Seems like stress is the most powerful driver for me. Yesterday I had an issue with a window installer at my house and I must admit, I thought about escaping with alcohol after he left. It did not last long, but the thought was there. So many years of conditioning. Maybe that urge will never go away, but I know in my heart it is a bad way of dealing with stress. Like the easy way out, until it is time to pay the bill.

So if there is nothing left to trigger your return to alcohol use, does that mean you are cured?

For me, it is usually stressful situations. But once I had quit for over 6 months and was finally going to hang out with a guy from work that I really liked (I don't have years of sobriety under my belt or even years of being an alcoholic so that 7 months or so was my longest length of sobriety). Anyway me and the guy were gonna hang out and have a few drinks......I was nervous so a few days beforehand I had one drink to show myself I could. I didn't want my first time drinking after being sober to be in public.

Ever since then, I have yet to have more than a few weeks sober. Shouldn't have even been hanging out w the guy bc we are and were both in committed relationships. Hands down the dumbest excuse I have used to justify drinking to myself.....although with potential consequences in mind, there really are never any good excuses to drink.

my brain gets to telling me that "this time I can handle it". or my brain tells me "your smarter than those down in the gutter drunks. you own a home, are a professional etc. they just aren't as smart as you. Very dangerous little voice in my head. Last week my mom was diagnosed with cancer so of course I took the day off work, went and bought my wine, took the back roads home and ran my car right into the garage. I woke up on the grass......then I had to figure this out before my husband got home. I had to put the twisted metal back on the track, nail the wood back on the garage and I set out to do just that. im stumbling around trying to hammer this metal back so I can get the garage door shut. never worked out too well. so I did the next best thing. I lied. called my husband sobbing, telling him my mom had cancer and I was sobbing so hard after I got the news I rammed the car right into the garage because the window was dirty and the sun was in my eyes. of course my husband called bs on me. but for me its that little voice in my head saying I deserve it, I can drink just a couple etc. That voice is the demom that wants me dead.

Or maybe that voice is just you wanting to escape into drunk land where the pain of things like finding out your mom has cancer don't hurt so much, for the time being anyway. Being in drunk land may eventually result in your death, but I don't think that is the goal of any demon. Maybe you just want to feel better and you know that the wine will reliably get you there. Hard to argue with what you know works. It is just a cheap temporary fix though, and you know that too. We just gotta go beyond the cheap fix to feel better for the long term. We need to stay in sober land and deal with issues from a natural perspective, with a clear mind.

Hello BuckStag,

Most good ideas are simple. Joe McQuany of Joe and Charlie fame remarked that in order to transfer an idea from one mind to another, it is necessary to put the idea into words and the idea sometimes gets lost in the words.

Certain words or phrases get peoples backs up for one reason or another and they shut the door on their thinking or maybe go on the offensive and attack the messenger. In this way the baby can get thrown out with the bath water. Similarly with alcoholism, a lack of willingness to consider a new approach or a different belief may be the difference between happy sobriety and a life of drunken misery. The idea that alcoholism is a sickness of the mind and body is a good base from which to build a solution that brings lasting sobriety.

The mental aspect of this alcoholic sickness is often referred to as an obsession for alcohol. Some people speak of a craving for alcohol but the craving is something that occurs in the body and does not appear until after a drink is taken. In my own case, the obsession for alcohol probably developed slowly over several years but of course I knew nothing about alcoholism and was unaware of what was happening.

I can relate an example of how my thinking changed over that time a subtle change but one that left me close to destruction. There is a particular piece of work that I carry out every year and it is a physically demanding outside job. It can be thirsty work on a hot summers day and like many other people, I drank an odd can of beer to relieve the thirst. This was probably an early red flag as water or milk would have quenched the thirst just as good. After several years I got the idea that a few drinks in the bar before embarking on the work would make the job easier so I would have about three drinks and risk driving to the work site. A few more cans while doing the job and I would then go home. Later still I got thinking that along with a few drinks before the work and a few cans in between, I would work harder and for longer if there was some reward at the end. I then started going back to the bar before even going home to wash my hands. My thinking changed to such an extent that I firmly believed that it would be impossible to do that work without drinking. The message in my head had changed from A few drinks would help to I cant do this without drinking. I had developed a mental obsession for alcohol.

The other aspect of the alcoholic sickness is the physical craving that develops once an alcoholic takes a drink. I remember being at a wedding where I drank all day and all night. Arriving home in the early hours of the morning I searched the house for more alcohol. I would have drank anything that night as long as it had alcohol in it. What I did not know was that I had developed an abnormal reaction to alcohol and every drink would produce a craving in the body for more. How this physical craving develops is now well understood and it is probably one of the reasons why alcoholism is accepted as a sickness.

When I had tried everything else and failed I went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It was there that I first heard The Doctors Opinion which explained how the body of an alcoholic is sick (the craving) and how his or her mind is sick as well (the obsession). Just understanding this alone was a big help as it explained why I drank in the way that I did and why I had been unable to stop. I might add here that I was completely sceptical about AA at the time and questioned much of what I heard or read.

Willingness was born out of desperation and as there seemed to be no other show in town, I decided to along with what AA had to offer. I had observed over a period of time that there seemed to be two types of people at AA meetings. One group struggled and often relapsed, sometimes with fatal consequences. There was another crowd that had long periods of sobriety and not only that but they seemed to be joyous and free, often in spite of enduring great hardships in life. The difference between the two sets was that the former put their faith in going to many meetings every week, while the latter tried to live their lives according to a suggested set of principles, along with attending an odd meeting. I decided to copy the second crowd.

From that point I suppose I became teachable. I took on board some things that I did not fully agree with and became open to new thinking. I accepted that I could not do it on my own so I enlisted the help of a man who had gone that road before me and who knew the way.

The suggested ideas were simple but not always easy to put into practice. It took many failures before old thinking gave way to a more healthy approach and even now I often get it wrong. However, I always hope to do better today than I did yesterday. The results have been amazing and have touched all aspects of my life in a positive way. As long as I try to live by those suggested principles I will never again have an obsession for alcohol and for that reason there will be no triggers that would cause me to drink. However, I am not and probably never will be cured of alcoholism. An abnormal reaction to alcohol cannot presently be cured and I am well aware that one drink would lead me right back to that hell of alcoholic drinking.

That is my story and I am not out to convert or change anyone. All I can say is that up until tonight, it has worked for me. Tomorrow is a new day but I will approach it with hope.

I am new to Daily Strength and have just been doing a lot of reading up till now. I can really relate to what PJ54 just said. I had a similar but different experience. I had heard that AA was somewhat like a cult and very religion based, and because of that I avoided going there. I tried stopping on my own and tried other do it yourself programs online, but I kept relapsing. I guess I finally had nothing to lose and went to an AA meeting one day and it seemed everything I had heard was wrong. Best yet I did not have to talk and people left me alone. Since starting going to AA I have been able to stay sober. But I am counting the days. I am very grateful for AA and it looks like this forum is filled with a lot of wisdom.

The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his liquor drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Alcoholics Anonymous. Page 30, lines 1 - 6

This is what I have found to be true, I would always get to feeling better then there would be a crack in the foundation that maybe this time will be different. I just have to admit that I can't drink normally and move on. It seems easy but it's very hard to get long term sobriety because the pain is not there anymore. This is where working with other Alchies helps me to stay sober.

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Thanks for all your thoughtful responses. It really seems to help me as I dig deeper into the root causes of the alcohol addiction and the many ways people deal with it.