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DriGuy 07-13-2021 04:56 AM

Alcohol Explained: Another Book
 
This book differs from the more typical programs of recovery, because it stays connected to what we have actually learned in recent years about the chemistry of addiction, and avoids philosophical lectures. After all these years of addiction and recovery, I finally understand why alcoholics cannot stop after the first drink. It's not because we lose control, are weak willed, or lacking in moral fiber. It is a bio-chemical reaction that kicks in after the first drink, and becomes more and more pronounced over our drinking years. And for the first time, at least for me, how and why it happens is explained clearly, not with chemical charts and equations, but explanations of how these chemical reactions create demand for more alcohol.

But how does this affect recovery? First of all, understanding why and how it happens goes a long way toward understanding ourselves, and helps us understand why we need to commit ourselves to quitting entirely, without holding open options for one day drinking like a normal person. Usually, we are told we must, but expected to accept this on faith, but now you can read about the science and accept it as actual knowledge. This is not Stephen Hawking science. It's clearly for the layman, but much more clearly explains why we act as we do when we drink.

Second this knowledge clearly leads us un-distracted to the final steps we must take to solve our problem with alcohol. If you want a better understanding of why we act so stupid around alcohol, Alcohol Explained explains it as simple and clearly as possible, and takes the mystery out of our behavior. Understanding that this as a normal chemical response and not a moral failure on our part is important, and that point needs to be driven home clearly.

Thanks to the new guy in the form who mentioned this book. I'm happy I found it.

reroute 07-13-2021 05:37 AM


Originally Posted by DriGuy (Post 7667740)
This book differs from the more typical programs of recovery, because it stays connected to what we have actually learned in recent years about the chemistry of addiction, and avoids philosophical lectures. After all these years of addiction and recovery, I finally understand why alcoholics cannot stop after the first drink. It's not because we lose control, are weak willed, or lacking in moral fiber. It is a bio-chemical reaction that kicks in after the first drink, and becomes more and more pronounced over our drinking years. And for the first time, at least for me, how and why it happens is explained clearly, not with chemical charts and equations, but explanations of how these chemical reactions create demand for more alcohol.

But how does this affect recovery? First of all, understanding why and how it happens goes a long way toward understanding ourselves, and helps us understand why we need to commit ourselves to quitting entirely, without holding open options for one day drinking like a normal person. Usually, we are told we must, but expected to accept this on faith, but now you can read about the science and accept it as actual knowledge. This is not Stephen Hawking science. It's clearly for the layman, but much more clearly explains why we act as we do when we drink.

Second this knowledge clearly leads us un-distracted to the final steps we must take to solve our problem with alcohol. If you want a better understanding of why we act so stupid around alcohol, Alcohol Explained explains it as simple and clearly as possible, and takes the mystery out of our behavior. Understanding that this as a normal chemical response and not a moral failure on our part is important, and that point needs to be driven home clearly.

Thanks to the new guy in the form who mentioned this book. I'm happy I found it.

Thanks DG - I just purchased this book.

Aellyce 07-13-2021 01:29 PM

Do you think that knowing all these facts the book discusses about alcoholism would have helped you stop sooner, DriGuy? Not questioning it, just curious as to how you see the possibility in retrospect.

Patcha 07-13-2021 01:42 PM

Knowing that alcoholism isn't a moral failing or weakness but an actual chemical process in the body is helpful to me. Being told by the founder of Rational Recovery to my face that I was an immoral person for continuing to drink knowing I was an alcoholic didn't help me at all. I'm not immoral. I'm having a chemical reaction. Understanding this helped me a great deal. The fact that brain plasticity has a role in both addiction and recovering from addiction helps me more than believing a supernatural being can help me get sober.

DriGuy 07-13-2021 05:06 PM


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7667966)
Do you think that knowing all these facts the book discusses about alcoholism would have helped you stop sooner, DriGuy? Not questioning it, just curious as to how you see the possibility in retrospect.

