interesting viewpoint
 

"I don't have other problems related to drinking besides the normal things."

The above was quoted from SpartanGreen in his smelly pee thread.

I wanted to comment on this line but I was too late to get in before the door closed. I don't know if this made anyone think about what the "normal" problems with drinking are.
I think the "normal things" associated with drinking (by us pros) encompasses everything imaginable.

From not having a normal bowel movement to stomach pain to blurred vision and seeing things, sore joints to losing my job and losing friends, distancing family, getting arrested, losing my license, spending an incredible amount of money needlessly, losing things, neglecting things...

What would you say are normal problems with alcoholic drinkers?
What problems has it caused you? Is there a "normal"?

The blackouts followed by anxiety and self-loathing the next day wondering what stupid things I did during that drunk session.

The normal thinking pattern that only sees the choice between two alternatives , continue drinking or a bullet, and the normal experience of thinking those are the only alternatives no other option, that normal thought process?

I think when we start to define "normal" it opens the door to the old debate about the definition of alcoholic and associated stereotypes, which can then be used to justify drinking in the context of

"well I'm not like that, or I don't do that, so I must not have a problem" or the disassociation phrase of "my drinking isn't as bad as their drinking, as their drinking causes a whole other level of problems"

The normal things, no matter what they are, are still problems, and alcohol is causing them . . . Sobriety is still a valid way forward!! :)

Oh you know...just the normal average sucking my soul dry leaving me a shell of a person unable to function in any authentic way. Other than that, no other problems with alcohol.

Normal problem with alcoholic drinkers is one thing only. It creates alcohol-ism.
Remove alcohol from alcoholic and you still have.........

IC(k.....)

Anxiety, insomnia, obsessing all day about when I can start drinking, lying, sneaking, driving drunk, weight gain...these were some of the normal problems I experienced through persistent alcohol consumption.

the physical was really bad but it was the shame fear guilt hopelessness that was the normal I could not deal with

Molehills turning in to mountains!!! Especially with my work... Even preparing some post was a headache & took me hours where it should have only taken 10 minutes!! Sounds crazy but that Feck Wit alcohol is just pure evil in a bottle!!

That there's no 'off' switch even in the face of conditions which lead to death, insanity or institutionalisation. That at least is my understanding of my own alcoholism. Fortunately, and so much more due to luck/providence than judgement, the death part evaded me so I get to live a sober life now, but the other two, yep, many times. By any standards of ordinary decency, order or discipline, my heaviest drinking had not even a semblance of normality to it, and the key ingredient to that continuing? The belief, and I really did believe, that this time, it would be different. Never was

Writing that helps me realise how blessed I am to be alive and how miraculous it is I am sober.

Thanks for posting LBrain :-)

Getting arrested and depression.

This reminds me of the term "functional alcoholic." I have heard it used by people who lost jobs, destroyed marriages, ended up homeless or in the hospital. It begs the question, where is the line drawn that delineates "dis-functional alcoholism"? The implied answer seems is always the same: worse than me.