Thankyou all for the advice and support given
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1,691
Thankyou all for the advice and support given
For any updates to how I’m getting on please see my post on tapering. I’m not tapering to be bloody minded but it’s a method I’ve used before with some success.
take care
Kevin aka LeadHatter
take care
Kevin aka LeadHatter
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Join Date: Nov 2018
Posts: 5,171
"Cannot be done" is a sweeping statement, and all you need is one exception to contradict the claim. So sometimes I wonder is there actually an alcoholic out there who can taper? Well, there are hospitalized alcoholics who taper under medical supervision to avoid fatal seizures. But that is an exceptional group. There are probably a couple of other such specialized groups, but I've never met any or heard of any. Non alcoholics who just want to cut back a bit, maybe?
But first lets clear up the semantics, because the road to denial is paved with semantics. First, tapering is not quitting. Physiologically, tapering is maintaining your addiction with decreasing amounts of alcohol, but it does nothing to stop the cycle of addiction. But won't that making quitting a lot easier, because the transition to the quitting stage will be a smaller step? There is no evidence to support this. Addiction is reinforced every time you drink. Quitting breaks the cycle. Tapering does not, and breaking the cycle is a major event, much greater than successfully going with less alcohol to feed an alcoholic's addiction.
Related to this would be gradually increasing the amount of sober days between drinking until you just don't drink anymore. I tried this, and indeed, when I finally made it to 5 days, I quit. But 5 days of sobriety wasn't the cause. I made a major mental change at that time, and rules of logic exclude cause and effect for two events related by time such as "5 days" and "quitting." We see in our minds such relationships all the time, but it's a fallacy.
Does any of this mean you can't taper your way to sobriety? Well, no. There may be someone who is the exception to the rule. It's just that no one seems to be able to actually identify such a person, at least so far. I know I'll be watching this thread hoping to see results that could possibly answer this question in my mind, because it will be a first if it works, at least from what I have seen and experienced.
But first lets clear up the semantics, because the road to denial is paved with semantics. First, tapering is not quitting. Physiologically, tapering is maintaining your addiction with decreasing amounts of alcohol, but it does nothing to stop the cycle of addiction. But won't that making quitting a lot easier, because the transition to the quitting stage will be a smaller step? There is no evidence to support this. Addiction is reinforced every time you drink. Quitting breaks the cycle. Tapering does not, and breaking the cycle is a major event, much greater than successfully going with less alcohol to feed an alcoholic's addiction.
Related to this would be gradually increasing the amount of sober days between drinking until you just don't drink anymore. I tried this, and indeed, when I finally made it to 5 days, I quit. But 5 days of sobriety wasn't the cause. I made a major mental change at that time, and rules of logic exclude cause and effect for two events related by time such as "5 days" and "quitting." We see in our minds such relationships all the time, but it's a fallacy.
Does any of this mean you can't taper your way to sobriety? Well, no. There may be someone who is the exception to the rule. It's just that no one seems to be able to actually identify such a person, at least so far. I know I'll be watching this thread hoping to see results that could possibly answer this question in my mind, because it will be a first if it works, at least from what I have seen and experienced.
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