choublak

Okay, so why are there alcoholics who get multiple DUI's, crap their pants due to alcohol-related problems, and have severe health problems, who still continue to drink? Who eat hand sanitizer because of its alcohol content? Why are some unphased by consequences?

Florence

It's a disease. It doesn't make sense. The people who are still capable of saving themselves must have some kind of wake-up call where they stand to lose everything, up to and including their methods of getting their DOC. For some, it's a death wish. A long, slow suicide.

I don't know. I just know it's sad and scary.

FeelingGreat

There were a pair of alcoholic brothers living near me who died within a day of each other from liver failure. I know they were warned, and had tries at rehab, but in the end they chose to die. It's incomprehensible. Sometimes the disease is too strong, or maybe they didn't have the mental resources to stop.

24hrsAday

a good question.. i had to Almost drink myself to death before i stopped drinking this last go around back in 2006/early 2007' i was SURPRISED i ended up in the Emergency room 5 days after my last drink. that Never happened before! it was one of those "Yets" that AA talks about.

Joe Nerv

Physical suffering doesn't motivate or scare an alcoholic. Mental suffering does.

suki44883

Unfortunately, it is only a small percentage of alcoholics who recover. Seems like I heard it was somewhere around 10%. That leaves all the others who go untreated for whatever reason. Some alcoholics have no bottom other than death.

choublak

Now that is an interesting point, and having read some of the alcoholics' stories on here, I believe it.

Hammer

Joe's observation matches what I have seen and heard.

The phrase I have heard is: "Pain Drives My (the A) Train."

They tend to move to avoid pain.

Let them feel the pain, they may move to a less painful position.

Protect, shield, enable, and all the rest to "help" them avoid pain -- they stay stuck.

To PAIN! Thank You, God.

lillamy

The sad part is when alcoholism and mental illness coincide -- in the case of my AXH, I believe the physical pain hasn't hit yet, and the mental pain, because of his NPD, he is unable to process as being caused by his own actions.

So there's no reason for him to stop drinking, in his mind, because the drinking isn't the problem; the fact that the world is persecuting him and out to get him is the problem.

PaperDolls

I know some folks that got sober after one DUI. My mother didn't get sober until she ended up in ICU (not for the first time) and lost the ability to walk or feed herself.

Everyone's "bottom" is different.


I don't try to make sense of it anymore.

littlefish

I think the difference is the degree to which the individual alcoholic is susceptible to delusional thinking. Some alcoholics are very delusional and unable to be honest with themselves: it is a character defect that prevents them from seeing the extent of their illness. Others are the lucky one's who can identify their delusional thinking.

Normal people can of course be very delusional, but it is a tragic combination when you throw alcoholism into the mix.

caboblanco

I think at least in the short term the consequences will make a lot of alcoholics want to drink more instead of less. If you get a dui..you can't drive for a while anyway and might lose your job..might as well get loaded..

isitme

This explains exactly my life...

caboblanco

yeah some people actually think the world is out to get them. I think they are also addicted to the self loathing and pity whoring

NYCDoglvr

Alcoholics aren't universal in their response to disaster. After listening to stories in the rooms of AA for the last 22 years, people get sober for a host of reasons. It's not a rational disease and it's pointless to try to figure out how alcoholics think. But universally they get sober for themselves and no one else. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

firebolt

It seems any unhealthy compulsion / addiction is this way. It's so sad. I've seen smokers take the oxygen tubes out of their nose to light up. People live on bacon after a quadruple bypass. McDonalds, potato chips and Pepsi diet after gastric bybass. And drugs...oy...OD, then right back at it. My best friend is married to a loving father of 3 glued to internet porn while his wife fantasizes about divorce and shudders when he touches her.

I'm a smoker....what would it take for me to quit? I HATE it, its crazy expensive, yet, I can't seem to quit and stay quit. I've smoked off and on for 20 years....never thought I would smoke for this long. My grandmother died of emphysema. I get winded hiking around at 36 years old, I LOATHE the smell, I hide it from my parents, and it is just disgusting and killing me slowly. What will it take for me? I don't know, but I'm going to quit for good soon.....after I step out back for another...

fourmaggie

any BAD behaviour deserves consquences...

Jd77

I know alcoholism is considered a "disease" but I'm tired of that being an excuse for wrong behavior. The "my disease caused these things to happen" is starting to wear on me. My ABF seems to use this as his answer to everything.

Hammer

Generally the "disease" concept is to be used as an EXPLANATION.

Not an EXCUSE.

An Explanation and an Excuse are VERY Different things.

Suppose I am not telling you anything you do already know, huh?

caboblanco

The disease concept was used to have insurance companies pay for alcoholism treatment...that's all