Please read pg 20-21 of the AA book. Moderate drinkers have little or no trouble giving up liquor if they have good reason for it. Heavy drinkers need medical or psychiatric help to stop but they can also recover. Real alcoholics however, once they start drinking cannot control the amount of liquor they consume. Also a real alcoholic cannot stay away from a drink even when they honestly and sincerely want to. We are powerless over alcohol. The book says we are without defense against the 1st drink. If you read the AA book and the description of the alcoholic chances are you might not be an alcoholic. You might be a problem drinker in which case the normal medical treatment might fix you up. If however you are a real alcoholic, ONLY a spiritual experience would be able to relieve you of your alcoholism and AA makes that possible through it's 12 steps of recovery.
I hope this helps you.

mandm wrote:

---

Well i guess i may not be dependant I do have a problem with starting and stoping. I usually stop when i'm done.

I find myself cycling through a simlar pattern. i drink heavy don't want to drink ever agian go 1 or two weeks then get a craving and start the cycle all over agian.

but I don't want to have that one day anymore.

and I just thought it was odd the amount that I drank that would normally make the average person the sick since I consumed a mikie in the course of 3 hours. With absoloutly no side effects the next day.




-- Edited by mandm on Wednesday 23rd of June 2010 10:18:27 AM

---

The amount we drink has nothing to do with being an Alcoholic although many of us myself included had vastly greater tolerance to alcohol then normal drinkers do. In my case I was fully functional drinking a quart of 100 proof bourbon a day.  That did not make me an alcoholic.   What makes me an alcoholic is once I start I cannot reliably predict the outcome.  

In AA we say it is not how much or how often you drink but what happens when you do drink.

Larry,
-------------------------
Once you are a
Pickle
You can't go back to being a
Cucumber

 

-- Edited by Larry_H on Wednesday 23rd of June 2010 10:33:15 AM

well all i know is when i do drink i always drink more then planned, I always hide my drinking. I don't understand why i have this craving to drink i find my self to be a pretty stand up guy, my grandfarther was an alcoholic, and I know its in my jeans, he is an Italian man that doesn't speak english well, he was hospitalized for drinking and the doctor after told him he could have a beer if he wanted to. he told me " Why would i want one beer, I want all of it or nothing."

so do you all actually go to aa meeting ? and if so how often. I guess no one says i want to go to one right?

Welcome to MIP mandm. The only question I can answer for certain is yes, I absolutely go to AA. I try and make 5 meetings a week, but always no less than 3, depending on my work schedule. No one should tell you that AA is the only way, but it's the only way that worked for me, and I tried EVERYTHING. I don't go to AA today to quit drinking...I've already done that. I go to my meetings today to help me learn how to live a good, clean, and sober life one day at a time. The friends I have made in AA would do just about anything for me today, obviously within reason. For this alcoholic, AA is a way of life that helps me be the person I want to be.

Stick around and you might just be able to answer your own questions one day.

Brian

Yes mandm.....I go to AA meetings. They are WONDERFUL!!! Give one a try and it will help to answer sooo many questions you may have. Good Luck!

I started drinking because of insomnia. A glass of wine before bed 10 years ago turned into 2 bottles eventually... tolerance builds up, of course. The irony is, after telling myself for many years that I couldn't stop drinking because "well, a person has to sleep!" I am sleeping much better now. Initially I had some insomnia but it passed, and now I feel so much more refreshed in the morning because I have had "real" sleep rather than an alcohol-induced "relaxed" state that inhibits REM sleep, which is important for real rest. That's true even if I get 5-6 hours without drinking than if I got 8-9 drinking.

Hang in there, you can do this. And I also think AA is a great program and encourage you to go to a meeting just to see what it's like.

GG

Well i did good my first night, I know you don't recommend the over the counter meds but I had to do something I cannot take being up all night. I won't take them unless I need them.

so i'm on day 2 of being sober which is great, I'm usually good until day 5 - 7 then i start telling myself just one then one leads to 3 then to 8 or whatever i stop counting.

One of the main reasons I don't consider AA is I know it heavily go along the lines of there being a higher power and they also to encourage you to tell someone. I've looked at the book in the library before.

For religion is not my forte and i don't want anyone knowing i have a problem with drinking because I don't want to appear weak. I'd rather them just think I quite drinking for a health choice.

