ClearLight

If you want but I don't find your posts boring. They're very...ah...lively. Ha!

Lexi-
That sure rings a bell with me. I find that it's really good in my creative work. Not so much in my relationship with alcohol.

Gforce23

Quit Alcohol? I just quit on my own. I don't have what I would call a daily "physical" dependency. I don't "need" alcohol to get through my day. I am a a "social" binge drinker that suffers from blackouts and heavy duty hangovers on a semi-regular basis. So, detox for me was not really necessary because I don't have withdrawals when I quit. So, mostly for me this has been psychological, which I must say, is no real picnic either. When I get a psychological urge to drink, it can really throw me for a loop. Though I certainly don't mean to make it sound like physical withdrawals are a walk in the park in comparison --I'm sure they're hell. But after what is more or less a short time period, there over and you've got to deal with the psychological part of it like I am now--and I don't find it to darn fun.
So, yeah, to sum up (leave it to me to a make a short story long,) I did it on my own with some support from A.A.

Cheers.

Gforce23

You know I find it so frustrating that I do my best to proofread and edit my posts, and then I read them when I can no longer edit them, and I find missing words all over the place. ARGGH. That's just the perfectionist in me talking I suppose.

Received

I do the same thing when I post.

Honestly, I find your posts intriguing and tend to not see the missing words. Your thoughts flow well.

Gforce23

Thanks Clearlight, I appreciate your appreciation!

However, in terms of "Alcoholics" sharing similar traits, I'm not sure I'd buy that with my lunch money. Personally, I think the only "traits" that alcoholics share is "alcoholism."

I've known introverted alcoholics, extroverted alcoholics, alcoholics with depression and bi-polar disorders, alcoholics with ADD, alcoholics with OCD, alcoholics with personality disorders, and alcoholics with NONE of the ABOVE.

In fact, one the things that irks me in A.A, is the whole "we alcoholics" mindset, that lumps us all together with so called alcoholic personality traits.
I am not manipulative, and I'm actually pretty good at self-reflecting and being honest with myself. Not perfectly, but I do try. (Wait, don't all accuse me of being in "denial" about that at once I don't go around acting like a bitter, vindictive, resentful victim, as is suggested an alcoholic does in the pages of the Big Book.

I have to say that I think that the only obsessive thinking that alcoholics share is the one for alcohol. But hey, that's just me! In the context of A.A: In my humble (yeah right) opinion, nobody is "unique" in their addiction to alcohol. How that addiction manifests for you and your particular personality type, in my opinion, IS certainly, unique.

Just my two pennies on that one.

ClearLight

Yeah - I may be projecting my personality traits onto others. Hey, isn't everybody just like me? Ha!

And I've known quite a few alcoholics. You don't spend over a decade as a bartender without running into a few! LOL

Coldfusion

We have a lot more in common than that, G. Your posts describe what I am experiencing, and I think a lot of people benefit from your sharing.

Thanks again!

Phil

soberlicious

I would agree, but I don't believe in alcoholism. Chemical dependendency, addiction, yes, but no "ism" for me.

Gforce23

Yeah, I should mention that I used/use that word for convenience sake. I too have trouble with that word, because it means A LOT of different things to different people, and sometimes it means different things to different communities. To the psychiatric community, alcoholic means having a "physical" dependency, and all else is an alcohol use "disorder." To the doctors and scientist at NIAA, it is essentially the same. In A.A and other recovery communities, an "alcoholic" is anyone who's alcohol use is causing physical, mental or relational problems, and is also interfering in anyway with your life--home/work etc. So... yeah!

The word is a bit of a lightning rod of controversy, if you ask me. I prefer just saying that I have a "problem with alcohol" rather than calling myself an "alcoholic."

But once again, that is solomente mi.

ClearLight

Sometimes I like to just say I'm an addict - just like Keith Richards(!) - only slightly less worse for wear. LOL

Gforce23

Arggh. Once again: missing words, comma's where their should be periods or dashes or semi-colons. I can't stand it! Oh well, it's not like I'm writing my damn dissertation or an article for the Atlantic... although I wish I was...

Coldfusion

Did someone mention a lightning rod of controversy?

I tried to bring up the topic of alcohol addiction as a disease at a meeting, but got more comments on other aspects of use and abuse of alcohol. I read from the Big Book, the story about the people on the boat that sinks. It says there, "...we have come to believe it is a disease..." or something like that, and indeed in 1939 they called it "allergy" to alcohol.

