Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
I'm not currently intent on giving up drinking. I've been taking a closer look at why I drink and how it effects me and wanted to share it somewhere so here I go.....
A number of years ago I became very ill and was in a sense, "saved" by an alternative practitioner. Through the years I've gone back including a recent visit. As part of her expertise, I went through a detox session (note, not an ALCOHOL detox - but toxin stuff). Here prescription for me is to eat certain foods, take certain supplements and have no more than one glass of red wine a day and only one cup of coffee.
So lets take about what my thought patterns look like, Hmmm, coffee? Yes, that first cup is good but I always want, crave, need two more. Wine? One glass? It's like eating 10 cashews. Ten potato chips? Yeah, right.
So back to how it effects me. I was reading a book in the easy chair and had a glass of wine before dinner and then 1.5 after dinner. Trust me, I'm no teetoteler (sp?). What my thought pattern says is something like..."I'm hear in the easy chair relaxing reading a book and this wine is further relaxing me". Ok, I go to bed at 10:30 and proceed to wake up at 2, 3pm. I get up this morning and clearly do not feel rested. Why do I share all this? Damn, it's toxic. I guess moderation is a relative term.
In reading this other book I've been reflecting on what I believe about alcohol....
There are the event beliefs....
1) Baseball, hotdog and beer go together
2) A meal at a great steak restaurant requires a nice full bodied red
3) Mexican food goes best with a Texas marguarita
4) Beer in a can should be brought to the hot tub....
Then there are the emotional beliefs.....
1) Damn, I'm pissed off. Let me have some drinks
2) Yeah, they are getting married, let's open some champagne!
3) Today was an awesome day, a bottle of white would be great
I can't say I obsess about alcohol, but I see it as pretty darn insidious. I did attend some AA meetings over the past 4-5 months. I found that people are REALLY nice but the total abstinence route just didn't seem to fit me. i'll add that at a "beginners" meeting folks would go around the table and share when they had their last drink. I'd say, "Um, two days ago" while some people said "1982!". Am I physically addicted to alcohol? - I think not. I will say that as I look at the emotional beliefs, although maybe not addictive, I'm not entirely happy to own or have them and would like to work on "reprogramming" my beliefs. I mean, imagine if I replace all the alcohol references with a cigarette?
I get that it's different in a sense -- I mean cigarettes have really changed where they sit in society since the 50's.
Ok, so I'm carrying on here a bit. Sorry - maybe this have just been a journal entry for me.
A number of years ago I became very ill and was in a sense, "saved" by an alternative practitioner. Through the years I've gone back including a recent visit. As part of her expertise, I went through a detox session (note, not an ALCOHOL detox - but toxin stuff). Here prescription for me is to eat certain foods, take certain supplements and have no more than one glass of red wine a day and only one cup of coffee.
So lets take about what my thought patterns look like, Hmmm, coffee? Yes, that first cup is good but I always want, crave, need two more. Wine? One glass? It's like eating 10 cashews. Ten potato chips? Yeah, right.
So back to how it effects me. I was reading a book in the easy chair and had a glass of wine before dinner and then 1.5 after dinner. Trust me, I'm no teetoteler (sp?). What my thought pattern says is something like..."I'm hear in the easy chair relaxing reading a book and this wine is further relaxing me". Ok, I go to bed at 10:30 and proceed to wake up at 2, 3pm. I get up this morning and clearly do not feel rested. Why do I share all this? Damn, it's toxic. I guess moderation is a relative term.
In reading this other book I've been reflecting on what I believe about alcohol....
There are the event beliefs....
1) Baseball, hotdog and beer go together
2) A meal at a great steak restaurant requires a nice full bodied red
3) Mexican food goes best with a Texas marguarita
4) Beer in a can should be brought to the hot tub....
Then there are the emotional beliefs.....
1) Damn, I'm pissed off. Let me have some drinks
2) Yeah, they are getting married, let's open some champagne!
3) Today was an awesome day, a bottle of white would be great
I can't say I obsess about alcohol, but I see it as pretty darn insidious. I did attend some AA meetings over the past 4-5 months. I found that people are REALLY nice but the total abstinence route just didn't seem to fit me. i'll add that at a "beginners" meeting folks would go around the table and share when they had their last drink. I'd say, "Um, two days ago" while some people said "1982!". Am I physically addicted to alcohol? - I think not. I will say that as I look at the emotional beliefs, although maybe not addictive, I'm not entirely happy to own or have them and would like to work on "reprogramming" my beliefs. I mean, imagine if I replace all the alcohol references with a cigarette?
I get that it's different in a sense -- I mean cigarettes have really changed where they sit in society since the 50's.
