How to handle alcoholism?

Post Reply New Topic

I hope I will be saying that soon. I don't really want to drink or take drugs ever again. But it's a hard decision because if I am abstinent then that is another way in which I am "weird". In the UK, drinking is a social requirement.

But then again, what have social requirements ever done for me? I need to "bite the bullet" and just admit that I am weird. Substances don't make me any more normal. They probably make me look and act even more weirdly!! They just make me less aware of it, that's all.

I go to a party and drink alcohol so as to fit in and feel like everyone else. Two hours later, I am the odd one out because I am the DRUNKENEST PERSON AT THE PARTY! Where's the sense in that??

I believe I have an addictive personality - i.e. I always seem to need to consume something dodgy with alarming regularity. Luckily alcohol never really got me hooked.....possibly the result of having a traumatic relationship with an alcoholic many years ago - her health and interpersonal problems were terrible to behold, and I'd be very surprised if it hasn't killed her by now . I was drinking a lot myself at the time, but the habit never really took hold of me, and these days it's rare for me to have more than half a Guinness per week, and I often go for months without bothering to touch a drop, though I like it well enough in moderation.

I was very dependent on large doses of cannabis for many years, as it would make me feel a lot better, but it seemed to stop working, so eventually I gave it up for a few months and now I don't bother with it very much, though I'd hate to think that I was never going to use it again.

I'm completely off tobacco now, though still heavily addicted to nicotine which I get through gum and electronic cigarettes, without which I'm sure I'd still be smoking tobacco (I tried many times to quit before the alternatives were invented, but failed every time). If I can't get any of my other vices, I consume a lot more nicotine.

I got into chocolate for a year or so - huge amounts - but it started making me feel really ill, so I stopped. I daren't bulk-buy chocolate because I can't resist it, especially Turkish Delight. Ditto biscuits, fruit pies and chips....and although I'm a devout vegetarian (almost vegan), if I had access to a bag of pork scratchings I doubt if I could resist the temptation to scoff the lot.

So my advice would be to stay off the booze if you aren't already addicted. If you are, then you could try voluntary control, and if that doesn't work after a pre-arranged period of time, get help. The best way I know of to defeat an addiction is to submit yourself to cold turkey in a completely new location where you're kept occupied and have no access to the addictive material. Then when your body has got the message, go and live somewhere new where the old habits will have less power over you (if you go back to your former environment, you're more likely to resume your old ways). But I don't know of anybody who provides such a service. There was a project like that for heroin addicts once, and I heard good reports of it - basically they worked the bollocks off the clients so they had little time to feel any temptation....must be the only example of working people hard that I agree with. I've also heard of crappy rehabilitation programmes than don't really work - e.g. moving heroin addicts onto methadone without warning them first that the methadone addiction takes longer to abolish than heroin addiction does. And the leader was on a guru trip. So try to get some user opinions before committing to a rehab scheme.

It also helps if you have a high regard for a drug-free ethos, but if you're anything like me then you'll need more than that to keep you healthy. I love the idea of people being liberated from all these dodgy consumables, but I think that life for many people in the modern world can be such a bummer that some drug or other can often be the only thing that makes it bearable. When I asked why the incidence of drunk-and-disorderly behaviour was so high in a well-known UK town, one guy replied "because there's nothing else to do here."