Life events that make you scared you might drink
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: California
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I started drinking alcohol to keep up socially in college and post-college. Then I realized it "helped" my anxiety so I started managing it with booze. I also used alcohol to deal with traumatic events and disappointments. I suppose this could be considered self pity but I don't find it helpful to think in those terms.
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Manchester, UK
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Originally Posted by Tatsy 
So does it follow, that when you first began dranking alcohol and early in the drinking curve, the desire to drink was fueled by self-pity; or was the desire to drink fueled by something else?
Very occasionally my AV projects future drinking scenarios, but I don't listen.
Very occasionally my AV projects future drinking scenarios, but I don't listen.
People start drinking for lots of reasons. Some because it helps with Anxiety. ..peer pressure. ..desire to fit in...or just because drinking is a perfectly normal thing that lots of people do.
Drinking problems progress and get worse
By the time I was drinking regularly and frequently in the face of massive negative consequences...and justifying it every time...by the time it was a more chronic problem...much more likely that I was using circumstances in my life as an excuse...wallowing in self pity because I needed to drink so needed justifiable reasons why I was doing what I was doing.
IMO I became quite selfish, self pitying...not a bad person but someone who needed to stop making excuses and take more responsibility for the circumstances in my life. And the part that alcohol itself had to play in them
P
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,183
There's nothing that would drive me to give myself permission to drink, and I think that's really what it is - a reptilian addict voice probing for the boundaries, what would make it ok to drink, so we can subconsciously undermine our sobriety by moving those boundaries. There is nothing so bad in life that drinking cannot make it worse, nor anything so good that drinking cannot ruin it. I like the river of thoughts analogy, "Yes reptile, I hear you, go on along your way because I'm not going to listen". 
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
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Originally Posted by Tatsy
So does it follow, that when you first began dranking alcohol and early in the drinking curve, the desire to drink was fueled by self-pity; or was the desire to drink fueled by something else?
eventually alcoholism progressed and i drank for everything-self pity being one of them.
eventually i crossed the line into full blown alcoholism. no more excuses or reasons to drink. i didnt have a choice. as hard as i tried, i couldnt not drink.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by leanabeana
I guess I have a hard time believing that triggers are all due to a defect of character like self-pity. It's contrary to what I've learned in therapy. Is it helpful for you to believe that the desire to drink is a moral failing? Maybe I'm not approaching it the right way, but it doesn't sit right with me.
for me, if i run into life events. i think paul summed up the self pity thing for me. not back when i was drinking, but if i were to drink NOW it would be self pity.
i personally dont think the desire to drink is a moral failing. i drank for about 23 years. not having the desire or the thought wasnt going to happen over night after i stopped. while i was drinking, it was an obsession of the mind. it wasnt a moral failing, just what alcoholism did to me over a period of time was going to take time for my thinker to think right.
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