How do you find the reason you drank?
 

I have tried to reflect on my drinking habit. why I made drinking my nightly thing, when and where I was in life when I kept at it or lookin back could see a potential issue with alcohol. Each part of my life has been pretty different, so I’m not sure how to find the why yet.

Is there any kind of helpful reflection to figure out the crux to the bingeing?

I have looked into that mirror also Readygo and I never found a specific "aha" moment. There was no tragedy, no life altering event. I just started drinking, than it escalated to binging, hiding bottles all over the house, drinking and driving,,, well you know the routine. Whats more important is that we stopped no matter what the reason.

Badge

Usually with problem drinkers / alcoholics any old reason / excuse / rationalisation is good enough. I spent far too long ruminating on the very same question. Problem dwelling. In the end the answer was to stop dwelling on that and focus my attention and energy on getting sober and working a program of recovery.

You know how sometimes you can't remember a word, or a name, or where you put something, and then when you stop searching it suddenly seems obvious. Well, it was the same. And I realised that I drank because I was happy, sad, bored, frustrated, wanted to relax. Because it was Friday(yay). Or Saturday (yay), or Sunday (so, so blue, and hung over). Or Monday. And Wednesday (they can be a bit rubbish). I drank because I was with friends (rude not to), and the next day because I was stressed that I'd upset those friends, and what did I say?!?! I drank because I was lonely. I drank if my team won (woo hoo), or if they lost Because I was in the throws of love and passion. Or because I'd been dumped.... do I need to go on?

I drank because at some point (I reckon around the age of 15) if proved to be a short term answer for a long term problem (being me, having feelings, and all that not-enoughness that humanity brings) and it felt good. I then took that (faulty)solution and applied it to every problem I ever had.

Recovery for me has been about getting sober (initially), and learning to live life on life's terms. Finding new and better ways of dealing with things and thinking. Developing a better perspective.

My alcohol voice was very happy for me to spend hours, days, weeks in rumination on that stuff in early days. Anything in fact other than committing to learning to Live Sober and work a program of recovery.

If you were on a burning ship, would you just jump in the lifeboat, or pee about going below deck to find out what started the fire? I decided to save my sorry arse and let the answers to that come in time (or not).

BB

I might post that on my fridge BB. Thank you. So on the money.

I found myself reflecting more on why sobriety was so important. I started drinking when I was 15 or 16, and at first it was occasionally with friends. When I got to college it became almost daily, it seemed everyone else was doing the same, of course that was because I surrounded myself with people who were.

I kept finding reasons to drink: celebrate, mourn, deal with stress,.... truthfully it made every situation worse, and ruined some experiences that could have been more amazing sober.

Life is so much better when you can remember all of the small moments, and handle life's stresses with clarity.

I remember my gran giving me a shot glass of advocate at Xmas when I was about 6-7. I remember liking it a lot and wanting more. The feeling it gave me was strong. Too nice.
My play room at home had a fully stocked bar in it.
When I left school the society pushed me even closer to drink.
Once in the grip of alcohol and all its nasty hooks and tricks I went round that cycle for 24 years.
If alcohol had just been invented, no way would it be legalised.
I think the reason I drank was down to the fact that drinking is so deep set in our society that we are sold lies to make it acceptable. We believe these lies without even questioning them.
Eg. A nice refreshing beer under a tree in dappled sunlight on a summers day.
What a sneaky hyped up lie .
Beer is a poison, it is not refreshing, it dehydrates you.
I could go on with more examples but I’d run out of ink.

I have found after nearly a couple of decades there is always a "reason" to drink. Happy, sad, stressed, relaxed, crisis, things going great, feeling sociable, feeling anti-social, not fitting in, doing it with your mates,feeling overwhelmed, feeling bored etc etc..
If you mean trauma in the past or in the present, yes, that could leave you with emotional or mental problems, but there are better avenues to deal with those so drinking isn't a "reason" to cope with them.
Alcohol is an addictive substance, for ANYONE who indulges in it too much for too long, is my take on it ..good luck to you Readygo :)

I drank because I am an alcoholic. Simple as that.

I used any excuse to hand at the time. I now understand that they were excuses. At the time, I believed them!

How do you find the reason you drank?
for me it was as simple as i had untreated alcoholism.
the underlying issues, on the underhand, i tackled with the steps of AA.

This.

I spent a loooong time "thinking" my way drunk. I finally gave that up and in sobriety, have found that yeah, there are underlying issues (I can now legitimately address anxiety I have had since childhood, for example) and certainly genetics at play (my mother's side of the family is rampant with alcoholism) and...but the bottom line? I'm an alcoholic. That's the only why that really matters- and therefore, my life in sobriety is what needs my thought, energy and effort. It's quite a relief to have ONE amazing thing to think about.

