drained22

I had this idea and noticed it that my alcoholic's point of view or reality was warped. they saw things differently than a regular person would.

I'm curious to what others think\experienced regarding this issue.

mle-sober

Totally. The first thought in my mind when I woke up was how long until I can drink today? And the last thought when I went to bed was, when am I going to be able to drink tomorrow?

My whole existence was consumed by thoughts of alcohol. If I went to a restaurant, I had to make sure it was one with booze. If I went to a party, I had to bring booze because I was afraid they wouldn't have enough.

When I went to the movies, I snuck booze in. When I went to the park to let my kids play, I poured booze into a McDonald's tall cup and drank it through the straw. If we took a vacation, I scouted out the liquor stores along the way. For god's sake, if I took a bath, I made sure there was a bottle and a cup in there under the cupboard.

I don't think normal people think like that.

drained22

what you said rang a bell, my "friend" as most of this forum knows said that when she wakes up she thinks about alcohol. I forget the exact line but she said something like "when I wake up the first thing I think about is how can I get alcohol" she went on to say it numbs the pain, etc.

coyote21

I drank enough up until about 2 1/2 years ago to last me 3 or 4 lifetimes, I consider myself a recovering alcoholic, but I honestly never thought about alcohol like you've just described. It scares the crap outta me and I know 1 beer could lead me to lose my kid, it's just not worth it to me to find out, or "do more research" as they say.

The way you describe it must be the way Xaw looks at alcohol, that's the only explanation that makes any sense to me. In her case, for now anyway, alcoholism is stronger than a mothers love.

Mle, several times now you've given me insight into the alcoholic mind that I've never gotten before. Truly, thanks. If I'm not careful, next thing I know I'll be feeling "compassion" for Xaw.

But if I know her, all it'll take is one phone call to stop all that "compassion" stuff! Ha!

Seriously though, you've enlightened me a lot. :ghug3

Thanks and God bless us all, :praying
Coyote

BTW I checked out your art, lots of great, brite color. I liked it.

Ago

I actually couldn't tell which was worse, my codie thinking or my alcoholic thinking, it was a footrace to see whether a drink crossed my mind first or what kind of crap my girlfriend was up to so we could fight about when I opened my eyes in the morning.

thank god one worked to shut the other one up, once I got loaded I didn't care what she was up to, shame that stopped working for me

teasing, but seriously, both "aspects" of "my disease" were equally warped and equally painful, and kept me in a morass of self pity and self loathing.

I had to treat both in order to get any sort of recovery at all.

mle-sober

O! Thank you so much! That brings a huge smile to my face this evening when I am sitting here sort of glum with a bad cold.

((((Coyote21))))

steve11694

A friend in recovery said;

"it was like I stepped out of my body and alcohol stepped in"

" like a hand inside was pushing me to do otherwise insane things"

" in pre-modern times, it would have been called demonic possession"

prairiegirl

Thanks mle-sober for that insight into the way an alcoholic mind works. It explains so well what my XAH used to try to get me to understand. I just had such a hard time getting my mind around the fact that alcohol was that important to him that he planned our whole day around when he could drink next. I often used to wonder. We'd be having a wonderful time out a park or something and it's like he'd look at his watch and say, "Okay, let's go home now." I'd always ask him why we had to stop doing what we were doing, when we seemed to be having such a nice time. But it always happend around the same time in the afternoon and if I insisted on staying out a bit longer, I'd usually pay for it dearly with his bad mood. Now I get it.

mle-sober

I'm sorry, PrairieGirl, that you had to experience it up close and personal. I hope you've found some peace.

And I hope your XAH has also found some peace. Like Steve11694 mentioned above, it is almost like demonic possession. It's a horrible thing to be an active alcoholic. And the whole time, you just keep lying to yourself and everyone you love - saying that it's all fun and no big deal. You spend so much time trying to maintain the deception, blame everyone else, and keep yourself supplied that there is no room for the rest of life.

coffeenut

Thanks, mle...you really said it!

Janie53

I found out after trial and error that there is no way to reason with them about anything.
They don't seem to "get it" about anything, it seems sometime.

Still Waters

And unfortunately, some don't "get it" even after they've sobered up. It's heartbreaking to have one come out of rehab and stay sober yet stay stuck in the alcoholic way of thinking.