[quote]tmay11 wrote:
I have a friend named John. John is starting to think that he has a drinking problem. He is in his young 20’s. John is worried because he regularly blacks out now when drinking and despite attempts to prevent himself from doing so, can’t. If John goes out with the intention of having 1 or 2 drinks he is almost always fine. It’s when John goes out with the intention of having say, 5 or 6 drinks, that he ends up drinking 12-20 drinks.
[/quote]
Not a big drinker or a frequent drinker, although I drank myself sick one time over a quarter of a century ago.
If control is doubtful after 2 drinks, I would think the logical thing to do would be to switch to non-alcoholic beverages after 2 drinks, and just stick with that.
I could be wrong about this: it might be necessary to abstain entirely; or it might be possible to stop entirely for a while and then go back to 5 or 6; or there might be some trick to stopping at 5 or 6 that will actually work.
I am probably somewhat biased: I tend to feel lousy after more than 2 drinks, so I have somewhat of a gut feeling that more than 2 drinks is an inherently bad idea.
I haven’t read through this thread, but if you think you have a problem with alcohol, you probably do. This is coming from someone who had a BIG problem with it. Here is the mostly applicable text from a post in the following thread a while back.
"There are different kinds of people and they respond to alcohol differently. If the OP is “just asking,” and doesn’t really have a problem with drinking, then there should be nothing to worry about. However, typically, that type of person will not need to ask that kind of question. I am not being presumptive about you, OP, you may really be “just asking,” I’m just saying that, from very personal experience, this is usually NOT the case.
If you or anyone else reading this thread really wants to be free from the slavery of addiction to alcohol, if it has you in its grips and you are one of those people who is honest enough with himself to admit that he does not have control over it, I would be more than happy to lead you to a solution that WORKS, and it does NOT involve AA, fucking spilling your soul out in front of a bunch of strangers, or much anything other than similar principals to what you will find in how we approach exercise on this site. It completely transforms you, psychologically and physically, using supplements, pharaceuticals, and the mind to completely change the problem at its very root.
I can now admit that I used to have a MASSIVE problem with alcohol, finally on the order of close to a half a bottle of whiskey every night. I have now actually been able to eliminate any craving or desire (in the way that I used to desire it, anyway) for alcohol in any situation, including social events. However, I can still drink socially, and do. I just do not get drunk anymore, nor do I have ANY desire to get anywhere near that state, ever. I almost never drink anymore, though, not through any concrete decision not to, but just because it never occurs to me to. This changed happened pretty much literally overnight.
If anyone here is interested, I would be happy to expound upon this in this thread or via PM. You just let me know.
I think that people who do not have that little monster inside of them, that locks on and takes over their wills, despite all desires to the contrary, cannot really understand how terrible it is. What despair addicts feel. There is nothing wrong with this, indeed you should consider yourselves blessed. Those who do have this problem will understand what I mean, and how exasperated I used to feel when someone would tell me that I should just “cut down.” It doesn’t work that way for some people and willpower has NOTHING to do with it.
Like I said,if anyone is interested, please just let me know. If not, and I have been making a mistaken assumption about this entire thing, then please forgive me and I will bow out of this thread right now.
And one final word just in case anyone feels perhaps I have just completed this program and am one of those who will just backslide when the glow wears off: I kicked that monster out 2 years ago [update:now 4 years, situation unchanged] and have not one single time had an episode of drunkenness nor any desire whatsoever to achieve that state.
I do like the odd beer and I love good champagne (Moet and Chandon…mmmmmm
Here is the expanded explanation. I certainly hope this helps you. If you WANT to quit, you CAN, and you DO NOT have to become a miserably sober wretch to do it.
