Alcoholism Support Thread - Down the hatch

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Had an emotional moment the other day that was dealing with a situation involving loss/cancer and a lot of other significant things on top of it. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like being drunk to try and escape dealing with the emotional turmoil. I didn't drink and powered through the emotions and sadness that came across me.

It definitely hits differently when you no longer drink and you have an emotional situation and used to go through life being a drunkard and just going to the bottom of a bottle to deal with sadness.

It's been a day or two and I have no thoughts about drinking alcohol but it was definitely a moment that made me realize how alcohol was just a crutch that I inadvertently leaned on heavily simply because I would previously drink every day. I paused and processed the emotions and battled through it - feeling sadness and loss with a clear mind definitely hits differently but its possible to let it out and process it in all in a healthy way.

RIP to the person involved in this loss and cancer really sucks hard - the battle with it is bad enough and the worst battle to see in person but there are moments years later where it comes up again and hits hard and deep in your soul.

Nice to hear you got through it without hitting the bottle. When the going gets tough, that's when you have to be on your A-game. You will find that your emotions get a lot easier to deal with the more you deal with them head-on instead of drinking.

 

[neger psykolog]

Nice to hear you got through it without hitting the bottle. When the going gets tough, that's when you have to be on your A-game. You will find that your emotions get a lot easier to deal with the more you deal with them head-on instead of drinking.

I don't think emotions get easier. It's all the same when something really hits hard. I guess you get better at dealing with it over time but life is always going to be an extreme rollercoaster of love, hate, anger, loss and mainly things that you simply have no control of.
I think the key part is to learn acceptance that the world can't be controlled (at least that is how I see things)

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

I'm two weeks sober tomorrow. Feels good.

 

[dick brain]

I don't think emotions get easier. It's all the same when something really hits hard. I guess you get better at dealing with it over time but life is always going to be an extreme rollercoaster of love, hate, anger, loss and mainly things that you simply have no control of.
I think the key part is to learn acceptance that the world can't be controlled (at least that is how I see things)

I'm two weeks sober tomorrow. Feels good.

Good job.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

I don't think emotions get easier. It's all the same when something really hits hard. I guess you get better at dealing with it over time but life is always going to be an extreme rollercoaster of love, hate, anger, loss and mainly things that you simply have no control of.
I think the key part is to learn acceptance that the world can't be controlled (at least that is how I see things)

@dick brain already said it. The emotions don't get less emotion-y but you do get better at dealing with and regulating them.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

@dick brain already said it. The emotions don't get less emotion-y but you do get better at dealing with and regulating them.

Couldn't agree more. The fog leaves your head after a while and you're not such a slave to those emotions. They're still present, but you have a say in how they make it act.

 

[666NASTYFUCKINGFREAK666]

Should somebody message the admins to merge the two drinking threads together?

Starting to drink again; I've drank a handle of liquor in the past 4 days. Probably going to stop but its so retarded how many calories this shit is, completely ruins my macros/weight loss shit I'm doing. If I didn't drink (assuming I didn't eat the calories instead which is a big ask) I would be 1.67lbs lighter.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I went a few months sober some time ago, then relapsed a bunch every 2-3 weeks. I've more or less concluded it's down to being bored. Hard-earned friday night, I feel like I need to 'join in' on all the other people doing something special that friday evening. Except it can be ordering pizza, eating out or going for a swim. I instead immediately relate it to something social despite never having benefited from being drunk on a friday night. If anything, I get talkative and forget to drink at parties.

Instead I should see it as a chance to get up early the next day. I feel gamed out saturday morning and it's like 9pm. It feels great. I clean, shop, wash and all manner of shit, but it's not as immediately cool as gaming drunk so I discard it. Maybe I should start biking again but for real. Actually demand of myself 40-50km every saturday then microdose 20-25km after work now and then. I don't even care for speed or distance, it's mostly being out there, feeling good in my soul that I can say "Yeah I bike". Yet it's easier to just drink and throw up for half a day.

Sounds like biking. "When does my ass stop hurting?" it doesn't. "When do I get faster?", you basically don't, you just get more consistent in speed and performance. You relate biking to driving a car, going faster the more confident you get, but ultimately it's no different than running. It's a treadmill of pain and you just get better at dealing with it. Biking has helped me a lot in dealing with being uncomfortable, ie. going to bed slightly hungry cause I fast for long periods of time.

 

[dick brain]

I went a few months sober some time ago, then relapsed a bunch every 2-3 weeks. I've more or less concluded it's down to being bored. Hard-earned friday night, I feel like I need to 'join in' on all the other people doing something special that friday evening. Except it can be ordering pizza, eating out or going for a swim. I instead immediately relate it to something social despite never having benefited from being drunk on a friday night. If anything, I get talkative and forget to drink at parties.

