Are there any lovers of the drink here who went through periods of drinking quite a bit, but learned how to moderate and control themselves?
I drink everyday and it relaxes my nerves but would like to cut back but at the same time I don't want to give up alcohol completely and I'm sure as hell not doing the AA shit.
I've seen and read enough about that shit, I think going to an AA meeting would make me want to drink more.
Is it really all or nothing or can you learn to drink responsibly /ck/? And if you're not the AA type what do you do to at least cut back.
I read the 12 steps and instantly thought, this is a cult.
I realised I started having blackouts, and I got scared. Really scared, because I literally couldn't remember shit from the evening before. I'd think I passed out around ten on the couch drinking by myself, when I'd see I was calling a cab at 5 in the morning, or have a McDonalds receipt in my pocket, or I spent $80 at a liquor store last night. And people would call me up, say how great the time was, etc, so it wasn't like I was acting too drunk. Really cut back on my drinking since then.
>>7276818
I took a flask of Makers Mark to my one and only AA meeting. Everyone was in their 50s and 60s. I got the impression they all regretted one thing - being old and not being able to go drunken ape shit wild like they used to when they were young.
But to answer your question - I used to drink way more than I should have. Evan Williams everyday. I got sick. I completely stopped drinking for a few years but then eased back into it. I will never go back to the hard stuff but I still enjoy a wide array of beer.
Also, you can try taking up pot smoking. I gave it a try and it just made me feel disoriented and dumb. Not for me.
12 steps is not a cult. The higher power can be whatever you want it to be. It can be the sanctity of your own asshole for all it matters. The point is to care for something.
you can't control an addiction
it's like a parasite that feeds off itself
detox is the only answer
>>7276859
All it is is wash and repeat.
I read about it in psychology classes it's bunk in the states for poor people who can't afford a therapist.
On the other side of the pond moderation is a reasonable goal through therapy.
The 12 step program was invented by a sect of protestant Christians decades ago to slowly get people involved in their church, and a cult doesn't need a God to be a cult. It's a cult by how its own practices of what it requires of people and how it treats members or former members.
AA is a cult.
If you have an alcohol problem, seek a therapist, AA is bullshit made up by people who knew nothing about Alcoholism decades ago and thought alcohol was purely of the devil and wanted to get you through the church doors.
If you have a problem anon, I suggest you seek a DOCTOR. Going to AA is tantamount to going to New Mexico to see a shaman.
>>7276861
Not everything is black and white.
I love also how AA moves the goal posts. Because if someone who went to their meetings and suffered from alcoholism and quit drinking completely and returned to drinking on a moderate scale, they claim they were never an alcoholic to begin with. So they make a doctrine where you basically have no argument against them.
>>7276962
A doctor? A member of that profession which is legally forbidden to give advice which isn't fully endorsed by the pharmaceutical industry via government payoffs?
Jesus. If you want to talk about cults, that's one of the real dangerous ones right there.
>>7276818
When I was cheated on I drank relatively heavily going through a couple bottles of wine a week or some heavy liquor.
After a month or two of that I realized I should probably NOT drink that much...
A beer a night or a glass of wine is fine.
>>7276976
A psychologist does not prescribe drugs. That's a psychiatrist.
>>7276976
Psychologists focus purely on talk and behavioral therapy, there are no drugs involved you twit.
for every habit i have, i have found a substitute.
for example: marijuana to stop drinking
bubble gum to stop using cigarettes
whatever it takes man
>>7276968
>Not everything is black and white.
it is for an addict. there's no such thing as being partially addicted.
>>7276968
It sucks the courts force you to attend AA as a stipulation of your probation.
>>7276976
Holy mackerel I didn't know Tom Cruise or those of the Scientologist persuasion visited this board...
>>7276979
So you believe the capital d o c o t o r doctor he meant was a doctor of psychology?
Seems unlikely, but even if so, there's another shamanistic profession if I ever saw one. It's effectively literary interpretation of a person's emotions. Nothing definitive about anything a psychologist says. The accepted ideas change every five years.
>>7276818
I started doing kratom and stopped drinking. It definitely scratches a different itch, but my desire to drink is basically dead now, and I can't say I miss the weight I lost, all those mornings feeling terrible and hating myself swearing I'd never drink again, and all the money I blew. I just do a bit of kratom in the evenings not every day. There is a potential for addiction but it seems benign compared to the damage that heavy drinking does over time.
AA works for some, for some it doesn't.
The problem is when people put things in black and white terms like
>this is the only solution to alcoholism
or
>you can't be an alcoholic and learn to drink moderately
the problem is in the thinking and in
>can't
do what works best for you.
