Ymx wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2023 6:40 am
Tichtheid wrote: Sat Nov 04, 2023 1:24 am
Slick wrote: Fri Nov 03, 2023 11:03 am
Can anyone recommend any good podcasts - I'm sure it's been mentioned before. Particularly any on getting over the mental hump of "never again"
Does it have to be "never again"?
I ask because I was quite relieved to find over the course of the last two years that I'm not actually an alcoholic and I can take or leave it as I please, I only had to break the habit of it being every night/most nights - I think there is a big, monumental, difference between habit and addiction, the first can definitely grow into the latter if we are not careful, but the first is quite easy to break, the latter is very difficult.
I've been on a bit of journey with this, from a very low point to being okay now.
DM if you like
Everyone is a bit different. But I just worry that the advice you’re handing out here might be a bit dangerous for most others.
Quite a few of us have been down the path of trying to moderate it, only to find that it slowly slips to heavier drinking each time. And it takes a lot of energy and effort and time to get back to not drinking. The effects and urges and thoughts about drinking lasting a year or so.
So I really would not encourage someone who has got to a good point, to let it slip.
As you say every one is a bit different. I was relating my own experience.
I know how addiction works, the mental tricks it plays on you, I've experienced it with nicotine and I nursed someone through anorexia, which works in a similar way in that there is something that drives you to destructive behaviour. This can be so strong that it can lead someone to go against the most fundamental human instinct, more fundamental than anything else, the need to eat enough to stay alive. I don't take this subject lightly.
To repeat, there is a difference between habit and addiction, but perhaps, and this is just my opinion on it, if we create this great big hill of it, it becomes too big a deal if you know what I mean, and in fact it can lead you to do the very thing you are trying to stop.
I'd add that all the usual signs are legitimate and should be looked for - Do you feel you are drinking too much? Do you get annoyed when others say you are drinking too much? Do you plan your day/weekend around drinking? etc That's before we get into the physical signs of alcoholism; withdrawal, binge drinking or a very high tolerance.
I think those are signs of problem drinking and probably some help is needed in that case.
On getting over the forever thing. I genuinely think the best thing for this is time. Just know that it feels less like some kind of sacrifice, and more like a life choice to not use these type of drugs, as the weeks and months whizz by.
I myself am not aware of any podcasts, perhaps others might. But personally I had CBT and a counselor to talk to, to get me over the hump.
Part of it is what you tell people. So just say you feel a lot better for it, and don’t have any plans to start again. It’s so strange you have to explain to others why you are not taking a certain drug.
If someone does want to change their habits then one day at a time is the way to go about it, as you say the days grow into weeks, into months, into years.
A couple of years ago I tried a cigarette for the first time in about fifteen years, I don't really know why, maybe the addiction never really leaves you, but I found it disgusting and I thought wtf was I doing? You actually have to work at becoming addicted to that stuff because it's so alien - forcing poisonous smoke down your lungs.
Stopping alcohol is probably more difficult because it's more socially acceptable and it tastes good, well probably not to a non-drinker right enough, but my point is that people will almost universally offer encouragement if you stop smoking, stopping drinking doesn't have that kind of backing.
