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Those Who Could Not Stop

Old 09-14-2014, 04:22 PM
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I thought I needed alcohol too, and quitting meant that I needed to find a substitute for alcohol. Or so it appeared at the time. Now I see that I thought I needed a substitute for what turned out to be banging my head against the wall. It wasn't until I stopped that I understood that I didn't need it anymore, and certainly needed no substitute. Believing in the need for alcohol, or for something like it, for me was all part of the lie of addiction. I don't need alcohol or anything like it, and life is so much better without it.
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Old 09-14-2014, 04:58 PM
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I was just talking about this last night with a friend who pops in and out of recovery. Alcohol messes with your personality and makes you believe things that don't make any sense, like you need to drink all the time. After enough sober time I found that many of these beliefs fell away. My perspective improved. Like Freshstart57, I found that I didn't need a replacement for my alcohol, I was done banging my head against a wall. While all this has certainly improved my life it is still sad to watch friends slowly drink themselves to death...
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Old 09-14-2014, 05:05 PM
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I hope no one gets me wrong with this post, I'm for anything that works. Waiting for the pain to outweigh the pleasure is actually a lousy plan. I would have saved myself a lot of grief if I had stopped at a much younger age.
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Old 09-14-2014, 05:07 PM
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Some people need a substitute, some don't.

I think it is wise to offer it, in case they are one of the people who do need a power greater than themselves.

If everyone could "just stop drinking" under their own steam, no one would die from alcoholism. We'd all just tap our inner resources.

Paradoxically, it requires more pig headed stubborn will power to drink yourself to death than it does to stop.

Ever watched the movie "Leaving Las Vegas"
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Old 09-14-2014, 05:24 PM
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Originally Posted by BackToSquareOne View Post
. I would have saved myself a lot of grief if I had stopped at a much younger age.
That's another thing I think about a lot , I am 54 , I wish I had stopped at a young age or not even started to drink in the first place , but weather it is harder for someone who has been drinking since they were a teenager into their 50's to stop and stay stopped. Some people seem to stop easier than others.
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Old 09-14-2014, 05:56 PM
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Those who could not stop... Me too I often think about it. Some days I think I should be proud of having quit, other days I think I just was lucky, that maybe for others it might be 10 times harder (mentally, or because of their situation, or brain chemistry), then again I want to believe my willpower did play a role. Bouncing ball thinking.

It's hard, and we can't look in each other's heads. But I wish there was a cure, a way out for all, because it seems such a lousy and lonely way to go.

Oh well, I'll be nice to myself today, and allow the feeling that at least part of it was my own doing. Maybe.
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Old 09-14-2014, 06:19 PM
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Originally Posted by BackToSquareOne View Post
I always wondered why some are able to give it up very early in the progression while others take it almost to the end of the line and some never stop. Is it just strength and will power or much more than that. Any thoughts?
My mother was one of those people, and at least since Feb 2010 I am not. I will never know what was going on in her head all those years, but I believe those who continue to drink after seriously trying to quit multiple times fear facing the world without the soothing cloak that alcohol has provided for so long.

The world that I thought I lived in was not the kind of place that I wanted to live without an escape hatch. It wasn't until I was alcohol free for several months that I came to understand that it was the alcohol that tainted my perception of the world, and made it so unbearable to face - which of course, drove me to drink again and again. I would never have believed what alcohol was doing to my psyche during my drinking days. I was unable to see that until I had removed it from my system.
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Old 09-14-2014, 06:21 PM
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Originally Posted by aussieblue View Post
That's another thing I think about a lot , I am 54 , I wish I had stopped at a young age or not even started to drink in the first place , but weather it is harder for someone who has been drinking since they were a teenager into their 50's to stop and stay stopped. Some people seem to stop easier than others.

I'm 57, stopped 6 years ago at 51. The hardest part was it was my main source of release/relief. Kind of odd that something could be both a source of pleasure and pain, alcohol was really both in a big way for me. It is really like Freshstart said tho, you eventually figure out that you don't really need it.

