The Consequence of Drinking
Member
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 82
What is bad? In my opinion the day I missed my duties to my loved ones and work was bad. I still continued though till I reached a status where I could not go forward like this... So in my humble opinion it's for an individual to decide where they need to change.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Gulf Coast, USA
Posts: 2,229
"Bad things" are relative and in the eye of the beholder. Bottom line is if you feel you have a problem and need to quit, then go with that.
Doesn't really matter if something that you consider "bad" has happened to you or not. I think plenty of us here can share horror stories due to drinking; some worse than others, but it depends on what you consider "bad".
In my opinion, if you keep drinking and it is affecting your daily life in a negative way then that's bad enough to quit today.
Doesn't really matter if something that you consider "bad" has happened to you or not. I think plenty of us here can share horror stories due to drinking; some worse than others, but it depends on what you consider "bad".
In my opinion, if you keep drinking and it is affecting your daily life in a negative way then that's bad enough to quit today.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Boston, Mass
Posts: 1,004
For me it was more about all the things I could be doing with my life vs. what I actually was doing with my life. No jail time, DUIs, health issues, destroyed family, etc. I consider myself to be running toward good things, not running away from bad things.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Nutmegger
Posts: 1,799
I believe my bottom came when I gave up protecting my drinking. These threads regarding fate or bottoms or pleasure outweighing pain seem to be the mindset of protecting drinking.
I know you have mentioned your therapist telling you that the pain has to outweigh the pleasure, or the possibility of driving drunk (I never did by the way)…etc. To be honest I think you are leveraging this train of thought as if drinking is still doable until some sort of external issue arises.
Sobriety is an inside job. There was not one thing different the morning I woke up and decided to get sober two years ago. I simply could not stomach the grayness of what my life had become. I didn't have legal or marital or financial issues, but, I had a lot to lose.
Sobriety isn't an event. There is nothing cataclysmic that occurs for most of us that forces our hand. Most of us who are sober make private decisions all day to protect our sobriety.
I treated alcohol like kryptonite for the first year. Overkill? Maybe, but it worked. Now I see alcohol as an inert substance that is like poison to me. It sounds like you continue to put yourself in situations that are fraught with tension….add in the fatalistic mentality…and it becomes quite precarious.
Being married is great, but I also focus energy on friendships, hobbies, athletics and charitable work. It sounds like you are quite focused on your marriage, and using so much energy (especially when you are married to an active alcoholic) leaves you on tentative footing. Nights out with sober friends like AA people or classmates or a running club, etc, will reinforce how big the world is and how much you stand to gain with your sobriety.
I hope you make the small daily decisions to stay sober. When your world telescopes down to measuring your husband's drinking or procuring alcohol for him it keeps alcohol in charge. He's a big boy, and if the relationship can't handle you doing something that is VITAL to your life then you need to voice that and set boundaries. None of us are playing, this is serious stuff, and being glib is letting alcohol run the show.
I know you have mentioned your therapist telling you that the pain has to outweigh the pleasure, or the possibility of driving drunk (I never did by the way)…etc. To be honest I think you are leveraging this train of thought as if drinking is still doable until some sort of external issue arises.
Sobriety is an inside job. There was not one thing different the morning I woke up and decided to get sober two years ago. I simply could not stomach the grayness of what my life had become. I didn't have legal or marital or financial issues, but, I had a lot to lose.
Sobriety isn't an event. There is nothing cataclysmic that occurs for most of us that forces our hand. Most of us who are sober make private decisions all day to protect our sobriety.
I treated alcohol like kryptonite for the first year. Overkill? Maybe, but it worked. Now I see alcohol as an inert substance that is like poison to me. It sounds like you continue to put yourself in situations that are fraught with tension….add in the fatalistic mentality…and it becomes quite precarious.
Being married is great, but I also focus energy on friendships, hobbies, athletics and charitable work. It sounds like you are quite focused on your marriage, and using so much energy (especially when you are married to an active alcoholic) leaves you on tentative footing. Nights out with sober friends like AA people or classmates or a running club, etc, will reinforce how big the world is and how much you stand to gain with your sobriety.
I hope you make the small daily decisions to stay sober. When your world telescopes down to measuring your husband's drinking or procuring alcohol for him it keeps alcohol in charge. He's a big boy, and if the relationship can't handle you doing something that is VITAL to your life then you need to voice that and set boundaries. None of us are playing, this is serious stuff, and being glib is letting alcohol run the show.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 567
Everyone on here will continue drinking until something bad happens, right?
That's impossible if I crave more alcohol after the first drink, and that change in personality, the drunkeness.
The "bad" ?
It was all "bad" when I drank, made a total idiot of myself and blamed everyone.
Till one day, there was no one to blame. That's when I found out the truth about MY drinking and there was no denial because there was now no one to be in contact with, except the landlord to pay my rent.
call it a "bottom", "moment of clarity", I don't know, but I rang AA and asked, "why", not "how to stop", but why does this happen when I drink alcohol.
The rest is history, I'm sober today and there is no compulsion to drink alcohol.
I cannot deny the fact that I have a body that reacts different than most drinkers of alcohol.
It's not that I don't want to drink, I don't want to suffer anymore.
