I do miss the taste

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

I do miss the taste

turninggrey · MIP Old Timer

Hey BB,
Great thread. The monster is always watching for an opening. I have found the monster is a coward. I have found its easier to simply try stay in the light as you are describing.

TLH · MIP Old Timer

Quote (from someone- I dopn't remember who- a semi famous drunk):

"I love the taste of sparkling water, but you never saw me drink a case of it!"

toni baloney · Senior Member

Guess we are all so very different, when I recall the taste of 80 proof anything, I change the subject in my head, for it would send me into the bathroom to throw up.

Must have had enough. Never really think of the taste, until you wrote that, and my stomach is not feeling so great right now.

Without knowing it at the time, must have been conducting my own Clockwork Orange experiment, and so far it has worked, only of course, with His Help.

Toodles,

Toni

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

Yup, can identify with the taste thing. Lived in Seattle amidst a flurry of micro-breweries, using everything from cranberries to fruits to pumpkin in their flavored lagers and stouts. But as I recall, after a pint or two I would be on the floor, and jonesing for any cheap bottle of nasty liquor I could afford at the time, rent 2 months overdue and dreading going to work the next day to buff cars while the coworkers busted out the Olympia Beer (cans of $2 a 6-pack piss-water).

Bad sad days in the early 90's. I wanted to be like all those progressively-elite folk in their Birkenstocks sipping ales and happily walking home still with their faculties about them, no longer thinking about alcohol once they walked out of the pub. I was the one in the old combat boots with the ratty flannel shit tied around my waste and too much runny goth eyeliner to be taken seriously. (Not that there was anything wrong with "grunge", it just wasn't really ME). I was miserable and trapped, no matter how much I tried to pretend I was "enjoying" anything about life at all.

What I think about now when a waitress walks by at a restaurant with a bottle of Groelsch for some other dining guest, is how spaced out and out of control that stuff made me. I really don't think I would like the taste, if it hadn't triggered me in those days like one of Pavlov's dogs, that here was to come the "high". I like chocolate. LOVE and ADORE it, in fact. But I am not going to buy 8 candy bars and sit here and eat them all in one sitting. Had to be something about Taste first, and then buzz second, in my tricking myself into believing I was "there for the flavor" of beer.

Great topic, and I too am glad we can get this stuff out in the open, and others in the world actually understand what we are talking about!! Great job getting back on the horse, Bikerbill. Glad to see you here!! Pip pip to you!

Joni

cramcj01 · Senior Member

I agree Toni. There are sooo many flavors I can not stand to even think of because of flavored vodka and rum. Especially VANILLA....I can yack just smelling it, even in a candle! :~)

Dave Harm · Senior Member

Don't know about the UK, but American non-alcohol beer does have some alcohol in it. I figured it out once, you'd have to drink 144 cans to equal a 12 pack. Never tried it never will just because it does have some alcohol - however small - in it.

Sobrietyspell · MIP Old Timer

I am one drink away from a drunk & I have had the taste of red wine in my mouth for a day or so. There was a third of a bottle of the stuff in the kitchen abandoned by the bin so I poured it away this evening for a gesture of sobriety. Drinking flatmate/ex-sponsee took an overdose this morning in her Nan's & is in hospital. I'm praying she surrenders & gets the help she needs soon. Thanks for the thread, Bill. I needed to say that stuff out loud. Stepwork has been helping too. Thank God for another day sober, Danielle x

MDC · Senior Member

I hope it all works out for you both. I'm having a hard time living with someone who drinks. My wife has a glass of i\wine about once every 2 weeks. It Kills me. I hate wine, but as soon as I taste it, I'm off to the store for a beer, How do we live with it in our homes and not drink??

Doll · MIP Old Timer

bikerbill wrote:

I do miss the taste .........

Me toooooooo!

Obviously I drank to get drunk, but I never STARTED with booze I didn't like the taste of. Now after having a few it didn't matter, I could drink that pisswater joni mentioned. I've even been known to fish out the cigarette butt and finish that off if it was all I had! ewwwwwww!!! Talk about sick!

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Sincerely it was interesting reading this thread with all of the input. It even
reminded me of 1958 when I was a sophmore in high school sitting in the back
of one of two cars getting enlightened that there was a "new" beer now that
we could buy openly and drink without breaking the law and it was called "Near
Beer" or maybe really "Neer Beer" and the 7 of us guys traipse off to the local
liquor store and sure enough we could get it, pay for it and go outside back to
the cars and drink it and all of us arrived at the same conclusion at the same time
right in the middle of the first 5oz can..."Nah this won't work!!" For all practical
reasons it tasted like beer and none of us were choosers at that time. A beer
was a beer was a beer. Olympia if you had a few more bucks to spend, Coors
if you were a smidgen different than the group and Bud just because. To us
it all tasted the same. We were looking for what would happen twix can one
and two. Somewhere between those two cans of beer the curtain rose on a
different stage and we had bigger better roles to play until the stage lights
were turned off. I was different. I needed to be different. I drank San Miguel
and can't tell you if it tasted much different than Neer Beer. I can tell you that
somewhere between can one and two I became the master of my own destiny
and practice of that role would eventually manifest itself into a grateful sober
membership of AA. By the time I was ready to part company with San Miguel
I could barely get to the bottom of can one. It was somewhere between sip
one and sip two that a pre-drunk hang over would develope and there wasn't
a beer around anywhere that could anestithize that. What has not left is
the thought that "I think I can". I always thought I could and I could and then
the program had a solution for that and more. "Don't drink", "Don't think".
Thinking is a special occasion past time for me and I don't take it seriously
much. After I stop thinking about something that has merit and that requires
a bit of thought...I stop it and relax and turn it over and listen.

