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Concerning the sugar/alcohol connection...When I drank, I had no desire for sweets. People used to praise me for my will-power. I didn't really know how to respond because there wasn't any will-power involved. I just didn't want sugar.
After I got sober, I learned why! Alcohol is sugar. God knows I was getting my fill with the booze....At rehab, the kitchen was stocked with cookies, pudding and juice. We were actually encouraged to indulge.
When we first get sober, the first thing that's important is getting the alcohol out of our systems. So, if a couple of cookies help, eat them.
The alcohol/sugar connection is even touched on in the movie I mentioned (The Days of Wine and Roses). It's such a good film, and way ahead of it's time.
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As for alcohol, I drink it very rarely, sometimes once or twice a year, sometimes going years without any. When I do drink, it's only one or two drinks. Since my family has a history of alcoholism, I'm not playing with that fire.
Good for you, Hopes. One of my biggest fears is that one or both of my sons will inherit this gene.
One in-law told me that the reason he was an alcoholic was because he had an addictive personality -- he felt he had to replace the addiction with something else -- another addiction.
When he was first in recovery, he said he beat the cravings by deciding he would first go for a walk. He'd have to start out walking at 7 am, and he'd walk and walk and walk until he didn't feel so much like having a drink - and then he had to walk all the way back which by then was close dark and he was too exhausted to do anything about getting a drink.
He spent entire days just walking -- but long hikes into the woods and fields away from any bars and without any money so even if he passed a liquor store too bad. After some months, he said he was able to walk less but walking became his addiction, walking and exploring.
Interestingly, we're in similar places. I cut high fructose corn syrup from my diet. I drank one two liter of Mt. Dew a day. Then I discovered it's in almost everything. I'm trying to eat as much whole food as possible, and limit my intake of processed foods to the ones that don't have corn syrup in it. That's hard because even bread has it. I really haven't had any problems giving up the caffeine and corn syrup. That's probably because my stomach was in considerable pain when I finally decided to stop. Thankfully, I'm not a sugar addict. I really don't like sugary foods. I was a caffeine addict. The downside of it is that the corn syrup was taking a toll on my digestive track. I feel 100% better now that I've eliminated corn syrup from my diet.
Perhaps abstinence is AA rhetoric for you, but I hope you understand that there are many addicts who absolutely can't have another drug ever again in their lives or they will truly be active addicts again. I've known way too many people to know that it's not rhetoric. Again, maybe it's A rhetoric for people who aren't true alcoholics. It's the alcoholics who can't continue to drink in moderation. If you aren't an alcoholic and you can drink in moderation, then I don't understand why you would let what AA says about abstinence bother you since it doesn't apply to you.
I'm not sure I was ever a sugar addict either, never had been huge on sweets, but recognized the up-and-down effect of blood-sugar spikes and the empty calories weren't good for me. However, I *did* start drinking more juice as soon as I quit the Dr. Pepper. Obviously there's no caffeine in juice, but lots of sugar. But I may have simply liked having something to drink. I'm still consuming caffeine though. When I quit buying Dr. Pepper to consume at home, I began drinking more coffee to make up for it. Caffeine isn't something I've tackled yet, but considering I just quit smoking a month or so ago, I'm going to wait a bit to make a decision on whether to drop it from my diet. I don't want to get ahead of myself. Just cutting down on caffeine seems difficult. One thought I've had is to restrict coffee to morning and throughout the rest of the day have unsweetened iced tea, but haven't tried yet.
To expand a bit about cigarettes, for me I think I was smoking more for the ability to remove myself from situations for a few moments with the excuse of going to smoke, moreso than the nicotine. I've found that the stimulant effect of the nicotine actually caused me more anxiety! Caffeine being a similar stimulant, it makes me wonder if quitting caffeine might be much more beneficial than I realize. I have *never* truly been off caffeine.
And I understand that what I said about AA and abstinence is relative, hence this thread trying to distinguish abusers from true alcoholics or in other words those who may have some hope in 'learning' to drink appropriately from those who don't.
One more thing I think I should add about everything I've said about myself: one of the underlying motivations for improving my diet, besides tackling an abusive drinking problem, is a first resort to deal with the ADD I believe I likely have. Obviously I need to tackle caffeine and experience letting go of that before I can really make a decision. But I wanted to see what I can do to improve the issue on my own before going to a doctor and going the medication route. Since this thread is about alcoholic drinking, I will also add that the one experience I have had with ADD medication (a stimulant), which was during the height of my abusive drinking, is that it totally took away my desire to drink. I actually had bought a half pint of liquor, drank about a quarter of it, and then dumped it out and threw it away because I just didn't want it. I drank abusively and binged for 2 solid years and was on the ADD medication (dextroamphetamine) for 30 days during the height of my two years of drinking. That's one experience that makes me personally wonder if my abusive drinking or ability to abusively drink is/was because of dopamine/norepinephrine deficiency, which is what ADD/ADHD is neurologically and those are the chemicals stimulants increase activity of in the brain.
I was an alcoholic for ten years until last summer when I radically changed my diet for the healthier and suddenly stopped craving the alcohol. I drink very moderately now. It was a combination of depression and malnutrition and I can only speak for myself but once I fixed my diet it was incredibly easy to stay off the booze and it required almost no willpower.
I still suffer from depression and am under treatment for that, but anyone who drinks I heartily recommend to take a good look at their diet and make sure you get all the necessary food groups there. (I also stopped craving all kinds of snacks or candies.) Of course also find help for or keep up treatment of the depression.
I read somewhere that it was only 7% (seven) of alchoholics that managed to do what the OP asks, ie; drink normally.
so, according to that, it seems possible buy very short odds.
