Do you drink because you're unhappy? Or are you unhappy because you drink?
For me it was a bit of both, I wanted to escape from reality, dealing with stress/disappointment/unhappiness etc.
However drinking also creating unhappiness, my mind became more depressed the longer I drank, and so it became just a vicious cycle that needed to be broken!!
However drinking also creating unhappiness, my mind became more depressed the longer I drank, and so it became just a vicious cycle that needed to be broken!!
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 65
I think it is more the latter for me. And the sad/funny thing is I don't even know why I drink. I just do and need to stop. Had about two months of not doing it, for first time ever, but relapsed. Hoping those will stop. I know it is not an issue of hope, but work
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Once my drinking had become a true addiction, it was both, although I would say probably more that I got unhappy progressively as my alcoholism progressed.
Interestingly, for me the drinking problem started to escalate during a period when I was probably the happiest and most successful, most drama free. I think in part I used alcohol to stir up my reality - well that worked pretty good, it turned everything upside down.
Interestingly, for me the drinking problem started to escalate during a period when I was probably the happiest and most successful, most drama free. I think in part I used alcohol to stir up my reality - well that worked pretty good, it turned everything upside down.
Do you drink because you are unhappy? or are you unhappy because you drink? For me it just turned into a vicious ongoing loop. Both are true for me, and in the end I just could not even tell them apart. I do know one thing though, and that is that nothing could be as bad as the soul destroying hangovers, and the devastating shame and remorse that I felt after behaving atrociously whilst drunk.
Last edited by Greg1959; 05-05-2014 at 03:50 PM. Reason: Add on.
It is a very weird and cunning drug.
I have by nature always been a happy person, but am a huge binge drinker. I thought I was getting away with drinking for a long time, as for many years my happy times far outweighed the after binge depression that would set in. As the years progressed and the binges got closer and closer together, basically to a couple of very heavy drinking sessions per week, I have basically gotten down to maybe one day a week where I actually feel happy. I would then drink again and set the cycle of getting drunk one day, severely hung-over the next day, then the third day I would be remorseful, ashamed and depressed. I would finally start coming good on about the fourth day and start to enjoy life, then I would reason with myself that I hadn't had a drink for 4 days so deserved a few. Of course, a few always turned into heaps, as I have definitely lost my off switch as far as alcohol is concerned, and hardly ever have "just a few". This is an absolute crazy thought process that I need to change big time before their are simply no happy days left at all, and I spend the rest of my life in an alcoholic nightmare.
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Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: NY
Posts: 26
Actually, I usually drank when I was happy, or feeling good. I rarely drank when I was unhappy.
The party was over...time to go home and sober up...for good.
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