Soberwolf

Asking this one very very seriously so newcomers only please.

freedomfries

Not really. I wish I could limit myself to say 500ml vodka a night, not blackout and have everyone in my life be fine with it.

Soberwolf

I remember them days like what is everyone problem I'm not hurting anyone etc the problem with blackouts which become naps is if you smoke I got some scars that are welted on my back and leg and I know far worse stories from friends of mine

I really like your honesty be careful with cigggatettes it only takes one ember and if your anything like me you would probably welcome the flames costuming you because who really cares right but your worth more than that you just don't know it yet

silentrun

I find that question to be useful to me right now so thank you. I'm back here trying to right myself so I can get passed this.

I'm battling a sugar addiction and if I'm completely honest my answer is no. I don't want to stop the addiction I want to stop the negative consequences. I dont like how its robbing me of my health and its ruining my second chance. Yet I cant let it go.

When I saw through the lies I wanted nothing more to do with alcohol and the cycle I was in.

There's the difference.

Scd619x

This is an interesting question. I quit a few years ago in my 40s and up till that point i can categorically say i did not want to stop my addiction, i felt i HAD to stop my addiction! As long as i felt i HAD to stop i never succeeded. I wish i could have been more honest with myself, isn't hindsight great!

dustyfox

I want to - but I also felt I had to - I quit because I felt I had to - I stay quit because I want to -

ThatWasTheOldMe

No.
I want to drink like an idiot without consequences.
The problem is that's not how the world works and alcohol abuse is horrible for your health.
So I consider myself lucky and blessed to be sober.

silentrun

So I've been thinking about this more. If I could keep doing what I am doing without the negative consequences then is all that would do is take away my urgency. Behind that no, I would keep being addicted there is a part of me that realizes I'm trapped and I just want to he free.

Khorhey

Hell yes. Booze has been the worst part of my life since I was 16. My family likes to drink wine with dinner. My father liked a couple cocktails. So I started young and kept going.

But I wish I had never tried the stuff. I want to stop if I can’t do it, will end up in rehab. I feel like once you have so many years drinking you think you can still toy with it. Doesn’t work.

Buckley3

I'm not a big fan of anything that even approaches victimhood. I believe self empowerment is paramount to recovery. Saying 'I want to do this... but' just doesn't register to me as a useful place to be with things. What we value in our lives isn't expressed in our words or our intentions, rather our actions. I'm decently aware that I can easily fall into the trap of allowing my ego to perpetuate endless cycles of validation, attention seeking, pity, etc. and that it will use my addictive traits as a convenient tool to indulge itself.

Saying I want something 'but' is a risky place to be - peeps can spend whole lives trapped in that vicious cycle of ego driven self-deception.

Kind of a Yoda thing... do or do not, there is no try... but in this case 'but.'

Keep it simple. If you don't want to drink, don't. If I indulge I allow toxicity in my life that I simply have no capability of managing. So if I don't want that toxicity I better not crack open the door.

-B

anxiousrock

Do I want to? YES so badly. Do I have it in me ? Remains to be seen. I don't even trust myself anymore.

Dee74

Well I believe in you Samantha

D

anxiousrock

Aha, thank you. I need to figure out WHY. I just need to. Is it anxiety, stress, unhappiness, relationship issues. I didn't drink before I met my fiance.... lol

Dee74

I thought I needed to work out why too - but in the end I just stopped - and stayed stopped with daily hard work until not drinking became the default.
.
I was much better able to work on the 'why' when I was sober than I was when I was drinking.

D

DriGuy

Understanding why doesn't work very well, because it's actually a minor part of the problem. If you discover that you drink because you hate your marriage, that's fine, but you still have to quit. Alternatively, if you leave your marriage, you still have to quit. This may work for normies, where solving a why problem leads directly to not drinking, but it doesn't work for alcoholics.

Alcoholics still have grab onto their chairs and do the behavior change. Whether they stay in their marriage or not is a separate problem. You can work on fixing the marriage issue drunk or sober, with varying results, of course. For me, searching for why, did not solve my drinking problem. Alcoholism is not the result of life's problems. It is a problem unto itself and causes problems in life. Sure Alcoholics are still affected by life, just like everyone else, but that's not why we drink. However, life is sometimes a cheap excuse.

Polaroid

Both... Yes & Want to, but it's extremely hard.

It's been about 11 years and I still can't get alcohol out of my head. Not 11 years sober, 11 years drinking, almost daily (rehab x 10 kept me off for maybe half of that duration)

I keep thinking... I've cost the tax payers so much..... about $5k/patient/day x an average of maybe 2 months, 60x5=300K

.At least I give them jobs, and, set aside a relapse last weekend... I've been sober for longer than I can remember staying outside of any rehab facilities...

... but I feel down in the dumps, I want to be social but can't... hope that changes Monday when I plan to go back to work.

Everything is handed to me, though nothing is free, whether in feelings or tether - I need to change....

WaterOx

The honesty in this thread is appreciated, especially because I have to say "no".

Like others, I want to drink. I just don't want the consequences. The wasted hours, the low energy, the money, and especially the health.

I don't know why this is so difficult to kick. I've quit a lot of things in my life. Caffeine, sugar, nicotine....but none of it has been like alcohol. OK, nicotine was terribly hard but I actually WANTED to quit.

Dee74

Hi WaterOx

I know you didn;t ask for advice but...

Use those consequences against your desire to drink. Work towards accepting that you can't have one without the other.
There's no drinking for people like us without the inevitable pain.

Start building a sober life you love, and you don't want to put at risk.

DriGuy

That was a major part of my addiction, but I never fully articulated it that clearly to myself during my drinking. Wanting to drink ended rather quickly after I made up my mind to quit.

In addition to physical addiction, there is also psychological addiction, which manifests it's self as "I want to drink." That doesn't usually feel like addiction, because it strikes us as normal, and so many others are doing it without consequences. While it doesn't feel like addiction, it is still a powerful component of addiction that varies in strength from one person to another. It played a big part in my drinking for so many years and even into my downward spiral.

In retrospect, I see my "I want to drink" manifestation as a phony rationalization. Powerful? Yes, absolutely, I get it, but completely unnecessary to enjoy life. It was 100 percent the alcoholic voice pure and simple, and just a mental mirage calling me back to addiction. It's gone now, and I remember it as me being immature, and not acting like a grown up. It sure didn't seem like it at the time, though.

Red78

I would love to be able to have a drink or two at a social situation or when out for dinner but I know in my heart that I won't be able to do that, it will lead to daily drinking again.
So yes I want to give up my daily drinking habit, it doesn't add anything too my life..