Alcoholics

Cindy Denning

Cindy Denning

Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
3,419
Name says it all. I have family members that drank themselves to death. I have family members who are are trying to dry out. I want to know, what gives an Alcoholic such a "delightful" love you to death attitude at night and could cut your throat in the morning. I realize it's a disease but not being a drinker I'd like to know just what gives you the right to do this? Educate me and by the way AA is a laugh.
 
Cindy Denning said:
by the way AA is a laugh.
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Cindy, AA, NA and other forms of group therapy have saved thousands of lives. Drug and alchohol addicts often suffer from lonliness and isolation, and need someone who will listen and shares their problems. It does not work for everyone but it does work for many.
 
research on animals ( monkeys) shows that the psychological dependance effect of alcohol is similar to that of Heroïn.

This places alcohol clearly in the class 3 substance

The governement raises a lot of funds by taxing the alcohol, although seemingly they are slowly realising that the profit they make on the alcohol-tax is wiped out by the healthcare expense alcoholism causes.

The problem is that, like tobacco, alcohol is socially accepted, and many people don't realise the extreme effects alcohol has on your body.

I predict that once the governement learns it's math, they will slowly go into a stepped program to decrease the appeal alcohol has on the population thru information campaigns, getting alcohol out of public life in a similar way as they did with tobacco.

In my point of vieuw alcohol should be available to people, but with the fact that they sign a contract with the governement that they are not eligable for medical care and or organ transplantation when they develop a disease caused by prolongued exposure to a harddrug.

Health care and organ donation should primeraly go to people who have a disease, not a self inflicted one.
 
Cindy Denning said:
I realize it's a disease but not being a drinker I'd like to know just what gives you the right to do this? Educate me and by the way AA is a laugh.
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I didn't know that the millions of alcoholics, in this country alone, had to ask your permission to medicate themselves.

Why not ask the same question of drug addicts?

It's pretty simple really, people have genetic problems, or were brutalized badly as children, either physically, or sexually, and it lasts all their life.

They generally suffer from low self esteem, shyness to the point of it being crippling, and a generalized just not feeling like everyone else.

Booze equalizes all that for them. One drink and they're on their way to normalcy. It stands to reason that a lot more drinks would make them even more normal, right?!?!

All my Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents that didn't get killed in WWII died as a direct result of booze.
I can't say for sure, but my paternal grandmother was a suffragette, and hated liquor, and was extremely overbearing, and I believe she gave all her kids low self esteem.

It was her and her ilk that got prohibition passed.

The thing she didn't realize was that she instilled a sense of low self esteem in all her children.
Like the preachers daughters, they lashed out in the only way they could, my father and uncles had a still in the basement that she never even knew about.
They were all alcoholics by the time the 1920's rolled around, and never stopped.

If you live with alcoholics, and don't like it as the tone of your opening speech would suggest, then move out, or throw them out.

People are responsible for their own actions, and nobody can make an alcoholic quit drinking but themselves. All this intervention crap they have on TV serves in most cases to drive that person away.

You don't just stop drinking. That just makes you a sober drunk, if you get my drift.
You have to treat the underlying symptom for it to be a successful recovery.

How you get to that point is anyone's guess. Most "experts are full of it, and have never been an alcoholic, or have the problems that cause many to drink to an early grave, so IMO, they really don't know squat!

AA never worked for me either. I was told that if I didn't go to AA meeting I would go back to drinking. The truth of the matter is, I detested AA meetings, and the only time I really felt like getting drunk again was at AA meetings. It's not for everybody.

I'm very lucky in the fact that I'm very stubborn, and when I realize I have a problem, and say I'm going to do something about it, even if it's to myself, I'll do it.

Everyone is different.

BTW, I had a heroin addict tell me once that it is easier kicking heroin than booze. he said all he had to do was not want to deal with the scumbags he bought smack from anymore.
The reason that drink is so hard to quit being, that booze is socially acceptable and everywhere you look(they now advertise hard liquor on TV).

Once you quit drinking, don't look for invitations to any former friends houses for parties, or even get a together.