It's hard to say. But when you understand the correct reason, it is easier to quit wasting time searching the blind alleys. Basically, I was chasing the wrong goal trying to prove to myself that the problem was something I could think my way out of. Of course, that made me stay drunk for much longer, possibly years. Understanding what is really taking place is quality information. I believe I would have realized sooner what I needed to do.

The next step, actually doing what I needed to do would still be critical in recovering. But accurate information is always better than the wrong information. And there is too much wrong information out there. Alcoholism is poorly understood; Think about your peers encouraging you to just control your drinking. Bringing more science into it is a timely leap forward.

Yes, looking at in retrospect and being able to see how much the information reflects my own experiences is different than internalizing information from a book while at a knowledge base close to zero. And I am at a completely different point in my life than I was back in my own dark ages. So it's hard to know how much difference it would have made back then. I believe it would have, and I think it would be helpful to others. Some would disregard it, of course.

Years ago a counselor loaned me a dog eared book that approached alcoholism with a scientific perspective, and I remember learning a lot from it. She said she liked it better than the Big Book, which I had also read. And there was some helpful stuff in the Big Book too, but I believe I was helped more by the book she loaned me. I wish I could remember the name of it.

DriGuy 07-14-2021 04:58 AM


Originally Posted by Patcha (Post 7667977)
Being told by the founder of Rational Recovery to my face that I was an immoral person for continuing to drink knowing I was an alcoholic didn't help me at all. I'm not immoral. I'm having a chemical reaction. Understanding this helped me a great deal.

Today, most recovery methods acknowledge that alcoholism is not a moral failing, and people say that, but there is still an attitude of "moral failing" or something akin to that, like a "weak personality" or an "inability to act like a normal person," that slips out from time to time throughout discussions of recovery methods. And so we feel shame, but we really don't need anymore shame. I've got plenty of that on my own, although less now that I'm sober. Morality has little to do with sobriety. Alcoholism is a physical disability, one that can be overcome. The moral failing idea is ancient and pre-science. It's a symptom of lack of knowledge and understanding from a hundred years ago.

Now if someone is "immoral" whatever that means to them personally, they should probably do something about that to feel better about themselves. Sobriety may help them, but it's not a given.

Aellyce 07-14-2021 07:46 AM

The part of the book that I personally relate to the most is what he calls Fading Affect Bias (FAB) - pretty much the same thing that others call Euphoric Recall. And how that plays a role in the pattern of a binge drinker like myself. I really feel that's the only part of the complex I still have a lot of problems with and where I repeatedly fail... it's so powerful for me. I can pretty easily handle the negative mood states, post-drinking transient spike in anxiety/depression, never even had the motivation much to "treat" those with drinking again, never been the self-medicating type of alcoholic much, never drink "at" events or others' judgment etc. But a few days or weeks later, when my brain and mind gets into that FAB state, it's extremely challenging. It does help though to know it's a neurobiological process/mechanism and not personal weakness. I do consciously focus my efforts on that challenge now and try to play "tricks" with myself to influence that, some similar to what the author of the book also suggests, like stopping even when I'm drunk to really look at what's happening, trying to hammer into my mind it's nothing truly compelling and I already feel totally out of myself while still in that so-called euphoric phase of drunkenness, and just more and more as the intoxication progresses and while hungover. Try to keep that awareness vivid, play the tape when I get cravings. But it's super challenging for me, I often feel like I'm trying to use willpower and reason against the mechanisms in my brain that I'm also quite familiar with. Which we all have to do of course in early sobriety, whatever we call the strategy. It would definitely be easier to find a very effective way to alleviate that memory distortion and associated cravings, but unfortunately that does not really exist for alcohol. The FAB in addiction play a role similarly to the whole reward phenomenon - it's not something created by addiction or existing only in addiction, it a process that has evolutionary advantage in a normal, balanced state, drugs can just hijack it.

