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9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

Hi TS,

I agree the people of this world that are given the chance to hurt others. I am always amazed by it...unfortunately a lot of us here on AHC have been through some seriously bad pasts-- movie of the week kind of stuff for sure. Pick up and move on or relive it those are the choices. I want to move on. I feel like I've faced many of the things that bother me...but perhaps they aren't "faced" yet and simply buried. I don't know the answer to that one.

I do know, my kids and husband are my world. I feel like, to get the privilege to love a child and be loved by them is such a blessing. I feel grateful to have the chance to make my life right and to make sure they have great memories. Thanks TS for making me think !

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 345

Hi ND,

How sad that so very many of us have been damaged, abused almost destroyed at the hands of those that should have been our protectors. How despicable that the ones who should have loved us more than their own lives (as I love my own children) could premeditate horrors upon us more fitting of that of a B movie.

However, these individuals do not own our souls. While they tried their best to demoralize and negate our existence, they cannot break us unless we allow them to. Self hate is a product of “their” abuse. We need to love ourselves. We cannot heal until we do.

Rewriting your perceptions enables you to put these life events into perspective. Recognizing that they not you, should be enveloped in self hate for their atrocities.

ND, please understand that your wounds can heal but only if you let them. Allowing them to fester is allowing your tormentors to be triumphant.

Don’t give them that power.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

Ok...I can't work the quote feature on here as I just reposted Dave's entire post! LOL!

My point was going to be that I agree with you that once we get to a certain point in the drinking all critical thinking and logic is turned off. That is a fact of science. The frontal cortex of our brain that governs our decisions can be shut off so to speak and we run on instinct and do what we want----I think that's where our AV lives. AV isn't rational.

Yes, TS, you are correct. My self perception has always been a source of negative energy for me. And there is no amount of counseling, or self talk that can change it when I decide to activate my self hate "button". It's too deeply ingrained. Years and years of critical life, be it childhood, religion or my poor decision (and probably deliberate) to pick an abuser for a first husband. I do struggle to feel like I belong every day at some point. And I do have bad, really bad self talk habits. So, all that said...i think it's a sabotage kind of thing. I've known that for a while. I can pinpoint it....childhood. But, that was long ago and it's time to get over it. Right? I cannot use my childhood or 1st marriage as an excuse to drink. I'm a grown woman and it's time to act like one. That's how I'm feeling today. My family doesn't deserve to wait for another episode. I've got to snap out of it and get control and be rational. I don't want to continue the madness or teach it to my kids.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

One thing that is important to make note of is our behaviour when we are drinking vs when we are not drinking. When you describe being irrationally angry, had you not already consumed a fair amount of liquor? Even if it was the next day, it would have been influenced by a hangover. Once we get the ball rolling, it's a pretty deliberate decision on our part to run with it because we've shut off the critical thinking part of our brain and running on a completely different part that doesn't use logic.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1009

Hi ND,

One thing that is important to make note of is our behaviour when we are drinking vs when we are not drinking. When you describe being irrationally angry, had you not already consumed a fair amount of liquor? Even if it was the next day, it would have been influenced by a hangover. Once we get the ball rolling, it's a pretty deliberate decision on our part to run with it because we've shut off the critical thinking part of our brain and running on a completely different part that doesn't use logic. There are many reasons for that and we can overcome them, when we're straight anyway. Irrationality is a hallmark of being drunk, not straight. Maybe we shouldn't mix and match our drunken behaviour with our straight behaviour?

While I don't understand what is meant by saying "He/ She has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment" I really don't agree with context of what is being said overall because it dismisses the problems that precede the drinking. As an example, someone could be perfectly sensible in everything in their lives (extremely unlikely) except spending money but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish (credit cards).......which leads them to drink excessively under the panic and stress of going into a spiralling debt because they can't pay it at the end of the month. In that case maybe they are trying manage and cope with anxiety generated trying to fill unmet needs through uncontrolled spending which led to alcohol abuse (which is expensive unto itself). We have a lot of stressors that can lead up to the event of drinking and prime our addictive voice and they really need to be addressed as part of our solution. Dismissing those is like trimming the top of an iceberg. So perhaps resolving those problems or finding better ways to deal with them is where we should be looking rather than the fact we don't understand why (yet) or what was the motivator to drink?

