The Mystery of Binge Drinking
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,442
Originally Posted by DriGuy 
That's true, but what I don't understand is how a binge drinker can quit so easily. I actually experience a kind of twisted envy about that. I never want to have to quit again. I don't want to go through it twice. Maybe it gets easier with practice, but once was enough for me.
Twisted envy isn't quite right. Before I quit, I would have been happy if I could hold it down to the occasional binge, so it might have seemed enviable at one time.
Or as you say, maybe it's only two different points on the same graph. When it comes right down to it, a daily drinker is nothing more that an alcoholic that binges every night. At least it was for me.
Twisted envy isn't quite right. Before I quit, I would have been happy if I could hold it down to the occasional binge, so it might have seemed enviable at one time.
Or as you say, maybe it's only two different points on the same graph. When it comes right down to it, a daily drinker is nothing more that an alcoholic that binges every night. At least it was for me.
I wonder if I might not have cleaned up sooner had I never had the power to stop?
anyway, all I can tell you is, at that point, my desire to keep my job was greater than my desire to keep drinking.
It wasn't the to the death inner struggle it became, not in the beginning - but the signs were there.
Binging gives the illusion of control but when I look back I was always trying to push the envelope to breaking point.
I started drinking only at weekends., then maybe one or two weeknights as well, then every weeknight....always just one more drink...
my progression to all day everyday drinking with no restraint or control whatsoever was pretty inevitable.
D
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Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 42
My body can't handle being drunk all day for more than 3 days. And even that is rough. Me beer starts to taste like flat garbage and my body becomes so dehydrated I get fuzzy in the head.
My body begins to stink and my place looks wrecked.
If I wait 5 or so days the beer taste good again, my energy is back, and I can enjoy it again. But in reality I really only enjoy the first night. The second day my mind gets mushy and I am capable of saying stupid things to people around me, and then the third day I feel poisoned.
Miserable miserable existence
My body begins to stink and my place looks wrecked.
If I wait 5 or so days the beer taste good again, my energy is back, and I can enjoy it again. But in reality I really only enjoy the first night. The second day my mind gets mushy and I am capable of saying stupid things to people around me, and then the third day I feel poisoned.
Miserable miserable existence
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 5,169
Originally Posted by ScottFromWI
How do you actually know that binge drinkers can quit "easily"? Most binge drinkers I know ( me included ) had some pretty horrendous consequences to their binges -physical ( hangovers, withdrawals, etc )...
By definition, binge drinkers haven't actually quit until they quit binge drinking. But I don't want to spend too much time on semantics. It doesn't usually solve anything.
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Arizona
Posts: 107
In most of my years drinking I was predominantly a binge drinker. There was one year I became a daily drinker. I would consume 6-8 beers daily per night and then 14-18 drinks every other weekend. That was over 9 years ago and I remember it being a truly miserable year.
Financial problems along with health concerns became my big drivers to stop. My problem was staying stopped. After everything got better after a few weeks or months, I would slowly forget the misery drinking had brought me and I would drink again. It did not help that the restoring of my health allowed my dopamine and serotonin levels in my brain to elevate to higher levels than normal during those first couple of days of drinking. With my great forgetter, the idea of that first drink became quite alluring.
As they say, what goes up must come down and I had some truly nightmarish hangovers and withdrawals. At times I could not sleep nor eat for days, feeling like the lowest human being on the face of the earth.
It's never been been easy to quit drinking whether as a daily or binge drinker. It's all the same, the deliberate manufacturing of misery. For me quitting either form of drinking was equally difficult.
Financial problems along with health concerns became my big drivers to stop. My problem was staying stopped. After everything got better after a few weeks or months, I would slowly forget the misery drinking had brought me and I would drink again. It did not help that the restoring of my health allowed my dopamine and serotonin levels in my brain to elevate to higher levels than normal during those first couple of days of drinking. With my great forgetter, the idea of that first drink became quite alluring.
As they say, what goes up must come down and I had some truly nightmarish hangovers and withdrawals. At times I could not sleep nor eat for days, feeling like the lowest human being on the face of the earth.
It's never been been easy to quit drinking whether as a daily or binge drinker. It's all the same, the deliberate manufacturing of misery. For me quitting either form of drinking was equally difficult.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 5,169
The trap of sobriety... You start feeling normal, and you start thinking you're OK, because you have been OK... for a while. What do you do when the memory and the resultant fear of alcohol is no longer there to keep you from drinking?
I went into this before in other threads. It's time to switch from fear driven motivation to choice. With the fear gone, and a clear head, you have to learn to rely on choice. The trap is that there isn't much emotion tied to simple choices, so it almost seems like it can't be as effective, but it IS effective. After a few months of sobriety, it's just an unemotional choice. And a life not emotionally driven is a better life.
I went into this before in other threads. It's time to switch from fear driven motivation to choice. With the fear gone, and a clear head, you have to learn to rely on choice. The trap is that there isn't much emotion tied to simple choices, so it almost seems like it can't be as effective, but it IS effective. After a few months of sobriety, it's just an unemotional choice. And a life not emotionally driven is a better life.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
Originally Posted by DriGuy
What do you do when the memory and the resultant fear of alcohol is no longer there to keep you from drinking?
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Secondly, I spend time here on SR and in other places keeping myself grounded. Helping other people here is one thing, but I am also reminded on a daily basis why I don't drink anymore.
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