpower

I'm not sure when I'm stressed I drink when I happy I drink when I'm sad I drink when it's a day ending with y I drink.

I'm used to drink for any reason.
The
I'm about 20 days sober and I no longer feel depressed to the point of considering ending it all. I feel really good even at peace.

I still get stressed board and even sometimes need a drink but I've decided that drinking is no longer an option. so I am now learning new coping strategies.

I am not sure if my drinking was driven by Anything other than the fact I loved alcohol but my drinking stopped my development of normal coping strategies that normal people have.

I just don't drink today and do my best each day to be a better person.

fini

Jazzfish,
i just realized that your question is whether alcoholism is driven by underlying issues, not whether it's caused by them. different question. maybe. not sure how you meant it.

I was thinking maybe I have trouble quitting because I need to deal with underlying issues first or also.
in my opinion one can quit without doing anything else first. the "first i have to..." is really a "...uh, yeah, maybe, just not yet!" (ah yes, good old St. Augustin's "Lord, give me chastity, just not quite yet.")

But then that leads to the idea that if I deal with the underlying issues then my drinking should go back to normal.

huh? sorry, i can't see how that follows. that's saying that underlying issues cause a "normie" to turn into an alcoholic/alcohol addict and that this is a reversible process....is that what you're saying?
it's not what i've seen.
for myself, i was kind of stuck in a similar mindset for a long time, the mindset that said that my drinking was somehow caused by external circumstances or internal underlying stuff. by other than itself. that it was a response of sorts instead of a "thing in itself", a condition (i like that word for it)
but i've changed my mind on these things many times, and i'm glad i can.

in any case, you need to only quit in order to quit. nothing else is required for that.
for staying quit, you might find you want/need to do other stuff.

Boleo

Before I had a Spiritual Awakening, I thought my alcoholism was caused by outside issues, such as; job stress, character flaws, traumatic events, unhappy marriages, physical injuries, etc...

After my Spiritual Awakening I suddenly realized that the underlying cause of all my suffering was simply my distorted viewpoint of life. As long as I looked at life from the perspective of a victim, I felt like a victim. When I started seeing my life from the perspective of a student, I felt like a explorer instead.

NEVR

None. You drink alcohol for the effect. Underlying issues have nothing to do with it.

jazzfish

fini, I meant driven not caused, as in some issue is pushing the alcoholism along, some issue that one might need to put the breaks on or disrupt to quit successfully. It was also an open-ended question (deal with before, at same time, or after quitting). I agree that the only thing you need to quit is to quit; everything else is extraneous complication.

caboblanco

I think someone who like to party drinks just because of the "effect" they get but an alcoholic(somebody who has has crossed that line) drinks almost solely because of underlying issues. Whether its a conscious decision or not. I know I did. I know that for a fact.

karate

Almost everyone that drinks to excess has an underlying problem ,Find it and work toword a solution and the rest of the problem will be much easier to resolve .

Boleo

Me to. I stopped dozens of times simply by not-drinking x number of days but the obsession never left me. When I started to live a whole new life-style based on spiritual principles instead of will-power, the obsession left me like like smoke in the wind.

bigsombrero

Yeah I pretty much couldn't have said it better. Throw in the underlying problems we develop during our drinking career (embarrassing moments, arguments with SO's, etc) and it becomes a chicken-or-the-egg scenario.

NEVR

No, false. You drink alcohol solely for the effect - it makes you feel good. That is the only reason anyone drinks.

Everybody on the planet has issues - they don't all become addicted to alcohol.

You all are blaming bad behavior on perceived problems.

Furthermore - most of the issues alcohol addicts have are caused by alcohol use.

caboblanco

So your saying people don't drink because of serious issues they have but that most all serious issues are caused solely by their drinking? Interesting

If alcohol cause all your problems why is it that people that don't drink have serious problems too? The reason an alcoholic drinks who has problems is just because he wants to catch a nice buzz? There is no way he is trying to forget or run away from something?

I don't think blaming your addiction problems all on your bad beats in life is all together helpful. You are right. I just think denying the fact that you have serious emotional issues that contribute to your drinking is being very close minded and counterproductive. I actually think blaming alcohol for everything is another easy way out.

Mirage74

I think most counselors/therapists would tell you in order to benefit from therapy you have to remove the alcohol, to clear your mind. For me, underlying issues have definitely contributed towards my alcoholism. I often wonder what my life would have been like had my life gone perfectly. But no one's life goes perfectly, even someone like Brad Pitt or Bill Gates. My counselor told me that everyone struggles, some people are just better at hiding it.

Would I be able to drink normally if I solved my issues? I'm almost certain I wouldn't. Getting drunk to celebrate how great everything is is really not much different than drinking in a pity party - you're still getting drunk. My hope is that in dealing with my underlying issues, it will reduce my desire to pick up that first drink in the first place.

UnixBer

I used to think that drinking is just a means to have fun and explode with crazy funny things. But looking closely and being more honest with myself.. I do see that 95% what contributed to me turning to drink was underlying issues.

There was something about reality that I didn't want to meet sober. I'd do almost anything to avoid it, so I hid in the bottle. It gave me (false) courage, inspiration and energy. Scared of living sober, to clearly have to face with reality and my own emotional issues was what drove to me go to the bottle. It was difficult to admit this fact, and all the more easier to deny it and escape into a limboland of drinking.

As a child, I used to think that the world is unfair. The bad guy always wins etc. People have defects since birth and all that stuff. Now today that viewpoint is basically reversed. Now I think of the world as a fair place. Nothing but fair perhaps, no matter what happens with the world.

