jan1664

Hi all,
Well at the moment I'm only 12 hours in, and I feel like crap at the mo but I'mlieing here in bed and trying to have a think about when i drank, the one thing iI keep getting asked is what causes me to drink, or if there was a specific thing that did it.
Well I genuinely don't know, for example yesterday I went out with the sole intention of treating myself to a nice big Sunday roast dinner, next thing I remember is walking out of a pub and this morning ive woken up with a empty litre bottle of vodka next to my bed, which i don't remember buying.

Did anybody else have a specific trigger or like me did it just happen subconsciously??

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day

LadyBlue0527

Not that I'm asking you to supply it but there's a world of missing information and insight between here

and here

You didn't go from zero to wasted in 1 second. Somewhere, consciously, you chose to pick up that first glass of alcohol. What was your thought process when you picked it up? Is it typical of you to drink at Sunday roast dinner?

Go over that whole missing piece in your mind. There's a wealth of information in there somewhere and that's a good start.

jan1664

I genuinely don't know what the thought process was, but I can sort of see what you are trying to ask

Nevertheless

I had triggers,and I also had times it just happened for absolutely no reason at all.
What caused me to drink is I am an alcoholic. The only way to control it is to quit completely. I had to learn what my triggers were,and how to avoid them. I also had to be ready for the unexpected. Like the boss unexpectedly pulling into work with a cooler full of beer in the back of his truck at quitting time.
Quitting takes a lot of devotion,hard work and focus for a long period of time. But once you break the addiction,life is good. I don't have triggers anymore. But I am still only one beer away from going back to hell.
Fred

LadyBlue0527

Start here:

You went out with the sole intention of treating yourself. So where is the first place that you went? Being that you know that you're trying to quit how did you get that first drink? Did you order it? Did someone hand it to you? Either way, when you took that bottle/glass/whatever and brought it up to your mouth what was in your mind?

If you didn't give it a second thought and just did it I'm asking a very honest question and not being snarky by any means. How badly do you want to quit? Most who try to quit will say things to themselves like "I can't believe I am doing this." or "Here we go again". Some feel a huge urge and fight with themselves not to take that drink, some succeed, and some don't. At least knowing that there's a thought process there is a start. That you can work with. However, if you're just picking up a drink mindlessly with no thought process at all about going ahead and drinking it then you have to question how much effort you're putting into it.

Here's a little insight to how addiction works too, and it's very sneaky. You went out with the sole intention of treating yourself to dinner. Are you sure of that? Be entirely honest with yourself. When you made the decision to go and have dinner the thought of alcohol never entered your mind? Maybe not, who knows?

Just giving some food for thought.

karate

Eat the dinner FIRST .

Just try that ,its a low cost ,no risk plan to try .


If I eat a big meal , there is zero chance ill drink .

That's just my bodys system I know , but try it .

Gottalife

Hi Jan,

I had the same experience many times. It is very common among alcoholics of my type. We call it the strange mental blank spot. We have no effective defence against the first drink. The Big Book describes it thus:

"The alcoholic at certain times has no effective defence against the first drink"

And of course there is the defining characteristic of the alcoholic, the fact that we have "lost the power of choice in drink" and that means exactly what it says, an alcoholic does not choose to drink. Like me, he chooses not to drink and ends up drunk anyway. Many times, having sworn off for the day, I found myself drinking with no recollection of going to the bar, or taking the first drink. It was like being on autopilot.

" there is a total failure of the kind of defence that stops one putting ones hand on a hot stove."

"We are unable at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defence against the first drink"

"The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur (they may not) they are hazy and readily supplanted with old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people.

These are some of the instances in the big book where this aspect of alcoholism is described.

The good news is that you can recover in spite of this. It is possible to find a defence and a much better life into the bargain.

Mountainmanbob

if you are alcoholic such as I'm ???

when drinking I would get to a point in time
where I had no control over my consumption of the liquid devil
it was not until I
ended up in jail, totaling a vehicle or in a hospital
that I would have a chance with Recovery

if you can stop drinking today -- that would be the day to stop

many do not have this luxury

in the AA Big Book the following is mentioned

Liquor ceased to be a luxury, it became a necessity (a probable sign of being an alcoholic)

MM

karate

I can sure identify with that ,Many times I found a beer in my hand before I knew what happened .

These days ,Im still not going to keep beer in the house .
That would just be too easy .

Most of the time I can power through the urges .

Food is what helps me , eat and I wont think of drinking .

Get me somewhere hungry and with beer and im sure going to drink .

LadyBlue0527

I don't buy into this theory karate

At least not from someone who is truly trying to quit drinking. It's about as far at the other end of the spectrum as you can get from the word honesty.

You can ignore your own conscience but it doesn't mean that it's not present. Either you want to drink or you don't. If you want to drink you will make up any excuse available to deny that you knew full well you shouldn't pick up that drink and have it. Right up there in that pile of excuses is "I don't know what happened". Yes, yes you do, you wanted to drink more than you wanted to be sober.

I'm not speaking at you karate, I'm referring to anyone who drinks and says "I don't even know what happened".

There has never, not once, been a point in my life at any time that I've tried to quit and picked up that first drink that my brain didn't say to me "you know you really shouldn't be doing this". I just ignored it and told it to shut up and did it anyway. In fact, I drank more when I did this because I was trying to drowned the AV. Too bad it floats.

Saying that I don't even know what happened is an extreme lack of honesty and accountability and is rocket fuel for the addiction. It's right up there with someone who had posted that they went out for dinner and drank and it was like someone else ordered the drink for them and it wasn't even them. No, no, you ordered the drink, you are just looking somewhere else to lay blame because as long as we do that then we don't have to be accountable.

Sobriety requires full honesty and accountability. The less of the presence of those two things the harder of a time you'll have getting sober.

karate

Actually , I do know what happened .

Would get the shakes , from blood sugar . And needed immediate
Action , to stop them .

Doing better these days , that HALT has ALOT of merit
To me .

karate

Psysical symptoms are my enemy , the obsession to drink
Just for the buzz is gone .