Different kinds of alcoholic?
Trudgin
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 6,348
Originally Posted by helpimalive 
The first drink is always going to happen to me unless I have help, and THAT is my problem. And it seems like there are those who don’t say that alcoholism.
It makes me afraid it’s just a lack of willpower and depression or something, which would mean the solutions I’m tentatively looking into and kind of already liking a whole lot are illusions for me and I'm lying to myself when I read here and go to these meetings and find myself doing so much terrified nodding.
That’s why I ask …
It makes me afraid it’s just a lack of willpower and depression or something, which would mean the solutions I’m tentatively looking into and kind of already liking a whole lot are illusions for me and I'm lying to myself when I read here and go to these meetings and find myself doing so much terrified nodding.
That’s why I ask …
Don't shut up! Scream all your questions - use the ignore button if aggravated, but keep posting - please.
The first drink, yes that's my problem as well. Because it would lead to more, more and more. You'd have to catch me pretty quick when I started to drink to blow a .08!
The issue and I think what you posted your problem is - how do we eliminate that obsession or compulsion to drink the first one??? Great question! At around 30 days the obsession was removed from me and has not come back.......
Willpower only carried us so far when it came to the drink. I would promise not today, never again - Today I will only have a couple. My experience was while I truly meant it many times, self will - defective or lacking - could not help me.=
The obsession for the first drink was removed from me, one day at time by working the AA program = the 12 steps. I get a daily reprieve.
Don't shut down on SR though! At this point I think I have more people on my ignore list than friends
Flyn
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
Posts: 2,693
I guess patterns are different. I was wired as a daily drinker. Why not drink everyday? Sometimes I wonder if not being married or having children allowed me to drink everyday. I do know that many people drink everyday who are married and have children so I guess that negates my point.
If drinking was smoking, I was a two-pack a dayer who would freak out if the pattern was ever disrupted. Definitely not one of those that could do it one day and then not for a week.
I was a full-speed-ahead-running-on-all cylinders-all-or-nothing alcoholic. There wasn't even a shred of restraint. I guess that's why I nearly ruined my health by my early thirties. Waiting and/or continuing to 40 or beyond wasn't a choice. I would have been dead by 40.
If drinking was smoking, I was a two-pack a dayer who would freak out if the pattern was ever disrupted. Definitely not one of those that could do it one day and then not for a week.
I was a full-speed-ahead-running-on-all cylinders-all-or-nothing alcoholic. There wasn't even a shred of restraint. I guess that's why I nearly ruined my health by my early thirties. Waiting and/or continuing to 40 or beyond wasn't a choice. I would have been dead by 40.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: SE Michigan
Posts: 1,066
Originally Posted by doggonecarl
Right.
Don't get too caught up in labels, or trying to categorize yourself in the many-layered world that is alcoholism and addiction.
You have a problem with alcohol. If you can't quit despite your desire to, that's a problem.
Keep it simple.
Don't get too caught up in labels, or trying to categorize yourself in the many-layered world that is alcoholism and addiction.
You have a problem with alcohol. If you can't quit despite your desire to, that's a problem.
Keep it simple.
helpimalive you are obviously very smart, and may be prone to overthinking this and paralysis by analysis. I've hindered myself by doing the same thing.
But really, it is simple. If you want to quit but can't, if you are registering and repeatedly posting to sobriety forums, if your drinking is causing you distress, if you are parsing every single meaning of the word alcoholic and wondering how and if it applies to you...well, you get where I am going here.
Much simpler (in theory, not in practice!) to say, "X behaviour is causing me distress and harm, therefore I shall stop doing X." Would be common sense and easy with most things, right? Unfortunately not so easy when you're addicted, and that is where the rubber meets the road. You quit doing X, or you don't. Those are really your only choices.
((hug))
Guest
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 1,476
I agree with you HIA
I drank hard from early teens.
I tried to moderate or drink socially but despite a little success with that, eventually it would just explode out of control again.
I've heard others describe a steady progression pattern from social to moderate to heavy to alcoholic.
So yeah, we all end up on the same boat and that's all that matters when all is said and done.
I drank hard from early teens.
I tried to moderate or drink socially but despite a little success with that, eventually it would just explode out of control again.
I've heard others describe a steady progression pattern from social to moderate to heavy to alcoholic.
So yeah, we all end up on the same boat and that's all that matters when all is said and done.
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