NoRingWraith

I have a question...

why is it that before we drink, we tell ourselves how much we want it, but then

after we have that drink we know how much we didn't want it?

What the heck? Help?

MycoolFitz

For me it was because I was not in my mind. i was in my addiction

Dee74

That's addiction NWW - our addiction lies to us, and that addictive part of ourself goes along with the lie.


Posting and reading here when my head was telling me how much I wanted a drink really helped me break that circle, and let my 'healthy side' win out

D

sugarbear1

I think of my alcoholism as a band-aid. Alcohol helped me, until the end.... Once sober, I realized the real problem is me, not really the alcohol! Just another delusion I held onto!!

Gottalife

Before I drank there was the complete absence of any thought about why I shouldn't drink, a strange mental blank spot. After I drank I was compelled to drink more and more until I dropped. On regaining consciousness I was filled with remorse and swore off. Then came the strange mental blank spot and I was off again, unable, it seemed, to learn from my mistakes.

Friends thought I drank too much but the truth was I couldn't drink enough.

phaelisker

it does not matter why this happens. it is important, however, to "think" and drink through to the possible outcome.

phae

Sapling

I had this explained to me the first time I read the Big Book....It was the first time in my life I understood why I drank like I did....That phenomenon of craving...That physical part of my problem...That when I feed it one or two drinks....Wants 20.....I got that....That's what makes me not a normie. Looking back...It all made sense to me. I repeated that...Over....And over.

Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

The Doctor's Opinion.....BB

freshstart57

Every addict has the same argument going on in their head, NoWringWraith. Your rational brain knows that continuing to drink and use will only bring trouble, but that addiction brain keeps poking you, whispering and even yelling for that drink and the pleasure and numbness it brings along with it. We say we wish we could stop, but we don't stop, and the blackouts get worse and more frequent. This is what addiction is, this internal struggle.

We can learn to identify this alcoholic voice for what it is, and to separate our will from its urging. The AV is powerless and can't 'do' anything by itself, it is only thoughts after all. We have thoughts of drinking, and thoughts of not drinking. It is up to us which ones we give action to.

NoRingWraith

I like that. been thinking about this since I read it yesterday.