"A couple of people have PMed me so I will just cut and paste most of what I wrote to one member here. If this does help someone out there, please drop me a PM sometime in the future when it has worked for you and let me know that it did. I would really appreciate just hearing that someone else was set free from the slavery of addiction like I was.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’m very happy you asked. Go here and start reading:
Get the book, follow the instructions. They are very, very easy instructions. Using all of the elements of the program together is, I think, very important, though you may find that one element “does it” for you. For me, it was almost certainly the hypnotism CDs. I am very pleased to find that I appear to be quite susceptible to hypnosis, so once I added that final element, I immediately got what I was looking for. The best part is, once it “clicks,” you can start phasing out each factor until you are back to using none of it if you don’t want to.
I no longer use ANY of the supplements, the topiramate (I have an assload and if it’s difficult at all for you to secure you just let me know and I can send you some), or the hypnotism tapes.
Everything I’m saying won’t make sense to you just yet, but visit the website and read the book (you can read it in about 2 hours), and all of this will become clear.
It is a little bit expensive to get everything together all at once, but if you are drinking anything like I was, it will pay for itself in spades in just a few months.
Research everything you can and read the book and put the program to use for real and I really don’t think you will have to ask me any questions. But if you want to, you are more than welcome to at any time.
Good luck and may God bless you, brother. I really hope that this does something for you or someone you love. "
[quote]orion wrote:
If “John” cannot go one month without a drink, he might have a problem.
I think he should try that.
[/quote]
I’d say, if you are doing things like taking a month off drinking in the first place, you already clearly have a problem. Taking a month off drinking is not something that non-addicted drinkers need to do.
I used to do this, to convince myself I was okay. Until I no longer could. Once you are doing things like voluntarily abstaining from alcohol, you’re already sliding down that slippery slope. The addicted mind has to be changed completely. This IS possible, but NOT in the conventional way that almost EVERYONE has been conditioned to believe, thanks to organizations like AA, NA, and other 12 Step programs.
[quote]tmay11 wrote:
I have a friend named John. John is starting to think that he has a drinking problem. He is in his young 20’s. John is worried because he regularly blacks out now when drinking and despite attempts to prevent himself from doing so, can’t. If John goes out with the intention of having 1 or 2 drinks he is almost always fine. It’s when John goes out with the intention of having say, 5 or 6 drinks, that he ends up drinking 12-20 drinks.
[/quote]
Not a big drinker or a frequent drinker, although I drank myself sick one time over a quarter of a century ago.
If control is doubtful after 2 drinks, I would think the logical thing to do would be to switch to non-alcoholic beverages after 2 drinks, and just stick with that.
I could be wrong about this: it might be necessary to abstain entirely; or it might be possible to stop entirely for a while and then go back to 5 or 6; or there might be some trick to stopping at 5 or 6 that will actually work.
I am probably somewhat biased: I tend to feel lousy after more than 2 drinks, so I have somewhat of a gut feeling that more than 2 drinks is an inherently bad idea.
[/quote]
I mean absolutely no offense with this statement, but people who DO NOT have a problem with drinking have NO IDEA of the mind state of people who do. Addicts, to them, are incomprehensible. So offering advice like, just switch to non-alcoholic drinks after X drinks, or, slow down, take time off, whatever, is the wrong advice for the wrong group of people. What would apply to you does not apply to an addict, as his brain literally works differently from that of a non-addict. And it would not apply to you, even, either, because you would not have to voluntarily decide to stop drinking. You just wouldn’t feel like having any more.
Having been on one side and now, thanks be to God, the other, I can tell you it is an entirely different universe.
So yes, I would say it’s “problematic” drinking and not dependency/alcoholism as you said.
[/quote]
Seems a lot of us have friends with the same issues.
If john gets older and the problem gets worse, John needs to quit drinking. If John gets better as he gets older and more life responsibilites, John is a-ok to get shithoused now and again. [/quote]
Pretty much this. Though I’d wager the current black outs are a HUGE red flag.