Thanks BB for doing all the memory and thinking stuff for me tonight and to
the rest of you participants. As long as I have you guys to do it...I will choose
not to.

I think it would be nice to see the pamphlet "So you think you have a problem
with alcohol" hanging from the bottle shelves in the liquor department. Thinkers
off.

((((((hugs)))))) smile

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

Dave Harm wrote:

Don't know about the UK, but American non-alcohol beer does have some alcohol in it. I figured it out once, you'd have to drink 144 cans to equal a 12 pack. Never tried it never will just because it does have some alcohol - however small - in it.

Yep, i'm sure that non alcoholic beer in Britain has some alcohol in it - last time I looked (while still drinking) becks non Alcoholic, had 0.03% - so it's an alcoholic drink in my mind.

erdinger weisbeer (at least in Germany) is different. It is bang on 0.0%. not even brewed in the same brewery, no danger of contamination - at least that's what the blurb says.

thankfully, having got this all out in writing I now have no desire to go hunting the damn stuff out, or go belting off to Germany for another bottle.

One of my great pleasures is a good, botty burner of a curry. i used to love them with a Cobra, but always ended up having several. since I stopped drinking, I tend to drink water or Mango Lassi with my curry. there's a great curry house in preston - no alcohol because of their religion - short menu menu, but if you go more than twice you get what you're given and it's always good.

Still, it's great to be sober, one day at a time.

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

MDC wrote:

I hope it all works out for you both. I'm having a hard time living with someone who drinks. My wife has a glass of i\wine about once every 2 weeks. It Kills me. I hate wine, but as soon as I taste it, I'm off to the store for a beer, How do we live with it in our homes and not drink??

i feel for you, I'm fortunate in a way that i live alone. I got into the last 8 months of drinking while living alone, I got into recovery while living alone.
you say that 'as soon as I tast it, I'm off for a beer' - so back to basics - don't taste it, don't pick up the first drink.

OK maybe you taste it when you kiss her - so wait until she's brushed her teeth! Or ask her to brush her teeth when she's finished her drink - tell her that as soon as you taste it, it fires you off.

how do we live with it in our houses - I don't know, because there is none in my house. In my wife's house there is a well stocked drinks cabinet but I don't go there. If we ever get back together (if it pleases God) i'll address that issue when and if it arises.

I find it easy to go to friends houses who still drink and still have drink in the house, at least I do now, but it's taken me over two years to get that comfortable. in the early days I would have to be careful about which checkout I used at the supermarket, it had to be the one furthest from the booze. I couldn't be in the same queue as someone buying booze, i couldn't go in wet places, i'd go out of my way to avoid places where drinking wnet on. it was a year before I could go in a restaurant or go to a gig.

My whole life, socially, revolved around AA and meetings and fellow alkies - it's what I had to do to get and stay sober. It was worth every minute, every missed gig, every missed party. it was worth going to a meeting before going for the business dinner, then leaving as soon as the bill was paid. It was worth all the funny looks, all the sniping comments, all the missed business oppertunities, it was worht radically changing the way I lived my life.

i don't have the same life that I had. different things hold more importance to me. i hurt people less and less, and when i realise i'm in the wrong, got it wrong, hurt someone - step 10! when I hurt, step 4, step 5. When i doubt - steps 1, 2 and 3 (every, every day!), when i get the oppertunity, step 9, when i remember someone I hurt from my past it goes on the step 8 list, to be step 9'd when I can.

When i have that moment, maybe watching the birds in the trees, maybe when fishing, maybe when carving down a country road on my bike, maybe when sitting in the yard with a smoke, maybe when pausing at work, maybe when pottering about in the shed while the rain drums on the roof - I'll find a step 11 moment.

and this, and every meeting I go to and everyone i talk to or relate with and every newbie I meet and every old timer i meet and every share I listen to and every share I make (even the whingeing, life hurts, I'm in pain ones) are all step 12, because so long as I keep in fit spiritual condition and so long as no matter what happens, i won't take a drink - then i'm carrying the message.