The morality argument... yep. Sadly, I encountered it not only from old literature like RR but was also exposed to it in medical communities and directly myself relatively recently even here on SR. It sometimes even comes from long-recovered addicts. It doesn't really faze me personally (other than sometimes making a sarcastic comeback to it) as I believe the modern science... but does make me think like "what?!... hello? have you heard of 21st century explanations to how addiction works?". I think any effort to eradicate that perception and judgment is progressive to also loosen the addiction stigma or sense of failure in recovery further, which is definitely a major cause for people shying away from seeking help or even being honest.

MesaMan 07-14-2021 08:30 AM

.
I electively bought into framing my own Addiction as mostly Genetic, and Physio-based. As I've written here on SR, I liken it to being a fair-skinned Redhead. I have a propensity to Sunburn. There is no 'Moral Failing' possible in having fair Skin. I slather on Sunscreen. That cures that. I concern myself only with pragmatic, effective Strategies. Not theory.

Never again downing Ethanol under *any* circumstances similarly resolves forever my Genetic propensity to hooking back into feeding any Addiction. My Neural Pathways have been hacked, and that's just the way it is.

If this Science-based Addiction explanation isn't true, it doesn't matter to me. 'My' Construct involving Science and Genetics works for me. 100.dot.zero % of the time. I don't argue this Personal Reality any more than I argue Politics on-line. There's no Objectively-true Position to argue someone 'in to'. Gleefully walking away from such fights in Life - on any number of topics - has been yet another benefit of Sobriety.

'You Hear What You Want To Hear ~ You See What You Want To See' ~ A Colorado Mountain Town Newspaper Masthead

Great stuff in this Thread. Thank you.


Patcha 07-14-2021 02:16 PM


Originally Posted by MesaMan (Post 7668386)
.Never again downing Ethanol under *any* circumstances similarly resolves forever my Genetic propensity to hooking back into feeding any Addiction. My Neural Pathways have been hacked, and that's just the way it is.

Yup. Exactly. Good way of putting it.

DriGuy 07-14-2021 03:33 PM


Originally Posted by MesaMan (Post 7668386)
.
If this Science-based Addiction explanation isn't true, it doesn't matter to me. 'My' Construct involving Science and Genetics works for me. 100.dot.zero % of the time. I don't argue this Personal Reality any more than I argue Politics on-line. There's no Objectively-true Position to argue someone 'in to'. Gleefully walking away from such fights in Life - on any number of topics - has been yet another benefit of Sobriety.

No particular method of recovery is a life or death choice to me anymore. My recovery is in the past. Well mostly in the past, but I still tune it here and there as needed. All science does is give us the best explanations for what makes things happen. Science doesn't tell us what we should do with the information. Once we understand that information, we can use it to guide us down a path that will take us to our goals. But we still choose the goals and the paths. Science only gives us a solid platform to work from.

In the last short chapters of the book, the author does draw conclusions about what we need to do to recover in light of the information provided at the beginning. Here he makes logical deductions, good ones in my opinion, but they are still his conclusions, and at this point, there is room for discussion, and possibly even disagreement, it one feels that is necessary. But the first part of the book provides solid ground for us to do our own planning. It's hard to argue that, but it's in the implementation of recovery where there is room for people diverge.

DriGuy 07-14-2021 04:04 PM


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668364)
The part of the book that I personally relate to the most is what he calls Fading Affect Bias (FAB) - pretty much the same thing that others call Euphoric Recall. And how that plays a role in the pattern of a binge drinker like myself. I really feel that's the only part of the complex I still have a lot of problems with and where I repeatedly fail... it's so powerful for me. I can pretty easily handle the negative mood states, post-drinking transient spike in anxiety/depression, never even had the motivation much to "treat" those with drinking again, never been the self-medicating type of alcoholic much, never drink "at" events or others' judgment etc. But a few days or weeks later, when my brain and mind gets into that FAB state, it's extremely challenging.

I was just finishing up the last pages of the book this afternoon, where he started referring to dealing with FAB. I'm not that good with acronyms, even when reading common text messages and get totally lost. What is he talking about? Usually, in a situation like that you can figure it out from context, but there wasn't any that told me anything about what the heck FAB was, so I fumbled for minutes scanning for where he must have introduced this thing, and finally found it. I was so happy to have learned that one thing, that I can't even remember how he explained how to deal with it. So I'll have to reread that part.

