thomas11

I'd like to provide a bit of a different angle on alcohol for both newcomers and possibly long time members. If you've found this site and become a member its likely that alcohol has flirted with ruining your life, marriage, job, health, or family. The point I'd like to touch upon in this thread is that alcohol (for many) is simply a legal drug, and does not necessarily ruin everyone's lives.

Some of the great figures in history have, for all practical purposes been alcoholics. Some of the sharpest minds have been addicts (drugs as well) and alcohol has been in the bulls-eye because it is readily available. Many great entertainers, philosophers, musicians and leaders have also been addicts but it was kept hidden from the public eye. Something that I have found valuable in my own recovery has been perspective. What I mean is that alcohol is not inherently “bad”. Millions, if not billions of dollars in business has been solidified over a fine wine or liquor. Drugs and alcohol in and of itself may not necessarily be the devil. For us addicts it is the devil (for lack of a better term), which is why we are here. I only post this thread because it may allow us to find the entire subject a bit more easy to digest and to understand that it may not be simply black and white. Rather, it is us, the individual, that needs to adapt to a life alcohol free because it affects us in a way that is not compatible with every day normal living, and inhibits us from the full spectrum of life and success that we deserve. Lastly, sometimes we find out that alcohol is simply a Band-Aid for deeper issues, which once again leads us to the conclusion that alcohol by itself is not the problem, but understanding ourselves needs to be the primary focus. Make no mistake about the purpose of my post, alcohol is extremely destructive and will ruin lives, but a bottle of wine never (to my knowledge) did anything other than get someone drunk. Make sense?

Ps. For folks that have known me for the last year, sorry, I’ve been re-engaging with the real world and my mind has started to work again. If this has offended anyone or is inappropriate, I apologize and please delete.

I forgot to add, there was an individual who developed an entire program, much like AA dedicated to moderation. An enormous of amount of time and effort was put into this effort to get it put together and published, promoted and sold. Ultimately she failed and is now no longer with us. My point is bringing this up, is that we will justify our bad habits to the ends of the earth in order to be able to do what our addictive minds want us to do.

Dee74

Alcohol's not inherently bad, but my relationship with it is.
I forget that at my peril.

in that sense a bottle of wine is dangerous to me and actually does far more to me than get me drunk?

D

BlissWithin

No it is not, for me, being an alcoholic is the problem.

Dee74

I'm not sure where you're going with this Jeff but I gotta say, several things rankled with me.

I run the risk of taking things off topic, but I gotta weigh in on that last paragraph.

To my knowledge it wasn't a programme that was 'sold' in the manner you're suggesting.

Although one of the founders did have a horrific car accident when drinking, an accident that killed other people, she had disowned moderation attempts by then.

She killed herself quite a number of years after that.

The real lesson to take away I think is that could have been any of us.

I don't mind people talking about the danger or even the evils of moderation but to me, this tragedy is not an example of that.

still trying to get my head around the point of this paragraph tho?

D

mns1

From a physiological perspective, it could be said the ingestion of alcohol is inherently bad. No matter how they spin it, such as touting the health benefits of wine (which you can get abundantly from grapes and various berries), our bodies recognize and treat alcohol as a toxin. Something which is harmful and must be expelled quickly.

thomas11

Alcohol is the problem for me as well. My point is that it is alcohol in and of itself. Substitute alcohol for green beans. Are the green beans the problem, or are you eating green beans that's the problem? I think Dee mentions allergies quite often, I think of it somewhat similar.

thomas11

Dee, I don't want to engage in a fued and I'm not suggesting you do either. The facts are that brilliant people have been brilliant despite the fact that they are addicts of one type or another. And therefore, the "chemical" whether it be alcohol or drugs, is sometimes does not affect individuals. Quite frankly I'm amazed that people could have drank from 10AM until bedtime and wrote wonderful novels or lead armies into war. Apparently they were able to function quite well.

