Doug39

Does it take hating alcohol to make a person want to seriously stop forever?

I love drinking. I love the initial buzz. I love the taste. I love the lifestyle. I love going to bars and wineries.

But I hate the hangovers. I hate how I blow all my money. I hate how it destroys my body and mind. I hate the fear of it getting me in trouble.

Some people may say too much of a something will grow boring after awhile but after 26 years of daily drinking I love it as much today, if not more, than I did back in the beginning.

So I guess until I hate all the things I love about alcohol or until I can find something I like better (that isn’t self destructive) I am stuck fighting these cravings.

caboblanco

try saying you love alcohol in a meeting..then duck for cover

Longpasttime

would make it easier wouldnt it? Im with ya, hate the results and it finally became more powerful than loving the buzz.
I was lucky with chewing tobacco, woke up one day many years ago and just didnt want it. Never did it again and never gave it a second thought. Not so lucky with the booze. Its also about a better life vs immediate gratification. Good luck, you can do it!!

jdooner

You are brainwashed. Until you have some longer term sobriety it is impossible to know what you like and don't like. You have spent 26 years of your life drinking daily how would you know anything else?

You have four months of whiteknuckling before you caved - I would argue you have not given sobriety the fair shake you have with drunkenness.

It sounds to me like you are stuck in the purgatory I posted on your other thread. You don't like the consequences but not ready to quit. That is a ****** place to be - I feel for you, as you are going to chase your tail till you are so dizzy.

Serious question - what do you like about drinking. What do you like about the bars and wineries - most sommeliers spit out the wine. Sounds like you like the buzz. What is it about the buzz you like - the excuse to be out of control?

doggonecarl

Not for me. If I had waited until I hated alcohol, I might still be drinking.

I hated needing alcohol.

shakeel

until one hits rock bottom...sometimes many times over. looks like you can still save yourself from the agony of hitting bottom.

KF85

DoggoneCarl hit the nail on the head for me. I hate "needing" alcohol. I enjoy alcohol. I drink fairly moderately most of the time as far as amounts, but NOT moderately as far as frequency (ie most days). I am nowhere near a rock bottom, or even a soft bottom. Everything in my life is fine, other than the feeling that I "need" alcohol.

I am quitting, at least for the foreseeable future, to undo the need. After that? Maybe moderation, maybe not. For now I think I am set on just not drinking.

Mrrryah1

You don't need to "hate alcohol" to stop drinking forever. You simply need to come to terms with the fact that you are an alcoholic - allergic to the substance alcohol - and that it affects you differently than other, "normal drinkers". I bet people who are diabetic don't hate chocolate bars - but they need to accept that they need to stay away from sugar for their health & wellbeing.

thegunshow

I love shrimp. I'm allergic to shellfish i eat shrimp i got to go to the hospital.

babycat

Then they are hypocrites as they obviously all quite liked alcohol themselves at one point.

Admiral

Yeah, I think honesty is more important than anything. You shouldn't ever try to deny something that you feel or believe, that just leads to frustration and confusion.

Can you accept that you enjoy alcohol, while also accepting that it's no longer a healthy choice to include it in your lifestyle?

Carlotta

It s not always as much liking alcohol as liking how it made us feel. Personally I never cared for the taste or smell of it. I started drinking in my thirties for effect.
Caboblanco, I don't know what meeting you are referring too. There are quite a few people in my home group who will share that they really liked the taste of alcohol and no one shoos them out.
Some people liked it, some did not. Alcoholism is not about oenology. Many people like the taste of alcohol and are not alcoholics. It is about how alcohol affected us.

ScottFromWI

For me the key was realizing that I like my life better without alcohol. I will freely admit I enjoyed drinking, and for a many years I could live with the bad consequences of alcohol, but eventually it caught up with me. Fortunately I realized it before things got REALLY bad, but some wait until that point too.

So I don't think hating alcohol is necessary - but accepting it for what it is and accepting that you cannot control it is absolutely necessary.

awuh1

Doug, what you describe is the classic ambivalence involved in a relationship with alcohol. Loving it and hating it at the same time.

