Dee74

This is a pretty good examination of what kindling actually is.

Kindling in Alcohol Withdrawal
Howard C. Becker, Ph.D.

https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicati...22-1/25-34.pdf

1998 paper - may indeed be superceded by other research - I've no idea.

Its all Greek to me - about as scientific I get is you can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber.

You can accept that truth now or accept it after banging your head against the metaphorical wall 20 years from now (assuming you survive)....but you need to accept it if you want peace contentment and happiness Ulle.

We all had a passionate love affair with booze - but the longer I stay out of its spell I see what a toxic abusive relationship it really was.

There's not one of us here who'd stay sober if we felt we lost out on the deal.

I gained so much and gave up so little, it's ludicrous I spent so much time deliberating on which way to go.

It gotta be worth a go?

D

Pressmetilihurt

I like this. The G thing makes me crazy cause I don't have a God gene. I know that a god gene is a ridiculous idea. But it just seems like other people have the ability to believe stuff I don't.

ulle

thanks for the link, Dee
i will study this later, the basics i knew for a long time. didn't help me much.

i accepted it already (not 100%, i know i can't drink anymore, but i don't get why it doesn't heal, why there is no reverse process. i guess an anti drug that reverses the effects would mean much pain, but the withdrawal would be great, well).
what i'm struggling with is to imagine a good life without a drink sometimes, it seems like the biggest loss. i don't want this life i have to live now. i don't want to be sober everyday. i need relief sometimes. and i want to cook with beer, wine and liquor.
how do i let this go? i will miss it very much.

FreshStartOk

I'm so far down the line I'm struggling to imagine a good life with alcohol, it just doesn't work anymore for me, if it ever did. The pain and dangers massively outweighs whatever brief enjoyment there is.

But yeah I think we will have to fill our lives with other things, which I imagine can't help but be more fulfilling. As for relief, or a break from usual life, have you thought about exercise, or relaxation techniques like yoga or meditation?

Hawkeye13

My body no longer tolerates alcohol like it once did. Two tall beers would send me to blackout today, and I used to polish off several bottles of wine, or some days a fifth of vodka or a handle over a couple days.

Other "new" symptoms: I get acute anxiety, my face gets red and rough patches of skin, gut gets inflamed and bleeds. I can't find words, I have trouble concentrating, terrible insomnia, and it is worse each time.

Kindling has been a real thing in my drinking life. It has effectively ruined any "fun" there might have been left in drinking for me. I know the payment will be swift and prolonged, and getting worse each time.

Better to quit now rather than wait and see for yourself.

ulle

i like working, i like meditation and i like exercising. and i like playing guitar.
those things help. but they can't replace what wine did for me.
a friend asked me, if i want a sober life, and i lied, i said yes.
i want to be awake, alive, but i want to drink sometimes and i had a good live with alcohol long time. I screwed this up and that makes me insane.
On the other hand, i cost me so much the last years. But i don't blame the drug, i blame my character, i misused it. Alcohol is great, if you use it right. And it destroys u if you don't.

Too late, a beer costs my days of pain now

DriGuy

Your list of things you lost is powerful and compelling. You lost a lot to alcohol. Now you even miss the dream of what alcohol was in the beginning, but while it once was real, it is now a dream. They call it chasing the high. You can chase after it, but you can't get it back. That's an undeniable aspect of alcoholism.

Sounds like the world's worst bummer, doesn't it? You lose it all. It's not like you can even sacrifice the love of your life, your job, youth, and joy, and get compensated by wonderful uncontrolled drinking. It's all gone, and there's more yet to lose. It would almost bum me out too if that's all I was seeing.

You're missing a big part of the picture, however. There is an unknown you are not able to imagine right now, and that's the joy of living a life unencumbered by alcohol. How could you possibly know this? You've had no experience with it, and with that life, you have a chance to recover some of those other things you've lost too.

Dee74

I believe that addiction is a progressive condition - ie the more years I drink, the worse it gets - and that my brain has been permanently physically changed by my addictive drinking and drugging.

D

DriGuy

There is a lot that is not yet understood about alcoholism. It's just an observation that alcohol seems to affect people in an irreversible progressive way. No doubt science has wondered why. To date, we only have theories to explain why, and as often happens, we don't yet have the tools to test the theories.

I have wondered about this myself. From my personal experience of many years in AA, I have seen so many quit drinking for a time, and then suddenly start up again after sometimes years in remission, and they immediately become embroiled in their previous condition. Whether they are worse than they were before, I haven't been able to observe directly, but what I have observed is that they are certainly no better at drinking in their subsequent attempts than they were before, and they come back to meetings swearing off alcohol, often bruised (literally) from bar fights or automobile accidents, stay sober for a while, and then go back out again for more brutal self punishment.

I can't explain why they go back out any more than why they immediately become embroiled at least as bad as they were before. As far as I can tell, anyone who claims to know the answer to why, is really doing little more than theorizing. What I do know from my observations, is that they don't get over alcoholism..., but I don't know WHY it seems to be irreversible.

What I do know from observation as well as my own personal experience is that if an alcoholic doesn't drink, he seems to be OK, and I know personally, that if I don't drink, I never have to deal with cravings. By "be OK" I just mean that the person doesn't act like a drunk. He may have a pleasant personality or an offensive one. He may be happy or grumpy, or display a wide range of observable behaviors, the same as those we call normies.

We can make observations, but explaining those observations is something we can only guess at, at least at this time.

ulle

Day 4 without a Drop. Its hard. Never experienced this before. All my thinking is focused on alcohol and how to survive the next day. Baclofen doesn't help much. A year ago it would helped me to dont come to this, i guess.

Kindling is what they say, it ****** my brain. Every withdrawal gehts harder, the urge to drink rises. And now, that i know i cant drink anymore its hardest. I wake up and want a beer, and i know i cant drink one and it makes me insane.
Whats hardest, is that i didn't make the cut wen i still had time, that ists not my decision to make anymore.
I knew for years, i have a problem. But i didn't do much against. And i tried to stop, and i failed. And again. This time i can't fail, or i die.

A good friend says, he knows the hole story, i much likely have a psychosis from my alc and drug abuse, and i will heal, if don't drink a drop for like a year. Hope he is right. But odds are low.