I’ve never had memory blackouts or any kind of blackout from alcohol alone. I become physically incapacitated and too uncoordinated to stand up or even hold a drink before that happens. Now from ‘SWIM’ I heard throwing in some xanax into the mix will lead to terrible things including memory blackouts, consciousness blackouts, and landing in a hospital. That was a wake up call for ‘SWIM’.
That xanax thing happened years ago and never again has something like that happened.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
Here is the expanded explanation. I certainly hope this helps you. If you WANT to quit, you CAN, and you DO NOT have to become a miserably sober wretch to do it.[/quote]
I’ve found I prefer myself sober to myself drinking, and I can still go out and have a reasonably good time (bit of an introvert and I dislike bars/clubs/etc, hence the “reasonably”). If anybody thinks they need to drink to be happy or to have a good time, I think that’s a sure sign of a problem.
Besides, I’m a weird enough person when I’m sober, I don’t need to compound it.
[quote]tmay11 wrote:
Cortes, I remember your posts from that thread.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. John will definitely look into the program. [/quote]
I sure hope John finds what he is looking for in it. Please let me know if there is anything else you want to ask or talk about. I’m not around much, but I’ll keep an eye on this thread.
[quote]tmay11 wrote:
Cortes, I remember your posts from that thread.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. John will definitely look into the program. [/quote]
I sure hope John finds what he is looking for in it. Please let me know if there is anything else you want to ask or talk about. I’m not around much, but I’ll keep an eye on this thread.
So yes, I would say it’s “problematic” drinking and not dependency/alcoholism as you said.
[/quote]
Seems a lot of us have friends with the same issues.
If john gets older and the problem gets worse, John needs to quit drinking. If John gets better as he gets older and more life responsibilites, John is a-ok to get shithoused now and again. [/quote]
Pretty much this. Though I’d wager the current black outs are a HUGE red flag.
[/quote]
Good point. I was never a black out drinker. I would vomit and lay on a bathroom floor hating myself well before I ever blacked out.
Ooops, I mean my friend would swear on his life that if god got him through the night he would never sin again as the whole world would spin around and around him…
So yes, I would say it’s “problematic” drinking and not dependency/alcoholism as you said.
[/quote]
Seems a lot of us have friends with the same issues.
If john gets older and the problem gets worse, John needs to quit drinking. If John gets better as he gets older and more life responsibilites, John is a-ok to get shithoused now and again. [/quote]
Pretty much this. Though I’d wager the current black outs are a HUGE red flag.
[/quote]
Good point. I was never a black out drinker. I would vomit and lay on a bathroom floor hating myself well before I ever blacked out.
Ooops, I mean my friend would swear on his life that if god got him through the night he would never sin again as the whole world would spin around and around him…[/quote]
Black outs are scary fuckers.
DJ had many when he was younger and a few on a cruise recently last year.
not a blackout drinker - for some reason, alcohol speeds up my cognizant powers, but not my inhibitions.
which adds to my day-after loathing - sometimes I wish I could tell myself that I dont remember putting my hands down that waitresses pants, but I know that I remember it, and meant to do it, and liked it.
Circa 5ish years ago, my firends wife sprayed my friend with the garden hose when he couldn’t walk from the car to the house at 2am, and then let him sleep on the kitchen floor with his head in a garbage pan all night.
My friend has been in 100% control ever since.
And that was the first time my friend had gotten that drunk since high school. Any time he threw up in college was the next morning, once in class, lol.
[quote]tmay11 wrote:
Cortes, I remember your posts from that thread.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses. John will definitely look into the program. [/quote]
I sure hope John finds what he is looking for in it. Please let me know if there is anything else you want to ask or talk about. I’m not around much, but I’ll keep an eye on this thread.
Good luck and God bless. [/quote]
You’re a good guy, Cortes. [/quote]
(^_^)
I just know what it’s like to be a slave to addiction. I can’t think of anything worse. I searched for YEARS for a way to free myself from that evil, and if there is any way I can help someone else break free I will do everything I can to help.