Does drinking alcohol make you suffer mentally, bodily, does it wreck your good natured spirit ?
Does your drinking affect others around you ?
Is it costing you more than what money can buy, ? ( respect and honor from your own family)
Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Chicago
Posts: 5,450
When I find myself obsessing over what "everyone" else "always" or "never" does, it is usually because I want to avoid dealing with whatever *I* am doing.
Generalizations serve no purpose in my recovery from codependence and binge eating. They just keep me stuck in theory, unable to dive into practice.
Generalizations serve no purpose in my recovery from codependence and binge eating. They just keep me stuck in theory, unable to dive into practice.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 202
In my case, I did not wait , till real bad things to happen.. It just came to me , one day, as a sudden realization that drink was not solving any of my problems. It was just magnifying them. It consumed my energy,my money,my time and my love for others. To me, I arrested it before I ran out of my energy, money,time and love completely. When these most valuable aspects of our life get exhausted completely, That is what I call , some thing real bad happening.. But it does not happen one day , suddenly.. The small building blocks of our life , breaks every day , till we keep drinking.. The termite does not eat the entire furniture one day.. It eats small piece everyday.. Please do not wait till something real bad to happen.. Arrest it before it becomes inevitable.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
Everyone's bottom is different.
I could have waited for more sh1t to hit the fan I suppose, but suddenly it all seemed too tiring and I was just dog-tired and sick of myself. My AV would have been happy to convince me to keep going, but thankfully, somehow I saw a small glimmer of truth one day and realised that I wanted to be happy, and wanted to be at peace with myself.
I could have waited for more sh1t to hit the fan I suppose, but suddenly it all seemed too tiring and I was just dog-tired and sick of myself. My AV would have been happy to convince me to keep going, but thankfully, somehow I saw a small glimmer of truth one day and realised that I wanted to be happy, and wanted to be at peace with myself.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Texas
Posts: 1,256
Originally Posted by Ruby2 
I drank even though bad things had already happened. My husband continues to drink even though bad things keep happening. Bad things don't stop people from drinking. They keep going until the next bad thing happens and the last time doesn't look so bad.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Dublin
Posts: 75
Nope.
Great answers from others here that I agree with but I'll add one more. I was tired of not being the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be reliable, fit and healthy, focussed on my relationships (and not the one with alcohol), financially solvent, hopeful, free.
I was a high-functioning alcoholic (still is hard to admit but there it is) and knew deep down that I was not better or no worse than an alcoholic on the streets (except more comfortable and safe from the elements). In the critical area we were the same - trapped in alcohol dependency. So was that my bottom? Perhaps, perhaps not.
If you have to ask I suspect you know the answer.
Great answers from others here that I agree with but I'll add one more. I was tired of not being the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be reliable, fit and healthy, focussed on my relationships (and not the one with alcohol), financially solvent, hopeful, free.
I was a high-functioning alcoholic (still is hard to admit but there it is) and knew deep down that I was not better or no worse than an alcoholic on the streets (except more comfortable and safe from the elements). In the critical area we were the same - trapped in alcohol dependency. So was that my bottom? Perhaps, perhaps not.
If you have to ask I suspect you know the answer.
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: usa
Posts: 3,938
Nothing bad happened to me. I'm grateful that I stopped before anything bad happened. But I was tired of hangovers, hating myself, and self pity. I tried to see if things would change if I stopped drinking. My life has improved 100%, in every area. That's why I continue to not drink.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Botswana
Posts: 384
As Homer Simpson put it " Everything looks bad if you remember it. "
But seriously,
Alcohol was always part of my life, serving only to dull the high notes and extend the misery when times were hard.
It never did me any good.
And now it has gone.
Good riddance
But seriously,
Alcohol was always part of my life, serving only to dull the high notes and extend the misery when times were hard.
It never did me any good.
And now it has gone.
Good riddance
Member
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Somewhere in California
Posts: 1,136
Only after I quit drinking did I realize they I could never live up to my potential, or truly enjoy life and living if I kept drinking. I quit because I was going down a road I knew led to death, and drinking was causing terrible panic attacks that were debilitating. But the unexpected bonus of sobriety was seeing how distorted my thinking had become, and to realize that life isn't worse without alcohol- that the opposite was true.
Life is better in every way. Even when facing hard things, sobriety is better than alcohol. Alcohol helps us escape temporarily, but sobriety makes difficult things easier to handle (in a paradoxical way).
Life is better in every way. Even when facing hard things, sobriety is better than alcohol. Alcohol helps us escape temporarily, but sobriety makes difficult things easier to handle (in a paradoxical way).
Hears The Voice
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Unshackled
Posts: 7,901
Originally Posted by happyandfree
Nothing bad happened to me. I'm grateful that I stopped before anything bad happened. But I was tired of hangovers, hating myself, and self pity.
I was the same, though. Bad things were happening all the time, but I failed to recognize that they were bad. The worst thing I failed to recognize was that I was a slave. Nearly all of my time was spent drinking, thinking about the next time I could drink, or how to hide how much I was drinking from others.
I never knew I was a slave until I was free. How awful is that? Hard for me to imagine a worse fate.
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