bookmaven

http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/d...l-talk/704272/

Just one more reason to stay on the path of recovery.

Soberwolf

Interesting

Chiffon

Good article and very true

EndGameNYC

Good stuff. I'd need to look at the original research documents in order to comment on that part of article.

This "me"/"not me" debate has been raging since we discovered alcohol. I tend to agree that what we say and do while drinking is more about previously inhibited content than it is about alcohol creating new thoughts or behaviors. If my thoughts and actions didn't come from me, then where did they come from? A disembodied disease? Something I saw on TV? An alcoholic voice that is separate from me and that only holds sway when I'm drinking or when I'm craving alcohol? To borrow from Occam's Razor (and what every student in psychological research learns), "When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better."

Why then, when we're no longer drunk or drinking, do we plead that what we said was not what we meant? Because our inhibitions are again strengthened by the absence of an overabundance of alcohol, and may in fact be even stronger as a result of a special kind of rebound effect. I was notorious for saying/writing things I did not intend to say but had previously thought about while I was drinking, both negative and positive. My ego is simply incapable of accepting the notion that I could have been "that person" last night while I was drinking, but this type of denial neither confirms nor disconfirms the source and the intent of my spoken thoughts while drinking. Instead of saying "I didn't mean what I said last night" the morning after, more accurate for me might be the sentiment that "I didn't mean to say what I said last night."

bookmaven

Exactly

Fly N Buy

An old adage states - words spoken in jest are usually true feelings.
How many times have we ended a sentence to someone by saying - I was only kidding - when there actually was truth ( to us ) in what we stated?!

I suppose this is a corollary to the articles point, perhaps.

fly

Nonsensical

Drunk talk is real, but it's only part of the story, which makes it unreliable - sometimes to the point of being useless information.

Andrew Luck passed for more than 400 yards last Sunday is a true statement. Given that his team was beaten by 17 points makes it nearly pointless to say all by itself.

If I think my wife is beautiful, intelligent, charming, delightful, sexy, hard-working, honest, diligent, full of integrity and sometimes a pain in the ass, but all I say when I am drunk is "you're a pain in the ass" it might technically be true, but it's far from the whole story.

sprout50

Whats the old addage-a drunken man's words are a sober man's thoughts?

poolsideGal

My male companion-friend has done this a few times after a few "too many." I had wondered if I should believe these rants from him. Thanks for the post.

EndGameNYC

Behind the wish is the fear. (And vice versa.)

I imagine that many of us are conflicted by much of what we say when we're drinking, otherwise why hold back when we're sober?

Aellyce

My favorite activity as a drunk was writing emails and chatting online. I did not keep most of it because periodically I would get so ashamed about the whole thing that I deleted even email accounts... But I kept enough of those drunken rambles and I also remember the associated stories well (how it affected others etc). I definitely think that I've learned much about myself from what I wrote drunk. For me, the biggest one was how alcohol disinhibited many of my emotional processes. Or put it the other way around, which reveals much more: how inhibited I was in this area before heavy drinking took over. A lot of this was never pushed back into unconscious and never got blocked again, and I am able to use this as enrichment in my personality now sober. There were also quite a few people who got very obsessed with "alcoholic me" and all the things I said, the way I behaved, etc when under the influence. Not other drunks, but perfectly normal, responsible, above-average intelligent human beings. This was actually a problem for me when getting sober, I had to block myself from these people (and from making new, similar connections) because they reinforced my drunken behaviors and thought processes positively, they liked it too much. I always wondered wth was so appealing? I asked a few people, and the opinions had always overlapped in one area: apparently they found the complexity of my thought processes and feelings (the way I expressed them) fascinating and my obvious suffering and yet always wanting to find explanations and solutions haunting. It's definitely a challenging learning process to be similarly accessible sober. I still have the same thoughts and feelings, the same mind, but I need to learn new forms of expression and connection with others as those drunken ones are no longer acceptable to "sober me". It's the same mind, the same person, just expressed differently and with definitely more censorship on what's being expressed.

But there are definitely less dangerous methods in "psychoanalysis" and more efficient approaches to personal growth than extracting all that stuff from a drunken psyche.

