Do you....
 

drink because you hate yourself or hate yourself because you drink?

For me I drank out of guilt. I felt guilty that I could not save my sister from 9/11 terrorists. And the guilt turned to self loathing. So I drank more and then that turned to self hate because I had turned into a person I swore I would never become. It was a complete spiral from a precipitating event, although I probably was an alcoholic before I ever drank.

One must have a modicum of self love to even entertain the idea of stopping their self destructive behavior. And develop and nurture that self care to sustain sobriety. It is VERY hard! Physical and psychological determinants are pulling at you daily.

But, it CAN be done as this forum attests to. Takes work and committment to the Nth degree.

I really don't fully understand WHY I drank, and honestly I don't really care at this point.
I do fully understand that it was destroying me and all those around me though, and quitting was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I hope you are ok?

I started drinking at a young age. At the time the only reason to drink was to be sneaky and catch a buzz. Over the years I drank for innumerable reasons.

The emotion of hate never entered into my reality of drinking.

I drank because I drank.

I think I never drank because I hated myself. In the beginning of my career (and for many years), I drank because I liked the buzz. Then I got the stupid idea to also drink to "self-regulate" my sleep/wake cycle, and that was when it got frequent and out of control for me. I also sometimes drank to try to relive anxiety. Of course with time, I got to the point when I constantly hated myself for being addicted to alcohol, I hated the hangovers, and not being able to stop. All this hating stopped pretty much during the first two months of sobriety for me.

I very much agree on the importance of accepting ourselves (even if not loving...) if we want to successfully quit self-destructive behaviors. I had eating disorders in the past that developed because I hated myself back then, and it was very hard to break both of that self-hatred and the resulting behavior.

I've always had a really bad self-image and depression. Drinking me gave me a few hours of vacation from my self-hatred. It also got me away from the constant anxiety of everyday living.

hmmm, interesting question. I certainly don't hate myself, but if I'm being honest, I don't particularly love myself either. Hate is a pretty strong word. I don't like myself when I drink but not because I go bananas and do crazy stupid things, I don't like the way I feel physically and mentally the next day (sometimes two days).

When I drink excessively its for one of 2 reasons. One is I'm doing something that is really fun and I enjoy, AND I know its safe. Like if my wife is with me, she can drive etc...Two, would be because my life is not turning out the way I would have hoped. Some of it my own fault, much of it is not. I don't drink excessively for reason number 2 very often, its ugly.

For me, the self-hatred didn't really start until I was well into my hardcore drinking. Then it became a self-perpetuating kind of thing. Hate myself because I drink, drink because I hate myself, etc.

I'm still finding things that I don't like about myself, but I'm in a better position now to work on things rather than just drinking to shut my inner critic up.

I have a very unscientific theory on this.

I think I hated myself when I drank. And after I had my last drink 20 months ago, it wasn't long before I started to like myself again. In that sense, my quitting has been "easier" than it is for some. Because the rewards came pretty quickly.

If I drank because I hated myself, then I would have had to change my drinking habits, AND I would have had to fundamentally change how I feel about myself.

In other words, if you don't like yourself, even when you are sober, then I think your struggles to quit may be more challenging than if you just hate the "drunk you."

If you directed this to me Buggirl, yes I am OK. Thank you for asking! I am in one of my philosophical moods. no worries.

I drank for many reasons - enormous emotional pain amplifies with sense of guilt and hell lot of other psychological reasons.

All this needed to be addressed, for sure. And I am doing this, step by step.

But getting clear sober mind was the first necessary step to start doing this.

Though it's still hard to learn to love myself.

I don't think I ever drank because I hated myself, but I have definitely hated myself for drinking. The morning after (or sometimes when I went to bed after a session) 'WHY did I do that? WHY?!' when I have to get up for work and having told myself that I wasn't going to drink. This was too common an occurence. I have drunk deliberately when I've been depressed though and that may be caused by some kind of self-loathing, I don't really know. I never got my depression properly diagnosed but I know for sure that drinking didn't help those feelings. I need to make sure I'm ready for when the black dog comes to visit next time - if he does!
Best Wishes
C

Definitely had moments where I've hated myself for drinking and in turn, this led to a feeling of disliking myself overall which obviously doesn't help the road to recovery.

I have diagnosed mental health problems and I self medicated to take the edge of, despite being on medication. I liked how it felt and was entirely oblivious to the damage it was doing to my already compromised mental state. Drinking is a very big thing in my family and with my friends. There are two alcoholics in my immediate family who are no longer on the wagon.

So in that initial stage of "do I have a problem?" It was "no, don't be stupid!" And the comparisons to those around me helped my denial. I didn't feel any feeling of hatred until I had trouble stopping drinking the first time. Then I hated what I'd done to myself and ended up drinking out of that anger at myself.

I grew to love and appreciate myself but it was not always this way.

I definitely hated myself, but it wasn't actually necessary for me to stop hating myself to stop drinking.

The healing came a little later :)

What I had to believe in, initially at least, was that I really could live (at least for a little while) with my messed up screwed up self sober, and that my self hatred might not be nice to live with but it would not consume me.

I had to be sober to start to work on that stuff, because alcohol fuelled it.

D

I drink because I hate myself....the more I drink the more I hat me . What else is a useless man to do.