But FAB is like the AV. Every alcoholic in recovery is familiar what what those things are, even if they don't have a names for them. But euphoric recall (that's more meaningful than Fading Affect Bias, and it doesn't make is sound so complicated and technical), affected me deeply at least before I decided to never drink again. After that, FAB was possibly the most frightening thing I worried about in recovery, because I knew from past experience how easy it was to drink from it, and I did have one near miss, which I was ready for, but it still scared the be-jabbers out of me. FAB was definitely the most likely trap that would end my recovery. It is so very subtle and seductive, and before I accepted never drinking again, I fell for it over and over, as in "every evening."


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668364)
The morality argument... yep. Sadly, I encountered it not only from old literature like RR but was also exposed to it in medical communities and directly myself relatively recently even here on SR. It sometimes even comes from long-recovered addicts. It doesn't really faze me personally (other than sometimes making a sarcastic comeback to it) as I believe the modern science... but does make me think like "what?!... hello? have you heard of 21st century explanations to how addiction works?". I think any effort to eradicate that perception and judgment is progressive to also loosen the addiction stigma or sense of failure in recovery further, which is definitely a major cause for people shying away from seeking help or even being honest.

It is ingrained into society and invades most recovery programs to one degree or another, even when the program formally rejects it. Society just can't seem to separate alcoholism from character flaws.


Aellyce 07-14-2021 04:05 PM


Originally Posted by DriGuy (Post 7668585)
It's hard to argue that, but it's in the implementation of recovery where there is room for people diverge.

This reminds me of the personality discussions here on SR, using the MBTI system. What do you guys all score on that? I think I'm a born and raised INTP, developed with time and intent into INTJ (professional assessments say the same), but not yet developed enough... If you are not familiar, look up theory vs implementation. Even just posting something like this is probably very INTP-like - that abstract, theoretical orientation... but I need to break this stupid addiction for good.

Aellyce 07-14-2021 04:39 PM

"FAB was definitely the most likely trap that would end my recovery. It is so very subtle and seductive, and before I accepted never drinking again, I fell for it over and over, as in "every evening."

Not subtle at all, in my experience. And I've fallen to it once again today, however frustrating or even repulsive it may be. I'm trying to use this post to analyze where I'm right now (drunk)... right now, it's seems it feels very multi-faceted and like I could come up with a myriad of emotional and cognitive nuances that none of us want to see in this thread. I stopped, to hear my own mind: is this what I really like? It's really, really hard to analyze accurately while in the depth of this FAB-induced stupidity, my friend. Sorry if I disappointed again. And sorry about hijacking your thread - I must be the philosophical virus on some people's lives.

DriGuy 07-14-2021 05:20 PM


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668605)
This reminds me of the personality discussions here on SR, using the MBTI system. What do you guys all score on that? I think I'm a born and raised INTP, developed with time and intent into INTJ (professional assessments say the same), but not yet developed enough... If you are not familiar, look up theory vs implementation. Even just posting something like this is probably very INTP-like - that abstract, theoretical orientation... but I need to break this stupid addiction for good.

I know nothing about any of this. I'll look it up.

DriGuy 07-14-2021 05:25 PM


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668630)
"FAB was definitely the most likely trap that would end my recovery. It is so very subtle and seductive, and before I accepted never drinking again, I fell for it over and over, as in "every evening."

Not subtle at all, in my experience. And I've fallen to it once again today, however frustrating or even repulsive it may be. I'm trying to use this post to analyze where I'm right now (drunk)... right now, it's seems it feels very multi-faceted and like I could come up with a myriad of emotional and cognitive nuances that none of us want to see in this thread. I stopped, to hear my own mind: is this what I really like? It's really, really hard to analyze accurately while in the depth of this FAB-induced stupidity, my friend. Sorry if I disappointed again. And sorry about hijacking your thread - I must be the philosophical virus on some people's lives.