Yes and there are different understandings of who is an alcoholic.
Maybe someone wasn't really an alcoholic in the first place, or there are likely different kinds of alcoholics.
I know one woman who insisted her husband was an alcoholic but he never got drunk. He would wake up in the morning and first thing he would do is take a sip or two of whisky. He'd get up, have breakfast and another sip of whiskey. The whole day went on that way, every single day but he never missed work, he would put a small bottle in his boot to sip on every half hour or so. His speech was never slurred, he never passed out, no DWIs -- but she said he had to have have the alcohol and was an alcoholic but not a drunk.
I suppose he was alcohol dependent -- even if it never destroyed his life in any way. Someone else might be a heavy drinker and already having problems such as DWIs but still not an actual alcoholic and can just quit easily enough.
And there are different definitions of what moderate drinking means. To me it wouldn't mean having 12 beers a night after work and more than that on weekends, but to others that is what moderate drinking means in their minds.
The desire to be drunk is one of the worst and deadliest of psychic forces. Though alcohol belongs to the world and the processes of physical nature, there works through it an entity, a spirit, which does not belong to the present period, is an enemy to the doer and to the Intelligence and can reach the doer only through alcohol, when the doer is in the body. It cannot reach the Intelligences, but is as death to the doers; it can affect an Intelligence only in so far as it suspends the progress of the doer by preventing the reexisting portion from continuing its orderly return to earth life. It hinders the Intelligence in the help that it would give to the doer.
Temperate drinking of wine and other intoxicants does not immediately in itself harm the drinker. In no case did it or does it or can it benefit the doer, though an alcoholic drink may stimulate the body in a crisis; but even then other stimulants might serve as well. Alcoholic drinks are not necessary for the maintenance of health. Wine is desired for its taste and aroma and for the psychic effect it has of magnifying and intensifying sensation. Temperate drinking mingles the psychic atmospheres and produces a sort of geniality.
It is difficult to draw the line at temperate drinking. At social gatherings this line is crossed, else the drinkers would not be convivial. People who drink lightly now and then or who regularly take a limited allowance, may not become actual and habitual drunkards. From life to life the tendency is to increase the sensations which alcohol produces. In time, as the liking of the doer for drink becomes stronger, the entity that works through alcohol, as the enemy of every human, may claim the doer. In the following life the breath-form bears the mark of this spirit. This spirit breaks down physical health and moral restraint, opens the barriers between the four states of physical matter and lets in the play of emotional currents and elemental beings. If not overcome the bondage becomes ever more pronounced, until in some life what was once a temperate drinker may be a periodic or habitual drunkard. At some time the doer must conquer or be conquered. If the doer loses, the human is lost and cut off from the Light of the Intelligence. The history of doers, if it were ever written, would show that more doers have failed through the spirit of alcohol than bodies were ever slain in all the battles of the world.
It hasn't been mentioned, but they say that alcoholics have a sleeping tiger, waiting to pounce within ourselves, meaning that even after many years sober, one drink leads back to where we started. The tiger (alcoholism) is always ready to roar back..
"One is too many, a thousand is not enough."
AA adage.
The desire to be drunk is one of the worst and deadliest of psychic forces. Though alcohol belongs to the world and the processes of physical nature, there works through it an entity, a spirit, which does not belong to the present period, is an enemy to the doer and to the Intelligence and can reach the doer only through alcohol, when the doer is in the body. It cannot reach the Intelligences, but is as death to the doers; it can affect an Intelligence only in so far as it suspends the progress of the doer by preventing the reexisting portion from continuing its orderly return to earth life. It hinders the Intelligence in the help that it would give to the doer.
Temperate drinking of wine and other intoxicants does not immediately in itself harm the drinker. In no case did it or does it or can it benefit the doer, though an alcoholic drink may stimulate the body in a crisis; but even then other stimulants might serve as well. Alcoholic drinks are not necessary for the maintenance of health. Wine is desired for its taste and aroma and for the psychic effect it has of magnifying and intensifying sensation. Temperate drinking mingles the psychic atmospheres and produces a sort of geniality.
It is difficult to draw the line at temperate drinking. At social gatherings this line is crossed, else the drinkers would not be convivial. People who drink lightly now and then or who regularly take a limited allowance, may not become actual and habitual drunkards. From life to life the tendency is to increase the sensations which alcohol produces. In time, as the liking of the doer for drink becomes stronger, the entity that works through alcohol, as the enemy of every human, may claim the doer. In the following life the breath-form bears the mark of this spirit. This spirit breaks down physical health and moral restraint, opens the barriers between the four states of physical matter and lets in the play of emotional currents and elemental beings. If not overcome the bondage becomes ever more pronounced, until in some life what was once a temperate drinker may be a periodic or habitual drunkard. At some time the doer must conquer or be conquered. If the doer loses, the human is lost and cut off from the Light of the Intelligence. The history of doers, if it were ever written, would show that more doers have failed through thes spirit of alcohol than bodies were ever slain in all the battles of the world.
thewordfoundation.org
Matthew 7:6
Be well. There is not good in alcohol.
That is exactly how it is for a family member -- she's a good person, she's an honest person, used to be a hard working person and still is at times. It's like something possesses her. One of the last times she was staying with someone -- doing just fine and then she took a bottle of their vodka and drank it all, but when she came to in a few days, she has no memory of this, it was like it wasn't she that did it.
I think she truly doesn't remember because she's not a lying kind of person deep down. She knew that bottle was there, but it's almost as though someone else inside her made her drink it and just pushed her real self aside for a few days. She comes back and acts like nothing happened and honestly seems to not remember.
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