Could not get through a day without finding a reason to drink, even when I decided that I needed to quit.

Could not stop drinking once I started.

The amount that I drank kept increasing at an alarming rate.

Health was beginning to suffer. One example from many - I could feel my internal organs being scorched as the booze went down. That is one strange feeling.

It was costing a fortune. I was considering re-mortgaging the house to pay for it and to sell the idea to my wife as paying for the kids college costs.

Drinking and driving every day and was close to getting caught three times in a few months.

Drinking at work and leaving work early to drink.

Could see that all of those bad things that happened to other people but that never happened to me were on the near horizon.

Was there physically but not in any other way for my family.

Was existing from day to day instead of living.

Had become a slave to alcohol.

I do not believe that alcohol is harmful and I do believe that it has health benefits if taken in moderation. I never drank in moderation at the start and could not drink in moderation now even if I wanted to. Therefore, I knew I could drink and die or try to get sober and live.

The list goes on an on Buck!! Once I found abstinence at a level that I began to see!! The possibilities became clearer as to areas in myself I needed address....... For so many Alcohol was only symbol to relieve the confusions they were drinking at:))
Billy

https://www.originsrecovery.com/reasons-why-people-drink-alcohol/

I never did and still don't see a problem with Alcohol in general. It may cause issues for some, it may be harmful in some ways but it's been a part of human culture for so long...we even have specific enzymes responsible for breaking it down :)

I have issues drinking Alcohol. For so many reasons it got too painful for ME to keep trying and that's that :)

P

OK, so some folks believe alcohol is not a harmful substance for humans. I am sure you are all well aware of the number of people who actually die each day from ingesting too much alcohol (alcohol poisoning kills 6 people a day in America). So at what point do you believe alcohol consumption goes from not being harmful to being harmful? Is it the same for everyone? Does that really make sense to you? I think that position is much like saying a couple cigarettes every day is not harmful. The human body handles a small amount of alcohol the same way as a large amount of alcohol. It tries to neutralize it as best it can.

So what do you want to discuss? Why people decided to quit or whether alcohol is harmful in any amount?

I am looking to discuss the relationship between those two questions. Did you quit primarily because you felt alcohol was bad for your health and social well being, or was it primarily because you felt as though you could not control your drinking?

Budda, I was quoting the statistics for alcohol poisoning alone.

I quit after I realized how much damage alcohol was doing to my physical, mental and social well being. I now believe that I could have stopped drinking at any point during my 45 years of using alcohol, I just did not want to stop on a sustained basis until 5 months ago. I saw myself as a "normal" drinker for 45 years and then got a really good look at what I had become.

I already knew that Buck because alcohol killed my mother. She died of sirosis. I was just a kid and I was devastated. When she was diagnosed, she continued to drink up until the day I dialed 911 because she was throwing up blood clots. She died a few weeks later in the hospital. The last thing I heard her say was "I don't want to die"!

Losing my mother so young did not stop me from drinking but I will tell you what did. My ex wife was very controling and one day, I had a little accident at home and unfortunately, I was drunk at the time so that made it quite a bit worse. She kicked me out but I wouldn't leave so she called the cops. When they got here and heard the story, they gave a choice of detox or jail so I took detox because I knew it would give me 4 or 5 days of peace away from my wife.

The choice that was given to me, detox or jail was what started the wheels turning. I get all choked up when I think about this because from that point on, the people that came into my life, had a huge affect on me in a positive way. All the counselors I had, in detox, the iop, and the group counseling, to my AA sponser and especially those early meetings were very important to getting me to pay attention to the spiritual side of me which I had neglected for so long. The support I received in treatment and in AA had a huge impact on my sobriety.

So I guess you could credit the cop or my now ex wife for me getting sober.

It wasn't the fact that it might kill me, at the time, I could have cared less, in fact I wanted to die. It was the positive influence that others had on me. When I met people in AA, I wanted what they has! I guess I was ready and I wanted to do the work and the 12 step
really opened some doors for me and changed my life in ways that would take me all day to describe.

It's like everything came together like pieces of a puzzle like someone was gently putting them all in place for me. All I had to do was ask.

~~~Peace~~~

I never figured out the "why" I drank other than it became my life and I could not imagine living without drinking anymore than I could imagine living without breathing. I had an interesting conversation about a year into sobriety with a friend who was trying to quit drinking. We had long conversations about why she drank, why I drank, looked at it from every which way. But every reason to drink was just an excuse and trying to figure it out did not seem to matter.

One day she asked me why I quit. I have dozens of reasons for quitting and they all sound very good. But the reasons sound as hollow as the reasons I had for drinking. They are just the words I put together to explain that decision to finally stop the suffering and honor the person who I am.

My decision does not fit into the "either-or" question you are asking and answering your question would not begin to get at the truth of it.

Without trying to put words in your mouth, it sounds like:

"finally stop the suffering and honor the person who I am"

might just be the real reasons you quit. Good reasons.

I quit simply because I could not control the amount that I drink.

Impermanence, do you feel as though you would go back to drinking alcohol if you could somehow manage to control the amount on a reliable basis?

Im not saying that such a person does not exist but I have yet to meet an alcoholic who quit purely for health reasons or who did not want to keep drinking. Instead, it is nearly always a case of having to quit and not having any viable alternative. I have met some who knew that drinking was going to kill them within a short time but they were unable to stop on their own and unwilling to seek help.

If I could control my drinking I would probably go back to it right now but Im not sure. However, I do not miss drinking at all and I fully accept that I cannot drink safely either now or in the future. I dont spend time analysing the what ifs or the poor me except maybe when replying to this post. I try to live in today and this particular day was exciting and rewarding. I attended an event where I listened to some inspirational speakers, enjoyed music and dancing, ate great food and happily passed up on the free mulled wine.

Why did I quit? Who cares I just did.

i can't control the amt... and the desire to drink in a manageable way is the desire of every alcoholic. But if I have one it means another till they are gone. Then it's figure out a way to get more. Then I go back to poisoning myself. Thing is I never saw that I was harming myself before I quit , heck I never thought I was an alcoholic until I quit. But now I know I am because I cannot drink successfully, not tonight or any night. My body processes alcohol differently.
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My reasons to not drink far outweigh my reasons to drink.