Actually I was doing super good last month I went three weeks without drinking then it was my cousins graduation from law school, and an open bar and the stupid bartender kept giving me cokes in a little kid glass, so everyone was like m get a drink, well the next day I had to walk to get my car.

You will likely start drinking if you don't attend meetings. You have the genetics and the cravings. Sounds like you are minimizing really negative consequences of drinking to your health and finances and it is getting progressively worse. You are playing with fire. You already admitted to having the halmark features of alcoholism. With that said, if you had cancer, would you want to look at online cures and read about them or actually go get treatment? Don't play around with a deadly disease and don't wait until you are so messed up that it is 10 times harder to recover. My drinking was the same as yours in my 20s and it progressed to being totally out of control by my mid 30s... Like all addictions, you usually have to nurse it for a while in order to get really sick and dependent...Trust me, it will happen if you keep playing around. This forum is no cure and only is mean to be a stepping stone for newcomers to ask us about meetings and to bolster courage to go. It also helps those of us who already have a program of recovery bounce ideas of each other and share our experiences to give each other hope.

I had a stint where I quit drinking for 4 months on my own before AA. When I started again, I was miraculously able to drink daily without feeling nearly as sick as I did (for a while)... What I know now is that the disease was doing pushups and getting stronger when I was not drinking. My ability to drink even more without getting hungover was only a further symptom of my alcoholism. It is when I started drinking again after those 4 months of "sobriety on my own" that I really crashed and burned and I had nowhere else to turn but AA. So, going on my own experience, I would tell you to get serious, stop doing the experiments with alcohol, and start working on recovery. How bad do you want things to get? Oh, and by the way I love going to meetings now and so do most of the other people who are regular AA members here (I am speaking for them which I shouldn't - but after acheiving some sobriety, meetings are a place to stay centered, be spiritual, and to see like minded fellows that we have come to care about. There is nothing but positivity in that).

Mark

I could also even take this further to say that my grandfather also helped condition me that this is cool and what you do, instead of saying its genetic.


When a boy grows up to abuse his wife because his dad abused him, people do not say that its genetic to beat your wife, its a learn action.

mandm wrote:

---

I'm fairly confident that that alcoholism is not a disease but a result of poor personal choices, Which is why I believe i will be able to battle it on my own. For example no babys are every addicted to drinking or children in elementary school.

---

You sure about that?

My experience refutes that, both with drinking and smoking pot from about 10 years old on and seeing it with countless others

Anyhow, far out, you have your views on drinking, I won't try to change your mind or tell you what you should do, I do however have some questions:

(1) You go to Mexico and everyone says don't drink the water, you notice the natives drink it and seem fine, you figure it must be another urban myth, so you drink the water

The inevitable occurs, Montezuma's Revenge has never been so terrible, as you do the Mexican two step version of the 10 yard dash to ole' el Bano clutching your ass cheeks for dear life dreading the next fiery explosion...

STOP

Can you use your will power to stop this diarrhea?

Now go jogging...does that help your diarrhea?

(2) You start smoking cigarettes although there is plenty of evidence it causes lung cancer, there is equal evidence it doesn't (strangely enough in research funded by Tobacco Companies, but that's neither here nor there) and you get lung cancer, so you stop smoking...

Does the lung cancer go away?

Can you use willpower to make your lung cancer go away?

Now go jogging, did your lung cancer go away?

(3) You are a chocolate eatin , twinky eating Pepsi guzzlin pancakes with syrup breakfast kind of guy, dessert every night, sweets sweets and more sweets, but you get adult onset Diabetes...

Can you use willpower to manufacture Insulin? When you start crashing and going into keto acidosis and you can't think and you start to panic...you can't think, your motor skills are shot, you stagger your vision is blurry, and you can't even remember your name, as you slip into the diabetic coma

STOP

remain calm, you don't need that shot, you have WILLPOWER

OK, willpower isn't working, go jogging...did that help?

A disease is an unhealthy condition of mind or body characterized by certain recognizable signs and symptoms, in alcoholism that sign more then drinking is denial. Denial is when people lie to themselves and others about their drinking, by minimizing, by telling stories, by comparing to people that are worse, by having what is known as "personal exceptionalism"....