One of the things that I had to focus on was that alcohol was not just hurting me. My drinking was hurting others. Not only was it hurting others, but it had the potential to do catastrophic harm to me and those around me. I had to put 'feel good now' on the shelf. I had to take how I felt out of the equation, because how I felt, at any given point in time, was just was not that important in the big picture. It was a matter of perspective.

My advice is to do what ever you need to do to get a new perspective, and stop focusing on how you feel, because there in lies the lie.

KateL

It gets easier xxx

GreenEggsAndHam

I still love alcohol and all that stuff too.

But there are a whole lot of other things I don't like about it. What it does to me, how I treat others when I drink (sometimes good, sometimes bad - you just never know, fun fun!), the hangovers, how it is harmful to my health, how my judgement is impaired (often severely) when I drink, how I lose friends and alienate people, how I shake in the mornings, how I can't enjoy anything in my life without it, how I care more about drinking than the company I keep, how I've come to depend on it for social anxiety, how I endanger my kids' lives when I drink, how useless I am when drunk...I could go on and on.

For me, I have gotten to the point where there are more cons than pros. I crossed that line they talk about in AA.

Pipefish

For a long, long time, I loved what alcohol did for me, and know many others who feel the same way (none of whom have been shown the door at meetings ) It was a lifeline; got me through situations I wouldn't have handled otherwise, compensated for what I felt I lacked, even obliterated reality for a while. All that, that is, until it didn't anymore, and the bind is in trying to recapture the golden moments, which never, ever happened.

So no, I don't think it takes to hate alcohol. It's that I can't drink alcohol safely, and the acceptance that the problem resides in me, not in the substance itself, that I need to acknowledge.

Think what is sometimes missed is the grief process - I lost a valued friend (even as that friend turned toxic), and it was a hard letting go. Had a very powerful experience of someone asking me how many of the promises (p89 of the BB) did I believe that alcohol would fulfil? I ran out of fingers in the counting!

I'm learning that it's the programme that truly offers what, at one point, I genuinely believed alcohol could do for me.

Wish you well

Nonsensical

I don't hate alcohol. My relatioship with alcohol, on the other hand, was a big steamy turd.

I have found things I like better and I still get alcohol cravings. Not acting on them is my priority. Fighting them is optional. I don't have to fight a feeling to ignore it. Fighting with it just made me feel frustrated.

Best of Luck on Your Journey!

Hope4Life

I am going to grab 2 of your statements and respond from my point of view.

1. "I love the lifestyle." I could not agree less with this statement. IMHO and from my personal experience... the 'lifestyle' included, personal harm, lack of control, rude and inconsiderate people, sleazy behavior, wasted time and money, dangerous conduct, disregard for others, immoral actions and a lack of self respect.

2. " I love going to bars and wineries." When I was drinking, I would have agreed. Now that I am sober, I can see that the only reason I would have thought this way is because I wanted to be with other drinkers to justify my bad habits. Misery loves company and so do alcoholics. These people are not your 'true' friends. When (if) you walk away from the bar scene, you will soon find out who your friends are. 'Drinking buddies' (for the most part, there are exceptions...) are not 'true friends'. Would you hand them the keys to your house to watch it for you if you had to leave town? I know I wouldn't have... When you make the decision to stop frequenting these establishments, take note of how many of your 'drinking buddies' call or come by to see how you are doing.... you will soon find out who your 'true friends' are.

Doug, I am glad that you are fighting the urge to drink. Keep it up and in time, I think your 'love' for these things will wane and you will see that a life w/o alcohol is more productive, realistic, fulfilling and rewarding than the life of a drinker.

As far as activities that are not self destructive... go to some AA meetings, exercise, rework your landscaping, read some good books, meditate and take stock of all the good people you have in your life.

Good Luck.

Galactus

having had three years sobriety in the past I remember thinking this exactly...i am sober now too. I remember when I did have three years sober thinking how great it was, the stuff I got accomplished , the lack of fear and anxiety , the freedom, and all the things I took for granted before I slipped.
This is the truth and thanks for reminding me. I was also told that until I get 5 years sober then I REALLY dont understand the hold or "the brainwash" alcohol had on me...I think this is so true...Im on my way