That was me, that was
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Chester, UK
Posts: 684
That was me, that was
I met up with a friend in a pub last night. I was drinking ginger beer I hasten to add. There was a guy who was sat at the bar all evening and everytime I was ordering a real ale for my friend he would start telling me all about the finer details of the beers on tap, how the taps should be maintained and so on and so forth, etc., etc. He knew a lot of facts on the subject and some of them were even true! The last time I was at the bar he pointed out a particular bottle to me and said he was planing on taking four of them home. He actually got the name of the beer wrong - his good buddy and he forgot his name. What a desperate life. I went back to my table and caught a glance of a woman at a nearby table who was smiling and laughing with her friends over a glass of wine and I thought what a contrast. The contrast was absolute. A line somewhere had been crossed by the guy at the bar, presumably he wasn't born on the bar stool and hadn't been there all his life, and his relationship with alcohol had become something that the woman would not have been able to really understand.
The encounter brought home to me the fact that my own relationship with drink had become like that of the guy at the bar. I don't think I'll ever be able to relate to drink again like the woman was - I'll never be able to come back across the line I had crossed the same person who has gone over it. But I believe that there is another line you can cross and that I crossed it when I made the defining decision to never drink again.
The encounter brought home to me the fact that my own relationship with drink had become like that of the guy at the bar. I don't think I'll ever be able to relate to drink again like the woman was - I'll never be able to come back across the line I had crossed the same person who has gone over it. But I believe that there is another line you can cross and that I crossed it when I made the defining decision to never drink again.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Colorado
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Nicely presented Scenario...
For me, a memorable Step Function was to have no interest in going back to being that casual Drinker. Nor do I have any 'want' to be a Normie Drinker. It may be nothing but Mental Sleight-of-Hand on my part, but my embedded recollections of Drinking-related times are mostly negative because that's the note they ended on.
I'm quite glad that this 'pull' I read about here on SR often has evaporated for me. There simply is no fight against that Alcoholic Quicksand. It reads as if it must be continually exhausting.
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Nicely presented Scenario...
For me, a memorable Step Function was to have no interest in going back to being that casual Drinker. Nor do I have any 'want' to be a Normie Drinker. It may be nothing but Mental Sleight-of-Hand on my part, but my embedded recollections of Drinking-related times are mostly negative because that's the note they ended on.
I'm quite glad that this 'pull' I read about here on SR often has evaporated for me. There simply is no fight against that Alcoholic Quicksand. It reads as if it must be continually exhausting.
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 1,183
For me there was another line farther down, after I stopped being the woman at the bar, I stopped being the guy at the bar too, and didn't go to bars anymore. Interacting with people in bars got in the way of my drinking, and it put me at risk of arrest - so much easier to just stay home and drink. 
I'm soooo glad all that stuff is behind me, and I honestly don't miss any of it at all anymore.
I'm soooo glad all that stuff is behind me, and I honestly don't miss any of it at all anymore.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Chester, UK
Posts: 684
It's encouraging MesaMan and Jeffrey that you both don't feel this 'pull' of alcohol anymore.
I think that's a great way of looking at it. Mental sleight-of-hands like this re-interpret our past experience.
I wonder if the 'sleight-of-mind' you describe is analogous to having what you thought was a great relationship with someone only to discover that had ulterior reasons - they were only after your money for example. I imagine that this would automatically re-interpret every nice time you had together without you having to do anything!
It's strictly analogous because with drink there was no conscious intent to deceive, at least in the begining anyway. Once AV appeared, you could maybe regard it as the deceitful partner who was happy to play you along with no thoughts for your own life just so that they could achieve their single-minded purpose.
Originally Posted by MesaMan 
It may be nothing but Mental Sleight-of-Hand on my part, but my embedded recollections of Drinking-related times are mostly negative because that's the note they ended on.
I wonder if the 'sleight-of-mind' you describe is analogous to having what you thought was a great relationship with someone only to discover that had ulterior reasons - they were only after your money for example. I imagine that this would automatically re-interpret every nice time you had together without you having to do anything!
It's strictly analogous because with drink there was no conscious intent to deceive, at least in the begining anyway. Once AV appeared, you could maybe regard it as the deceitful partner who was happy to play you along with no thoughts for your own life just so that they could achieve their single-minded purpose.
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