Tell me why a life or death experience is no reason to drink...
 

I don't want to drink now, but there's looming pressure and comments like, "go get yourself a bottle of wine"...

Please tell me the reasons why I shouldn't, before the AV starts telling me, "life's too short, you can just have one".

(Yes, I know drinking alcoholically will shorten my life anyway.)

Traumatic events are no reason to drink. Please tell me why - remind me. Please.

There is never a reason to drink. Just an excuse.

Because eff-it is a fairly bad way to treat one's self if they wish to have anything close to a life. I have irrational thoughts like that too and they do blindside us but that is what the recognition part is for. Don't forget the RT that goes with the AV.

Because drinking only makes any problem worse. Drinking solves nothing. Whatever problems or traumatic events we face, will not go away and will still have to be faced. Alcohol increases depression as well. Alcohol also stops us from seeking out real and meaningful help when faced with problems or events that are difficult.

Because drinking will make the trauma last longer, and rob you of the chance to heal.

Sometimes we'll have a really good, valid excuse to drink - a real humdinger - but it's still just an excuse and it's still as empty as all our other excuses are.

Drinking doesn't help us cope. It numbs us...it helps us run away...but, as alcoholics, it also takes over our lives, and seeks to destroy.

There's been enough destruction and enough tragedy.

Our addiction will not think twice about taking our fear, our grief, our anger and our sorrow and using it cynically and obscenely as a way to get what it wants.

It won't bat an eyelid at taking a tragedy, and grotesquely twisting it into a reason to you to obliterate yourself.

Honestly, drinking would be a really shallow response to what is a profound event.

The proper response is to see your Doctor and/or avail yourself of some counselling, Crois.
Maybe your work will offer something?

I really hope you will follow it up.

Join me in not drinking over this :)

D

I think that traumatic experiences for an adult can sometimes be the inspiration and starting point of significant change and yet unknown phases of our being. But we need to be able to process them in order for that to have a chance. Drinking will make all that impossible.

Pardon me for getting all Stuart Smalley on you...


Because you're worth it!

Life's too short, you can't just have one.

Traumatic events are part of life, even for non-drinkers.

People who can have just one don't have a voice in their head telling them they can.

When people tell you to "go get a bottle of wine" tell them to "go get a brain".

It might catch them off guard but it will do the trick.

a dry bed is a good thing, not so if i take a drink

waking up at home is another good start for me, instead of waking up anywhere, from police cells to out in the streets, its a barrel of laughs when you wake up freezing, peed your clothes and have to try and make your way home again. sober trying to not look at anyone, : (

If you know that a traumatic event is looming you can take steps now to encounter it without drinking. As alcoholics we are programmed to immediately reach for a bottle to make it go away but it won't go away and drinking will only make it worse.

This is a hypothetical that I've run through my head. My father has a very bad heart, which is true. He has both a pace maker and defibrillator. As a child I always thought my parents would be there forever. He still lives a very active life with some limitations. However, every year he ends up in the hospital for a period of days. I never know when my mother will call to say he's in the hospital again. Each time he bounces back, a little weaker but still here. And here is the hypothetical. What happens when it's the end, come see your father now! When will that call come? Will it come in the middle of the night when if I'm drinking I'd be too drunk to move if I even hear the phone ring? So I miss seeing my father and saying one last goodbye? What if he does pass. I pick up a drink because I'm so distraught. Will it change his death? No. Will anyone blame me for drinking? No, probably not. But they will blame me if I'm too hungover to be any support to my family, especially my mother. If I show up to the wake and funeral reeking of alcohol. Stumbling, slurring, saying inappropriate things. Not being present in the moment to handle it or be of any use to anyone. It's me being selfish. Considering only my pain and my grief with little regard to anyone else.

So that's what I've thought. My AV has already told me. It's patiently waiting for the day that my father dies so that I have an excuse to drink. A reason for which no one will question. Pretty sick, isn't it? Using my fathers demise to pick up a bottle. So I know that is what I face. I know now so I can think it through. Surround myself now with loving support so that I can face the pain sober. So I'm there with my mother and can support her. Drinking would be such a bad idea. Don't do it.

Because by drinking you'll be committing emotional suicide. Running from grief is a blatant disrespect to very memory of the loved one we lost. And the longer we attempt to suppress raw emotions with addiction, the longer we will suffer from anxiety and other psychological ailments. Not to mention the rapid decline of physical health.

Croissant I hope you are in a better place right now.
Not for your specific situation but just speaking to your conjecture in general, my thoughts are that for 'normies' the idea of drinking is most often seen as a pleasant experience that only adds enjoyment to a 'something' , a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame, picnic ect. The way I used alcohol was completely different, the only enjoyment came from the drunkness and the more the better, the off switch was broken from the start(everytime). Trying to see drinking through that lens makes it hard for to see a healthy attitude toward alcohol use , in that vein. A horrible situation is presented and this a rational reason to 'enhance' the mood? When I look at my own past motivations, it was more a 'justified ' reason that no one could blame me for getting drunk.
My 2 cents

Because we both know it won't be just one. You can do this.

Two words: massive hangover.

Remember those?

Croissant, you know that drinking won't change what has happened to upset you. And, in the end, it will make things worse.

ev one knows that alcohol releases us from the restraints of inhibition... once our "limits" are set free, our emotional side takes over... we've all seen it. most have experienced it first hand.
serious life events require Rational thinking,,, not Emotional....

