It made me not care about what I said or did. I felt closer to people, less disconnected and anxious. It was fun hugging strangers and stealing couches in college but when it carries over to adult life... eh

That pretty much sums it up for me!

Because it was something that I had complete control over doing. I could drink as much or as little as I wanted. In the end, it was the opposite...I lost that control I thought I had and I drank as much as I needed.
I don't need that control anymore. My life is my own.

Coming up with a list of things that didn't make me want to drink would be much much shorter. :)

Suffice it to say I couldn't face reality. Now I'm trying to.

At first I drank for fun socially. Than I drank socially because it made me feel less shy. Later I drank at night with my future husband because we both got giggly. I had to quit for a while do to having several jobs. My husband and I were separated physically for 3 years due to him getting a job 1100 miles away and I stayed behind to sell the house. Then I drank because I was lost, lonely, scared and overwhelmed. My parents found me and my husband came down and we packed up the house in 3 days and moved. Now, I drink because I feel so out of place. A square peg trying to fit into a round hole. All my friends and family are so far away and drinking made me pass out and focus on how worthless I felt and less on how awkward and alone I feel.

It's been long enough. Living in the past will never help. Now, I have to learn how to move on and live in the present. Somehow, I have to figure out how to fit in my life now.

I drank to dull the feelings of depression and anxiety, to escape, but in the end the drinking just made the depression and anxiety much worse.:(

Why did you drink?

That is the $10,000 question. I would drink to:
Celebrate a great day at work
"celebrate" the end of a bad day at work
because it's the weekend and that's what people do
relieve stress
deal with the pressures of home
because it feels good
because I feel bad
because everyone else is drinking

The list is endless.

My strategy now is to write in a journal when I have cravings to try to identify what brings on the craving. In time, I hope to be able to go back (as my head gets out of the alcohol fog) and see what triggers my craving and obsession to have a drink and try to find a way to eliminate or work around the trigger.

Don't get me wrong...it's much easier said than done. But it's a tool in my box of tricks to try and keep me sober.

Great, thought-provoking question!

That's a great idea! I might have to try it out.

I drank because I was so uncomfortable in my own skin that I couldn't stand it.

I drank to 'help' my depression and anxiety
to feel numb
to block out feelings
to feel comfortable
to get a buzz or get drunk

I am still trying to figure it out actually. But those are some of the reasons.

Oh, and because I am an alcoholic!! That is probably the big one.

Over time the reasons changed.

At the very, very beginning, I started because I was rebellious and resentful of authority.

Low self esteem, most likely stemmed from: genetically predisposed, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse...depression...hating myself...(they say you can't love someone else, if you don't love yourself - BS), crappy parenting (although, through therapy I learned they did the best they were capable of, at that point in their lives), poor modeling...long family trees on both sides loaded with substance abuse and mental illness...

This list could be a mile long, but as I stated in another thread, I actually beat depression (hardest thing I've ever done), and found what being happy and content felt like in my early 40s, for the first time in my life. Problem was, I'd had an alcohol problem since my early 20s (probably since I took my first sip of beer at five or six years old), and booze had long dug its gnarly talons deep into my being.

Why doesn't matter. What matters is what I do about it today.

I very respectfully and with humility disagree, and I'll elaborate more later today, gotta run right now. To be continued...

I drank because it made me feel that I was one of the group. Usually my friends were also drinking. I wanted to fit in. Also it made me less shy with girls. Made me feel clever and witty. This went on for years. Gradually I began to drink because I felt increasingly uncomfortable when I was not drinking. I'd have an orange juice with gin on Saturday or Sunday mornings just to feel better. Then wine later on. Afternoons tended to be warm and fuzzy. Eventually I was in deep denial and alcohol, formerly my friend, became my master.

W.

Alcoholics like me are always interested in asking "why?" "Why me?" This is very human. If you're in deep, deep trouble it's inevitable to ask "How come all this happened to me?" And the answers to this question are as numerous as there are alcoholics: Genetics, parental abuse, psychiatric conditions (like depression, bi-polar), peer pressure, personality characteristics (such as shyness, risk taking, pleasure seeking, obsessive compulsiveness, perfectionism), even "character defects" (if you follow some of the AA beliefs). And alcohol also provides its own "reasons", such as the self pity or exuberance which comes in denial. (e.g. "I drink because I lost a loved one- poor me!" "I'll have a drink as a reward for doing such a splendid job!") Or maybe I'm just bored. Or maybe I drink because it helps me get to sleep.
Well it may help to understand some of this to hasten sobriety but it can also be a minefield if it becomes a distraction from the main issue. Which is- "What am I going to do about it today?" The objective is to stop drinking. Learning the "why" may be a clue to the how but too much "why" may just be another way of procrastinating and may arise out of denial rather than constructive and honest insight.

W.

Looking forward to Wheresthefun's reply about why knowing matters to him (her?). In the interim, here's why it matters to me.

In my earliest days of drinking I thought I was doing so in the simple pursuit of fun, and fun certainly was part of it.

But, the reason my drinking was classically alcoholic from the beginning is alcohol relieved a variety and depth of brokenness that--at the time--I didn't even know I had.

So I drank my way into and through adulthood until almost exactly two years ago. I spent these years almost entirely devoid of introspect, mind you, which is a rather unremarkable consequence of valuing self-gratification above almost everything else.

Working an AA-type program of sobriety has made me aware of not only the issues that paved the way to my alcoholism but also who I am today as a consequence of being an active addict for 16 years. Between the two, I emerged from my alcoholic haze in more than a fair bit of mess.

In the ongoing process of putting me back together again, I have recognized the necessity of specifically addressing my prior brokenness. (Too) Simply put, I needed to drag those issues into the light and whack them on the head.

The feeling it gave me. Being able to be superwoman when I was just quiet when sober I grew wings of steel. To numb out the pain of what life was throwing my way.

Cause I thought I was cool.
Then I became a real jerk.

Hey Ranger, loved what you said, but you are going to be seriously underwhelmed by my response.

I've been giving it some thought, and my thought is, my thought really doesn't matter for anyone else. Why you drank/drink, why you stopped/want to stop, how you stopped/are trying to stop...it's none of my business. The only one I can speak for is me.

Bottom line, I don't just want to be sober, I want to be happy, content with my life AND sober. It hasn't been that long, but for the moment I am there, and the reason I am there is because I have already dealt with the vast majority of the reasons I became a drunk in the first place. Also, I have accepted that I am genetically predisposed, and have an addictive personality - woe is me (that's dripping with sarcasm, if you couldn't tell).