enough said! lol. If you are trying to get sober than drinking IS the problem. You really didn't qualify yourself, but IF you're in early sobriety this is probably not the time for philosophical discussion about the chicken or the egg.
All the answers that you are looking for are in the "12 steps and 12 traditions or alcoholics annonymous" Particularly in the first 3 steps.
I've been sober for 4 years if this is what you mean by "qualifying" myself. I've always heard it was a form of self medication. In my case I drank because I was bored and didn't have any responsibilities at the time. I was just wondering if other people did it for the same reason. It was a relevant question, no need to be a condescending uber geek.
For me it was a solution to a problem which in turn became a problem unto it's self. I was shy, alcohol made me feel more out going. Actually it made me act like a jackass and do stuff that caused other problems. In the end because I never knew where I would end up when I drank, I ended up drinking at home alone or with a few drinking buddies who were in the same boat as me. Nothing sadder then grown men still acting like 16 year old kids. I ended up as isolated as I was when I was shy. The under lying cause of my shyness was fear, alcohol didn't help me face my fear it just numbed it. Now I walk through my fearit enters me and I pass through the other side. I'm still shy (introverted) and always will be but I use the rational part of my brain to pass through it. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and it how we use our strengths to compensate for our weaknesses.
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Work like you don't need the money
Love like you've never been hurt, and
dance like no one is watching.
an old timer once said in Home group "every reason I ever drank was a feeling, i drank to enhance a feeling or to bury a feeling"thats likely what they meant by yes
Bryan
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Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Romans 8:6 , The Message
I've been sober for 4 years if this is what you mean by "qualifying" myself. I've always heard it was a form of self medication. In my case I drank because I was bored and didn't have any responsibilities at the time. I was just wondering if other people did it for the same reason. It was a relevant question, no need to be a condescending uber geek.
glad I was available to help you victimize yourself. thinking about drinking much?
seriously, my comments were of a general nature and not directed at you. The question that you asked could be misconstrued as to looking for a reason to drink. IMO questions of this nature tend to romanticize drinking (placing the word like and the words to drink in the same sentence). This is something that a newcomer would generally ask and that's why I responded the way that I did. My drinking problem involved having to drink.
Btw, Do you make a habit of insulting people, in your first couple of posts on a message board, before even introducing yourself? Generally people create an introduction thread and "qualify" themselves. And yes that is a term commonly used in AA meetings to discribe someone telling part of their story so that the others will know where they're coming from.
When I first started drinking, I thought it was because I liked that feeling it gave me but its only years on that I realised I was actually using it to cover up other feelings. I didnt seem to enjoy anything I did unless I was drinking so it became clear to me later that I obviously wasnt a very happy person full stop. Also, I was never taught when I was growing up how to handle situations, was just told to "shut up and get on with it" so once I was drinking, I would drink to drown my hurt.
In the end, I drank for every reason going, happy, sad, lonely, not lonely, etc etc the list goes on and on.
When you first started drinking was it because you liked the feeling or was it a solution for other problems?
I drank because I was an alcoholic and I drank because I had zero confidence and it made me feel confident. I'll be the first to admit I was never able to just drink one without craving more, though when I was young I was better at plowing through that craving and denying myself another drink. But from day one I was off with a bang, and the blackouts came immediately.
But in hindsite and after many years of counseling, I for sure was medicating a lack of confidence and a lot of pain. It's good to work at helping yourself and getting your "stuff" cleared up so that you can live. The first half of step one is about drinking- the other 11 1/2 steps are about you and your stuff and getting better.
I work on the "why" of my own self destructive tendancies and my penchant for self medication all of the time. But the important thing for me is to not be "too smart for my own good" and use that information to get around my sobriety- that's easy to do. You start looking at the "Why"s of your stuff and all of the sudden you might say, "Well if this is all so bad why shouldn't I?" The most important thing for me is to just not take a drink.
Anyhow- just my .02. The internet is really a tough place to get help. It tends to bring out the worst in a lot of people. If you're sober I assume you have a sponsor and a home group. Face to face you usually don't get condescending reactions to legitimate questions. People aren't so flippant with other people's feelings when they realize it's an actual person with feelings they're talking to and not just some words on a screen.
I was thinking about this topic last night while laying in bed not being able to sleep, and it struck me as a funny combination of words. I think for myself the two phrases can pretty much be interchangeable:
I am an alcoholic because I hurt.
I hurt because I'm an alcoholic.
Definitely I've always been trying to numb some discomfort inside of me, but it's pretty hard to determine whether that isn't indeed the nature of an alcoholic. And certainly when I was drinking I was hurting in an additional way, or the same way even more so- though it seemed it would go away a bit for that first drink, it'd be right back and even worse in short order.
So the bottom line for me is, "Don't drink and you'll hurt less." And "figure out what it is that you've been trying to medicate and maybe you can work on that a bit too."
