Does anyone ever drink "normal" again?
 

All I can think about today is how maybe in a year or so I might be able to go back to drinking "normal" or just socially again. Deep down I know this is just my mind messing with me, but is it even possible to go back to being a normal drinker once you've crossed the line into uncontroled drinker?

Why worry about a year from now? Just take it one day at a time.

God knows I tried, birdie. My answer is no. Having one always led to having 10. I have no off switch.

Every person I talk to that has relapsed after a prolonged period of time, says that their drinking was so much worse than it was before they tried to quit.

I tried too. Never worked for me once in over 20 years.
That's enough trying for me Birdie :)

D

You're so right...thanks.

I have heard that too. Right now I'm scared enough to not want a drink. I hope I stay that way.

I tried it countless times and failed miserably everytime. If it is possible, I am clueless as to how it works and at this point there is no way I would risk returning to my former life to find out. And even if I did and it worked, so what? Yay! I get to drink normally. Now I can have half a beer with dinner!

meh....I'm over it.

Dang, this is so true for me too. Just a couple hours ago thinking I could just have half a bottle, ---everyone else does.

Well, unfortunately, not me. I have to just keep reminding myself that.

Hey Birdie,

My mind has been running over the same thing- I think its a case of because we haven't socialized without drinking, we feel that we can't socialize without it, which is absolutely not true, at the moment they go together, but losing drink doesn't mean you have to lose your socializing.

Alcohol doesn't scare me, what I might do after that first drink scares me. I prefer structure. Some people may say differently, but I like keeping that fear in the back of my head reminding me of all the bad things that might happen. "You can drink!" Yeah and I can also end up in jail, I'd rather not... All those thoughts are just your addiction trying to suck you back in.

My personal opinion is NO. But your best bet, I think, is take the break then ask yourself again in a year.

I'm so new to recovery, that I have my moments, mostly due to habit, that I really want to drink. Then my mind wanders and I romanticize it. Not the drunk, but the first drink. Then I think about being drunk at my grandfathers wake, being drunk in front of my kids, not remembering crying on the phone, text messages I sent out, or the way I treated people, and ya know what? It shoots down the theory real fast. I don't care if I can ever drink normal again, right now I'm not willing to test out the theory.

I too have this same question. I feel like there are two modes that describe my drinking. There is having a beer before dinner when dining out or going out with friends and having a couple of beers. Then there is the 6 or 12 pack of beer along with swigs out of the whiskey bottle at home alone. I would love it if I could keep the first example and quit the second.

Over the years I made deals to try quit the binge drinking: no more liquor in the house, so i turned to wine or fortified wine, then it was back to liquor.

I am at the point where I don't know the answer to the question, but the only way to quit the binges seems to be to quit it all.

Not possible for me, took me a ton of start/stops and further sickness and abuse to realize it. Wasted two whole years but finally admitted that just like many others, I cannot interact with alcohol in a "normal" manner. Period. Game over. I am an alcoholic and always will be. Even if I am sober for a full year, I am still an alcoholic.

For the past two years I kept trying to convince myself that "someday I won't be an alcoholic anymore", but it recently dawned on me that this just won't be true. I might be able to become a recovered alcoholic someday, but that doesn't change the fact that we don't mix.

Seems sad to admit, but the realization made me determined to win right now and gave me strength.

Edit: when I say 2 years, that was after I admitted to myself I was alcoholic. It was 2 years of me trying exactly what you describe - drinking lightly. It always followed by a heavy need to binge. The fire was kindled, the memory of the 2 beers at dinner turned into a hunger as i go home, I went home and binged out of site.

More About Alcoholism
(Alcoholics Anonymous – page 30)

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.

Reprinted with permission of A.A.® World Services Inc.[/I]


I tried and tried. I never wanted to lose my best friend alcohol..

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...alcoholic.html

I could drink normally again if the rest of the world were willing to redefine "normal drinking" to be a liter of vodka daily.

Thank you for your reply! That is exactly how I feel. I know this sounds juvenile, but all of a sudden I feel like my life has stopped being fun all because I'm not drinking. When in fact, my life should be MORE fun without alcohol. I'm just trying to figure it all out...

That's it! The first drink is what I'm thinking about. I need to think about the 8th or 9th drink...and then think about the morning after.

I feel like I was two types of drinkers. For a long time I handled it just fine. Maybe drinking a few times a month and never a binge. Then, in a blink it turned to almost every day. I would love to go back to being a responsible drinker, but I think I've come to far and done too much damage to ever go back.