No one wants anything to do with recovering alcoholics as they put a damper on everyone else's fun, so they think.

The recovering alcoholic has to start a whole new life from scratch, friends and everything.
It's really not easy, and that's why 95%+ that quit, go back to drinking in the first year.

I don't mean this post in a nasty manner, though I took your comment about "who gave us the right" as arrogant, and rather nasty.
If you didn't mean it that way, then my apologies.
 
my post included all legal or illegal drugs, like painkillers, sleepingtablets etc.
The fact is that we should teach our kids that alcohol is a hard drug. I don't "blaim" any of the alcohol addicts that have a problem with it now, the knowledge of the adverse affects was apparently absent.

We have to teach the new generation that alcohol is no longer socially acceptable.

Not punish the one who are already hooked on it.
 
Heh, Cindy you sound like me, intellectually I understand that addictive genes or brain wiring is very difficult to overcome. (I'd have a hard time giving up certain foods for example) I also understand that there seems to be a strong positive correlation to drinking and violence, depression, low self esteem, mood swings, poor impulse control, etc.

I have a sister that married an alcoholic. Nearly killed her several times, nearly killed himself a few, cost us thousands of dollars, caused years of suffereing and stress.

Luckily she has long since moved on. The result is emotionally I have zero tolerance for drunk people. Absuolutely zero.
 
I've often pondered about these things myself. I've got a psych degree and my father and only brother are the prototypical case examples (alcoholic and drug addict respectively, both have undergone AA and NA programs).

After all that's been said and done, the only thing I've been able to come up with in trying to grasp this "disease" wasn't in any field of study, program or behavioral-related endeavor, I think I found it in my quest for "the deeper things" or spirituality as most people call it. This is why I don't entirely percieve this condition as a "disease" per se.

As in any type of addiction (alcohol, drugs, sex), I think these are only symptoms, if not by-products of someone in a poor state of well-being. His real problem isn't this disease we've labeled on him, it's his SOUL, if you want to call it that.

If the soul (source of well-being) is treated, the patient will eventually build a stronger and more stable life for himself. He learns to respect and care from the inside out. I think this is why most therapies need to involve the love and support of family and friends---to make the patient feel "connected" and strengthened as opposed to depedent and weak.
 
I really do feel for anyone who suffers from any kind of addiction. I've seen too many wasted lives over addiction to alcohol and drugs. However, I don't see any reason why anyone should have to change their lives to correspond with the ebbs and flows of an addict. There's no reason to take everyone down with the ship. I hate being around alcoholics so much that I refused to live with my mother during most of my childhood because my stepfather was an alcoholic. Imagine being 13 years old and realizing that you couldn't live with your own mother anymore because you're too strong-headed to listen to the nonsensical rantings of a drunk without expressing your views on the matter. Talking to my step-father was often like looking through a kaleidoscope. Everything he said was fragmented and out of touch with reality. The saddest part of it all is that I really think he was a good guy. He had a beautiful heart and a lovely personality when he wasn't too inebriated. It took me years after his death to finally admit that to myself. That's really sad.

Anyhow, I agree with Mike, most of the time these addicts have serious underlying issues that need to be addressed. I have a friend who is a former addict, so bad that she turned to prostitution, and she cleaned herself up and got an education in addiction counseling or something of that sort. She always laughs when I tell her that people are simply going to AA or NA to resolve their addictions. It's not that the program doesn't work. It has had many successes. But, it is her viewpoint that most addicts need more than AA or NA have to offer.

It sounds to me like Cindy is frustrated by treatment she has received from an alcoholic. Well Cindy here's the answer to your question, you give them the right by allowing them to continue. :(
 
Mongo-man said:
The governement raises a lot of funds by taxing the alcohol, although seemingly they are slowly realising that the profit they make on the alcohol-tax is wiped out by the healthcare expense alcoholism causes.
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Easy solution: abolish both the alcohol tax and the public health care system.
 