On this forum, my signature used to be something about addiction and the prefrontal cortex, but others have pointed out that the entire brain is affected by alcohol. It is such a simple molecule that it affects our entire body. But why are some addicted and some not? I was a weirdo before I ever started drinking, but because it was common to drink during pregnancy in the 1960's (and mom took amphetamines for weight loss), who knows what condition I was in before I was even born.

And now, I have a coffee addiction. Gotta go make cup four for me and number three for my (sober)wife

soberlicious

It's all about the message. Most don't even notice errors because the brain is such that it reads to pick out meaning.

Emily Dickinson didn't even use standard punctuation and certainly eschewed many other linguistic conventions.

Why ya so hard on yourself?

Vodkasaurus

oh ok. I guess i wasn't clwar on the severity if it and am teying to figure out how many quit, thats all.
Best of luck in your sobriety.

Coldfusion

s long s u dont du ths s ok w/ me

Gforce23

Well in answer to your question see my lengthy post on page 2!

Gforce23

Sorry, it seems like maybe a came across in a way I didn't intend? Sorry if I confused you or came across irked? I'm not sure... ???

I think you have to think about your situation, Vodkasaurus, in terms of how you need to quit. I think if you physically need alcohol, and can't quit without withdrawals, for sure you should consider detox or even rehab. Though, I have a friend who did it with the support of friends (hanging out, bringing water, holding his head while vomiting, feeding when needed etc.) But I'm not sure that was medically wise.
My uncle and a good handful of other people I know quit all on their own without any support group whatsoever. But I think it's up to you what's going to work. I'm going to A.A right now, because I think that the support of other people is helping me get through the rough stage of quitting. And, I am DEFINITELY not out of the woods yet.

Read around here, there a lots of different ways that people have used and are using to quit and stay that way.

Good Luck!

Gforce23

Ha ha. Text talk--UGH! my ultimate pet peeve. Oh besides women wearing leggings tights and yoga pants as pants with nothing covering their arse, that is. But that's the subject of another forum! (Sorry if any of you do that....
Really, ultimately it's my problem.

Cheers.

Gforce23

P.S SR community,

I <3 U!

I really do!

Gforce23

Hey there Coldfusion-- I don't know if your still hangin' around this thread, but yeah, the question of "Why." Why some and not others. Well, I think it's genetic predisposition. The question why some people are prone to ceriain conditions used to be framed in a binary way-- Nature OR Nurture, and now their finding out that it ain't an either or thing, it's Nature and Nurture. For instance, I may be born with a genetic predisposition for breast cancer, but by limiting my exposure to cigarettes, alcohol, and other things, I can influence weather the gene for being predisposed to breast cancer is switched on or off.
If I smoke, I actually influence the switch to the gene that protects me from cancer--as in it will be "switched off" if I'm a chronic smoker. I just listened to an entire documentary about this.
I'm pretty sure that we are born being predisposed to certain traits, potential for certain illnesses and "disorders." Whether or not those things manifest has to with a lot of other X factors in our internal and external environment after we're born.

In my family, we have quite a few people with alcohol problems. When I was little and my father was trying get a small town paper off the ground in 1970--he drank large bottle of Chablis every night on top of a couple of vodka tonics when he finally got home. His father, did the same pretty much until he died at 87, which I must say is pretty old for an alcoholic!
My uncle was a binge drinker and would sometimes disappear for days. My brother is/was a daily drinker who starts drinking at ten in the morning when he's on "vacation," and when he's not, he sits at the bar after work for hours. My brother actually drunk calls me...which is kind of sad.

Then there's me: a crazy partyier that doesn't know when to stop, so fortunately since I'm highly sensitive to drugs and alcohol, I usually pass out before I can go on some kind of a bender. Who knows why there have been so many different permutations of alcohol problems that have manifested in each of us so differently in the family. It's a bummer--I wish I was born to an Italian family, and not an IRISH family. I could have avoided this whole mess!

I enjoy the affects of alcohol, so it's to bad that the AFTER affects are such a BI-HATCH. Maybe someday some smart scientist will find a pill for those of us with genetic predispositions to alcohol problems to enjoy it sensibly.

Hey, a girl can dream.