Alcohol was how I coped. I don't like work and drinking took all my problems and disposed of them. Now that I quit drinking, Got sober is how I phrase it , when life gives me that lemon I have to have another outlet. It takes some practice but I have learned that booze will not solve anything and actually makes things worse by prolonging my having to deal with the issue. Man I miss that feeling of separation but I know if I drink one then I will want more and more. Ad nausium. I need more and more because I'm alcoholic. I process alcohol differently.

1is2many

This study makes a lot of good points I've discovered over many years sober with people Ive sponsored as well as myself!! I quit drinking and replaced the drinking as best I good with a wellness regimen consisting of openness to the possibilities why I had become as i was when I got sober included were family (societal), personality, traumas , genetics and my disposition. That has seemed to help me understand what I was drinking at and while continuing to be sober has kept the focus sober thinking with very few if any real needs to escape back into a Alcoholic fog !!

Entertaining a thought I think creates a vacuum that needs to be filled if your not convinced at a level that will help to guide you emotionally as you stay sober No matter what you have to confront as you move along. Thats my take on my progress Sobarr !!! I had to participate from my insides out Alcohol for me was only a symbol:)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1924490/

When I was in treatment, they taught us coping skills because none of us could handle life on life's terms so we drank as a result. I became good friends with a few that were in my class and we stayed in touch for quite awhile until our work and family life's took us in different directions but it was all good!

God Bless!

Heres a much easier interpretation :)))

http://www.alltreatment.com/tridimensional-personality-model-part-1

Buckstag, thank you for posting... your question is perfect timing for me, as I am at 59 days sober today. I have been noticing some cravings over the past week or so. Do I think I am missing something? maybe. Is it that I want to escape my stress? I am not sure but will stay with these probing questions to assist me in my journey. What I have noticed in my thinking lately about this, is that I have proved something to myself in 59 days, that I can go without alcohol. My mind is saying, "see? you can do it. You are fine. You can drink. You can have one or 2" My mind is playing tricks on me. Because, just like with 1is2many, I cannot have just one. I'll keep you posted on my observations. Wish me luck as I continue to work with my cravings, as I approach 2 months sober. In gratitude...xo

I might ask you to consider that in reality, you can have "just one". Obviously, if you were locked in a room with one drink and not allowed to leave and drink another, you would stop at one drink. You may not want to stop at one drink, but you would stop because you would have no other option. I doubt you would even exhibit rage or start climbing the walls because of your continued urge to drink. I am only posing this hypothetical scenario because I believe the urge to drink when you are or have been addicted to alcohol is nothing more than the desire to feel "drunk" again. Feeling drunk feels good for us and that is why we drink alcohol. And as our bodies get conditioned to the use of alcohol, it takes more and more to get and keep us drunk. And then when we are drunk, we want to stay drunk so we continue to pour it down because the urge to keep feeling drunk overcomes everything.

So how does this relate to relapsing? For me it seems as simple as forgetting (or ignoring) the real price we will pay if we get back on the treadmill again. While being drunk does feel good for us, it also comes with a potentially huge price tag of hangovers, DUIs, divorces, car wrecks, social embarrassment, liver disease, mental illness, child abuse, spouse abuse, job loss, etc. So from a potential cost/benefit ratio perspective, drinking alcohol stacks up very poorly.

BS in relation to your first post in the rooms of AA we call that the RIDS restless, irritable and discontent. This says to me that when in my cups if I start to get out of kilter that the obsession leads to the first drink.

As for your post #8 in your hypothetical scenario in a locked room indeed I would have climbed up the walls. The need to drink would limit my ability to think about anything else say even how to get out of the room. In fact I would not be thinking how do I get out, I would of been thinking how do I get more grog. Once I took the drink everything else become secondary to me getting more grog. So yes in a locked room I would climb the walls after I had the first drink.

I never wanted to be drunk, when I put the grog in I craved more alcohol, I was chasing an euphoria that after first time I was drunk I was to never find again. Though I chased it. In fact I did not want to get drunk, I wanted an imaginable place that being drunk prevented me getting to.

G8

Further to #8

What it is worth, if I was sponsoring some one and they threw up the scenario to me of the locked room, I would be cautioning them about being in dangerous water. The scenario were I am able to drink just one could be me looking to 'control' my drinking and deluding myself. This thought starts the RIDS and bingo I am off to the races.

