CRRHCC

Reasons for drinking are driven by emotional factors, usually feelings of helplessness (about whatever in my life makes me feel overwhelmingly trapped). I would escape the trap and temporarily regain control of my feelings with a quick fix or mood changer of drugs and alcohol.

My question is a hypothetical one: When faced with life's inevitable problems, what would we do if there was no such thing as alcohol or any drugs for that matter? Is there a more direct healthy way to deal with our problems?

Callas

Well alcohol has been with homo sapiens almost since its evolutionary inception so it is difficult to speculate here. I guess human beings would have found other non-healthy outlets for anger and frustration like murder, more wars etc. I read today that Alexander the Great drank himself to death so go figure. I doubt if humans first response to pressure would have been positive. It seems we first have to feel before we learn.

Sober13

I wish alcohol wasn't so readily available. I'm definitely triggered by liquor stores, the smell of other's drinks at restaurants etc. However, I get your point. Most of us drink to dull something we don't want to feel. I had very low esteem growing up, from what, I still do not know even after many months of psychotherapy. I'm wired to be emotional I guess. I had several sober years after coming to the realization that my drinking was way out of hand during my divorce a few years ago. I stopped drinking, went to different types of meetings, had a therapist, lots of sober friends. But my insecurities came out in other ways. At one point I was restricting my eating to the point of having an eating disorder. I was also seeking out relationships just so I'd not be alone, and most of the men I picked were not the healthiest. I realized I was distracting myself from whatever hurt I was experiencing. After a few years of being sober from alcohol my mother died from a rapid form of cancer. She refused Hospice care, so I was essentially it. I left a job I liked. After she passed away, I returned to my home which I realized I could no longer afford. These disruptions took me out of my routine and when all was quiet, the pain set in and I decided "a couple drinks" wouldn't hurt. That devolved right back to my old pattern of getting drunk at least 4 nights per week. So...I agree, that we can abstain from alcohol but often we do other self destructive things to avoid addressing the bigger picture. Still, I'd prefer if alcohol didn't exist, lol.

August252015

None of this is about the alcohol itself. Moot point even as a hypothetical.

CRRHCC

Proverbs 29:11 A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise person holds them in control.

I used to vent all my feelings with a quick fix or alcohol. My experience has shown that my addictive behavior was used to regain control over overwhelming feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, feeling trapped and out of control. This never occurred randomly. There was always a circumstance that triggered it. The antidote is to find another empowering behavior to regain control of our feelings our emotions. Something of high value for us. Easier said than done but it can be learned.

Feelings and behaviors are caused by a person's thoughts, not on outside stimuli like people, situations and events. People may not be able to control their external circumstances, but they can change how they think about them and therefore change how they feel and behave.

Dropsie

CRRHCC,

Have you read Lance Dodd's work -- he totally agrees with you.

C,

Gotta check out this Alex the Great point, which I never knew.

August,

Not sure it is a moot point, I mean I get what you are saying, but its a cool idea -- if there was no way to avoid our feelings, none at all, what would homo sapiens do?

Would we have found better coping mechanisms or killed each other more. My best is both.

CRRHCC

I have read all three of Lance Dodes's books.
The Heart of Addiction
7 Step Handbook to Addiction
The Sober Truth

I've read over 400 books on addiction, since my own son became a heroin addict and I later realized I was an addict myself.
Dodes talks about Displaced and Direct healthy behaviors. His simple and secular psychology of addiction is profound and right on the money in my experience.

vlad123

Maybe a bit strange answer,

For me alcohol was like a childs toy, if there was no alcohol I would probably doing things that I am doing now.

I am a bit like a big child, when I start to play with something it is hard to stop.

WaterOx

To me, this is in fact the perfect answer.

I also think this OP is actually a good question. It reminds me of Byron Katies "the work" where she tries to dispel a person's habitual thought process by asking "who would you be without that thought?"

Alcohol is just a liquid in a bottle, sitting out of our reach. It is only when we decide to drink it that it becomes an issue. It's an interesting thought exercise to wonder what it would be if it didn't exist. It puts our own unique, underlying issues into focus.

Ananda

If alcohol had not been available I would have been crazy. Alcohol kept me sane long enough to find a real answer. It probably saved my life.

Not pro alchohol, but understand the purpose it served when I turned to it.

August252015

Dropsie- I'm not sure if this quite the answer, but I truly believe that if I was not an alcoholic, I would be the same person with some mental health diagnosis (as primary).

We do indeed learn coping, good or bad, IMO.

I guess what I am saying in the multiple threads that seem to be cropping up about this idea of why/it's complicated/what if....is that making these concentric circles in our minds can kill us.

It's that simple.

nez

Pre-recovery I merely would found something else that would become a symptom of the issue.
Post-recovery, I am already doing it everyday.

Gottalife

To all intents and purposes alcohol does not exist for me today.

It is a very deep question that you asked. I substituted a spiritual way of living for the alcoholic way, and find it infinitely more satisfying. Having read a bit on this topic over the years I have heard a couple of ideas that make sense in the light of my experience.

One is that addiction in some sense is the modern metaphor for sin, sin being willful disconnection from God.

The solution at least in part, seems to be to turn away from self centered subjective values, and buy into well established objective values. That is not to limit it to (say) the ten commandments, or avoiding the seven deadly sins, but might include the adoption of those principles set out in the prayer of Saint Francis for example.

Striving to live that way gives one a sense of purpose way beyond the satisfaction of mere base desires, which seems to be how a lot of folk try to live these days.

Obladi

There are many direct, healthy ways to deal with our problems. The physical manifestation of those ways will vary, but I believe (and have witnessed) that true health/balance takes root in personal integrity. For me, drinking was long in conflict with my integrity. For others, it's different substances or habits - the possibilities for maladaptive behaviors are probably quite literally endless.

Long ago, my sister very succinctly described sin as anything that hurts another person or yourself, a definition I found very compelling.

Then one day a year or so ago, I started looking into stoicism. This is defined in the Oxford Dictionary is "an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain."

Which is a long way of saying I agree with August that it's not about the alcohol. And Mike - it's a matter of how we choose to live rather than continuing our maladaptive behaviors.

CRRHCC

​Lance Dodes, MD, Harvard Psychiatrist, author and addiction expert states, "True addiction (not physical dependence) is neither more nor less than an emotional solution to manage feelings of intolerable helplessness. When people feel utterly trapped they have to do something, and if they feel they can't act directly to get out of that trap, then they have to do something else. The "something else" is, therefore, a substitute action (technically called a "displacement"). When people repetitively perform a displaced action to try to manage overwhelming helplessness, we call this driven, compulsive behavior an addiction. But there's always something people can do at these overwhelming moments that is more direct! ( even if not perfect). People find that when they take direct healthy action, the addictive urge almost always vanishes! This sounds like magic but it makes sense because having acted more directly, they no longer need a substitute behavior."

This direct healthy action, that Dr. Dodes refers to, could be simply facing your helpless circumstances, talking to another person or channeling your actions into a less destructive manner. What Dodes is saying, is to find some high value behavior (other than alcohol) the EMPOWERS you, in regaining control over your emotions/feelings.

When your values trump your addiction, there is no addiction.