Regarding Audrey Kishline, I mentioned it only because I viewed it as someone who would go to the ends of the earth to justify her alcoholism. It is just my opinion, but she put a great effort into developing this program of moderation to justify her own drinking habits, and we know what happened in the end.

Ultimately my point in that is we can surmise that her addiction to alcohol was extremely powerful. On a much smaller scale, I know folks who are very wealthy and in their 70's. They drank for most of their life. End of the day scotch on the rocks people. In hindsight, I'm convinced they worked their butts off 10 hrs a day because like a rat in a cage, every day they got home and had their slice of cheese. If that makes any sense.

BlissWithin

Dee defined the best way on his first response: It's the relationship I have with green beans that is the problem.

Dee74

We'll have to disagree on your moderation example - thats not the thing that worried me most anyway...

'I think you really want to believe this and I really fear you want to be one of those people.

For every 'successful alcoholic' I can show you 999 spectacularly unsuccessful ones.

I can show you countless examples of people who died young because of their addiction.

I don't have to go any further than this website to show you people whose full potential was never realised because of addiction.

The very nature of addiction means we're not in control - anyone seemingly ''successful'' or ''functioning'' is not going to last that way for long.

D

Dee74

ps a disagreement is not a feud, Jeff - no shotguns here

D

dwtbd

I'm in for the long haul , I realize I shouldn't mainly because when I did I did to get drunk and for far too long I accommodated the consequences. In fact I continued to drink even after I no longer wanted to make the accommodation.
The only way to guarantee I don't return to living that way was by getting "in for the long haul", I knew that and made the decision to do it. At first, the focus was all around 'can't' and 'shouldn't' and that was fine , it was both true and motivating. But at some point it really did develope into " I don't " and "I don't want to" and can't imagine ever wanting to again, probably the natural progression.
One of the things about this thread that sticks out to me is the idea of viewing drinking through the lens of how drinking looks to others and that their perspective or attitudes are some how relevant to how you perceive your drinking and or abstinence. It's best to keep it strictly personal.
Dee and others have mentioned before that you seem to have an image of yourself as either a drinker or nondrinker that is colored by how others perceive you. It will take a lot of ammo away from the AV now and going forward , if you can get rid of that lens and keep it way more personal.

tursiops999

I just wanted to add my reflections on this idea. Perhaps there are people who have produced wonderful things while having an addiction, however ... I wonder what more they might have done had they not been compromised by addiction? And how much happier they might have been? A lot of famous, talented artists lived miserable lives and died young because of their addictions.

For me, the high-functioning idea is a myth. When I first got sober, I talked a lot about how "high functioning" I was, and made sure to point out that I never lost a job and in fact got promoted, never had a DUI, etc. I'm an accountant, and I just finished my second sober tax season. I am amazed at how much better my work was this year compared to when I was drinking .... more accurate, more efficient, and way less stressful for me. Looking back, my work before sobriety wasn't nearly as good as I wanted to think it was. So yes, I continued to function, but I was missing out on a much higher level of performance that has become available to me in sobriety.

For myself, I think it's my AV that wants to romanticize alcohol, and wants me to believe that people can function well despite addiction (because then maybe I can drink too!). Maybe my perception will change over time, but right now I perceive mostly negative effects from alcohol, even in drinkers who aren't necessarily addicted. Of course as others have said, the only important thing is what alcohol does to me, and to me it is harmful.

Delizadee

This sounds dangerously close to romanticizing alcohol. Kind of like... flirting.
I think mainly that it comes down to alcohol is not the problem... we are?
I really view my alcoholism as a symptom of the deeper problem. Because I have multiple addictions and disorders that I've amassed over the years.
I can't eat food like a normal person. I can't abstain from it either. Yet dealing with how I view eating will forever be the lion that I have to take out of the cage multiple times a day and keep it tame. Food can kill or lack of food can kill. I am the problem. Not the food.
I think it's more important to celebrate the famous people who are in recovery or who are leading wholesome, healthy lives. Rather than glorifying those who have trudged through in spite of.
At the end of the day many great things can come out of or from very dark places.
And famous or not, I kind of thing deep down we all want to be revered and admired and cherished for who really are, freed from our shackles and standing bravely in our own light. Rather than achievements we've had in despite our struggles. For I'd rather be present and whole and disliked, than be weighed down in my heart and mind and out of control inside and admired and sought after.
I don't know. Maybe I am way off base here..your post definitely made me think. Its a weird grey area that makes me uncomfortable.

