I heard more than one person share in meetings that they could keep themselves at a fuzzy sort of level through steady sipping of beer, wine or cider. They stayed like that for a long time. They now haven't drunk for a long time and call themselves alcoholics.

The doctors opinion:

http://anonpress.org/bb/docsopin.htm

Once you are there, click back to the chapters and go through the chapters of the book and see if you do not recognize other symptoms.  Consider this as a possible wake up call!
Tom

-- Edited by turninggrey on Sunday 20th of December 2009 07:55:53 PM

hi thank you
my minds been really mental recently. i did come into the rooms and not had a drink for a few years but recently i have had crazy making thoughts along the lines of ' maybe my drinking wasnt that bad'
its recently been so hard remebering how bad it was. either that or i am losing it. very confused at the moment.
i dont want to pick up but my thoughts are like raging at me that maybe i need to go out and test that i really am an alkie. dont want to do that my state of mind is already horrible lord knows what drinking would do to me.

i keep thinking maybe my drinking wasnt that bad. maybe im not really an alkie, maybe over reacted. (crap thinking?) i had little bad concequences of it, i did drink to excess, and 99 percent of the time once i started i jsut kept on until i was really drunk. couldnt moderate. well i never really tried because i didnt want to moderate. or trying attempts would just dissappear once i started to drink. I did manage on few occasions which i surprisingly remeber well, where yes i did have only one or two and stopped. but those outwieghed by the rest where i did not. those did not happen towards the end either.

i didnt end up in jail or hospital got no dts no bad withdrawals no bad trouble except mentally it really got to me, i did get bad blackouts a few times most were brown outs though. did get badly violent a few times also. didnt lose anything. didnt have much to lose to start with.just when i drank i usually had no control over how much i drank.

but getting back to the craving thing, that craving i experienced was really what scared the heck out of me. when that happened i was like uhoh this is not ok ive not had this before and it scared me big time alarms bells went off. like i kinda was thinking maybe i could have a problem but thinking it was just me having a bad character. but that awareness of the craving is what tipped the scales so to speak for me.

but today i am wondering if i just over reacted, i mean do other alkies notice a craving like that i know sounds a stupid question doesnt it. Do normal drinkers notice a craving like i got. i only noticed it once.and then i got into aa.

i do have a sponsor and have told them about whats going on. im upping my meetings and feel a bit better for it. but just had this horrible nagging negative thoughts in my head i want to know for sure without a doubt that i really am an alkie. most of these years ive felt certain i am one. but recently ive been so panicking that i just over reacted! i know it doesnt sound logical.

not sure why this is happening. i mean ive not had this bad thinking before. it runs around in circles in my head. been praying helps.

i guess i wanted to ask without saying the rest of the information so as to see what people say. i dont want a lecture that i should know better. i want to know if normal drinkers ever get craving. ive asked one and they said no they never had a craving. but still my mind wont shut up about it. i cant really ask people because most people dont know im in recovery and its a strange question to ask.

i guess i noticed craving one time before that also, when the booze ran out but i was already really drunk at the time and managed to find more booze so I wasnt so aware of how the craving felt, that time is more hazy.
othertimes before that i guess i was probably not ever aware of a craving because i never ran out or had to stop half way through a session. i am not totally sure.

i read what i have posted and i sound nuts. but im still going to post it i am quite worried about posting this as i really dont want to be told i should know better. because its like my brain has shut down all logical reasoning with this. eugh.





-- Edited by slugcat on Sunday 20th of December 2009 10:38:07 PM

-- Edited by slugcat on Sunday 20th of December 2009 10:50:15 PM

Aloha Slugcat...take a gander at "Old lessons revisited" as it could be a piece of the
puzzle.  It is for me though I am not craving just having "flashes".   Not to worry there
are solutions and you are on to only one of them with revisiting the 1st step.  

hi thank you for replying. i have been through the steps once and done step 1 twice in depth. i think i need to do it annually.
i have no idea what has happened to my mind, its like all logic really flew away. i have been really comparing and WORRYING that i am not really an alkie. when all it is, is that i could never drink safely. i think i really got into aa before a lot of bad stuff happened and perhaps if i had not gotten in when i did i would not be here today u know.
maybe i had to get in sooner rather than later, maybe my HP knew that if it was left any longer i wouldnt be able to get in.
when i read about the feelings people have i relate when i read about jails or mental hospitals i cant relate cause i was lucky and never got to those places.

i did go to a different meeting and more people there i could relate to. which i need. i think i need to get to another different one tonight.
i tried last night to right out step one stuff but my mind just shut down. theres something really dodgy going on with my thinking. cunning baffling powerful is so true its horrible. and really is like a monkey on my back that wont shut up. but it is getting less now.

but it has been like i want validation from other alcolhics that i am really one. that craving thing i realised even if i got a definitive answer that no normal drinkers do not get that . my brain would just start trying to tell me that perhaps i didnt really have craving.

last night i went to a meeting and i talked about this and i talked about it alot i spoke of my drinking and the craving episode that got me into aa. no one there has said they think i over reacted and i still get asked to do speaking. so if others thought i wasnt really an alkie they wouldnt ask me to speak would they!

this disease sucks. i found a good chapter in a halzen book, basically says normal drinkers dont get craving and how booze affects an alkies body differently than a normal drinker. helped a lot to read that. i did try the doctors opinion but my mind just picked holes.

this forgetting how bad it was, i guess thats normal thing to have happen. it has really scared me how part of me must want to drink.

thank you for the replies i will now go do some meditation, get to a meeting later and do some step one work. the unmanageabilty.

-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 21st of December 2009 10:01:12 AM

slugocat, boy somehow you are glazing over some very glaringly obvious signs that you have serious problems whenever you drink. You've stated that: you can't drink safely, you can't control how much you drink, you obsess about drinking, obsess if you're an alcoholic, you obsess about whether you've gotten to AA too soon, you get blackouts and brownouts, you get violent, you get suicidal, you wind up in stranger's houses in dangerous situations, and you have to rely on others to get you out of them because you don't have the means to take care of yourslef. I'm sure that I'm leaving a few things out, oh yea and you are craving a drink all of time. Your disease is trying to tell you that you don't have a disease so it can kill you.
You're (like most of us) still dealing with the mental illness side of this disease. Please don't labor under the facts that you've YET to have a DUI, go to Jail, or go into a mental institution. Many of us haven't either. I never drank in the morning or during the day. I was always employed, always paid my bills and supported myself and my family, never convicted of a DUI, and I went to jail a couple nights for drunk in public. Never bankrupt, never ruined my credit, but I did get divorced and lost a couple jobs (mostly in early sobriety, I've been self employed for 20 years now). So don't think that everyone in AA has hit bottom on all these issues just because you've heard some good war stories in speaker meetings. We have plenty of folks in this forum that came into the program in their teens and twenties (I and Danielle got here at age 29).

One thing I wanted to say earlier is that this is a squirelly time to stay sober around the holidays. You really just need not listen to your head (which is trying to kill you lol) and buckle down, go to a lot of meetings and keep busy till January gets here. You're going to be ok.

There really isn't any work involved in steps 1 & 2. They are a state of mind more than anything. Step 1 is the problem, Step 2 is the answer and step 3 is the key to real, lasting sobriety and the ability to work the rest of the steps.

As has been suggested ... the Doctors Opinion explains the craving bit.

I am capable of craving just about anything. But only if it has been in my system can I crave it. I can crave booze, cigarettes, certain foods, chocolate, shopping, gambling and many more.