Click here to see what it looks like to suffer from "personal exceptionalism"

I know people that drink like fish that aren't alcoholics, I know people that rarely touch the stuff that are, how much you drink isn't a good indication of whether you are an alcoholic or not, the signs are:

If you try to quit and can't (mainly because you start rationalizing and planning your next drink within 48 hours of quitting, so you can say to yourself you COULD have quit if you REALLY tried) and you set a deadline, but somehow that deadline keeps getting moved up until you end up drinking exactly when you were going to anyway, right on pattern, one week, 3 weeks, whatever, but you COULD have quit if you tried....

riiiigggghhhht....

or

when you drink do you lose control of how much you drink, like you go to have one, but then you have 3, next thing you know you drink enough to put an entire knitting circle in the hospital with alcohol poisoning, sleep like a baby, then are proud you don't have a hangover (not every time ANY time, normal drinkers NEVER lose control, except maybe their bachelor party, like once or twice in their life IF THAT!!!! If a normal drinker goes to have one drink, many times they don't even finish that one.

Another HUGE red flag, as in oh god I'm well and truly fucked now is the guy who quits then within 2-3 days is already planning his next drink and telling people how it's going to be different this time, that guy is SCREWED every. single. time.

That guy is an alcoholic.

every time.

Might as well walk in to a meeting shitfaced drunk with a fifth of Jack and try to convince everyone there you don't have a drinking problem with like lights and a siren on your hat and a Tshirt that says "I don't have a drinking problem, I drink, I get drunk, I fall down, no problem"

We feel alcoholism is a condition of mind AND body, as in take someone with an addictive personality. give them a substance that makes them feel good, let them drink for an undetermined amount of time, and they cross an invisible line, they become a pickle, and once they cross that line, there is no going back to being a cucumber


mandm wrote:

---

I want to be able to drink, I just need to teach myself that 1 drink is ok. I'm just conditioned that once I have one i need 3. I desided that after a few weeks of sobrity am going to start treating myself to a single can a beer and not allow myself more than that, I will have fun with that one can and teach my body that it is ok to only drink one.
_________________________________________________________


Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.


Ding ding ding we have a winner!!!!!

Let me know how that whole "just one beer, and just occasionally" experiment works out for you, serious, I want to talk to you after you have tried that for 6 weeks and find out how many times that was actually the case (no pun intended)

I have a bet, a challenge if you will, if you can drink 2 drinks and JUST 2 drinks every night for 10 days I will take my hat off to you and declare you non-alcoholic

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals usually brief were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.

We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing a making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.

Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self- deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about- face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums we could increase the list ad infinitum.

 

All those things listed there are what ALCOHOLICS do to try to control their drinking

things like
jog
drink only beer

Reading the Book "Alcoholics Anonymous" at the library

limiting the number of drinks

NORMAL drinkers don't do ANY of those things BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE TO, IF THEY WANT TO STOP OR MODERATE, THEY DO

It takes no thought or effort

So go ahead and keep doing what you are doing, like I said in the beginning of this thread, there are 2 ways to find out if you are an alcoholic or not, and truthfully, the best way is

 

just keep drinking and trying to quit

 

Then remember this thread and reread it when you can't, remember in AA there are poeple that know how to quit drinking, hell save my email AGOwston@gmail.com, write me when you are ready, I will always be ready to help you if you should ever decide you can't do this on your own, save it on your computer, it may be 2 months, it may be 2 years, hell it may be 10, but after reading your last 2 posts I am looking forward to getting to know you a bit better, you and I have a lot in common, more then you know

 

The thing is, you think what you think, and you're gonna do what you're gonna do, but from here on out, every time you wake up after drinking, every time you go to have one or two, and then you look up and it's one or two (in the morning) and you have been drinking all night, I want you to think about what I said, every time you lose control, every time you attempt to moderate and can't, every time you try to quit but find yourself drinking again within 10 days, I want you to remember what I wrote...

 

then email me

 

I can wait

-- Edited by AGO on Friday 25th of June 2010 10:12:51 PM

AGO:

I like your bluntness its appreciated,

First of all with your several examples even though they where all quite amusing they don't quite compare. When I first started this thread, i was convince that alcoholism was a disease and that I had no choice but to face up to my demons and start going to aa or start doing something. I had never voiced my problems with alcohol out loud before, this thread is about the first time I had mentioned something.

but as I started talking and reading the story's and really thinking about drinking, I came to the realization that it is not a disease, but a form of condition. I know this is where a lot of people on here will want to say differently. Its much easier to say I have a condition that makes me not able to drink then to say, that I have a lack of self control and when combined with alcohol which hinders your judgment, its a colossal mess. All of which is my fault. When you blame something else its taking the easy way out. ( i know this may offend some of you). And why does everyone give this higher power all the credit. Your the one that should take the credit for your success!

