I recommend to read the book I suggested.
It is tough for me to give up all sweet, but I am consuming much less hoping to do better.
Alcoholics Anonymous(kinda)
- Thread starter MrDeets
- Start date
I recommend to read the book I suggested.
It is tough for me to give up all sweet, but I am consuming much less hoping to do better.
exminister
Well-known member
Best wishes for a sober life where you will know and love your life and your loved ones.
Now that you are in AA you will know what you need to do.
Now that you are in AA you will know what you need to do.
I understand that many, if not all, ex-alcoholics have depression problem too.
Does this sumerise it?
"Kathleen des Maisons realized that addictive behavior has a lot to do with food, and that sugar was the primary culprit. She believes that some people are born "sugar-sensitive," which means they don't have enough serotonin or beta-endorphin in their brains. Serotonin and beta-endorphin make us feel secure, stable, confident, cheerful. If you have low levels of these chemicals, you are likely to feel badly.
Sugar and alcohol raise your serotonin and beta-endorphin levels. So they make you feel better and more energetic, especially if your levels were low to start with. Unfortunately, eating concentrated sugars or refined carbohydrates causes a rebound effect. Your sugars levels drop quickly, you feel worse than before, and you need more sugar, caffeine or alcohol to pick back up.
Pretty soon you're addicted. You feel alternately great and miserable. The sugar swings stress your adrenal glands. You blame yourself for being out of control and unfocused, for putting on weight or drinking, but actually it's the sugar. It's a physical problem, although emotions do play a part."
This is more a systemic addiction where foods make a difference. What I have is more related to impulse control and 'non-directed' anxiety.
The main treatment for trichotillomania is a type of behavior therapy called habit reversal training. Basically, this means replacing a bad habit with something else that's not harmful.
With this approach, people with trichotillomania first learn to identify when and where they have the urge to pull hair. They also learn to relax and do something else, that doesn't hurt them, as a way to help ease tension when they feel the urge to pull their hair.
What do you call it when you read a particular poster and feel the urge to pull their hair out?
Well let me think? :think::think::think::dizzy::yawn::think:
:idea: You have a goat and someone tried to steal it.:noid: Then you worry about it.
:listen: sell the stupid goat and you have no more worry:jolly:
MrDeets
TOL Subscriber
Townheretictilliomania, FYI. :chuckle:
PureX
Well-known member
Actually, I don't believe that's the case.
The main difficulty for recovering alcoholics is that they have not learned proper responses to life's challenges, because they responded to every challenge by using alcohol. And when that response is taken away, they don't know 'how to live'.
And most alcoholics become alcoholic at an early age, further exacerbating this problem. I was 35 years old when I finally quit drinking, but I had started drinking in my early teens. So I had not learned a proper way of dealing with nearly every aspect of adult life. Once sober, I was 20 years "behind" everyone else in terms of life-skills and emotional development. And I was scared to death of everything! I wasn't depressed, I was just flat out confused, and frightened. And I found this to be the case with most of the recovering alcoholics I associated with. Though few of them would admit to that, and many would have gladly accepted the diagnosis of depression rather than to admit that they were just mentally and emotionally retarded, and so were just afraid and confused.
My solution to a flat tire was to get drunk. My solution to not having the courage to ask a girl for a date was to get drunk. My solution for having to pay my taxes every year was to get drunk. My solution for anything that happened to me was to get drunk.
And it's not just the bad stuff, it's the good stuff, too. Something bad happens, drink it away. Something good happens, celebrate it by drinking, because everything is better when you drink! Nothing happens, drink to the boredom and soon you'll be having fun! Drink, drink, drink. The solution was always to drink. If I had been depressed, I wouldn't have known it, because I was always drunk. And even after I sobered up, all depression would have been to me was an excuse to get drunk, again. I couldn't afford it.
To be honest, recovery is a pretty simple process, though it's not easy. Basically, you just have to surrender to life, and to your own emotions. And stop trying to control them or deny them with chemical substances or other forms of distraction and manipulation. Instead, learn to live with them. Deal with them. And finally, to let them go.
Depression is a luxury that few alcoholics can afford to keep around.
Dan Emanuel
Active member
Hopefully, you are now on day 49, of being alcohol free.
I gave up smoking thirty four years ago, I have developed a real fear of cigarettes, I know those little white sticks are stronger than I am, just one puff and I will be back to thirty a day.
