Nice. Eventually you realize you never needed it in the first place and wonder why you ever thought you did.
Then it’s back to sober for a good while!
Don’t be so sure… (source: someone who’s quit drinking several times)
“Quitting’s easy. I do it all the time!” It’s staying quit that’s the challenge, at least until you learn to appreciate sobriety. One sip can turn into a binge. One night of drinking can lead to a week or a month or a year of being wasted. Our brains are wired to want “more”.
Thank you and thank you for the very correct advice! Alas, and I know everyone says this, but my situation was a bit different than yer bog standard alcoholic. I was a bog fancy alcoholic! Nah, but really, my partner and I started drinking heavily every evening during COVID cuz it just made everything even more fun. Never to feel better about stuff going badly or to escape or anything, we just liked to drink all the time and talk and play stuff and laugh. Way not healthy to do every day, as evidenced by my big ol health issue it caused! It was temporary and I’m better now, and technically I COULD have been drinking the past couple months… I had a few times I planned to have a few beers, just just decided not to.
I’m definitely never giving it up fully if my body can handle it, I’d for sure kms. But I’m saving it for special stuff in the future, assuming my body actually lets me have some drinks without having the issue I ran into again. If it causes the thing I dealt with again after a few drinks, then I guess I’ll give it up and stick around anyway hahaha.
My partner and I definitely enabled each other. I told them when I was in hospital that they can totally drink around me and I won’t have a problem with that, I won’t be upset, and I can handle any cravings. Turns out, no cravings! I’m very lucky. No withdrawals, no seizures, no DTs. Just some really shit sleep for a couple weeks. My boy has been INCREDIBLE. Went from drinking every day with me to only very occasionally now. We’ve both lost a ton of weight, too! We were never huge huge, but definitely gained a good chunk since 2020 (we were both very petite before then, got fairly big, and we are on our way back to petite again already!)
But yah, I firmly believe I can handle my shit more responsibly now, having felt the full effects of the repercussions it can cause. I believe this because I’ve done every substance out there (except opiates, never touched those until I went to hospital for this issue and they loaded me up with Dilaudid all day every day which was WILD) and even the things folks classically go overboard with, I’ve been responsible with. (A ball of the best blow you can imagine generally would last my partner and me two weeks!) I know it’s time to treat alcohol that way now too, rather than treating it as night-coffee.
Whatever you need to tell yourself to rationalize it…
I’m not gonna claim everyone’s experience is the same, but I remember my first few times quitting alcohol and what you’re saying sounds a lot like the things I told myself. “Of course my situation is different. I’m me!” “I can handle it better in the future.” “Life would be unbearable without it.”
But at the end of the day, I destroyed my life enough times that I don’t feel any desire to watch someone else destroy theirs. I’m not gonna try to talk you out of your decisions. I won’t tell you what to do or not do. But I won’t encourage it either. So don’t try to convince me of what you’re ultimately only trying to convince yourself…
Hey, I’m just sharing my own experience. Everyone is different, but lots of people (including… no, especially alcoholics) like to think everyone who drinks is the same, or everyone is like them.
It was fun as hell and I don’t regret it, but my body says I don’t get to do that anymore. I’m not even sure I’ll let me drink occasionally, I have yet to find that out. But I physically cannot drink like I used to, it’d be worse than death.
I have the same gripe. I stopped going to AA cause I got tired of some old dudes telling me I’m lying to myself because I didn’t identify with their deplorable backstories.
Like, yeah, I’ve made some mistakes, and I’m not without regrets which pain me every day. But some of the stuff I heard people say they had done made even me clutch my proverbial pearls…
And then they look at me like they think I’ve done the same shit and just don’t have the integrity to admit it.
But like I said, I’m not gonna try telling you how to live your life.
Nice. Eventually you realize you never needed it in the first place and wonder why you ever thought you did.
Don’t be so sure… (source: someone who’s quit drinking several times)
“Quitting’s easy. I do it all the time!” It’s staying quit that’s the challenge, at least until you learn to appreciate sobriety. One sip can turn into a binge. One night of drinking can lead to a week or a month or a year of being wasted. Our brains are wired to want “more”.
Thank you and thank you for the very correct advice! Alas, and I know everyone says this, but my situation was a bit different than yer bog standard alcoholic. I was a bog fancy alcoholic! Nah, but really, my partner and I started drinking heavily every evening during COVID cuz it just made everything even more fun. Never to feel better about stuff going badly or to escape or anything, we just liked to drink all the time and talk and play stuff and laugh. Way not healthy to do every day, as evidenced by my big ol health issue it caused! It was temporary and I’m better now, and technically I COULD have been drinking the past couple months… I had a few times I planned to have a few beers, just just decided not to.
I’m definitely never giving it up fully if my body can handle it, I’d for sure kms. But I’m saving it for special stuff in the future, assuming my body actually lets me have some drinks without having the issue I ran into again. If it causes the thing I dealt with again after a few drinks, then I guess I’ll give it up and stick around anyway hahaha.
My partner and I definitely enabled each other. I told them when I was in hospital that they can totally drink around me and I won’t have a problem with that, I won’t be upset, and I can handle any cravings. Turns out, no cravings! I’m very lucky. No withdrawals, no seizures, no DTs. Just some really shit sleep for a couple weeks. My boy has been INCREDIBLE. Went from drinking every day with me to only very occasionally now. We’ve both lost a ton of weight, too! We were never huge huge, but definitely gained a good chunk since 2020 (we were both very petite before then, got fairly big, and we are on our way back to petite again already!)
But yah, I firmly believe I can handle my shit more responsibly now, having felt the full effects of the repercussions it can cause. I believe this because I’ve done every substance out there (except opiates, never touched those until I went to hospital for this issue and they loaded me up with Dilaudid all day every day which was WILD) and even the things folks classically go overboard with, I’ve been responsible with. (A ball of the best blow you can imagine generally would last my partner and me two weeks!) I know it’s time to treat alcohol that way now too, rather than treating it as night-coffee.
Whatever you need to tell yourself to rationalize it…
I’m not gonna claim everyone’s experience is the same, but I remember my first few times quitting alcohol and what you’re saying sounds a lot like the things I told myself. “Of course my situation is different. I’m me!” “I can handle it better in the future.” “Life would be unbearable without it.”
But at the end of the day, I destroyed my life enough times that I don’t feel any desire to watch someone else destroy theirs. I’m not gonna try to talk you out of your decisions. I won’t tell you what to do or not do. But I won’t encourage it either. So don’t try to convince me of what you’re ultimately only trying to convince yourself…
Hey, I’m just sharing my own experience. Everyone is different, but lots of people (including… no, especially alcoholics) like to think everyone who drinks is the same, or everyone is like them.
It was fun as hell and I don’t regret it, but my body says I don’t get to do that anymore. I’m not even sure I’ll let me drink occasionally, I have yet to find that out. But I physically cannot drink like I used to, it’d be worse than death.
I have the same gripe. I stopped going to AA cause I got tired of some old dudes telling me I’m lying to myself because I didn’t identify with their deplorable backstories.
Like, yeah, I’ve made some mistakes, and I’m not without regrets which pain me every day. But some of the stuff I heard people say they had done made even me clutch my proverbial pearls…
And then they look at me like they think I’ve done the same shit and just don’t have the integrity to admit it.
But like I said, I’m not gonna try telling you how to live your life.