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.
Just thinking out loud folks! Following the great advice I have received form this group to try and discover why I drank, and thinking about what I have read in others posts. So was I weak, entitled, or defiant? I never felt weak, even when I would wake up in the morning swearing I would not drink again and then leave work 8-10 hours later and drive straight to the store to buy wine or liquor. By the time I had finished work and gotten in my car, I felt entitled to drink if I wanted to. I had worked an entire day after all and surely I was the only person in the whole world who had had such a rough day!! I wasn't weak....I was entitled. The other reason I think I drank was out of defiance. In the last year, when my drinking got really heavy, my husband would comment on my drinking. Now mind you, he has behaviors that I don't agree with, so my response to him was one of "I'll show you, you can't control me. I'm an adult". Now that my brain is functioning clearly and I examine these rational, I think "Holy crap, that makes no sense at all." I was poisoning myself because I was entitled to or in defiance. Crazy!! Just asking those folks that are early in recovery to really consider why they drink. Take the skeleton out of the closet and really examine it. Funniest thing is people who feel entitled (to anything) or people who act in pure defiance really piss me off! Hard to own that I acted no better, but it's the truth. Hope this helps someone own their choices and accept that their thinking is not, and cannot be, clear if their thinking is driven by alcohol.
You made some great points. I was the same way when I was working. I would work 3-11 and stop on the way home to buy beer or wine. I have been in a bad marriage for 3 years. He is emotionally and physically abusive. My self esteem was in the toilet. I hated myself. There were times I contemplated suicide because I saw no other way out. In the past year, I have known of at least two people who did just that because they could not get a handle on their drinking. I drank to cover the pain. I drank because I liked the taste. Then I was drinking because I had too or I was extremely anxious. I knew that I was going to lose everything if I did not pull myself together and beat this beast. I am on Day 5. I have lost weight. My thinking is getting clearer and clearer. I returned to work yesterday and my boss stated, "Life must be better for you. You look great." I still have the problems but I am focusing on staying sober and letting God handle the rest.
I came to understand it was more than excuses in a rational mind, it wasn't denial (knowing something but claiming it is not so), it was delusion. I believe it is genetic too - alcoholism is in my family and apparently one of the chromosomes, chromosome 11, is partly responsible, and there are two other chromosomal areas being investigated. Here is a recent link on that subject:
http://www.medicaldaily.com/genetic-basis-alcohol-dependence-240850
I will always be an alcoholic but I have recovered from the drinking problem. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Step spiritual path, I am no longer wrestling with the drinking/not drinking wrangle and that has freed me up to live life in a much better way, one day at a time.
I understand where you are coming from in wondering about whether you are weak, entitled or defiant as I once did but I know now that is not, nor never was, the real issue for me. I was sick spiritually, mentally and physically.
Thanks for your post!
There but by the grace of God go I and I am so thankful for His grace. I am so impressed with your strength! Just wanted you to know that!
Sad, congrats on your day 5. It does always feel better to know that you not only are aware that your mind and physical appearance are coming out of a prolonged drunken haze, but that others can see the beauty starting penetrate through.
Once I discovered and understood the REAL reason why I drank in the way that I did it was a lot easier to stay sober. There can be a lot of misunderstanding around this issue when drinking gets out of control so it is worth considering in detail. There is often disagreement about the best way to treat alcoholism or problem drinking as can be seen from many threads here but I think that most people would agree that the causes are now fairly well understood.
Using my own case as an example, I could have listed very many reasons for my drinking and to me those reasons made perfect sense at the time. However, I now realise that I was fooling myself and that those were not the real reasons. What I was doing was completely abnormal and out of order and I had to find a way to justify it to myself or I would have gone crazy. By finding acceptable excuses I avoided having to face up to the difficult reality that my drinking was out of control.
