Alcohol is very tricky. I could have 5 beers and nothing would really happen besides being a little buzzed, or I could be totally smashed. It affects us differently on what we ate, how tired we are, etc. In my experience all it has done was lead to crazy behavior. Hanging out with people I would normally not hang out with. Doing things I would normally not do when sober. Waking up in places I didn't know. It even sent me to jail once. That is a place I do not want to go back to. I think I'll keep going to meetings. For me, that is the easier, softer way.
Aloha Kim...amazing how little you wrote and how much it said. Wish I could communicate how cunning, powerful and baffling it has been for me that way.
Kim, Welcome! Thank you for the post. Yes, it definitely is a cunning, baffling and powerful diesase. I can relate to the spritual loss of values. Until I got here I didn't understand that I had a diesase that made me mental and bodily different from my fellows- and that I had a loss of spiritual values. Drinking was a symptom of my diesase. I drank to solve my spiritual malady. Today I use the program of AA, HP and the Steps to solve that spiritual malady. A much more practical means to a spiritual solution.
Hi Kim thanks for the insightful post. One of the reasons that our tolerance to alcohol fluctuates is that our liver begins to skip a few beats and fails to filter the alcohol out of our blood, at the regular rate of 1 drink per hour (depending on size etc...). With some advanced alcoholics they can actually stay drunk for days, even after they stop drinking because the liver has stopped working. At this point alcohol switches from being our best friend to our worst enemy and we have a hard time realizing it.
Yah, pretty much all you said is true for me as well and I think others. Profound. The real cunning thing is that for all of us it started out as fun and then turned into that crazy, uncontrollable, ridiculous nightmare and it is damn near impossible to figure out exactly when, why, or how it happened. I know a lot of the reasons I drank and there is the simple answer (cuz I'm an alcoholic), but it is a messed up disease that hits on many levels. I only really know that it did happen and will happen again if I go back. So like you, I have no illusions that drinking is going to be different this time around. In fact, experience tells me it would be worse and I would lose more.
Mark
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
