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Kindly recommend some self help books!
Is a cover letter necessary?
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Blizzard watch thurs and Friday 👀
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Bowl Leader
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Alcoholism is progressive, it just gets worse over time. Also - a lot of folks don’t need to find bottom to know they should quit. I took leave from a good job and a healthy relationship to go to treatment for 30 days. Good on you for hitting 50+ days!
So true. Thank you.
Bowl Leader
“Problem drinking” really is a massive gray zone. The paradox, is that by the time you truly realize (and are willing to admit, and are no longer in denial that) you have a problem, you’ve likely burned your life down around you. Now, not everyone gets to that point, but it’s a possible future for any heavy drinker, and an almost inevitability if you’re a real alcoholic (which I believe can absolutely be hereditary, or can be an inborn trait whereby you’re the only alcoholic in your family, or you can just plain drink yourself into that state). And I’ll bet every heavy drinker has the *potential* to become an alcoholic, it’s just a twist of fate whether something slows you down before you cross the line.
It’s in that gray zone that the heavy drinker permanently crosses over the line into being an alcoholic. It’s like the line is hidden and shrouded in fog, and of course I’d stop before crossing it, except I can’t know where it is, and heck, I might have already crossed it. At that point there is no hope of ever being a “normal” drinker again.
Perhaps the difference is that for the heavy drinker the consumption of alcohol is merely a bad habit, where bad habits can be worked on and improved through traditional techniques (therapists, doctors, books, retreats, etc.). The alcoholic however, has a mental obsession with drinking that convinces him or her that
- One or two drinks will be fine
- This time we’ll control it and it won’t be like last time
-- Or more likely, the misery of last time is curiously absent from your thoughts
- And finally, that I will receive satisfaction and relief from taking this drink without consequence.
What happens AFTER that first couple drinks though, is a physical craving (in some ways similar to an allergy), where all reason and logic go out the door, and drink #3 sounds and tastes as good or better than drink #2, and then drink #4, #5, #6, the whole bottle, the whole case, etc...
Once the drinking has begun, I have absolutely no will power to stop myself, but this is another paradox, because while I’m drinking, I don’t want to stop. Im loving it. It might be the only thing I love. Finding sobriety and recovery at this point requires a very different course of action, and some people will never recover. AA works for some, SMART for others, medication for still others, but the solution requires a complete change of personality and perspective.
So the question is: do you control alcohol, or does alcohol control you?
Sober 25 years and the Bowl Leader did a wonderful job describing the Alcoholic. When I started drinking I had a different reaction to alcohol than a normal person. My body craved it when I started a few beers and obsessed about it while abstaining on the diet and exercise thing looking forward to an event to get drunk. If your reaction when you drink is as described above, sad to tell you ur probably Alcoholic. I’ve found AA works when you are desperate enough to willingly walk the steps with a sponsor. If you’re holding out hope that one day you will control and enjoy your drinking you’re not really done and AA, Therapy, etc is of marginal help. Go to meetings find the winners and give it an honest go. What do you really have to lose?
Same here, OP. I think of it more of a healthy habit to quit or cut back. Similar to diet and exercise. My problem is I tend to drink too much - not blackout drunk or anything - but just a ton of sugar and calories each evening. Would like to have a drink every once in a while, but not have a beer belly. Hard to find middle ground so far.
Cntd- I thought these decisions would be black and white, but finding it super gray.