Instead I should see it as a chance to get up early the next day. I feel gamed out saturday morning and it's like 9pm. It feels great. I clean, shop, wash and all manner of shit, but it's not as immediately cool as gaming drunk so I discard it. Maybe I should start biking again but for real. Actually demand of myself 40-50km every saturday then microdose 20-25km after work now and then. I don't even care for speed or distance, it's mostly being out there, feeling good in my soul that I can say "Yeah I bike". Yet it's easier to just drink and throw up for half a day.

Sounds like biking. "When does my ass stop hurting?" it doesn't. "When do I get faster?", you basically don't, you just get more consistent in speed and performance. You relate biking to driving a car, going faster the more confident you get, but ultimately it's no different than running. It's a treadmill of pain and you just get better at dealing with it. Biking has helped me a lot in dealing with being uncomfortable, ie. going to bed slightly hungry cause I fast for long periods of time.

It sounds like you should stop playing video games and find something else to do, because you've posted about it like ten times and haven't once sounded like you're having any fun.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

It sounds like you should stop playing video games and find something else to do, because you've posted about it like ten times and haven't once sounded like you're having any fun.

Well, much like alcoholism in youth carrying into adulthood, it's nostalgia. How do you effectively replace nostalgia developed in formative years when things had the ability to take hold of you? Rebirth in your post-30s is only achieved through substance abuse or grooming. You don't really go "Yeah man, running is really fun and can totally replace something I've spent 8 hours a day of my life on".

 

[Jerk Sausage]

Well, much like alcoholism in youth carrying into adulthood, it's nostalgia.

Is that all alcoholism is? Nostalgia? Huh.

How do you effectively replace nostalgia developed in formative years when things had the ability to take hold of you?

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Your past is your past. The good times don't have to be repeated and revisited on the regular in order to maintain their place in your heart/head. And if those good times included alcoholic behavior, maybe one set of behaviors had something to do with influencing the other. I played TF2. In 2007-2009. A lot. I had fun. I met a few guys I'm still friends with to this day. I haven't played TF2 in over a decade, and barely touch games at all anymore. I grew up.

Rebirth in your post-30s is only achieved through substance abuse or grooming.

Oh.

You don't really go "Yeah man, running is really fun and can totally replace something I've spent 8 hours a day of my life on".

Cardio is rarely fun, work isn't always fun, having difficult conversations isn't always fun, eating healthy isn't always fun, doing things for other people isn't always fun, and so on. But you know what those things have in common, besides not being fun in the process of doing them? You feel better for having done them, often better than you did before you started. And when it becomes a habit to do difficult things that are good and have a gratifying outcome upon completion, life suddenly becomes very rewarding. Strange, that.

Proposing the idea of running as a replacement for 8 hours of your day is ridiculous and you know must know that, or you are internally dramatizing the length of basic exercise in order to procrastinate starting it. Procrastination is not the avoidance of doing things outright, it's doing things like playing TF2 for 8 hours a day in order to avoid doing what you know you should be doing.

If all life is to you is having a series of instantly gratifying fun experiences, then it sounds like you're succeeding in life. Why then play with the idea of being an alcoholic and knowing there's maybe something wrong with what you're doing? Sounds like you're having fun. How do you feel after you're done with those fun things?

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

You don't really go "Yeah man, running is really fun and can totally replace something I've spent 8 hours a day of my life on".

Life isn't really about fun, but there are distinct types of fun I don't think you're considering.

Playing a video game is one type. It's a good time, enjoyable. Not usually high stress, with exceptions.

Climbing Annapurna is a different type of fun. While you're doing it, it's brutal. You're miserable. You wish the fun would stop. When you're finished, you look back at that and the people you did it with and say "Damn, that was the best." It's an adventure and the satisfaction comes from its completion. It breeds a real appreciation for your own fortitude.

Neither one is wrong, but hedonic pursuits are not the only way to get enjoyment out of life. You pay for it with pain, that's true of either type of fun. Hedonism is buying joy on credit, you will pay later and pay dearly. Hard work is all up front, it pays in joy and deep meaning later and with equal interest.

The ability to defer gratification is extremely difficult. I only manage it one time in ten if I'm lucky, and I'm pretty proud of that. Give something hard a try and stick with it. You might surprise yourself.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

How do you effectively replace nostalgia developed in formative years when things had the ability to take hold of you?

Go outside and do new shit.

 

[dick brain]

Well, much like alcoholism in youth carrying into adulthood, it's nostalgia. How do you effectively replace nostalgia developed in formative years when things had the ability to take hold of you? Rebirth in your post-30s is only achieved through substance abuse or grooming. You don't really go "Yeah man, running is really fun and can totally replace something I've spent 8 hours a day of my life on".

