Number 1 Reason
Life the gift of recovery!
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Home is where the heart is
Posts: 7,061
Originally Posted by SoberJennie 
Why would you "do it again" if you derived not a single bit of pleasure from it? How was 50% of your drinking "against your will"? I find that very hard to swallow...
For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship, and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom, and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends, and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt---and one more failure.
The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places hoping to find understanding, companionship and approval. Momentarily we did--then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen---Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand! (Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places hoping to find understanding, companionship and approval. Momentarily we did--then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen---Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand! (Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
We experience terror that we are out of control, bewilderment that despite our firm resolve we have gotten drunk again, frustration that our willpower can not bring about the life that we desire, and despair that we will ever rise out of the mire into which we are sinking.
Editor
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Pensacola, Florida
Posts: 1,516
Originally Posted by nandm
I can not speak for binderdonedat but I can address your question based on my experience. When I first started drinking I felt that initial "buzz", "good feeling", "warm fuzzy feeling", "invincible feeling", whatever words one wants to call it. What happened is I spent the next 20 years trying to find and keep that feeling. Even when the results of seeking that feeling were damaged relationships, career suicide, harm to my children, financial devastation, etc... I still chased that high.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Not to throw a monkey wrench into this, but it could be argued that minimizing pain is more pleasurable than not minimizing it. Drinking to avoiding withdrawal may not have given me the old buzz, but it was certainly less painful than suffering through it, at least in the short term. :-)
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: in this vessel
Posts: 304
Originally Posted by AVRT
Not to throw a monkey wrench into this, but it could be argued that minimizing pain is more pleasurable than not minimizing it. Drinking to avoiding withdrawal may not have given me the old buzz, but it was certainly less painful than suffering through it, at least in the short term. :-)
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
I stopped because what little pleasure or minimization of pain I got from it just wasn't worth it. I was drinking my life away... literally. My time was spent drinking and recovering from drinking... I was wasting my life.
My survival mechanisms kicked in and I snapped the hell out of it.
My survival mechanisms kicked in and I snapped the hell out of it.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Singapore
Posts: 737
Originally Posted by SoberJennie
Wow... if I believed this then I could easily believe you received absolutey not a single bit of pleasure from alcohol. That doesn't make it much more feasible...
Unbelievable. Sorry but you don't get to come in here and question my own experience with this illness - at least until you've been to where I've been with booze. Unacceptable. Hell that's flat out insulting and borders on trolling.
I will refrain from losing my cool here and just repeat what my experience in this last few years has been ... at the end of my alcoholism I received not one bit of pleasure from the act of drinking. 0. Whether you believe that or not is not my concern, it is exactly how my dis-ease progressed.
Gone In
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 223
I'm trying to remember if actually got any pleasure from drinking at the end. I remember drinking so as not to feel sick, and drinking night and day trying to keep the sickness away, but ultimately only making it worse when I when too nauseous to drink anything, even water, and had to stop. I remember noticing a few times when I was really hammered that I was miserable, and noting that it used to feel good. I remember hating going and buying gin in the morning, and not wanting to drink it but not wanting to be sick even more. Forcing myself to drink to feel better.
I think in my alcoholic state, I confused 'feeling good' with feeling normal, or okay, because when I wasn't drinking I was sick. When I first started, I drank solely to feel good, and now having gone through it all the way I think for the first time in many years I'm capable of feeling good, because I'm sober now, and I can experience that again.
I think in my alcoholic state, I confused 'feeling good' with feeling normal, or okay, because when I wasn't drinking I was sick. When I first started, I drank solely to feel good, and now having gone through it all the way I think for the first time in many years I'm capable of feeling good, because I'm sober now, and I can experience that again.
Guest
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Sunny FL
Posts: 647
Originally Posted by SoberJennie
People drink for the pleasure... and that is the only reason. (my opinion, of course)
Member
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: « USA » Recovered with AVRT (Rational Recovery) ___________
Posts: 3,680
Originally Posted by Symmetry
Yes. But why do we stop? I will not argue that the first week of sobriety was Hell and was very tempted to minimize the pain of it.
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 99,759
The last few months I too was drinking just to stave off withdrawals.
Like having a round the clock alcohol IV... drip drip drip...
I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.
Like having a round the clock alcohol IV... drip drip drip... I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.
Guest
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Sunny FL
Posts: 647
Originally Posted by least
The last few months I too was drinking just to stave off withdrawals. Like having a round the clock alcohol IV... drip drip drip...
I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.
Like having a round the clock alcohol IV... drip drip drip... I'm so glad I don't have to do that anymore.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Colorado
Posts: 155
Thanks for posting that portion from "A Vision For You" from the Big Book nandm. I think I fell in love with alcohol because it changed the way I felt and it took away a lot of the fear I felt around women. All of a sudden I was cool. Towards the end of my drinking I drank because I had to, my body and mind craved it so badly. It took away the shakes and made it possible to take a shower, to go out the door to get some more, ect, ect.
Encourager In Training
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: KS
Posts: 717
I didn't set out to drink in order to relieve pain. I was 18 years old and didn't know **** about my issues. I just thought I was a regular dude, out to have a good time.
But, in sobriety i've learned I was never a regular dude. It turns out i have always had issues w/anxiety and perfectionism., and these issues have been driving my behavior and decisions since childhood.
So yeah, I drank for the feel. But, i believe my alcoholism stems from the fact I was unknowingly self-medicating. Alcohol eased an unrest that was so much part of my being I wasn't even aware it was there until I got on the other side of this thing.
But, in sobriety i've learned I was never a regular dude. It turns out i have always had issues w/anxiety and perfectionism., and these issues have been driving my behavior and decisions since childhood.
So yeah, I drank for the feel. But, i believe my alcoholism stems from the fact I was unknowingly self-medicating. Alcohol eased an unrest that was so much part of my being I wasn't even aware it was there until I got on the other side of this thing.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Maryland
Posts: 13
To quote Stephen King "monsters are real, they live inside of us and sometimes they win"
I drank myself into oblivion every day to subdue the monster (myself). Now that I don't, we battle every day for control.
I drank myself into oblivion every day to subdue the monster (myself). Now that I don't, we battle every day for control.
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