One thing I have noticed is how dysfunctional thinking patterns seem to escalate under times of stress and emotional pain, which lead into the incessant tape recorder that seems to replay anxious thinking at will. It's like an engine that, once started, becomes very difficult to shut off. Having a drink seems to quiet that voice but if we really want to shut it off we need to drown it out, usually in a vat of alcohol. Yet it wasn't really the voice itself that started it off, it was something else, external to ourselves. Our thinking habits drove it forward to a point where our body naturally says "Ok, enough of this stress and anxiety" and "bang", our default strategy rises from the depts of our subconscious (because it is now a well ingrained habit) and we start pouring a drink.

Something to consider....

All the best,

Dave

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

ND,

See if you can relate to this:

He/She has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept. He/She is often perfectly sensible and well balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish. He/She often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes, and has a promising career ahead of him/her. He/She uses his/her gifts to build up a bright outlook for his/her family and himself/herself, and then pulls the structure down on his/her head by a senseless series of sprees.

There peculiar mental twist (that you can handle a glass of wine) and then you pouring another glass of wine, and then venturing out to get a bottle of vodka (the phenomenon of craving) and the spiritual malady (being angry at your husband for having the Wine on the table) are common traits of alcoholic behavior.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 345

Hi ND,

Your self analysis is very interesting. Almost like you feel that you don’t deserve to be happy. Becoming introspective and trying to understand your own motives will help you deal with future slips.

“Deep down I feel like I'm nothing and bad and then when things are going well I have to self destruct.”

Perhaps you can dissect your past and pinpoint the time when you began to feel this way. Understanding why you are sabotaging yourself will help you heal simply by rewriting your perceptions.

Give it some thought.

Dave, you're so right, frightening what past trauma's can do to us.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1009

I hear about this "phenomenon of craving", as if it some magic trigger that kicks off in "people like us" and the one thing that I never hear about is the life precursors that led to the problem and were left, unaddressed, for a variety of reasons, and developed into coping strategies to cope with the trauma's one had to endure, piled one on top of another. (usually started with bad parenting). What exactly do we expect is going to happen when when we hi-jack the cognitive, logical part of our brain in favour of habitual relief through alcohol abuse that is driven by all sorts of trauma-based triggers? The choices are definitely different under the influence of alcohol, especially when it is well-practiced abuse, however, it's always deliberate.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

ND,

I appreciate your honesty. When it comes to consumption of alcohol what a glass of wine or bottle of beer for us is totally different from what others consider. For a bottle of beer was those 32 oz or the 20 oz long stem beers. I would down 1 easily and go for another. What you went through is what Dr. Silkworth termed as phenomenon of craving. This happens ones in a while not always, once you put a glass or bottle of some kind of alcohol in your body, you start craving for more. At the end of my drinking career I always wrong in the quantity of beers I bought for the weekend. Only after reading the doctors opinion people of our kind cannot manage the amount of liquor we consume. Its always not enough as the drinking progresses. Thats why moderation for some people is impossible. But the first thing we do when we realize we have a problem is to control the amount of alcohol we consume. We start of with a vigour but slowly and steadily we slip back to the old way of drinking.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

Hi TS! No, strangly I didn't black out. But I think they call it blue out where you don't go completely out but you can't remember everything. I remember most of the entire thing though. It started with my asking my husband what he was planning on doing with that wine...he said "i'm gonna drink it" I said "when?" He said " I don't know, you can open it if you want---but only have a glass". Sure. I can do that.....it was a large glass I poured....then I was a little buzzed (no food eaten that day) so one glass I nursed and then decided enough time had passed I should have another. Told him so....he said well I guess it's been long enough you should be ok.....by now I'm over half the bottle. Told him I was gonna pour it out. I did--in my glass and hid out in the kitchen to drink it. Then I wanted to "run out" and get dinner....stopping by the store i picked up the vodka....drank part of it in my diet coke on the way home.....got home and we had plans i was well buzzed by then and off into the rest of the night....What was I thinking? I was on a mission. I wasn't thinking this is great...it was like an animal thing looking back. I didn't give my brain any chance to think....by the middle of it when he realized I was drunk and confronted me....I got mad. Then justified drinking more because I was mad he was questioning me and that he was so surprised when he had left the bottle out in the first place. Which is stupid logic.

TS, what I realize it that when I'm the only one drinking, my inner AV is running it. If I'm in a social situation it's different, in that I can behave. The mind has other things going on and so not as worried about getting drunk. I can keep busy and have fun with my kids and doing family things but, if left alone and with nothing to do....i'm dangerous to myself. I felt like I was doing so well. It was better than it had been in so long. Then the earlier selft distructing behavior and now this. Makes me wonder if I'm not a self fullfilling proficy kind of girl. Deep down I feel like I'm nothing and bad and then when things are going well I have to self distruct. What do you think? Sounds messed up I know!

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