Dogshit take bud. Video games were my first crutch, escapism from a violent dysfunctional life I was too small to do anything about, and too small to reliably get substances to abuse. I spent thousands upon thousands of hours occupying as much time as I possibly could in any world that wasn't this one. I quit in my early-mid twenties and shifted all the autistic minmaxing and grinding into real life pursuits, not even because I wasn't having fun, but because I was tired of getting really really good at things that weren't going to be around in five years. I have had a LOT of vices in my life but I didn't quit the biggest two until I was in my 30s. And I replaced them with, among other things, running.

You're addicted to talking out of your ass and your little doomer diatribes are so thoroughly both pointless and baseless that I've honestly made a habit of scrolling past any post you make without reading them, with the exception of this thread. It is painfully apparent to anybody with any life experience that you have no idea what you're talking about in regards to anything at all and just projecting your own excuses out into the world as though they have any basis in reality, but frankly pisses me off to think that you might be dragging uninformed or impressionable people down with you.

I try to be positive and helpful in this one single thread but you in particular can suck my dick.

And I really hope you didn't used to frequent the 420chan irc, because if you are who I think you might be I'm going to be really fucking disappointed.

 

[neger psykolog]

Dogshit take bud. Video games were my first crutch, escapism from a violent dysfunctional life I was too small to do anything about, and too small to reliably get substances to abuse. I spent thousands upon thousands of hours occupying as much time as I possibly could in any world that wasn't this one. I quit in my early-mid twenties and shifted all the autistic minmaxing and grinding into real life pursuits, not even because I wasn't having fun, but because I was tired of getting really really good at things that weren't going to be around in five years. I have had a LOT of vices in my life but I didn't quit the biggest two until I was in my 30s. And I replaced them with, among other things, running.

I personally think nowadays that alcoholism is attached at the hip with internet use for a lot of people. When I first tried sobriety I told my online buddies I was going away for a bit because I had associated being drunk with that.

Probably more alcoholics used to hang out at actual bars in the past but people maybe drink a lot more at home and technically be alone but having a social life online.

Therefore if people are finding managing alcohol better or quitting (whatever their goal is) maybe the above will resonate a bit and they can try to manage their online time. Believe it or not people had to deal with things like boredom constantly in the old days which was an incentive for actually going out in the real world.

And not writing that to say if you socialize online you're a terrible person, the world has just changed a lot but as I said in a previous post in this thread that there's still plenty of people who do offline stuff.

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

I've seen guys get hung up on the "fun" aspect of sobriety. "Life is all about having fun and being happy all the time," they say. "If you aren't happy all the time, what's the point? If I wanted to be unhappy and not having fun, I'd still be drinking."

Well, they go to sober cookouts and dances and whatever other sober events they can. They don't work on themselves because looking within themselves to identify why they drink isn't fun. Making amends to people you've harmed isn't fun.

Eventually something unexpected happens and life hits them. Maybe a loved one dies or they lose a job. Maybe they are just bored and can't get a hold of anyone to do stuff with. You know what sounds like fun? Having a drink. It's been a while, you can handle a couple...

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

The only thing that I do differently now as a sober guy is I don't drink. I still shitpost, I still play music, I still play video games, and I still go outside and do all the same shit that I used to do. Now I do it all without being tanked up. Every single person I have encountered who used the "I won't have fun anymore" line did so as an excuse. The real question is "do you want to get sober?" If that answer is not an emphatic "yes," then you're still clinging to your baba. Alcohol is a literal safety blanket for many people these days.

Stop being a fucking baby and grow up. It takes work, but nothing worth doing in life is free.

 

[The Token Ethnic]

The only thing that I do differently now as a sober guy is I don't drink. I still shitpost, I still play music, I still play video games, and I still go outside and do all the same shit that I used to do. Now I do it all without being tanked up. Every single person I have encountered who used the "I won't have fun anymore" line did so as an excuse. The real question is "do you want to get sober?" If that answer is not an emphatic "yes," then you're still clinging to your baba. Alcohol is a literal safety blanket for many people these days.

The funny thing is that drinking sucked the joy out of those things. Trying to get back in the swing of things and enjoying life and hobbies before booze is somewhat difficult to do.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

The funny thing is that drinking sucked the joy out of those things. Trying to get back in the swing of things and enjoying life and hobbies before booze is somewhat difficult to do.

It feels a little weird at first, but that goes away fast.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

The funny thing is that drinking sucked the joy out of those things. Trying to get back in the swing of things and enjoying life and hobbies before booze is somewhat difficult to do.

It definitely sucks the joy out of it for everyone else too.