I drank a lot in my 20s and got into some bad situations but luckily nothing life altering. Ive now reached unc status and I didn’t get drunk that often with kids and all, maybe 4 or 5 times a year and usually when traveling. Though I had been traveling for work a lot and drinking too much, and I was starting to drink like 4 a night which felt like too much even if I wasn’t getting hangovers or whatever.
Decided to take a pause, not like a 12 step thing or anything but just to… not drink. It’s been a couple weeks now. I have a bunch of NA beers that for the most part fulfill the ritual but I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t like a real beer or a glass of bourbon right now. I could just have one like it’s not a big deal but also like, can I not? The craving is as strong as it is for cigarettes from back when I smoked socially
Brain need chemical
Hit 21 years old here and stopped myself, over ten years now. Brain desires chemical, but when has trusting your brain ever helped anyone?
I had an NA and watched TV it served the same purpose. Just wild how my brain basically defaulted to alcohol, I did not realize I was so psychologicallu dependent
Well alcoholism is a disease and if you have it hiding in your genetics every drink is a spin of Russian roulette, it may trigger, it may not.
the best description of alcohol i’ve ever seen described it as insidious and i think that’s just about perfect. so often you don’t even notice the trap until you’re dead and dressed
In AA they say alcohol is “cunning, baffling, powerful”
I’ve always struggled to relate with alcohol addiction because I think my body is just physically incapable of it or something? I used to drink a lot. I had zero issues with craving or anything. Could drink routinely for weeks, binge drink or just not at all, it caused no problems. I barely touch it a few times a year now and that’s only because of other people.
Smoking though? Other drugs? I damn well know what addiction is because I had a hell of a time getting off others. But I absolutely swear that some people are just totally immune to alcohol addiction for some reason. It’s gotta be a gene trait or something.
I have 0 problems with stims, dissociatives (hate em), benzos, opiates… Have triggered dependence a few times but no addiction.
Alcohol and nicotine? nightmare. Nic I quit after much struggling but I still crave daily years later. Alcohol is a constant struggle with frequent relapses. I don’t even like the effects anymore and it still has hooks.
Horrible drug.
On my mother’s side 3 in the family drank themselves silly and then killed themselves. So maybe it is heavily genetic.
I have literally the opposite.
Past this point CW: Drugs, particularly alcohol
I’ve done just about every substance imaginable. I can do rails of coke, crystal, oxycontin (when they still existed), benzos, ketamine, etc, all night long and have no craving for it at all the next day. Hell, shot morphine a few times and still had no craving for it later. If it’s there, cool, let’s party. If not, oh well, let’s party. Didn’t care either way. Honestly, still don’t. Someone cuts a line and says “you want a hit?” I’ll do the line first, then ask what it was after. Unsurprisingly, doesn’t come up a lot anymore as an old fucker. XD
Alcohol though… That one calls to me. It’s not even a “craving.” It’s insidious. It haunts you subtly. You don’t even realize it until you’re pouring a glass of bourbon, or cracking an IPA, like “wait, what just happened?”
Managed to wean off of it. I still do scheduled social drinking once, at most twice a week, but stay away otherwise. I come from a long line of functioning alcoholics on both sides of my family, so that probably explains a lot of it. Used to be a lot worse. Drinking to excess after work literally every single day. Get up again at 5am, go to work at a job I fucking despised with people I couldn’t fucking stand, come home, drink myself half-unconscious again. Rinse, repeat. Getting a better job helped, but the problem then was the actual drinking culture at the company. You have to go to the bar after work with the big bosses. You want that promotion right? You want that raise right? That’s how you move up in the company. Bigger problem was I actually liked those people, and they liked me. So it wasn’t holding my nose and “enduring” the bar just to get a promotion. I wanted to go hang with them.
Having a kiddo helped me a lot. I have to take care of a little person, so I just can’t be drinking at all. I just do not have the option unless it’s pre-planned and scheduled ahead of time so I know my partner will be able to take care of the kiddo. No randomly just “having a few beers” anymore. It is just wildly irresponsible, in my opinion, to be under the influence of anything stronger than allergy medicine if you’re taking care of children.
No idea where I’m going with this. I just wanted to share because we seem to have had the exact opposite problem. Maybe I’m just getting old. I don’t know. I know with over two decades of substance abuse I’ve probably done a lot of damage to my liver, which is the other reason I am minimizing as much as possible the amount I consume. I would rather not drink at all but I think there is, like you were saying, some genetic trait. I mean I know there is. Look at the rest of my lineage: bunch of drunks that would show up at work on time every single day and do their jobs competently and skillfully, but still a bunch of drunks.