The remaining 5% to contribute to alcoholism could be the way alcohol is promoted by today's society and the many forms of adversing.

RobbyRobot

I'm a recovered alcoholic drug addict. I have plenty of issues, lol, and none of them are caused by alcohol use. I haven't drank in over 30 years.

My past drinking only for effect makes sense if I was a lab rat, yeah. I'm thinking I'm awesomely different then a lab rat. As a person I have tons of underlying issues which dynamically empower me to be me. In fact, my past and present issues both make me similar and different with others all in the same moment. Welcome to the human race. My past personality traits and my past character had a significant and essential playbook contributing to my past drinking. And these same forces and energies now being changed and renewed from my quitting drinking absolutely help me stay quit.



You know, for me to believe my only reason for my past drinking was simply for physical cause and effect, I would never have been able to successfully quit, speaking for myself. It would have been in that case entirely unimportant for me to sober up because that kind of idea would have taken me completely out of the equation.

I drank for whatever the hell justification I could invent. Feeling good was simply one of many, lol.

RobbyRobot

I also meant to say, being recovered makes me no less an alcoholic drug addict. My alcoholism is an enduring illness. Having quit drinking allows me to successfully live a happy life in spite of my arrested alcoholism. Responsibilities and consequences are in existence aplenty for my being a recovered alcoholic. There is no free ride - so drinking or not drinking my alcoholism endures dynamically interwoven with in my life.

Boleo

That is in fact what happened in my case. When I addressed my underlying issues - it not only "reduced my desire to pick up a drink", it completely eliminated all thoughts of drinking to the point where I had "Recovered" the same attitude towards drinking that I had as a kid before I ever tasted alcohol.

Not that I am cured mind you. Whatever damage alcohol did to my organs, brain or THIQ chemistry has not been reversed. I not only know I can never safely drink again but it has become a moot issue for me. I don't even care about it anymore then I care about riding my tricycle that I had when I was 4 years old.

In fact, I am deepy grateful for being an alcoholic. Why? Because it forced me to learn a whole new way of living that thought me the most important lesson I ever learned. That is:

I now know that both happiness and misery are an inside job.

fini

Jazzfish,
when i used to think/believe that if i just dealt with whatever my 'underlying issues' were then i could control my drinking, i was floundering. of course. i knew what some of the issues were, but everyone else i knew had issues, too, some much 'worse' than mine, and they were 'normal drinkers'.
so that didn't make sense rationally for me to continue hanging on to this theory about my inability to moderate, but it clearly served my continued drinking. even though that wasn't clear to me then.
and when i first was ready to do something more concrete than just think about it all and ruminate, i phoned my EAP and asked for some counseling about my issues i was having trouble with, and "also, there is a bit of a problem with alcohol".
what i wanted was to work on the issues. anything rather than quit the drinking. that's what i was doing, that was the reality of it, yet what i saw/perceived was me addressing stuff and therefore doing everything a reasonable person would do.
the fact that i tried a gazillion times to quit and always drank again....i couldn't quit until i saw i didn't have a problem with alcohol, the reality was that i was a drunk.
that's shorthand for that moment.
but what was part of that understanding was/is that no underlying issues were driving this thing but that it was driving itself. "it" just kept going, by itself.
haha, the original meaning of "automobile" (self-moving).

having bored you with all that, let me get back to your OP: how much can alcoholism be driven by underlying issues? ............and later:I was thinking maybe I have trouble quitting because I need to deal with underlying issues first or also.
imo alcoholism isn't driven by anything other than itself. that is to a great degree what was so frustrating for me and took me so long to accept: that i couldn't "drive" any of it. so it's not just my opinion, but my own experience.
however: could whatever the issues are that you're dealing with make it more difficult to quit? yes, i think that's so. and they could make it tougher to STAY quit, too, if they're not dealt with.
so yeah, i can't see anyone suggesting you NOT work on whatever your issues are, but the quitting part is "just" quitting.

TKS

Hi - this is a question I have been searching my soul for an answer to for a long time. While outsiders may (and have) say it's because of my emotionally abusive childhood, I really don't carry any deep feelings for my father's actions, nor the divorce of my parents. For me, it just seems like a cliche (for my own life, not saying this about others) to actively seek out some sort of so called repressed scarring, and creating a reason because I need to find one.

Personally, I believe that 20+ years of drinking *is* the core issue for me, which has simply snowballed and became a monster. I have neglected my adult life, forgotten a lot of basic skills and lost motivation. It is these things that I believe I need to address, to give me some purpose and sense of achievement - not career or monetary achievements, but personal goals, hobbies & interests that err on the creative/productive side.

Dee74

I had definite underlying issues that caused me to look for alcohol or other drugs as a solution.

I had pain issues, I had social anxiety issues, insecurity issues, depression and despair, PTSD.....I had boredom and creativity issues, and I had arrogance and anger issues too.

Probably a lot more issues I could list besides... but you get the idea.
Some of those I had no idea how to deal with - others I was too scared to try...but, at least initially, getting drunk and stoned seemed to tick a lot of boxes.

I had to deal with all those issues to stay sober - but I needed to deal with that nasty case of alcoholism I developed over 2 decades too.

It was a many headed monster.

D

awuh1

Addiction to alcohol is its own thing, but as Dee says there are many things about us as individuals that contributed to our addiction. Some are physical, some are psychological and for many of us there are spiritual causes as well.

In my case it was best to take a good hard look at all of them.