This! :amen

My sponsor helped me with this question... Asked me "If you have a cold and you find out the EXACT reason you got the cold - does that cure you?" Helped me.

Therapy. Lots of therapy.

I drank because whatever it is in me - existential dread, laziness, self-destructive tendencies, suffering, biology, chemistry, beast, demon, child, fool - seeks that sweet oblivion.

And I know it is a sweet oblivion, I'd lie to myself if I didn't admit that.

But I also know whatever that is inside me who craves that, for whatever damn reason, is not me. It's a facet of my person and my soul. And we all have these facets, habits, tendencies - some wonderful, some deeply harmful - in different degrees.

Do I envy my loved ones and acquaintances who do not have the fissure that I do inside that tells me to find that oblivion? I do. But theirs is not my path to walk.

And I'm trying to walk my path now, head high, shoulders back. In reality, because I have no other choice.

Like others have said - maybe where we aim our focus should not be about the reasons we drank, but instead the reasons we aren't.

Thank you for your post.

I don't have a single answer for that. I know why I am the way I am now...I'm an addict. But I wasn't always...so why did I end up here? I'm not sure I'll ever have that answer.

I'm reading a book right now by Gabor Mate. I relate a lot to his writings and a few quotes really resonate for me:
"Boredom, rooted in the fundamental discomfort with the self, is one of the least tolerable mental states". I read all the time how folks relapse because of boredom. But what is boredom? And is that 'really' whats going on? I don't think so.
"When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion"
I know my addiction messes up my ability to feel emotions normally. One drink may make me feel like I'm more connected...to something. But beyond that it disconnects, numbs and isolates me.
"Addiction is centrifugal. It sucks energy from you, creating a vacuum of inertia" This keeps me drinking.
"The inner voice I keep running away from. That's the God I keep resisting". The spiritual void that perpetuates addiction.
"To surrender, I have to be willing to give something up"...the fight that keeps addiction alive.

In order to understand a process that I engaged in for decades, I will need a lot of sober time...possibly years. Each day however I understand the now a little better.

what I did was stop trying to find the reason I drank and just focused on living life sober.

looking for the 'reason' was a red-herring.... my addictive mind was really searching for the reason because it wanted to believe that if I found THAT, I could 'fix' it an then I could drink reasonably....

Embracing sobriety instead - I found that the reason didn't matter because my life without alcohol was so much healthier, better, richer, deeper, more joyful.

Funny enough, in the process I did eventually identify many of the root issues that had made alcohol and drugs seem so appealing - and begin to address them in healthy ways that made me a better person.

:grouphug:

i racked my brain over this. there really is no specific reason that I could say go and repair and never become an alcoholic again. there is not something i can fix and then drink normally. or something i can Fix and then no longer be an alcoholic.

the end of the day I drank because i'm an alcoholic. yes i'd like to rip that apart and figure out the nitty gritty but there just isnt anything to figure out. you cant make rational sense out of irrational behavior.


But If I was going to try and conjur up some sort of reason the best I can figure is I started out an alcholic born that way? I dunno. anyhow my child hood wasnt all that great. as quickly as i could i started using drugs and alcohol to come / self medicate. then i grew up became an adult and had big boy problems. Still unable to cope or deal with squat I conitinued to self medicate with booze. At this point I was addicted anyhow so one day I might be self medicating another day i might just be satisfying my addict or both.

I drank because I’m an alcoholic: simple. I choose to live in the solution and not in the problem e.g. I wil always drink to oblivion regardless of any reason because I’m an Alkie. Grateful for my total acceptance of this.

Over time I finally came to the realization that there is no answer to "why" I am an alcoholic. And searching for the reason was actually doing more harm than good - because in the end, I wanted to know why so I could FIX it and start drinking "normally" again.

Certainly there were a lot of things in life that made it more likely that I would actually drink ( stress, celebrations, basically anything ) but none of those things explain why I am an alcoholic.

When I finally was able to accept that I simply AM an alcoholic, and that I always will be, things got a lot easier to deal with.

Now, at least a this point being 166 days sober and getting help, a sponsor and going through the 12 steps; I know the reasons why I drank. I have to keep it simple; I drank because I liked the effect alcohol produced on me. That effect kept me from my true self, pushed all my thoughts feelings & emotions down. That's all I knew that worked. That's it.... No other reason.
I can conjure up a thousand reasons of why I drank, (stress at work, poor upbringing, alcoholic abusive father, financial problems, being alone, being bored ect ect ect, but they don't matter.
What really matters is; I don't have to drink today. Today, I have 2 choices; to drink and go for numb and possibly die or face my thought's , feelings and emotions head on sober and find healthy ways of dealing with them.
Keep it Simple
Just my 2 cents

I drank to change how I felt. I felt that way before I ever had my first drink.