Why would you say that you drink?
 

I've been pondering this question today. Why do I drink? I suppose you could answer that the brain is addicted to it and craves it, and our willpower can't always compete with that. Maybe the better question is, then, why did you start drinking in the first place?

My answer here could be two things. One is that I've always been an anxious person, quite neurotic at times, and alcohol helped quell my fears. I remember a big extended family get-together when I was finally old enough to acceptably drink with my family, and it was 10x less intimidating and somehow more enjoyable. That was the start of alcohol use to treat anxieties of mine, I think.

The other reason is because somehow it feels edgy and adventurous to drink. My life was so straightforward and lacked excitement...I went to college like a good kid, got an engineering degree, got a nice desk job and settled into what would be decades of nothing all that exciting going on, in my mind (this isn't necessarily true. Just sharing my thought processes). And friends really liked drunk me. I was goofy and outgoing. I ended up dating a girl who often saw me when drunk and really liked me...then she hung out with sober me and quickly got bored and ended it. That was a tough loss for me, and its failure definitely gave me anxiety about a life of bachelorhood, a life I didn't want at all, and I'd drink when my thoughts about that got out of control. Don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I almost find it exciting to live this double life as a drinker while putting on a show that I'm a totally healthy, unencumbered person.

Huh. Well I could answer this with a really long, detailed post, or a really short one. I'll go with short. I'm a drunk.

As for the girl, sounds like ya dodged a bullet. Relationships based on the genuine 'you' will be the ones that last.

I've tried, and tried, and tried to understand the whys of my drinking. And there are a lot of why's. But at the end of the day it just is. I've intellectualized to the point of utter confusion. Now i just accept it.

This is easy. To escape my failures and to reward my successes.

I'm with frick. I'm not being flip here, but my answer is: I'm an alcoholic.

The whys and wherefores can be useful to a limit, and help me know what needs to be changed in me (as AA teaches us to look for and accept and own) so I can better operate in the world. My mind could twist me up forever in "figuring myself out." But bottom line, it doesn't matter why. I did, I needed to stop, I did.

Now, what?

That's the great part. I get to find out. Best thing that's ever happened to me.

sure, I pondered that. ad nauseum. while drinking. ad nauseum.

more fruitful to ponder why I couldn't quit and stay that way when I really wanted to.

are you wanting to quit, or is the seemingly edgy fun of a double life still too alluring? it was a story I told myself, a narrative...the actual experience was something quite different.

I can relate. I started drinking in university, just a beer when I got home. Then as my classes got more intensive, I started using the alcohol to ease my stress more. Then by the next semester I was homeless and I used it to help me sleep on the floor of the lab and ease the anxiety I felt about my situation. I'd just curl up under the benches on my blanket with a bottle of whatever and hope I'd wake up for my alarm before my coworkers got in for the day. :/ I drink out of boredom and loneliness now.

All my best work was done drinking. I no longer draw paint or sketch.

Because I was lonely. Bored. Anxious. Happy. Sad. Because I could.
To me, the reasons no longer matter. I spent hours pondering why? I thought if I could control the why, I could control my intake. Sometimes it worked. But when it didn't work, the results were horrible and potentially catastrophic. In the end, the why is meaningless to me. What does have meaning is the simple fact that if I drink, the best result is I'll feel wretched and hungover and the worst result is that someone will end up dead or injured or I'll end up in jail. It's like playing Russian roulette. So the why changes from why do I drink to why would I risk my and others happiness and well being.

Instant gratification.

In a cup of I'm a drunk.

In the beginning, because it was fun. In the middle, because I forgot how to have fun without it. In the end, because I was addicted. There may be more complex reasons, and believe me, I've thought about it a ton, but now, I don't care why anymore - I care about how to never drink again.

Social problems. I drank to fit in and be part of the party. Like so many others I felt like I did not belong. Drinking made me lose that feeling. I never had friends growing up (long story) so when I left home I had no idea how to act in social situations. I could not go to a party without getting trashed on booze and drugs. I embarrassed myself in public enough I just started to drink at home, alone. It made me forget being lonely. It was hard to face the reasons for my drinking. But I finally did.

Well my answer is simple. I loved it from the first drink.

anxiety
low self esteem
it made me who I wanted to be personality wise
it was the only way id have enough confidence to talk to women
eventually to deal with the negative effects of drinking

It was probably to numb feelings. I had a lot of pain, plus a lot of the message that certain feelings and things were inappropriate, so I never felt free to express anything. And I was afraid of what would happen if I did.

It was worse than I expected it was going to be, but stopping drinking allowed everything to come to the surface so I was able to process things and move on. If I hadn't gotten sober, I would have stayed in the same place, trying to numb it.. I think I hit a wall where I felt it was no longer working, or serving me, and I realized I didn't know who I was.

I think some of us alcoholics had been conditioned very early on to believe that pain and love are interchangeable.. We were only ever hurt by other people, often by the people we wanted love from, then we fell in to patterns of hurting ourselves, thinking that if we tried hard enough, we could escape the pain..

Of note, but very minor compared to what I said above, I started because it would make me feel cool! It would help me fit in, and it would make me more sociable. Those things weren't true. I moved in to my own apartment for the first time and started having a glass of wine with dinner.. and it progressed with the boredom.. and my first relationship ending.. and with job loss.. depression.. more boredom. You get the idea. :P In the end I was clinging to it like a life preserver and it didn't make any difference, I was sinking. I'd never learned how to cope with life as an adult.

Now that I'm thinking of it, the addiction was secondary to the low self esteem, and that came about because of what I said above... and the quitting part goes in to that.. but starting, on alcohol specifically, and why did alcohol become the coping mechanism and the compulsion? 'Cause it was cool!

Really though, freedom. Freedom from caring. Chasing after the carefree parts of life I never got to experience. Years of social rejection. Years of abuse. Being locked up inside wanting to feel if only for a bit that I lived with abandon. To feel desirable. To be happy.

Usually for me it was an escape when I was pissed and reason to just go chug down a few bottles. Then a bender ensues.

It may have was so that I could socialise but the truthful answer is that I don't know why I started drinking

Well I started drinking to fit in and because I was a huge fan of the rock & roll lifestyle. I worked 2 jobs through university and that wasn't very "cool" till I switched to a bartending job and all of a sudden, I was someone everyone wanted to be around because I was aloof, always hungover from a "great" night and always able to give away free drinks and knew everyone at the bars. That was from about 17-20, then from 21 onwards (I'm now 28) it turned into more of an isolating thing.

When I was drinking and out, I felt like I was somehow cool. I'm heavily tattooed, didn't give a crap and drank and took drugs and in my head, that's what I equated with being normal based on my circle of friends and who I thought I wanted to be.

Then I started drinking at home, isolating and all of a sudden it turned dark. That feeling of trying to be something I'm not because I wasn't comfortable with being entirely who I am turned into losing myself, my interests and just focusing entirely on the bottle. It was my saviour from anxiety, from shame, depression, self-loathing, social situations (despite my previous socialising, I hate bars and always have. They smell and are full of people who were drunk and arrogant like my family members and incidentally, me!)

It's only now I'm sober that I see that the things I tried to conceal and change, are actually pretty decent.

Mainly because of anxiety, depression, and to be sociable. I use to rarely go out, then I discovered alcohol, and thought I found the miracle cure I've always been looking for. I use then would go out all the time, often times numerous times a week, but it had to be somewhere where alcohol would be.
This "cure" later turned into a full blown addiction taking me back to even worse than square one with out of control anxiety, depression, and social anxiety.