Hi Croissant,

the people who are saying, "go get a bottle of wine" don't understand people like us.

they don't get the obsession and terrible lifestyle that follows that "one bottle" of wine. we know from experience that bottle leads to many and on top of that the destruction of the mind, body and soul that surely follows with people like us.

you know it wont be any different from any of the other attempts to drink. God doesn't give us the strength to get away from the poison and the insanity just so we can walk right back to it's trap.

stay strong. you deserve sobriety. you don't have to defend it either...you just gotta do it :)

there's no good reason to drink; including traumatic events. you have to learn to deal with these events sober for any chance of healthy healing. this too shall pass and you will come out at the other end stronger than before. the only way out is through.

YOU CAN DO THIS FOR YOU. hugs.

because life's too short to be drunk.
because life itself is a life-or-death experience every moment.
and because life stuck in a bottle isn't life at all.

what are YOUR reasons?

Great advice here, Croissant.

May I just add . . . . because we love you and would never wish to see harm come to you. Every drink we take hurts us from the inside out.

Your SR friends around the world mourn with you over the recent events in Sydney.

And, yes, I drank over the Twin Tower/Pentagon attacks in 2001. It was when my alcoholic drinking began; it seemed like such a splendid idea at the time . . . . . but it brought more misery than I could ever anticipate.

Man, your AV is a lame bugger.......

One, HAAAAA!!!!!!! That's the game it's playing. Amateur AV~

Mine says, hey pal.....you've been good for 6 months. Come on, a real nice bender might be just the thing - celebrate, you've earned it.

At the very least, it will remind you of why you quit. You can ALWAYS start over at day one........

Fly says - BS! So this gift of sobriety I have been given I am going to return? Why? The color is right ( not blotchy bloated face ) the size is good, it's in style...... So why the heck would I return it?????

Oh that's right, we can ALWAYS start over?!?!? I'll just get a new one after Christmas.....I am sure they be PLENTY on sale!

Crap, then I recall this thread. You know the one - it has over 500,000 views. Must be a mistake.......that can't be correct? Why would so many view this??? Hmmmm, I wonder if there something to it. I wonder if I really would ever, by grace get another chance. Maybe this time, if it doesn't work out - I'll have the courage to pull the trigger........

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...lly-again.html


Kind Regards,
FlyN

Croissant... I've thought about this, the life or death situation. I've wondered myself if I'd drink if faced with a terminal illness, imminent death, or if faced with the death of my husband, or dogs. I really don't know what I'll do. I'd like to think that I wouldn't, but until I'm in that situation, it's hard to speculate.

My one argument against drinking in that situation: I'd now prefer to be aware of reality. I think, now that I'm nearing the two year milestone, that I have an appreciation of life, with it's suffering and struggle, in a way I hadn't before. I was somewhat naive to "life" in general before. I'm not exactly sure why that is, as I wasn't raised in luxury, and I've had to struggle to survive some dysfunction in my family, and go after a college education and some other things that weren't handed to me. So... I'm not sure why I had such an idealistic and hopeful view of life as a young adult.

Now that I've tasted a bit of life's bitterness, I think I appreciate the goodness and the peace more than I ever did. And I don't want to upset the "balance" of things anymore. It's so hard for me to bounce back and recover from things that many people seem to just spontaneously recover from. It sends me reeling.

So maybe that is what keeps me sober? There is a delicate balance, and I'd rather not upset it.

As far as putting one's life in danger while drinking... yes, of course that's a good argument against it. But those are often easily justified when we are in the process of drinking. I certainly wasn't aware all the times I put myself in grave danger. I was so lucky, so many times.

Another argument against it: Better not, than to... if in doubt :) Hold off for another day, and see how you feel about it tomorrow.

This

"Honestly, drinking would be a really shallow response to what is a profound event."

Well said, Dee!

I went through a serious family trauma over the weekend. It is something I would have had some drinks to cope with in the past, and it inspired those thoughts (which I don't often have in sobriety). But I didn't drink, and the GIFT from staying sober through it is that I connected deeply with other family members who were also having the experience and the grief. I even spent hours on the phone talking to my ex-husband (from very long ago), who is someone I value greatly. He is remarried and lives far away, but this issue involved one of our children, and my sobriety allowed us to share throughout the experience without the conversation degenerating into conflict.

Waking up on Tuesday, I find some of the trauma is resolved, some will never be and is just heart-breaking, but I came out of the last couple of days with a new depth of relationship with people in my family and a new sense of connection. That would not be true had I drank through the feelings and experience.

And of course, there's all the other stuff - still in recovery, proud of that, feeling healthy , etc. - but what I most value is the deepening.

Pouring poison on pain only makes the pain worse in the long run.

Dear Croissant,

I hope you're ok. You've been such an amazing support to me. I'm sad to think of you in a dark place. Please let us know you're ok.

We can't control this world but we can choose how we react to the things that happen .

In the old days the alcoholic in me was willing to abuse every situation to selfishly feed .

Sometimes what we do might seem insignificant in the light of other things going on but that doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile .

Keep on , m

may I please :a043: stress my heart is hurting and not from being sad.. this dummy I am working with would drive a tea Tootler to Drink.. laughter kids I need some laughter :grumble: