All the best,

Dave

That's so true. I think that the poison in our brains alters everything. Sense of reality, sense of love....that binge can make you feel depressed and really irrational and distorted. 

 

"The primary problem is the inability to keep away from that dreadful 1st drink"

  They physical craving is secondary problem. The primary problem is the inability to keep away from that dreadful 1st drink. Look back into and see what was the state of mind when you picked the bottle from the trash can and drank vodka. Probably, at that moment, all you were thinking/obsessing about was that 1 drink that will give you relief. That is the blind spot we need to address. When we are in non-acceptance of the current situation we are in, we shut ourselves from conscious thinking and all we are looking for is a temporary relief. 

No, it takes more alcohol to get there because of our functional tolerance to it and we also have to drink more because we metabolize it quicker, hence, the large quantities we can consume so quickly. Only speaking for myself here but I always wanted to get the buzz started quick, but sipping a beer would never do that. It used to in the past. I'd need to down a few in pretty short order alter on. Only people with a high tolerance can do that. Same with metabolizing the alcohol. When we metabolize it quicker we consume more. That's why some people could drink an entire bottle of whisky in a day. A moderate drinker would be completely totalled and drop like a stone if they did that. When you started drinking remember how little you had to drink to catch a buzz. Remember how quickly you could recover? Add in the age factor and your recovery time diminishes. It takes a long time to develop a tolerance to consuming vast amounts of alcohol. Sure the drinking problem progresses over time because we're building a tolerance to the problem and developing all sorts of supporting problems to go along with it. Think about how you don't think straight for a few days after a binge. Imagine binging everyday on extreme quantities of alcohol? Well, I can. Depression, anxiety, anger, irrationality, distorted thinking patterns......and having a drink helps calm it down. We never had the skills to deal with anxiety before the drinking problem started, how could we possibly expect those skills to magically appear in the midst of a full-blown addiction. If anything we'll rely more on the alcohol because we generate 10x the problems because we're drunk. Except now the problems are magnitudes worse and the stress levels are magnitudes higher. It's an easy problem to get lost in and the only way to resolve it is to stop. Give yourself the time to let your thinking come back, which starts happening fairly quickly. Over-coming the problem takes time. When we stop are minds are very malleable and open to change and we need to be careful with what we decide to program into them. Make sense? This is only part of the equation. There are natural brain mechanics at work as well and that's a whole other topic. Fortunately we have a LOT of very current, up-to-date resources we can draw on and so much progress has been made in our understanding the brain, nutrition, psychology, the mind, therapies, etc and were extremely fortunate to be living today rather than 50 to 80 years ago when the field was virtually non-existant and they viewed addiction as a moral weakness and employed completely ineffective techniques to resolve it. The most important thing to keep in mind is that we can resolve this challenge.

All the best,

Dave

So is it that it takes less to get there but more because to stay there? And we metabolize it differently like at a higher concentration? 

Great attitude ND. Keep going forward with that one.

People certainly metabolize alcohol differently, especially after someone becomes so well practiced after drinking excessively so an extended period of time. Women don't metabolize alcohol's well as men. 

Just to clarify, chronic alcohol user metabolize alcohol up 2x faster than the average drinker, not slower, resulting in a lower peak alcohol concentrations, which would explain the craving, not the other way around. It's called metabolic tolerance. Chronic users have end up with a functional tolerance, which is a change in the organs or systems sensitivity to alcohol. Chronic users have up to 2x the functional tolerance as average drinkers. Kind of a double-edged sword...chronic drinker's metabolize alcohol quicker and also have a higher tolerance for it so it makes sense that they would need to drink more and quicker to achieve the desired effect. So while we increase our tolerance (over a period of years) we also end up increasing  dysfunctional thinking habits (because our thinking is functionally impaired) and the remorse and regret from all of the stupid embarrassing things we do....ranging from destroying relationships to impaired driving charges to ruining a job.....the list of trauma's goes on, adding to our stress and low sense of self-worth. Imagine how traumatic the experience of profound regret is for a socially withdrawn person  if they get completely fall-down drunk in front of their peers. The whole cycle feeds on itself. 

All the best,

Dave

Foxman,

I get what you are saying.....

I am conceding...I have told my innermost self that I cannot drink. I am moving forward and gathering myself up and going to continue on with my life. 

 

I definately cannot metabolize alcohol properly. It is not my friend.  I don't want to leave room for failure but, I also want to accept it if I do have a failed attempt (as I have recently) and not beat myself up for it.  Because that's what i've been doing--beating myself up and that doesn't motivate me to quit it motivates me to drink more because, I feel like that's what's going to happen ultimately anyway----which is a wrong way to think about this. 

 

 NEW day....NEW frame of mine....I am trying to be kind to myself and realize that I'm not good or bad...I'm just a person with struggles.  Everyone has struggles....it's how we decide to deal with them and overcome them that defines our life.  I'm going to face it head on from now on....and be active in my own life.

I've been struggling lately. So I really haven't been posting as much as I should. I'm not in denial that I have a problem. I embrace it as that's the only way to beat it.  Being honest with yourself is very important because in the end it's yourself you have to look at in the mirror.  I slipped the other night and drank---and got sick. Normally I would have these several days to talking about it, feeling sorry for myself and doom and glooming it up. This time I am resolved to dust myself off and try again. This time I'm going to get it right! I'm resolved---gonna give up on trying to moderate for a while. I may revisit it later but I need some serious space from it right now.  

Honest--- honestly I have behaved like a teenager, honestly I have to stop because it's truely poison, honestly I wish I could just be back to my old self and not have this hang over me.