I apologized to you BS.

Buttsag was a typo. ;)

I'm sorry, I just thought you were not expressing yourself in a direct way. I thought you were being pretentious and not here to seek knowledge and understanding. I thought you were here to only hear yourself talk. Now, I may think otherwise. Namaste

Deli, I have a son-in-law who is Muslim. He drinks a bit (not very well in my opinion) but generally abstains.

Yes, I think the last time I quit I made the mistake of thinking I could come back as a "moderate" drinker. And I did for a while.

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts about your transition into an abnormal drinking pattern. I find it very helpful to hear how we all perceive that change occurred.

City Chick, suggest you keep your personal comments to me private via separate messages. I accept your apology. Butt Sag

Buttsag now that got me to LOL.

But really Buckstag I appreciate the debates


For this recoveree, The real thing here is that once I passed the point of drinking alcoholiclly there is no return. It sounds like a curse but its the way it is.

For me to just keep in mind that I have a disease, do a few simple things each day, DONT DRINK and live life.

It helps me to say i am an alcoholic and i have the disease of alcoholism. What really helps me more is to help other alcoholics. I remember the days when I was chained to the 12 pack when I see a guy pick up a white chip. I see the shame, fear, and self loathing. Then I see the same guy get better. Pick up a 30 day chip, 90, 6 mo, and then years. I sit next to a guy that would walk thru fire for me and actually says to me each day, dont drink tonite, I will be counting on you.

So I just bounce along on the Bus of Sobriety and try to be a better person than I was.

1is2many

Buck, I think it just depends on how you want to play with words and definitions. I think that technically, when a change occurs, no matter how slow or sudden, it is a change to a different direction. You can call it slow, or sudden, or whatever fits your fancy. Either way, there was a nano second in time when this happened to me. When my drinkiing was no longer controlled or controllable.

Considering that millions of people share this phenomenon, I don't consider it a phenomenon, it is just what it is. And I don't need any further exploration. There is no point, and I would rather expend that same energy on simply not drinking and continuing to make changes in my life to support my sobriety.

You can ask any athlete the question "At what point did your performance begin to decline? Was it sudden? Was it because of anything specific?" To that athlete his/her answer will probably be that it just started. Most likely a true actual physical moment can't be pinpointed, but the athlete will know at which point he or she would tell a difference. Then that atlhlete will have to deal with the reality that he or she will not be at that top physical place again, EVER. He or she can fight it, can take performance enhancing drugs to mask it, but the change has occured. When the athlete can come to terms with it, then the athlete can live life on a new level and enjoy the new place he or she occupies.

So, I don't know if you or others can relate to the athlete analogy, but it works for me. It does not matter when or how my drinking shifted or changed, suddenly or gradually. It changed. Was it always there, waiting to be triggered? Maybe. Was I predisposed to this place? Maybe. Was it hereditary? Maybe. Is it an allergy? Maybe. Is it a disease? Maybe. Do any of these things matter? Not to me. It is what it is, and I accept it. Time to live life on this new level.

I don't view myself as an abnormal person. I am just not a normal drinker. I am now a non-drinker. There are many things that I am not, which does not make me abnormal in relation to those things. I simply am not those things, be it an engineer, an attorney, a phd, a doctor, you name it. This does not make me an abnormal person though.

I am fine with who I now am. And I will be a little different later this afrternoon and tomorrow, and next year....you get it.

My mother has a glass of wine, halfway thru, she begins feeling funny (as in weird) and does not like that feeling and leaves the half glass undrunk.

Me, I try to get that feeling (oh finally) and that is my starting point.

She's a normy. I'm a drunk.

i can relate this when i was pretty content maybe in a good relationship not lonely working life was ok ,, i i did not abuse it but if we drink to medicate underlying emotions and not just an enjoyment of a drink or two with friends at dinner or at home of we are drinking because we are lonely hungry for love depressed angry tired, sick stressed then i believe it is much more of a vulnerable drinking to drug in happier times in life,, i never had it in the fridge was not even part of life, maybe with sushi or friends over for dinner but when i had trauma in my life sickness breakups something that made me feel needy i would drink to kill my pain to have a friend in the bottle and then she lied to me and i drank 2 but did not stop the pain it was just like popping a lpill,,,, HALTSS i love it hungry angry lonely tired sick stressed and especially driinking alone is bad news,, right now i am dealing with aging and lonely is putting it mildly and sure i would like to sit around and forget it with some substance but i must walk through it ,, if i want to stay in the game or it will sure ly sideline me and it wont be good ,,,

I had to take a class after my car accident and they taught everyone this thing called the 1-2-3 rule or something. It was a New York State dmv course. They say that if you follow this rule and don't exceed the drink limit (excluding those with an already high pre-disposition for alcoholism, and thus shouldn't touch alcohol...!) that you won't increase your tolerance, thus lowering your risk for dependence:

1 drink per hour
2 drinks per day
No more than 3 drinks any given day (only if you don't have 2 each day)
Not to exceed 14 drinks per week, following the above.

I thought it was quite interesting!

"It seems to me that all ingestion of alcohol is abnormal and unnatural for humans."

BuckStag, can you please share with me how you came to this conclusion?

Thank you. TC

So I guess 4 beers at a bar and 1 in the car on the way home and 10 more at home would not be considered normal. I drank more in a day than a normal drinker had in a week, I'd say that I was far from normal and by remembering this I try not to bend my elbow and commit suicide today
1-2

1is2, if there is power in numbers, I am with you on this one!!!

Hi Texi Callie,

In regards to my comment: "It seems to me that all ingestion of alcohol is abnormal and unnatural for humans." You asked me to explain how I came to that conclusion.

Well, the way I see it, ethanol (the alcohol we drink to get drunk) is simply not a normal (natural) food item for humans, or any other animals for that matter. And the very fact that excessive ingestion of ethanol can actually result in death (alcohol poisoning) seems to me like further proof that this substance should not be ingested in any amount, for any reason. More or less the same argument against smoking tobacco to ingest nicotine. Any amount of nicotine & the other byproducts of tobacco smoke is bad for you.

But the question I was trying to ask was more related to how society in general can label one person a "problem drinker" or "Alcoholic" for ingestion of too much alcohol on too regular of a basis, while others who may drink to get drunk to a lesser degree on a regular basis are considered "normal" drinkers. It seems to me like a very hazy line that separates the normal and abnormal drinker, and I am curious as to how others define the point where they think they crossed the line.

Heres a simple one that I always related to - there is a difference between You using Alcohol and Alcohol using You...the old saying Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink, drink takes the man...

Lots of people can relate to this I think and obsess over trying to 'wrestle back' control of the relationship.

Another way to define an abnormal drinker might be this...even after a period of abstinence or changes of drinking routine, alcohol is normally in the driving seat...

If you make sweet love with a gorilla, the music doesn't stop when YOU want it to, it stops when the gorilla wants it to hehe ;)

P

OK Paul, so for the "normal" drinker who has 2 glasses of wine every night, is the Gorilla in control?