G8

Heres what I find interesting. I was not born Drunk much led up to my first drink....So was I the horse or a cart when I start looking at symptoms I displayed......the leading edge may be a drunken horse me dragging me around after I get sober but what kinda baggage was in the cart that shaped my personality before I drank In the first place? I found that created a lot of delusion I wanted to hide(conflict) from intellectually after I got sober!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQzW6wz2JQk

oh and need I forget intellectually and emotionally after I get sober. (real conflict)

I know there are people who feel as though they best not even think about the 1 drink scenario lest they might start back down the road to relapse. My only purpose in presenting that hypothetical case is to look a bit deeper into what actually might be the root cause for some people to even think "this time it will be different and I won't lose control". Like somehow poking yourself in the eye won't hurt the next time you try it. It just seems so irrational that someone would even want to consider ingesting alcohol again after sinking to the lows that many of us have experienced. It has to be a pretty compelling force to get us back on that horrible treadmill again.

Yes, I suppose this whole thing is a bit of a "research project" for me. Obviously the addiction to alcohol is a very complicated nut to crack or we wouldn't all be working so hard at it!

Yes, I guess I would include myself in the category of one person who thought I could start drinking again on a limited and controlled basis. My question is, why would I want to drink again knowing how bad it made me feel? I think the answer for me was that I had never convinced myself that all alcohol consumption is a bad thing for me, both physically and mentally. I now believe that even "moderate" levels of alcohol ingestion are harmful and therefore I don't feel like I am missing out on anything good. Seems to be working.

Hello BuckStag,

An interesting topic for sure and this is my take on it.

Up until tonight there has been no relapse since I stopped drinking over seven years ago. The future cannot be foretold but I know that I will not drink today. Sobriety for me is based on two simple concepts acceptance of reality and a willingness to change.

The reality for me as an alcoholic is that I can drink as much as I want at any time but with horrific and possibly fatal consequences almost guaranteed. I cannot control my drinking or drink socially as most people do and one or two drinks would leave me right back to where I left off seven years ago.

It is difficult to treat a problem unless one understands the exact nature of that problem. Additionally, one who claims to have all of the answers is unlikely to learn anything new. That is close to where I was when I tried to stop drinking I was confident in my own ability to deal with things and I didnt need help from anyone. The reality was that I knew nothing much about alcoholism and in not understanding the problem, I was always likely to fail.

Having become a hopeless alcoholic with a dark future ahead brought willingness and by the time that I went to the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting I was open to new thinking. Many here will disagree with the AA approach and some will do so without prior investigation. However, right from the start the AA description of alcoholism made perfect sense to me. It explained many things about my drinking that I did not understand before.

AA also offered a solution to the problem and a toolkit for living that works in all situations. This is where willingness to change is crucial to overcoming the problem. Change does not come about simply by going to meetings and unfortunately this truth is not self-evident to many AA members who insist that all that is required is to Keep coming back.

Some people place great emphasis on triggers that may cause relapse. What I have learned is that as an alcoholic I had an obsession for alcohol. I like to compare that obsession to a tape that is constantly playing in the mind, telling the alcoholic that he or she needs alcohol in order to function and survive. During short periods that I had stopped drinking, the volume on the tape was turned down low but it was still running in the background. Then a trigger would occur and the volume got turned right up. Understanding the particular trigger is irrelevant because if it had not been one thing, it would be something else. I was engaged in a tough battle where I pitched my willpower against the obsession that told me to drink and it was almost inevitable that willpower would eventually fall victim to some trivial excuse and I would drink again.

Today, I do not have an obsession for alcohol and because of that there are no triggers. The obsession was removed by a willingness to copy what had worked for other people. However, I am and always will be an alcoholic and therefore vigilance is always advisable. Acceptance of reality and a willingness to change have been the keys to freedom.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment PJ54.

I am interested in learning more about your perceived "obsession" with alcohol and how the "willingness to copy other people removed this obsession". Do you feel like you developed this obsession over time, were you born with it or did it strike you suddenly at some point in your life? What specifically should be copied from other people to remove the obsession?

I think for me it's both. At times I feel like I'm missing out or I'm just bored. But I am also a stress drinker. So drinking helps me to escape from the anxiety.
Of course the next day my problems are still there. Maybe even worse. Or it's possible that I missed out even more because I don't remember what happened be it good times or bad times. Often I think that I missed out on many wonderful memories because I was too damn drunk. Every day is a white knuckle day sometimes. I look forward to the days when this is behind me. I'm not there yet.