I have the same fear of cigarettes, as I have for sticking my hand in a fire and picking up a burning coal. I spent several sleepless nights looking at the similarities of the pain, that would be caused by a burning coal and fags.
My dad died an alcoholic, he never really liked drinking, but when he was fifty, my mum started to loose the use of her legs, then hands, due to multiple sclerosis. Sadly, dad could not cope seeing his wife deteriorate and drank himself to death.
I don't think drink is the real problem, it is all the emotional stuff we try and bury. A woman I know has had a horrible life, she talked about being raped as a child, and her brother committing suicide. Drink is the only thing that gets her through the day, she wants to quit, but can't face the demons in her mind without wine.
Henry Ford said, if you believe you can't you are probably right, if you believe you can you are probably right.
When you believe you can, it becomes a case of determination to win, you do whatever it takes, but first you just have to believe you can give up drinking for good, just like other people have.
I gave up smoking thirty four years ago, I have developed a real fear of cigarettes, I know those little white sticks are stronger than I am, just one puff and I will be back to thirty a day.
I have the same fear of cigarettes, as I have for sticking my hand in a fire and picking up a burning coal. I spent several sleepless nights looking at the similarities of the pain, that would be caused by a burning coal and fags.
My dad died an alcoholic, he never really liked drinking, but when he was fifty, my mum started to loose the use of her legs, then hands, due to multiple sclerosis. Sadly, dad could not cope seeing his wife deteriorate and drank himself to death.
I don't think drink is the real problem, it is all the emotional stuff we try and bury. A woman I know has had a horrible life, she talked about being raped as a child, and her brother committing suicide. Drink is the only thing that gets her through the day, she wants to quit, but can't face the demons in her mind without wine.
Henry Ford said, if you believe you can't you are probably right, if you believe you can you are probably right.
When you believe you can, it becomes a case of determination to win, you do whatever it takes, but first you just have to believe you can give up drinking for good, just like other people have.
My father was an alcoholic. He was not educated to live adequately. He used alcohol to get courage to socialize.
My brother and sister were and is alcoholics. I know it is inherited but they do not have or did not have desired to be a sober. You see, they were and is just plain lazy.
My sister committed suicide and brother is still alive being bum.
My brother and sister were and is alcoholics. I know it is inherited but they do not have or did not have desired to be a sober. You see, they were and is just plain lazy.
My sister committed suicide and brother is still alive being bum.
PureX
Well-known member
It's a sad and difficult thing to watch someone we love destroy themselves and everything they care about because of an addiction. You want to help them, but you can't.
I feel for you.
You see, all he thinks about being drunk, nothing else..
He is so self centered. He does not care about anything else but himself.
PureX
Well-known member
Yes, that's how the disease works. It's an 'obsession'. it takes over the mind, and warps the thinking. I was the same way. And like your brother, I didn't want help for a long time. I didn't believe I needed any. I knew I was an alcoholic but I didn't care, because the word had no meaning for me. And all I cared about was me. It never occurred to me that my alcoholism might be impacting others. Never crossed my mind!
Try to remember that your brother is sick in the head, and part of that sickness makes him so self-centered that he can't see it. Maybe it will be easier for you to forgive him.
You see, his self-centeredness is just sickening. I don't want to be around him.
He gives me lectures when he sees something I do and don't like it. He has vile mouth about it too.
PureX
Well-known member
Sometimes the best thing we can do is to just stay away.
My sister's ex-husband is a drunk. But she believed in the "sanctity of marriage", so she stayed with him for years. Finally, he began to be abusive to the kids, and that was it. She kicked him out and divorced him.
He still is a drunk, but the kids are safe, and fine, and she has remarried. I still feel bad for the guy because he lost his family, forever. But to an alcoholic, drinking becomes more important than anything else, even family. And sometimes that means the family has to cut the alcoholic member loose for the sake of their own well-being. That's just the way it has to be.
elohiym
Well-known member
Yes, it's a good book and evidence-based. Thanks for recommending it to him; I was going to do the same. You saved me the time.
I have been visiting Okinawa for evangelistic reason and have been staying at his house. It was OK when our mother was alive. His behavior was not too bad. But now mother is gone, he is becoming abusive to me even though I have been paying for all expenses plus a lot extra.
It seems what I pay him is not good enough. I am not going back to his house anymore. He has been giving me all kinds of demands, trying to control what I should be doing.
He is not happy unless I give him all he demands.
I have to find another place to stay.
His behavior is very much traditional irresponsible Okinawan male
behavior.