The examples you gave of smoking and drinking the water are examples of real sickness in which will power alone obviously you have no control over, however it does make me thinking of great people like Lance Armstrong who go on to win the Tour after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, and is now cured, do you think his will to live and to push himself had anything to do with this? ( mind you thats a whole another thread)

I do realize i have a problem with drinking, I would agree that as soon as i have my first drink I feel the pull to have the second then to finish the bottle. I really feel myself wanting to pour and finish the second glass so i can get to my fourth, but I don't belive its because I have a disease but I've conditioned myself to like the feeling of drunkenness, that in combination with the fact that it hinders my judgment. As well as my past every since I was 16 years old all my friends thought about getting "fcked up"

Do you think a person that over eats and is obese has a disease as well? or is it a poor choice. What about a person is a bad driver and gets into car accidents all the time because they get on there cell phone every time they get into there car, this person cannot not answer there phone when it rings, when it rings they have to look to see whos calling,and they "have to answer it" and because of this lack of control and conditioning they get into an accident. Disease?

After really thinking about it I decided I don't want to be that person who cannot have a drink. I need to teach myself that drinking is not a way out of my problems, also that you can enjoy a drink without enjoying a bottle. For example drinking alone is not acceptable, ever. There are better things to do with your time like jogging then drinking your face off which is what I would typically do when I was bored. My girlfriend would leave the house to go to the barn, and I would think ah why not drink a quick six pack before she gets back, I actually got used to doing thing the next that that I apparently agreed to the night before because i was wasted. She never knew I had been drinking, I was good at keeping face. Then when she went for her night shower I'd finish off any drinking that I had left. All of this not acceptable, its my fault for thinking it was, I obviously was able to control myself when she is around I wasn't sneaking to get a drink, I chose when to drink, I had control.

And further more going back to my grand father who was also my drinking buddy when i was home from school on the weekends. He was a heavy drinking his entire life. from 20 - 68 my grandma always complained about his drinking being to the extreme and even as a kid I remember it always being extreme. He was hospitalized a few years ago for because of it, he had turned yellow because his liver was shot. He has not touched a drink since. I guess he cured himself of his disease with will power. or did he suddenly condition himself and reprogram his brain.

I think all of you that have been clean and sober because you have reprogrammed your brain should be proud of yourself for teaching yourselves your acceptable forum of drinking.

mandm wrote:

(1) I do realize i have a problem with drinking, I would agree that as soon as i have my first drink I feel the pull to have the second then to finish the bottle. I really feel myself wanting to pour and finish the second glass so i can get to my fourth, but I don't belive its because I have a disease but I've conditioned myself to like the feeling of drunkenness, that in combination with the fact that it hinders my judgment.

After really thinking about it I decided I don't want to be that person who cannot have a drink. I need to teach myself that drinking is not a way out of my problems, also that you can enjoy a drink without enjoying a bottle. For example drinking alone is not acceptable, ever. There are better things to do with your time like jogging then drinking your face off which is what I would typically do when I was bored. My girlfriend would leave the house to go to the barn, and I would think ah why not drink a quick six pack before she gets back, I actually got used to doing thing the next that that I apparently agreed to the night before because i was wasted. She never knew I had been drinking, I was good at keeping face. Then when she went for her night shower I'd finish off any drinking that I had left. All of this not acceptable, its my fault for thinking it was, I obviously was able to control myself when she is around I wasn't sneaking to get a drink, I chose when to drink, I had control.

_________________________________________________________________________

Just FYI, you have just about every sign and symptom of alcoholism there is, the list is large, and you have it, as a matter of fact I can't think of a single symptom of alcoholism you don't have, reading your posts have been a bit like some Monty Python sketch where a guy walks into a Doctor's Office complaining of a "slight discomfort" with his ass on fire then when the Dr. tries to explain, "well this is easy, your ass is on fire" he argues with the Dr. "No it's not" and just goes on and on, it's that funny

 

drinking one drink that makes you want 3 that makes you already planning drink 10

check

goes to an AA site to get help and support quitting drinking and within 48 hours decides he's not that bad and starts trying to justify his drinking to a bunch of sober people that have quit drinking

check

abnormal tolerance to alcohol and the ability to drink tons without a hangover

check

inability to quit and within 48 hours loses the desire to quit

check

 

Hiding drinking, lying about your drinking, and sneaky drinking around spouse

check

 

So is she not around any more? If she is gone, was it due to your drinking?

So I have been drinking for my entire 20's i am 26 years old and I had decided enough is enough, I am done with the throwing up I am done with wasting away my life.

What happened to that?

ooohhh, yeah, that was yesterday

I mean you are literally textbook, If I was training a sponsee to look for the signs and symptoms of textbook denial and active alcoholism I would refer him to this thread, the self justification, the rationalizations, the inability to enjoy and control their drinking, the remorse and saying they would quit and within 48 hours already planning the next drinking attempt, every one of which is listed as symtoms of alcoholism (jogging, switching to beer, limiting the number of drinks, reading inspirational books,  etc ad nauseum)

 

All this at age 26? You'll be sober by 30 or dead by 40, I actually think you'll be sober since you have been worrying about your drinking and researching it for quite some time by the sounds of it.

 

My main problem is since I work for myself with my online business there was no one really watching or paying attention but myself.

Your main problem is you are an alcoholic, and every alcoholic in the world has a story what his main problem is that strangely enough is related to his drinking while having nothing to do with his drinking "if you had my problems, you'd drink too" "if you worked and lived alone you'd drink too"

I mean did you read this?

The first casualty of addiction, like that of war, is the truth. At first the addict merely denies the truth to himself. But as the addiction, like a malignant tumor, slowly and progressively expands and invades more and more of the healthy tissue of his life and mind and world, the addict begins to deny the truth to others as well as to himself. He becomes a practiced and profligate liar in all matters related to the defense and preservation of his addiction, even though prior to the onset of his addictive illness, and often still in areas as yet untouched by the addiction, he may be scrupulously honest.

First the addict lies to himself about his addiction, then he begins to lie to others. Lying, evasion, deception, manipulation, spinning and other techniques for avoiding or distorting the truth are necessary parts of the addictive process. They precede the main body of the addiction like military sappers and shock troops, mapping and clearing the way for its advance and protecting it from hostile counterattacks.

Because addiction by definition is an irrational, unbalanced and unhealthy behavior pattern resulting from an abnormal obsession, it simply cannot continue to exist under normal circumstances without the progressive attack upon and distortion of reality resulting from the operation of its propaganda and psychological warfare brigades. The fundamentally insane and unsupportable thinking and behavior of the addict must be justified and rationalized so that the addiction can continue and progress.

One of the chief ways the addiction protects and strengthens itself is by a psychology of personal exceptionalism which permits the addict to maintain a simultaneous double-entry bookkeeping of addictive and non-addictive realities and to reconcile the two when required by reference to the unique, special considerations that àat least in his own mind- happen to apply to his particular case.

The form of the logic for this personal exceptionalism is:

• • Under ordinary circumstances and for most people X is undesirable/irrational;

• • My circumstances are not ordinary and I am different from most people;

• • Therefore X is not undesirable/irrational in my case - or not as undesirable/irrational as it would be in other cases.

Armed with this powerful tool of personal exceptionalism that is a virtual "Open Sesame" for every difficult ethical conundrum he is apt to face, the addict is free to take whatever measures are required for the preservation and progress of his addiction, while simultaneously maintaining his allegiance to the principles that would certainly apply if only his case were not a special one.

In treatment and rehabilitation centers this personal exceptionalism is commonly called "terminal uniqueness." The individual in the grip of this delusion is able to convince himself though not always others that his circumstances are such that ordinary rules and norms of behavior, rules and norms that he himself concurs with when it comes to other people, do not fairly or fully fit himself at the present time and hence must be bent or stretched just sufficiently to make room for his special needs. In most cases this plea for accommodation is acknowledged to be a temporary one and accompanied by a pledge or plan to return to the conventional "rules of engagement" as soon as circumstances permit. This is the basic mindset of "I'll quit tomorrow" and "If you had the problems I do you'd drink and drug, too!"

Or this?

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self- deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic.

Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums we could increase the list ad infinitum.

or have you seen this:

Our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for jay-walking. He gets a thrill out of skipping in front of fast-moving vehicles. He enjoys himself for a few years in spite of friendly warnings. Up to this point you would label him as a foolish chap having queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts him and he is slightly injured several times in succession. You would expect him, if he were normal, to cut it out. Presently he is hit again and this time has a fractured skull. Within a week after leaving the hospital a fast-moving trolley car breaks his arm. He tells you he has decided to stop jay-walking for good, but in a few weeks he breaks both legs.

On through the years this conduct continues, accompanied by his continual promises to be careful or to keep off the streets altogether. Finally, he can no longer work, his wife gets a divorce and he is held up to ridicule. He tries every known means to get the jaywalking idea out of his head. He shuts himself up in an asylum, hoping to mend his ways. But the day he comes out he races in front of a fire engine, which breaks his back. Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he?

 

Doesn't it worry you even a little bit that the last 3 quotes are written about alcoholics and you have displayed every characteristic of them in this thread alone? Just a few short paragraphs and you are all over these quotes....

In your research did you notice that just about every single person that decided alcoholism was poor self control was either not an alcoholic, not an addiction specialist or Dr., or, actually in 999.9999% of the time an alcoholic justifying his continued drinking, which is like fixing a headache with a hammer but there's logic for you huh?

"I could quit drinking if I chose too, I just choose not to even though my life is in the crapper because of it....."

that's OK, I am only saying this because the "real" alcoholic is absolutely unable to stop on self will or self knowledge, I'd like you to keep that in mind when you can't stop, I am not "labeling" you as such, I am saying you have every sign and symptom of alcoholism known to man and you should be aware of it, I don't mean just one or two, I mean every. single. one. so if you can't stop drinking or moderate on your own, which by the way, I have bad news for you, you won't, your ass is well and truly on fire, get help, there's no shame in it whatever you want to call it, condition or disease, the "official" AA line is it isn't a "disease" but a malady, illness, or "condition", the "disease model" is purely the AMA actually based on AA's findings actually

The truth is I am willing to bet you probably got drunk last night, I'm not positive, but I'd say there is a pretty good chance of it, what I do guarantee is you will be drunk, and I mean HAMMERED within 30 days

anyhow, your "condition" is progressive, and there will seem to be brief periods of "recovery" but they will ALWAYS be followed by still worse "relapses" until in time you reach pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization

Make no mistake, this day will come, I just want to make sure you know where to go when it does

_______________________________________________________________________

I think all of you that have been clean and sober because you have reprogrammed your brain should be proud of yourself for teaching yourselves your acceptable forum of drinking.

________________________________________________________________________

That is absolutely correct, but it is acceptable form of "not drinking" the 12 steps when worked in order fearlessly and thoroughly bring about a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism, not all of us are Christian or even religious in the slightest, as a matter of fact, many of us aren't, what we are is absolutely agreed on the method to quit drinking which is by working the steps we have the personality change, the "reprogramming" of the brain you talk about

 

I have drank twice after long years of sobriety to see if I could control or moderate my drinking, and the truth was, once I took a drink I didn't want to control or moderate my drinking, the thing we all have in common, what makes us alcoholics is we want to control and enjoy our drinking, if we control it, we don't enjoy it, and if we are enjoying it, we sure aren't controlling it

Seriously the best way to get a good knowledge of your condition is drink 2 drinks a night for 10 nights, if you are an alcoholic you won't be able to, although you will justify all those times you got drunk, you will still have gotten drunk X number of times

try it, prove it to yourself that you are a normal drinker, drink 2 a night for 10 days, it will be worth it, So I am not saying you need to quit drinking or you "need" to do this or that,  or go to rehab or AA, in my first post I said keep doing what you are doing and you will have a good knowledge of your condition far sooner then you are ready for it

Then we'll talk, when you're done trying it your way, we all had to do so, like 100 lb fish on 10 lb test, we gotta make our run, this is yours, good luck with it, I just know how it's gonna turn out

-- Edited by AGO on Sunday 27th of June 2010 08:54:23 AM

I have a copy of that book sitting on my coffee table

Good luck, truly, I wish you well, and like I said keep us updated

Today was day 6, I had a really big urge to drink today, what made it even tuffer was my gf bought a six pack of my favorite beer and it was sitting in the fridge. I really wanted one but I had decided I didn't want it. Well my sober brain told me that. What made it even tuffer was I had a bad/ stressful day. But i'm proud to say I stayed clean no problem... I'm drinking tea and venting on this board. It feels good to say that out loud.