Now I mostly entertain my therapist with the uncensored content of my mind, no need for alcohol on either side But I definitely don't let most people walk freely inside my mind when sober. So some of the old friends told me I became much less intriguing sober. I don't take that sort of "intriguing" as a compliment.

Nuudawn

Great article..but ya know what is even more frightening...

Crap you say in your "I-am-newly-sober and rather emotionally unregulated state" is also REAL.

It's is my heart's greatest wish that eventually...sobriety teaches me how to respond...rather than REACT.

I am NUCLEAR these days.

dcrr

Very interesting article. All it does is reinforce my resolve to never drink again.

Dee74

I'm going to buck the trend here I guess

The only thing my drunk talk was indicative of was the skewed human being I became when drunk and the skewed world view it gave me.

I'm not in denial. I did those things, I have to take responsibility for them...but I was not me...I was literally 'not in my right mind'.

This, right here, is me

JanieJ

Well said, Nuu and Haennie

Although I've had more than a few epiphanies when drunk, I can never remember them for the amazing, life- changing events that they were at the time. I found my drunken writings to be alarming and horribly dark (read my first blog post for an example of that).

I would rather explore my darker side from a place of light.

Nuudawn

And a "well said" right back to you. Absolutely!

Aellyce

Yes! My writings were also incredibly dark and nihilistic in some periods. It was as though I was looking at the world and life from the inside of a bubble and never really felt part of external reality. Most extreme it wasn't actually during the 1-2 years before I quit drinking, but earlier, when I was in a relationship with another alcoholic. He was the only person I felt any connection with during that era, but that was just as much an addiction as the alcohol itself. We were bound together in a sort of "alternate reality" and wrote to each-other all the time about all the darkness of our existence. He used to say that my inner world and outlook on life was like T.S. Eliot's, or Nietzsche's... and he was addicted to it. Not only him, as I said above, there were a few people that never had addictions and had no idea (I believe) that I was drinking heavily. They just thought I was weird. I believe they "liked me" the same way we like writers and artists who create from madness...
I have always been quite prone to existential angst and had periods of it also without drinking in my youth, but nothing similar to that dark, obsessed fantasy world I was living in during some periods of my drinking. I still have days like that, but being in recovery is the first time when I am actually learning how to change those mental states, instead of diving into them more deeply. But it was very real and it's me experiencing all of it.

VikingGF

I completely disagree. My drunk self never once spoke an honest word.

PurpleKnight

I'm torn on this one, on one hand yes I got more loose with things I'd have liked to say when Sober eg. professing my undying love for someone, telling a work colleague to go f**k themselves (that did happen once), or really getting into the nuts and bolts of a political argument.

However there was a point when what I said, was not my real thoughts and feelings, I became a twisted, depressed, paranoid individual and acted accordingly to that personality.

That darker side of my personally has been put to rest since becoming Sober, which I am grateful for!!

desypete

what a load of codwallop !!!

sure i told my mum i didnt lover her and that i hated her when i was drunk.
she was the kindest sweetest women in the world i loved her with all my heart, put a drink in me and where the hell does the anger come from ?

did i mean it ? did i hell

for me if i take one drink it sets off a craving for more, i have no off switch i can not stop and have to drink until i am insanely drunk

now in this state no one can think right, any thoughts that come along we can act on were as if those same thoughts came a long when some one is sober well we dont act on them

i have something like 20 odd convictions all from drink related crime, drink driving and fighting, and drunk and disorderlys
if only i never drank i would never of got arrested for anything let alone get convictions

i was in trouble right up to the age of 23 then i went into aa and stopped drinking funny enough i never got into trouble again i went 15 years sober and never once had a police visit as i never do anything wrong sober

it was 18 years later and 3 years into drinking before the trouble started again and i ended up getting blind drunk and getting lifted off the streets swearing at anyone fighting with everyone and ended up in the cells

then of course waking up the next day sorry for what i had done

so its a load of codswallop to say being drunk is the real me as i dont want to hurt anyone and i never did and never would if i never had a drink as sober i behave myself and i am in control of any thoughts good or bad