Ok, so I'm carrying on here a bit. Sorry - maybe this have just been a journal entry for me.
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Can you identify these rom-coms from just a screenshot from the middle of the films? This is a multiple choice quiz so even if you're not entirely sure you can always take a guess and at least have a 25% chance of getting it right anyway, so why not have a go?! https://www.buzzfeed.com/alysaurus688/rom-com-screenshot-trivia-quiz
So see how it goes, I wish you all the best. Just be sure to be honest with yourself if you find that you cannot stop at the alotted amount-or obsess.
As KK says, keep on eye on that 2 1/2 glasses of wine. That's how I started -- half a bottle of wine a day, and it gradually became more and more, until I drank to black out/pass out every night. Not saying that's where you will end up. Just something to watch out for.
I totally understand your event and emotional beliefs around alcohol. You might want to make a conscious decision occasionally when those beliefs come into play and choose not to drink, say at a Mexican restaurant or when you are pissed off.
Make sure you are in control, and not just drinking because it seems like a good idea or because you always drink at a certain time or place.
And you might want to cut that 2 1/2 glasses back to 2 glasses -- see how that feels.If that's a problem, then that is something to think about as well.
Let me guess (the guy behind the camera), you want to suggest I'm in denial. Your analogy is rather silly - last I checked there are no support groups for toothpaste or BMW drivers in this forum.
Basically your premise is that a person who has reflected on his or her drinking must be an alcoholic. I guess I'd need to reach a higher level of consumption to have your empathy. Let me go work on that and I'll check back in with you :)
If I could have done the same with alcohol, I assure you that I would have. But my craving for it was at a different level altogether, so the means of maintaining abstinence had to be something that works at that level. Am I making any sense here?
I sure as hell never thought about AA when I was drinking normally.
I also never felt physically addicted to booze, and when I quit, as I did many time, I didnt have physical symptoms. Just mental. I became more obsessed when i quit entirely.
Love your beliefs about alcohol:)
" 1) Baseball, hotdog and beer go together " LOL! Hot dogs shouldnt go with anything but I digress.
2) A meal at a great steak restaurant requires a nice full bodied red"
Nope it doesnt. Really it doesnt.
3) Mexican food goes best with a Texas marguarita" again, nope not true! I've had amazing Mexican, in Mexico, with a watermelon and cucumber juice. And tasted it more than I ever did drinking.
4) Beer in a can should be brought to the hot tub.... "
Oh so you can get really really dehydrated? lol.
But I get it. I had beliefs too. Like I couldnt go to a party without the pre party drink and of course the two or three at the party.
I couldnt celebrate period without booze. An anniversary? Wine. A birth? Champagne. And on I went.
My alcoholism was fun disguised as alcoholic behaviour for a really really long time.
I'm so so so grateful to AA.
Seems like a healthy conversation to have and an alcoholism board is a good as place to have it as anywhere.
It's too bad that the aspect of a "sponsor" couldn't apply to people who might progress. I guess that's what a $175 and hour therapist is for or a $500 and hour psychiatrist is all about.
And as for Nemo's response that there is no need for a support group to quit salt-this is actually false. There is overeaters anonymous-which includes salt, fat, and all the rest. Do not downplay food addiction, it is very real and VERY deadly. There are women I know who struggle with this and it is devastating for them. And not anything to belittle-just as bad as alcoholism in a different way.
You see 90 year old drunks right? You never, hardly ever see a morbidly obese person who grows old. They die. It is not fun.
I never ate when I drank, so I cant relate.
Live and let live. live and let die.
I firmly believe that there is no black and white. There has to be a middle ground and how is it possible for the middle ground people to be honored and addressed? Again, Im sure I'll hear I'm in denial
I'm sure I'm pissing some people off and it's not my intent. I look to discern and candidly, if I tried to do this in person at an AA meeting, I'm sure I'd be looked at in a less than receiving mode.
This topic is WAY bigger than me. I'm a single person with a wave of experience and words and thoughts before me
You are right it is toxic. You can get the anti-oxidants elsewhere. Have you ever tried juicing fruits/veggies? You obviously understand a bit about the health benefits of detoxing... I find that the appreciation I have for the nutritional benefit of juicing - doing something healthy for my body is strangely a nice reward at the end of a day.
While abstinence is necessary for alcoholics, it is not necessary if you can and want to control your drinking. Depends on what you want I guess. There were many times I tried to quit drinking for merely health reasons - my problem was that I could not abstain and I could not control it. I needed a solution for my life that I didn't even view as worth living. I didn't know how to live without alcohol. Now I do and life is better than ever.
I don't know anything about you other than in this post, but if you are anything like me, maybe life and all of the things you mention would be better without the alcohol. Or not.