Help me understand??
Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 567
A lot of the symptoms and cliches are paradoxical and I don't think there is one straight, "in nutshell" answer, the thing with drinking in excessive amounts and the consequences are progressive.
It may take some 5 years to get to a point of an absolute living hell, it may take some others 35 years, and some don't make it at all to tell their story.
The "honesty" bit, for me refers to *my* drinking and what it does to me, my inner self. All I know is from day 1 of my drinking career it was blackout drinking and a drastic change in my personality.
To deny this was the dis-honest part, to admit it, was the honest part, to me. Not anyone else cos in the end there was no one else. And more honestly, it was my fault, cos I used to blame everyone else.
The fact finding about what happens to me when I take a drop of alcohol is, ( now I know, did not know before) a craving for more, and a change in personality that does not happen to normal drinkers. ( I don't know what a "normal drinker" is because I don't recall ever having an experience of normality while drinking. The only normal me is when I am sober).
OK, but what about before the first drink, what is going on in my or our minds that made it so compelling to have a drink.
Well, let's say it's Friday, we got paid and we go to a pub with workmates.
Some leave after a shandy !
Some have a beer and leave to go home to a family.
The list goes on.
For me it's either I know I'm getting drunk so I had better go to another pub across the other side of town where no one knows me, so I thought and get plastered. And i did.
The next day it's misery, but all through thew week I'm thinking about Friday again, but It will be different, I won't leave cos last week I missed out on what happened.
That's is Obsession, our thinking, we obsess about the next drinking bout.
So we have a Obsession and a reaction to alcohol that craves more alcohol after the first drink and a change in personality, though we don't think so and , and the dishonesty on our part, The Denial !
This cycle can go on for years or less, there is not set rule that I'm aware of.
So, do I quit for a while in the hope I may "get better" ?
Do I drink more and more so to build up a tolerance to alcohol, therefore I can hold my drink ?
No matter what, once we have crossed that line of uncontrolled drinking I'm very sure there is no turning back.
It's not operative as far as the "off switch" is concerned. It's not there.
That's the honest part, being honest about *your* inner experience when you drink.
It then becomes a "surrender to alcohol" and this has been a rather hot phrase or topic at time cos it is seen by the uninformed as a weakness, to surrender.
Well heck no it is not a weakness, it takes courage and humility to surrender to anything, we are surrendering to the drinking game when we know we are truly alcoholic.
If we crave more after the first drink of alcohol because there is no known medical answer as far as I know that can stop that craving and that jekyl and hyde personality change, then surrendering is a win.
Quitting may mean that one day we may pick it up again.
A real Alcoholic understands this.
It may take some 5 years to get to a point of an absolute living hell, it may take some others 35 years, and some don't make it at all to tell their story.
The "honesty" bit, for me refers to *my* drinking and what it does to me, my inner self. All I know is from day 1 of my drinking career it was blackout drinking and a drastic change in my personality.
To deny this was the dis-honest part, to admit it, was the honest part, to me. Not anyone else cos in the end there was no one else. And more honestly, it was my fault, cos I used to blame everyone else.
The fact finding about what happens to me when I take a drop of alcohol is, ( now I know, did not know before) a craving for more, and a change in personality that does not happen to normal drinkers. ( I don't know what a "normal drinker" is because I don't recall ever having an experience of normality while drinking. The only normal me is when I am sober).
OK, but what about before the first drink, what is going on in my or our minds that made it so compelling to have a drink.
Well, let's say it's Friday, we got paid and we go to a pub with workmates.
Some leave after a shandy !
Some have a beer and leave to go home to a family.
The list goes on.
For me it's either I know I'm getting drunk so I had better go to another pub across the other side of town where no one knows me, so I thought and get plastered. And i did.
The next day it's misery, but all through thew week I'm thinking about Friday again, but It will be different, I won't leave cos last week I missed out on what happened.
That's is Obsession, our thinking, we obsess about the next drinking bout.
So we have a Obsession and a reaction to alcohol that craves more alcohol after the first drink and a change in personality, though we don't think so and , and the dishonesty on our part, The Denial !
This cycle can go on for years or less, there is not set rule that I'm aware of.
So, do I quit for a while in the hope I may "get better" ?
Do I drink more and more so to build up a tolerance to alcohol, therefore I can hold my drink ?
No matter what, once we have crossed that line of uncontrolled drinking I'm very sure there is no turning back.
It's not operative as far as the "off switch" is concerned. It's not there.
That's the honest part, being honest about *your* inner experience when you drink.
It then becomes a "surrender to alcohol" and this has been a rather hot phrase or topic at time cos it is seen by the uninformed as a weakness, to surrender.
Well heck no it is not a weakness, it takes courage and humility to surrender to anything, we are surrendering to the drinking game when we know we are truly alcoholic.
If we crave more after the first drink of alcohol because there is no known medical answer as far as I know that can stop that craving and that jekyl and hyde personality change, then surrendering is a win.
Quitting may mean that one day we may pick it up again.
A real Alcoholic understands this.
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