I’ve done a vape using dry herb and it wasn’t my thing. I’ve never tried the other delivery methods but probably should. I should just get my med card already, since the nearest rec place is probably an hour away.
Please don’t put quotes around something I never said.
don’t try to back pedal now. you said what you said.
I stopped for 90 days, and about 30 in knew I didn’t want to go back.
Part of what turned me was drinking a non alcoholic beer. I found the taste of beer without alcohol quite unpleasant. Regular beer I thought I enjoyed up to then. I realized all I liked about beer was the alcohol taste.
Many people also choose to stop before the choice gets that stark. Many people stop when the choice is stop, or continue to be miserable using.
Relationships and responsibilities are at stake, and if things are bad enough then this is sometimes the only way.
I recall a point in my life when I realized- I was drinking to get drunk.
My wife and friends are always talking about their ‘tasty beers’ and cant understand why I dont want to talk about it. when I was drinking it was simple- ‘booze goes in, now im not sober, yay’. The booze I chose was usually what was easiest on my stomach.
dont sweat it, NA. hoping to get back to better discussion here eventually…
If I recall we are both nearing our 2 year mark. Good luck getting through the holidays, its always a hard time for me.
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just so people know the kind of back pedaling at play here
This is inappropriate for this thread. Please do not get petty in a thread designed to help people talk about recovery. This is not NAT or Political.
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What’s inappropriate is my offering recommendations and for NA to negate my personal experiences. If you want to support that kind of behavior, go ahead. But I will not let that kind of behavior slide.
Lucky, have you been to counseling?
If you were drinking to excess often, I doubt you were merely drinking just to get drunk.
There are probably deeper issues there.
Don’t confuse consequences of drinking with its underlying causes. Sure, if you stop drinking, many of its consequences go away. However, that doesn’t address reasons WHY you were drinking.
counseling, no.
deeper issues, 100%. I have only been talking about my drinking problem in this thread. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
The deeper story is a 20 year saga of drugs, drinking, depression, anxiety, and chronic pain mixed with a family that has normalized drinking and suffered large emotional losses. I suspect many people dealing with alcoholism have somewhat similar backgrounds.
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You ain’t gonna get better by only not drinking.
(IMHO)
Probably not, but you’re probably still better not drinking than drinking.
Lots of people have serious issues and don’t use drugs or alcohol.
I think the issue is that while your suggestion may work for a small subset of people, there are dangers of substituting one substance dependence for another one, or worse layering a second dependence on top of the first.
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Right. But by not working on the underlying issues, you are always at a high risk of going back to your old ways. It may not happen over night. Have a drink here or there. Then over the months, one night you have 3 or 4. Then a few months later, you have 3 or 4 a couple nights. You don’t feel so bad, so you say to yourself, I could do this once or twice a week. At least I’m not as bad as I used to be.
Next thing you start lying to people. “Hey, Jim. Did you stop at the bar?” “Yeah, Kelly. Only had one, though.” [when you had three or four, but she’ll never know, I’m not visibly drunk, so I’m ok]
Then it’s someone’s birthday (maybe you’re own) and you get really drunk. But hey, it’s been a long time, I deserve having fun sometimes. Then it turns out you have 5 or 6 while you are playing golf–you deserve it. Favorite team in the playoffs? So what if I get a little drunk, I deserve it!
Then every time you have a drink which is now way more than once a month and more than one at a time, you rationalize it. I’ve been so GOOD.
Then you start deceiving your loved ones about how often this is going on. Then yourself. 4 12-oz cans used to be 4 beers. Now 4 16-oz’ers is 4 beers when it’s clearly 1 1/2 more 12 oz’ers. A glass of wine is no longer the traditional pour, but all the way to near the top.
Pretty soon all the old rationalizations and habits return. Then it’s 4 or 5 times a week. “I was ok at work, no hangover.” “I haven’t missed any of my kid’s cheerleading practices.” “I didn’t drive drunk, I took a Lyft.”
I’ve seen it happen.
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I never suggested this will work for everyone. I think many people suffering from substance abuse (myself included) will not ever be able to come “clean” in their lifetime, no matter what approach we go about it. I know what works for me, and I know what’s worked for people around me. I also know people who have fallen into the abyss and likely will never live a normal life. Whatever the case, there’s not a single way to recover.
Statements like “if this method worked for you then you are not an addict” is inappropriate and insulting.
I’ve seen people stop, go to AA, stay sober, but never really deal with their issues.
Those people may still be unhappy on some level, but they’re a lot better off than when the were drinking.
If they are doing AA right, they are working on their problems. Maybe not in a clinical environment, but a good sponsor can be very helpful.
As to the bolded: maybe. As long as they are not transferring the drinking into other unhealthy endeavors.
Stopping drinking for an alcoholic is like taking aspirin for a bad back. You are treating the symptom, temporarily relieving the pain, but you are doing nothing to treat the underlying cause that pain.
Drinking and its consequences are the symptom of the alcoholic. Alcoholism is what’s causing that symptom.Stopping drinking takes away the that symptom, but does nothing to treat the underlying cause: alcoholism.