Two women I knew went to AA for help. I drove one of them myself because she was too intoxicated but determind to go to the meeting. I made it a point to check up on her to make sure she was ok and guess I should have called first. The therapist treating her alcoholism was with her at an awkward moment I walked in to on an early Sunday morning in her home. Mike Hull, no one needs my permission to drink or engage in any substance abuse of their choice. Jsmatos, you are right and I am sorry your childhood was tough. :(
 
Cindy Denning said:
Jsmatos, you are right and I am sorry your childhood was tough. :(
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At the time, I didn't think that my childhood was tough. It had its ups and downs, but I squeezed a lot of good times out of it too. I was always too focused on the challenge ahead of me to worry about anything beyond the moment. I really don't think that I did have a bad childhood. I was in the driver's seat, there were only parts of it that were bad. So, I don't accept your sorrow. :p :D Thanks anyway. :)
 
I want to know, what gives an Alcoholic such a "delightful" love you to death attitude at night and could cut your throat in the morning.
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Speaking from personal experience, alcohol sets you up to believe that all is well, everyone is your friend, and that you can do no wrong. Whatever part of your brain that controls compassion and love becomes stimulated so you feel you can help and "love" others.
The next morning? Besides a hangover and feeling depressed, all those wonderful feelings swing in the opposite direction for whatever reason. That compassion turns to anger and rage.It's no fun for the addicted person either. Anyway, thanks for reminding me what life used to be like :)
 
This is a topic I would normally post in and in serious form as i have expertise in this area [not experience but expertise]

But I simply could not put it any better than Mike Hull.

Bravo, Mike......................................................
 
Matches said:
Speaking from personal experience, alcohol sets you up to believe that all is well, everyone is your friend, and that you can do no wrong. Whatever part of your brain that controls compassion and love becomes stimulated so you feel you can help and "love" others.
The next morning? Besides a hangover and feeling depressed, all those wonderful feelings swing in the opposite direction for whatever reason. That compassion turns to anger and rage.It's no fun for the addicted person either. Anyway, thanks for reminding me what life used to be like :)
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Bingo. That's it. Thanks and sounds like my dear cousin has some choices to make in his life and I hope it's for the best.
 
My father was a drunk when I was a kid and to this day not so sober, alot better though. I was too young to understand why he was yelling at me anyhow, but thats niether here nor there.

I went through the same thing myself, I just grew up and stepped out of it.
Arguably I should have died a dozen times. Ya gotta be able to see the problem, love something more than what you are doing to yourself and have the skill to grow up in life.
And that's what ya gotta do, Grow up just a handfull more.

That's how I understand it.
 
Cindy Denning said:
Bingo. That's it. Thanks and sounds like my dear cousin has some choices to make in his life and I hope it's for the best.
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Hope it all works out Cindy, it's a horrible mess for everyone involved ;)
 
Mike said:
Once you quit drinking, don't look for invitations to any former friends houses for parties, or even get a together.

No one wants anything to do with recovering alcoholics as they put a damper on everyone else's fun, so they think.
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Amen brother.
And I believe the damper is the fact that the feel less powerful.
"He beat it. I can't...no I don't want to....there's nothing to beat..."
When I told my friends that I would no longer be drinking.
One said:
"Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I don't have to quit cause I only.....yadda, yadda"
Another said:
"Don't worry, you'll drink again."
And my favorite was:
"You can't do that to me!"

I still see 2 out of the three, but less and less. They always make sure to announce when they go to the cooler for a beer. Or when it's time to sip from the flask.
Makes them feel like they have the power.

Matches hit it right on the head as well as Mike.

Cindy the best way I could explain it is that having a couple of drinks in you is like pulling on a warm fuzzy (mental) sweater on a cool night.
The next day it's like you lost the sweater and slept on the damp ground.
So you want to go find that sweater, right?

Johnny Cash said it best.
You start drinkin' out of the bottle.
Keep at it and the bottle starts drinkin' outta you.
 
I’ve been around quite a few addicts, and there are a couple of recurring themes.

There is always an underlying problem that they are trying to bury with the drug, and when the drugs wear off they realize that it doesn’t work, and that the drugs are distancing them even further from everything they ever cared about.

The only addicts I know who have successfully stopped are the ones who identified and confronted the underlying problem that made drugs seem necessary/appealing in the first place.
 
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