I’m just hoping my partner has the dominant genes, and none of the shit in my lineage gets passed on to my kiddo. I could die happy if I knew my kid didn’t end up with severe clinical depression and substance abuse problems like the rest of my fucking family.
But don’t get it twisted: my parents are excellent people. They dealt with their issues and rose above them, and did everything they could to raise me the same. They’re why I’m a hard leftist that found my way to a place like this. They’re why I can openly talk about shit like this, because it’s valuable if other people can learn and benefit. We’re here to help each other.
Anyway. Old shitposter emo-rant over. Back to the shitpost mines.
I once went for a walk at night with my headphones on only to end up at the gas station where I tended to buy beer. Literally just stood outside of it contemplating if I had a problem or not. I didn’t yet but it was absolutely developing and I had to slow the fuck down.
Turns out I also have a serious genetic predisposition. 5 of my grandparents’ siblings in total on both sides of the family have died from liver failure. My parents drank multiple times a week when I was a kid and a few of my uncles have a problem. I just thought it was normal. My dad quit a few years ago though and I am very proud of him ❤️
Exactly. Humans have a strange relationship with alcohol. Maybe just because it’s been within our culture/species for so many thousands of years. It’s good to recognize that in yourself, and say: hey… maybe I need to chill the fuck out before this becomes an issue. Props to you, comrade.
And Edit: Props to your pops! Hell yeah!
Edit Edit: Yeah. The people around me had at least a few drinks every single day my whole life. I just thought it was normal too, that’s just how people lived. My grandma, that basically raised me since both my parents had to work, probably finished off half a handle of bourbon a day, and smoked two packs of unfiltered Pall Malls every day. She was a wonderful person and one of my best friends, but damn that was an unhealthy lifestyle. Alcohol and cigs didn’t kill her though, Alzheimer’s at 89 years old did. Though I don’t have any illusions that the alcohol didn’t contribute to that.
Interesting. This is a huge part of why I think it has to be some genetic trait. I’ve known a few people that just can’t not drink, it controls them. It’s really obvious it’s addiction because obviously I know what addiction is like from other things, but the fact I literally do not experience it at all makes it fairly obvious there must be some biological difference between us.
Anyway i’m glad you’re in control comrade. For the little one, as well as yourself.
Thank you. I’m glad too.
Like I mentioned to another person: humans have a very strange relationship with alcohol. It’s been with us for 9,000 years at least. I have no doubt that we have, by this point, developed genetic responses to it. Glad it missed you though, and I’m also glad that you got past the rest of the drug zoo. Stay strong tovarishch.
There’s definitely some specific behavioural/stressor related circumstances, too. I would’ve argued I just couldn’t get addicted to alcohol, drank a lot in my late teens/early twenties, and could just stop on a dime, no problem. Same as you, routine for weeks, binge, stop, zero issues or cravings.
Then a few years later, I got an extremely stressful job, started drinking every night specifically to cope with the stress. And that was the issue, after only a couple weeks, I noticed I couldn’t relax without alcohol. I was starting to mentally work out how much I could legally drink and drive to get through a day. I packed a half brandy with my work lunch.
Thankfully, it’s something I was consciously aware of, so I very reluctantly handed in the job and decided to be (thankfully temporarily) povertous instead of an alcoholic. But I looked into the eyes of the beast that month, and I saw that a drug can be fine and enjoyable almost ad infinitum, but as soon as it becomes a person’s “coping mechanism”, that’s a real danger point.
Not saying some people aren’t massively predisposed to addiction, but it’s definitely a complex affair that can strike in the right circumstances.
I feel like I’m like that with nicotine. Alcohol kinda clicks with me :/
I would not have described myself as addicted prior to this sober stint, it is eye opening
Interesting, are there withdrawal symptoms? I get killer headaches if I do not appease my caffeine addiction with ritual coffee
Mild alcohol withdrawal is anxiety and irritability but as part of what it acts on is GABA receptors severe withdrawal is nuts.
GABA and glutamate work to regulate excitation (how much signal and how much they spread roughly) in the brain. A sudden deficiency in gaba and neurons are too active. You get shakes, hallucinations, and eventually neurons die in a process called excitotoxicity.
It’s one of the rare drugs where withdrawal can actually kill you. Fortunately that required being pretty high on it chronically. Most alcoholics will just experience restless anxiety and dysphoria.
For me no it’s a psychological addiction not a physical one
A good analogy since we are all terminally online it’s like when you don’t have your phone
I feel like the opposite, I think about alcohol and it makes me feel sick. I drink my favorite tasty drink of choice, but it just feels bad. In certain circumstances I will drink until I black out. Apparently this too (drinking even though it makes you feel bad, and then binge drinking when you do) is a form of alcoholism.
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