I can't say there aren't times I wish I had the ability to instantly change the way I feel that alcohol once provided. That would be nice if I didn't have to take all the downside that went with it. I guess it's like a package deal and the pain part of it was just more than I could deal with any longer. When the hangovers turn into detox and withdrawal its time to rethink the whole thing.
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Old 09-14-2014, 06:24 PM
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I think about this too. I am just so thankful to be sober and alive. It is coming up in a year to when my good friend died from alcoholism. He drank to the end, with short breaks due to hospitalizations. He just didn't get it, and seemed like he didn't want to get it . What an experience, a terrible death. No matter the circumstances, my heart aches for people dying from booze.
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Old 09-15-2014, 05:23 AM
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One of my favorite quotes;

"Don't look back, you are not going that way".

For me personally even though I quit in my 30's it was the revelation that alcohol is poison that did it for me. That revelation comes to people at different times, if ever.

I hope you take away for this that my life is exponentially better, almost indescribable from life with alcohol.
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Old 09-15-2014, 10:41 AM
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I don't know how common it really is but one thing I noticed was that anxiety and depression would kick into high gear without the alcohol. It was almost like take the alcohol away equated with the mind sending in all the anxiety and depression it could come up with. No one wants to feel lousy so the natural reaction was to send down more alcohol to put those issues to rest.

I found that if you have those issues to begin with alcohol will make them much worse, if you didn't have them alcohol can cause them to develop. The catch-22 part of it was the alcohol at first seemed to ease all those things, until it wore off anyhow when all of that got slammed into overdrive. I often wonder how many people fall for that same trap.
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Old 09-15-2014, 04:08 PM
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My mother never quit until she went into a dementia unit a couple of years ago.

She went from being an insufferable beast (the nicest b-word witch comes to mind) to someone I could tolerate.

I am grateful that I was not her.

I took my lumps from 13 - 15 years of hard drinking at a pretty early age and got sober.
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Old 09-15-2014, 04:12 PM
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Originally Posted by aussieblue View Post
This is something I think about a lot, I am just coming back from another fail and my health is at stake but even knowing this I still went back out there. I wonder if I will ever make it , I can get 6 months and 9 months but never really get past the thought of never again being able to drink.
Thanks for your candor, Aussie.

You can most certainly drink again, although I would advise against it.

My problem is not that I can't drink again - to the contrary, it's that I can drink again.

That is why I continue to pursue the program of sobriety which has helped me so much.

I hope that you find one which gets you to the point of recovery that I have been given.

Please stick around.
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Old 09-16-2014, 03:49 AM
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I have wondered now and then why some of us make it and some of us don’t.

The only conclusion I can come to is that some die so that others can live. If nobody ever died of alcoholism then there would be no examples, no reason to stop and no reason to stay sober. The pain we see in others is because we escaped and we do not wish to go back.

I could never see the pain of another alcoholic until I was sober. We are examples too. Examples to the ones that are still stuck in the vicious cycle. The sober alcoholics are the ones that give the active ones hope. Some see what we have and they want it.

I give a lot of credit to those that keep coming back, Keep trying. Keep working to get to the place were they do not need alcohol anymore. That takes a lot of courage.

I used to wonder why my brother spiraled down so fast and took his own life at 18? Why did my ex-husband, the father of my children, take a bit longer but died at 49? Why in my short time in AA have so many gone back out and died?

Why did I get sober at 44? Why didn’t I commit suicide or have my body give out on me? I sure was depressed enough at times and I sure drank enough to cause the medical problems. Why did I get the spiritual awakening now instead of 10 years ago when I first went to AA?

There are no answers really. I just have faith that God has a plan for me.

Today I am grateful recovering alcoholic.
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Old 09-16-2014, 05:49 AM
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I have known a good few people who have died because of alcohol. More than a few to be honest. xx
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