Dee74

I thought I'd found something that solved all my problems.
I was wrong.

D

EndGameNYC

Following a traumatic experience, an accident or a mistake of any kind, it's natural to look back and attempt to figure out how we may have avoided the unwanted consequences that resulted from our behavior. Or from what other people may have done to us. Or just coincidence. "If I'd only driven to work the usual way, I wouldn't have gotten into an accident."

We do post-mortems on broken relationships all the time. "Where did it all go wrong?"

From one perspective, this can be viewed as a retroactive attempt at controlling something that we lost control over, or that we never could control in ways we may have wanted to. A re-assurance that it "will never happen again." Another perspective might frame the relentless quest for a logical explanation as punishment for having screwed up, even when there was nothing substantial that we could have done to make things different.

I think it's important that we don't torture ourselves over what might have been, at least not over the long run.

WhiskeyBent

Why did I become an alcoholic? Man, thats a hard question. I love to have fun, life of the party. I used to say I was good at drinking. Professional. So stupid. Proud of it. I could go all night, I could go three days in a row. I could start at noon. But, and it is a BIG but, it went from fun to I needed the stuff. Noon became 10 AM, three days became three months. Im actually pretty pissed I let myself get to this. And its going to sound stupid, but im grieving that fact I cant do it any more. Denial really. This site is helping. So there ya go, not why but how.

lessgravity

One way on analysis on this, from Jack Canfield's 30 Day Solution book, is to recognize that, when all first started to drink, we didn't do it because it hurt us. We drank to make ourselves feel good. And it did make us feel good. For people who are not problem drinkers, drinking still makes them feel good.

When we recognize that, although drinking now harms us and may have taken away years of our lives, friends, family, money etc, we started drinking because, perhaps deep inside, we want to take care of ourselves and make ourselves feel good - we can begin a process of reclaiming that spirit of self-preservation and self-care.

Maybe that's convoluted, but I like it. I like it because it allows me to recognize that although there is a beast in me which has been formed and fed by my drinking, there is also a part of my "self" that wants to overcome the beast, to grow and to do what matters most - to live in alignment with my principles.

So in a sense, maybe the question is not "why did we become alcoholics" but "why do we want to be sober"...