I dont think that I was ever weak but often felt entitled or defiant and thought that I drank because of that. Maybe those things led to drinking at the start but something else happened along the way that changed the reasons for drinking; this is something that happens to every alcoholic so it is VITAL that alcoholics should understand it. An alcoholic is a person who has probably been drinking too much for a while and who has now developed an OBSESION for alcohol. As well as this obsession in the mind, a change occurs in the way that the body reacts to alcohol and as a result, a small amount of alcohol leads to a CRAVING in the body - not in the mind for more alcohol.
An obsession can be described as an idea that overcomes all other ideas. Therefore, someone with an obsession for alcohol will always come up with reasons to justify taking a drink. This obsession leaves the person defenceless against the THINKING that leads up to taking the first drink. Thoughts of the trouble that drinking caused in the past will often be cast aside and there will be a belief that it will be different this time (I will only drink beer; I will only have two drinks; I promise not to get drunk; I am going to have a good time etc.). At the end of my drinking I did not even try to justify it to myself anymore because it suddenly dawned on me that my reasons for drinking made no sense anyway so now I just drank for no apparent reason.
The problem for someone like me who had an obsession for alcohol was that the obsession did not go away just because I stopped drinking. My mind was programmed to think that I needed alcohol and was desperately trying to come up with reasons to drink. By this time I knew that I was in big trouble and had reluctantly decided that I would have to quit. I would have loved to keep drinking but the decision was made and I applied every ounce of determination and willpower to the task. However, within a week or so I found a good reason to take a few drinks, for just one night. The following week, I found another good reason to justify taking a few drinks. Days later, I was drinking more than ever and could not understand why that happened despite the strong decision I had made to stop drinking. I later learned about the obsession that I had for alcohol and my drinking then made perfect sense.
There are many ways of getting and staying sober but I believe that whatever method is chosen, a fundamental change has to occur in the persons THINKING. Apparently, some people can bring about this change by reading inspirational books, some by using religion and probably by other means as well. However, for very many alcoholics those methods do not work and even professional counselling does little to help. For those people, it has been found that a programme of recovery such as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous can work where all other methods had failed.
Therefore, I did not drink because the weather was too cold or too hot; I had an argument with the boss at work or with my wife at home; there was a war or famine in Africa; I felt depressed or I felt happy; life was unfair; two dogs were fighting in the street. The REAL reason I drank like I did was because I had developed a mental OBSESSION for alcohol. Failure to recognise that such an obsession exists and to find a way to remove it will lead to a cycle of short periods of sobriety that are invariably followed by more drinking once a strong enough trigger occurs that enables the OBSESSION to overcome willpower.
That is one big regret I have -- that I did not jump off the drinking train a whole lot sooner than I did. "
Mine too... Mine too..
I wish I could take back decades of my life. But I can't. I wish I had never pick up that first bottle of my dad's "white port" wine when I was 14 just to play around with my friends. All that "playing around" partying with friends for years led me into depending on it just to live. Makes me very sad and sort of sick to my stomach when I think of all the wasted years wasted.
And defiant? I have always loved my mother-in-law. She is kind and generous and sweet and has treated me with love throughout my 15 year marriage. However, she recently mentioned to my husband that she thought we both drink too much---that we are great parents, but that we should be concerned and watch our consumption around the boys. I was instantly furious---how dare she? Why would she turn on me? When I saw her after that day I never put a drop of booze in my body---in front of her. Instead I hid a stash in the den and frequently disappear for a hit. Bet if she doesn't see me she won't even know I'm drinking! The only reason she called me out it was because she SAW me being young and having fun and drinking wine. She's a mean old lady whose days are numbered and she resents the fun way we raise our kids. I'll show her. I don't have a problem. You'll never SEE me drink again, and I'll prove that you can't even tell the difference between my sober or wasted.
Ugh, who am I? How could one loving, concerned comment from a woman whose company I have enjoyed for ten years make me hate her instantly. Loathe her. Stop calling her "mom" and start calling her "your mom". That's just sick. That's not who I am. That's the drunk talking. The defiant drunk. The defiant, entitled, terrified drunk.
I am 24 hours sober. And when I type these posts, tears stream down my face in my office. I haven't cried in years.