-- Edited by bikerbill on Monday 8th of June 2009 03:57:45 AM

joelo · Senior Member

Excellent post ... i'm THREE DAYS into my second go 'round, and on my FIRST day we attended a kid's birthday party and the host handed me a cold glass of Newcastle Brown Ale ... i was flabbergasted and before i could say "no thanks" he was out the door. So, i stood around for 30 minutes with that beer until my wife SLYLY stole it out my hand as we were passing each other in the doorway and she very discreetly poured it down the sink.

Yes, i would have loved that first sip, but the self-loathing and other consequences.

Thanks for sharing!

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

MDC wrote:

I hope it all works out for you both. I'm having a hard time living with someone who drinks. My wife has a glass of i\wine about once every 2 weeks. It Kills me. I hate wine, but as soon as I taste it, I'm off to the store for a beer, How do we live with it in our homes and not drink??

Hey Mark, that's exactly why it took me over two years to get sober, while regularly attending AA meetings. My x-wife would drink 1 or 2 rum and cokes each evening.
I couldn't stand R&C and never drank hers but the idea of watching someone drink and witnessing there alcohol altered behavior was more than my sobriety could take. It's hard to fight off the "why can't I's". So I traded her for some sober room mates and that worked in my favor, instead of against.

About the original post. We all go through that, but I think that talking about it reinforces the thought, in fact I know that i does based on trail and error and my understanding of how the brain forms and maintains memories through the binding and rebinding of synapses. We need to replace those thoughts with the opposite thought which would be: I never really liked the taste. I remember the first few times I drank beer and it was the most disgusting tasting beverage. Same with liquor, it had that rubbing alcohol smell and taste. It was always a chore to get the first drink down. I don't miss it at all, and I really enjoy drinking iced tea, water, fruit juices and some diet coke.

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

joelo wrote:

Excellent post ... i'm THREE DAYS into my second go 'round, and on my FIRST day we attended a kid's birthday party and the host handed me a cold glass of Newcastle Brown Ale ... i was flabbergasted and before i could say "no thanks" he was out the door. So, i stood around for 30 minutes with that beer until my wife SLYLY stole it out my hand as we were passing each other in the doorway and she very discreetly poured it down the sink.

Yes, i would have loved that first sip, but the self-loathing and other consequences.

Thanks for sharing!

Wow - 30 minutes with a brown dog getting warm in your hand and you didn't try it, sometimes we do sobriety a minute at a time - keep at it, you know it makes sense!

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

StPeteDean wrote:

About the original post. We all go through that, but I think that talking about it reinforces the thought, in fact I know that i does based on trail and error and my understanding of how the brain forms and maintains memories through the binding and rebinding of synapses. We need to replace those thoughts with the opposite thought which would be: I never really liked the taste. I remember the first few times I drank beer and it was the most disgusting tasting beverage. Same with liquor, it had that rubbing alcohol smell and taste. It was always a chore to get the first drink down. I don't miss it at all, and I really enjoy drinking iced tea, water, fruit juices and some diet coke.

StPeteDean - i thought about the above and realise that I miss the fantasy of the taste of teh first drink - thanks for the above, that's helped.
I'll be straight with you here, I enjoyed that Erdinger Weisbeer and enjoyed it until I didn't enjoy it, which was when i stopped drinking it (i.e. when it got warm) i never liked the taste of warm beer.

It's the same with tea. There's a point where tea is incredibly enjoyable, it's just at the right temperature, but a few moments later it's just not worth drinking for the taste - that's when i stop drinking it and make a fresh one.

when you think about it there's so many things which taste best on the first mouthful - that steak, the sandwich, the salad, after that I'm only eating it for the nourishment - the non alcoholic stuff, like tea, coffee, meat, fish, etc won't hurt me if i continue to eat and drink once the first taste has jaded - the alcohol is a different matter. because i used to drink for effect not taste. and if i drink alcohol again, it'll be for the taste but after the first mouthful it'll be for effect and there will be a next mouthful, and all the chaos starts again.

I do not want the chaos, i do not want the life i used to have. I want to stay away from the first drink, no matter what!

in the early days, i used to think I'll stay sober until such and such happens - then i hear about people who have lost spouses, parents, children and friends, who have been diagnosed with life threatening illnesses themselves and they did not drink on it. i was amazed that anyone could do that. then i learnt that they followed the programme - is that the origins of 'get with the programme?' - and i read someones autobiography, when he got the the point where his infant son died and he went to an AA meeting that very day and did not drink on it! man i cried buckets. then i read what a member said to him 'you've just removed my last reason to drink.' and that's exactly how i felt.

I was made two promises early on in AA. the first was go back out and keep drinking and you will either go insane, go to prison or die an untimely death. Stay and you will never need a drink again. i like the latter one. i was also told that no matter how deep the hole, it just takes 12 steps to get out and that i will continue to fall in lifes holes, but now i have a better toolkit to get out. and finally, your Higher power doesn't hand you more than you can deal with in a day. So far it's all true and i have no reason to doubt it.