Well, you're following the instructions in the book, but when I read that part of the book, I thought, "Why would I want to get drunk to analyze this." I'm pretty sure I know how crappy I feel about it. Maybe there's something deeper there that might be helpful, but looking at it through wine colored glasses seems like an odd way to do any serious thinking.

Aellyce 07-15-2021 01:16 AM


Originally Posted by DriGuy (Post 7668650)
"Why would I want to get drunk to analyze this."

Because I have an addiction? And I'm not here to have nice, clean, simple, agreeable social chats, I'm here because I want nothing more but to get rid of this addiction but I can't, is that hard to comprehend? It's sort of weird that even you react in this way, but maybe people just forget a lot of what it was like, all the conflicts and madness of it... more for that FAB effect long-term, perhaps.

Sorry to disrupt the book club.

DriGuy 07-15-2021 10:04 AM

DriGuy: "Well, you're following the instructions in the book, but when I read that part of the book, I thought, "Why would I want to get drunk to analyze this." I'm pretty sure I know how crappy I feel about it. Maybe there's something deeper there that might be helpful, but looking at it through wine colored glasses seems like an odd way to do any serious thinking."


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668787)
Because I have an addiction? And I'm not here to have nice, clean, simple, agreeable social chats, I'm here because I want nothing more but to get rid of this addiction but I can't, is that hard to comprehend? It's sort of weird that even you react in this way

My comment:
"When I read that part of the book, I thought, "Why would I want to get drunk to analyze this." I'm pretty sure I know how crappy I feel about it"...was not intended to be directed at you, but to William Porter, the author of Alcohol Explained, because I couldn't believe he would intentionally recommend someone get drunk just to do the experiment. In fact, I'm guessing that's not what he intended at all. If I wrote to him, I would anticipate that he would clarify it as my misunderstanding, just as I would point out such a misunderstanding to you.

At, any rate, I don't believe you got drunk to do the experiment, but decided to try the experiment after you got drunk. I might have done the same at one time.

In regards to:

It's sort of weird that even you react in this way
Don't expect that much from me. I make gaffs and say inappropriate things, as much as the next guy. Although, I will enter a "not guilty" plea to this one.


Patcha 07-15-2021 02:13 PM


Originally Posted by Aellyce (Post 7668605)
This reminds me of the personality discussions here on SR, using the MBTI system. What do you guys all score on that? I think I'm a born and raised INTP, developed with time and intent into INTJ (professional assessments say the same), but not yet developed enough... If you are not familiar, look up theory vs implementation. Even just posting something like this is probably very INTP-like - that abstract, theoretical orientation... but I need to break this stupid addiction for good.

I think the MBTI is fine as a tool to understand other people and yourself to some extent, but it's no different to horoscopes in the newspaper. It is relevant to some people, some of the time. It won't help you get sober. Our AVs like to keep us stuck in theory and mulling things over instead of taking action. The only way to break an addiction is to not do the thing one moment at a time. "For good" only happens in hindsight. Focusing on not drinking NOW. Is the only way you'll get to "for good". There is no magic moment where you're ready to cast it off for good. If there was, you wouldn't be addicted. It would just be something you decided not to do anymore.

dwtbd 07-15-2021 08:11 PM

I’m an atheist , but I try not to miss the good things in the bath water ,if I can help it.

Fire and brimstone is a little blunt , but conscious choices are operable should carry all the weight they are made of . Morality should be internal , and my own hubris tells me I should be the Alpha and Omega . I’ve broken the active addiction , I deserve to be free of it , there is no good reason or un-owned way for me to **** that up.

MY morality does have sway and acts as guide .

Love the sinner (me) hate the sin (consciously choosing to burn me down )

Patcha 07-16-2021 01:59 PM

I don't bring hate into my recovery journey. I don't hate the sin. I have compassion and acceptance for it. It no longer drives me. When I get the odd pang, I comfort it, like a baby. It goes away and doesn't influence me in any way. Hate and fear did not help me stay sober.


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