I think we all have our burdens to bear in life. Part of what defines us and our journey is how we choose to carry our burdens through life.

sixtyfour

This really helped me, thank you!

ALinNS

As I reflect on my own history there was a time when I could have been labeled a functioning alcoholic and somehow rose to the top in the career world at three different companies, made amazing deals while entertaining clients and never had a bad performance review, the boards at these companies realized sooner or later I had a drinking problem but tolerated it because of my performance for a while however eventually I lost those jobs or quit and I always blamed it on stress.

Tried moderation in the mid 1990's however by then in my case alcohol had taken over my life and it never worked.

However I have friends that are judges, law enforcement, stock brokers, lawyers etc. all highly successful but all are alcoholics whether they accept it or not so it is possible and I think it depends how far they allow the drinking to go, i.e. I would drink until I couldn't stand up because I could not stop, drink in the mornings, take a few afternoon's off a week to drink with clients etc. so I see myself as taking it to the extreme vs they may have stopped at 11 p.m., may not have drank in the mornings or afternoons etc.

Thx for the post
Andrew

Aquarius94

I just want to say thank you. I've been thinking the same thing and especially about work. I'm doing so well at work but I wonder how good I would be doing if I was sober.

Dee74

Are you not going to pick this train of thought up again Jeff?
I thought it was a pretty important discussion.
D

thomas11

Sure, essentially what I was trying to convey is that for all of us on this site, alcohol is bad. To what degree it is bad for us is different for each individual. The flip side of that (and I've thought about it before) is that alcoholics have made great contributions to society, and to some people or professions it is an invaluable tool. I don't want that to be construed as glorifying it in any way, but rather a straight fact. I believe its hard to deny that some great minds and massive business deals have involved excess alcohol consumption.

Now, its a good argument to speculate on how much greater those minds would have been without the alcohol, but we'll never know.

Regarding Audrey Kishline, I might have had my facts wrong. But my take away from her "system" of drinking was that she put in a tremendous amount of effort to develop this theory of moderation, and I truly believe she developed it to her own benefit. We talk about people being in denial, I think she was in denial to the extreme, to the point that she wrote a book on how people could be successful moderating. And people bought into it. That's just my own opinion.

Lastly, I just want this to be a semi stimulating intellectual conversation and not a reflection that I'm about to head to the liquor store and get drunk because I think it will make me brilliant or be able to negotiate a multi million dollar business deal! haha.

Dee74

I understand your point about alcohol not being inherently evil in itself.
I understand your Kishline point too.

The real danger here as I see it is this successful alcoholics bit.

There are no successful alcoholics - not by my reckoning.

They go under, they die...or they stop drinking.

Once I start thinking about 'successful alcoholics', I'm on dangerous ground because my AV is fueled from pride and arrogance.

One of my greatest failures, according to my ego, was my failure to control my drinking.

I felt like, with every thing else I'd been able to achieve, controlled drinking should have been within my grasp too...if only I'd done x, y, or z.

That stuff was like rocket fuel to the AV.

Noone's accusing you of being imminently in danger of running off to the bottle shop...but I still maintain there's more AV in your post than you'd like to admit, Jeff.

exhibit A:

D

thomas11

I can say at this point that I don't have a desire to try moderation. My ego isn't bruised and I'm pretty aware of the type of drinker I was. It was to get drunk.

That's not to say I won't feel differently in a week or month or six months. And if the desire to try moderation enters my mind, I hope I have the strength to not act on it.