why booze?
 

I wonder sometimes why my addictive personality chooses booze, liquor. I could get into gambling. Why alcohol? I have tried various drugs but the effect was often dampened because I was so full of the drink.I have been addicted to women, sex and the temporary thrill of the chase but I seem to be maturing from that of late. Maybe the women come with the boozing and I have been more sober of late so that has diminished somewhat. The alcohol pull is way stronger than anything. The brain is a most complex and fascinating thing. I await your opinions and experiences with interest. You are an enlightened and caring bunch. I haven't been here for a couple of weeks since I had a relapse which lasted a weekend.
T

Because it's legal. Alcohol companies know how to do their job, and hire some of the best chemists out there for R&D to ensure you become addicted. Same goes for cigarettes.

It's hard to say "why" any of us become addicted to anything we get addicted to. For me it's a lot more important to realize my problem and do something about it though.

There are many who try and overthink this and spend hours upon hours running in circles trying to answer the question you have asked, and to be honest I've never heard of anyone actually finding the answer.

I like the questions you are asking of yourself. Indeed, the brain is an interesting organ. Keep reading, and keep posting. For me, it took a lot of soul searching to answer the questions you posed.

Nicoteen is a proven addictive chemical

Same as alcohol really it is very addictive thats proven

As to why 'we' become addicted i agree with Scott i think everyone has a individual story as to why but the outcome is usually the same

I am not addicted to cigarettes though. I don't smoke , I have tried it bur never got a buzz from it. So my question remains the same. I gambled but not enough to get a rush but I possibly could and I am glad I am not.

I know the ponderings are futile really. I guess I am just annoyed with not knowing why the drink makes me tick so much, but will kill me in the long run. Knowing oneself is good I suppose. Looking too much into it won't change the fact I am an addict. I have cousins who have died from and killed for heroin and alcohol. Addiction runs in some families and can strike randomly to any family.

Ok, let me give you a different perspective then. Try becoming a daily drinker of home made moonshine. I can almost guarantee you if that's all that was available, 90% of the daily drinkers would stop being daily drinkers.

Personally I've always loved women more and alcohol seemed to facilitate that. In fact I loved all the social sides of alcohol, talking with friends and feeling a strong bond etc.

I get what you mean Troy

For me, alcohol was the answer to who I thought I wanted to be at one point in my life.

Gambling never did anything for me because getting something from it was difficult.

Drugs scared the bejeesus out of me due to my secondhand exposure to them

Men/sex, well alcohol helped facilitate that. I find that being sober, I don't desire that so much right now.

But alcohol, alcohol was immediate. It created a social life, a persona, a whole world I wanted to be a part of. By the time I realized I was in hell, I was hooked.

I loved the chasing of women more but I did;nt love them, It was a means to an end and at times once the woman was there with me I would be looking where the alcohol was. It is always a chase chase chase

TomTom, I was the same. I remember being on dates and 90% of the time, I was more excited about free alcohol than the person buying it. I remember times where my boyfriend wanted to have sex. I wanted it over with so I could drink more.

I've never done intimacy well but alcohol helped created a false intimacy for me and for them.

These days, I'm getting more comfortable in my more introverted, quiet, nerdy skin. I'm okay being alone while I learn about myself.

But I'll never have to question why it was so easy for me to get addicted to booze. From the moment I had my first drink, it was as if it had been waiting for me my whole life and all I had to do was open my mouth and drink. It was that instantaneous.

I actually used to say, quite proudly, "I don't do drugs, I don't want to lose control. That's why I drink."

Lord . . .

It gets me out of my own head and makes me not give a **** about anything.

Boom ---> Addicted.

I don't drink anymore because that attitude will leave me homeless. At best.

Tennant I know what you mean but I think I didn't like me very much, have been disappointed with me my whole life. I am starting to like myself enough to care and look after myself although the self destruct voice is always there or thereabouts.

Oh, I didn't like myself very well either. Well, okay, at all. That's where alcohol came in to play. It created a new persona and life. I thought it was helping me become someone more likeable.

But then the switch happened and I realized that my hatred intensified as I drank. I've heard so many say about their DOC, they keep using with hopes of feeling the way they did in the beginning . . . but we never do.

I've never been so happy to be sober in my entire life. :)

Imabeleva ... same

You can't get that from tobacco

No, not at all.

I attended some lectures where a neuroscientist really dumbed down some of the science of addiction. One way he explained drug and alcohol addiction is by comparing it to our drives for food and sex. He said that the drive to repeat drug usage is about 20 or 25 times as strong as our natural drives to eat and procreate. Yeah. I can't say whether this is accurate, but apparently, there's something to it. Once we experience that euphoric "click" in the brain when the neurotransmitters and all that good stuff interact with the substance, there is the memory of it there in the brain, and the drive to repeat that is "addiction."

And since we all have slightly different chemistries, we all respond a bit differently to the different drugs. Whereas my drug of choice was alcohol, someone else's might be opiates, and so on.

So... that is why alcohol, and "addiction" in general.

He said it better than me, though :) I wish I had recorded the lectures.