How does drinking benefit you?

[Bean]

I've been feeling a bit ambivalent about tackling my drinking and MWO recently and then I log on here today and there are so many posts which echo how I've been feeling. Having completed 19AF days in April I have since gone back to my previous drinking habits which are an improvement on last year but still too much too often and I really don't know why I continue to do it. I've been thinking about something I read in a psychology book about how people often stay stuck in bad situations becasue they actually get something out of it. I.e someone might stay in an abusive relationship because in some (warped) sense it makes them feel they are a 'good' person for putting up with the nasty partner (sorry, over simplistic explanation but do you get my meaning?).

So I am wondering what the 'perk' of drinking could be for me and presumably others on here? I figure there must be something that keeps bringing me back to the same old place but I can't work out what. I've read a lot of posts where people say that drinking stopped them having to face things but I personally dont feel that to be true for me. It's not physical dependence either. I can write a list as long as my arm of all the things that are bad about drinking but when I try to think of good things about it my mind's a blank. Surely, the fuzzy warm feeling you get after that first glass of wine can't be the only thing that keeps me going back for more?

I'd be interested to hear if any of you have identified ways in which your problem with drink has 'benefited' you in some way even though it ultimately screws you up?

Bean

[weemelonhead]

How does drinking benefit you?

Hmmmmmm.....very INTeresting Mr Bond......

I'm thinking about this hard, coz it's a very interesting question. I've told myself so many lies about why I drank that I don't know whether I know the real 'benefit', as you put it.....
I think the thing I got out of drinking was an easy way not to think....I worry and mull ove EVERYTHING normally, and have caused myself needless sleepless nights, and days filled with anxiety.
I used to drink VERY fast, and get really drunk within about a couple of hours, and then would really enjoy (for about another couple of hours) a feeling of not giving a sh*t about anything........of course, all that would go pear shaped, as I would carry on drinking until I turned into the nasty melon who once again cared about EVERYTHING, and then would give everyone in the vicinity th scare of their lives as she berated and resorted to physical violence to sort out her supposed problems with the world.

Since becoming AF, I have realised that I needed a good dose of anti d's that weren't rendered ineffective by pints of wine, and my anxieties have more or less just disappeared. I also have the energy and the wherewithall to sort out the real problems that actually ARE there in a way that actually causes my life to proceed positively rather than giving myself even more stuff to worry about with my boozy behaviour ......

I think this is it?????? Interesting point though....why do we REALLY drink....it's the first time I really thought about like this, usually, I do what you say, and tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn't drink.....
Wotever the reason though.....ultimately.....I am just SOOOOOOOOOO glad that I don't now....I really don't 'benefit' from it, although for a long, long time, I told myself that I did.

[MDBiker]

How does drinking benefit you?

I think I have been waiting for death. I was so screwed up in the head that I thought I had no future; nothing. I drank to keep going; when in reality I knew I wouldn't live long at the rate I was drinking. So I was just waiting for it to kill me.
bear

[Guest]

How does drinking benefit you?

How did drinking benefit me? Socially, It helped to give me the confidence to go into a crowed room with ease. Then I would usually have to much of it and end up looking like an ass in front of that entire room. Some friend huh? So glad I'm past that!
Smiles
Mar

[goingsobermum]

How does drinking benefit you?

Interesting what you say about staying in a bad situation. I have begun to realise that I do that. All my life I've felt I've not quite been good enough for the people around me, they're always pushing me to do more. Not eating as well as I should and drinking means I'm often tired and feel like I have to push to my present limits to do what I do. When I change my diet and stop drinking I feel so much better and could do so much more but I am out of the habit and I think deep down I feel that others would just pile more and more things on me to do and I'd end up just as knackered out. I'm working on fnding projects that I want to do, not ones suggested by others or doing for others and also working on the idea that I'll still have a right to rest even if I am feeling better.
Thats what bad diet and not drinking does for me.

[Bean]

How does drinking benefit you?

yes, so maybe we use drink as a sort of protection whether that's from our own feelings or the demands that other people put on us. To add to my earlier post, whenever I am asked the question 'what one thing could you do that would instantly improve your life', my instant reaction is always 'stop drinking' and yet I never do. Someone quoted Nelson Mandela in another thread saying something about 'we don't limit ourselves because of our insecurities but because we are scared of our power'. Reflecting more on my own question, I think that might be true. I know there are so many things I could achieve and do if I didn't wipe out so many days being hungover or not 100% but it's like I can't quite allow myself to be that sorted. I think I am scared of achieving my other goals in life and then thinking 'now what?' or 'is this it?'. Carrying on drinking means that possibility is always in the future because I never quite get there to find out if that's how I'd feel. And all the while life is passing by...