I hate that so many people think in such simplistic terms.
>>7276968
>So they make a doctrine where you basically have no argument against them
how sad are you that you need to go around starting arguments with alcoholics?
>>7276993
You clearly have not studied neurology. The 12 step program is of the same thinking of people who believed in witchcraft.
It's hysterical that you ridicule psychology for being unscientific when the 12 steps literally came about as a form of slow indoctrination.
>>7276999
How sad are you to be hook, line, and sinker completely bought into the 12 steps and AA?
They brainwashed you right good didn't they mate?
>>7277007
never been to AA, but carry on with your assumptions if it makes you feel better.
>>7277007
What's your agenda? Are you OP?
These are reasons why therapists are the preferred method of therapy over AA.
>Alcoholics Anonymous – AA as it is generally known – was started in the 1930s as a spinoff from the Oxford Group, a religious movement whose ideas were sometimes alleged to help chronic drinkers. With the aid and approval of key members of the power elite such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., AA grew from an obscure idea to what many have come to regard as a national treasure: society’s premier (practically only) way of treating alcohol, drug, and related addiction problems. By now, AA certainly must have more than a million members, with groups organized in virtually every city, town, and village, along with numerous foreign countries. Moreover, AA’s core doctrine, the famous Twelve Steps, has been adopted by hundreds of parallel organizations with programs that address problems such as gambling, overeating, emotional troubles, and related family issues. Without question, AA and the Twelve Steps are among America’s most well known and revered institutions.
https://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/aacultbk01.htm
>Cain, a writer and psychologist whose skirmishes with AA were documented in national magazines such as Harper’s and the Saturday Evening Post, was perhaps the loudest, but not necessarily the first, to notice AA’s resemblance to an organized cult. “We are struck by the sect or cult-like aspects of AA,” alcohologists Morris E. Chafetz and Harold W. Demone, Jr. observed in 1962. “This is true in terms of its history, structure, and the charisma surrounding its leader, Bill W[ilson].”[4] Furthermore, Chafetz and Demone asserted that: “In our opinion AA is really not interested in alcoholics in general, but only as they relate to AA itself.”
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-aa-is-out-of-step-with-research-on-addiction
http://www.thecleanslate.org/charlie-sheen-turns-on-the-cult-and-feels-the-wrath-of-alcoholics-anonymous/
>>7277028
What's your agenda?
>>7277007
Ooo opoo ooo, I'v always wanted to belong to a cult? Do they pass out hooded robes and light candles in a dark drafty place?
Me. I was drinking everyday but snapped out of it because i realised health is the most important thing in life. now i never drink two days in a row. even drinking every other day is stressing me with health worries though, i might just quit drinking completely except with friends or to celebrate. i'm absolutely terrified of health problems.
i switched to light beer. never get blacked out, never get violent. also never get as drunk as you like, but hey thats the breaks.
>>7276983
this worked for me except i replaced them both with coffee.
>>7278925
This. Also I don't really get hangovers anymore.
When I was 20/21 I went through the typical drinking phase. After losing my job, I got pretty depressed and started going through handles of shitty liquor like it was nobody's business, to the tune of maybe 2 a week. I did that for around 2 months, waking up at 5pm, eating a small "breakfast" and then drinking whatever shitty two-ingredient cocktails I could come up with. I was probably consuming around 20 drinks a day. I felt like total trash unless I was piss drunk and my weight spiraled out of control, at one point I was 170 at 5,5. Pretty fucking disgusting.
It started having very negative health effects. I stopped having bowel movements regularly, and when I did it was usually black and tarr-y and smelled. I developed stomach problems that would not allow me to eat without pain, and constantly felt extremely bloated. Probably liver damage or some shit like that. It was getting ridiculous.
Then one day I had picked up a half case of PBR for the night after eating some waffle house, got two beers in and decided I fucking hated myself. I quit that day, and immediately went to smoking pot instead. I remember the first two or three weeks were very strange. I had way too much energy, and I was sweating constantly and I always reeked of alcohol. I didn't get any DTs or weird anger outbursts, and honestly I think the pot may have helped with that. I ended up losing a good 35 pounds and feeling a lot better. I didn't drink at all for 6 months.
Fast forward about 2 years and I have started drinking regularly again. I don't drink hard liquor or any shitty ass two ingredient mix drinks any more, mostly just generic beer and IPAs. I was drinking 3-6 beers every other day, and decided to cold turkey it last week, just to see how it would go. Felt weird for about 5 days, kinda shakey, but nothing major.
To be honest, I consider myself an alcoholic. But every time I've wanted to stop, or get it under control, I have, with very little difficulty.
>>7276962
>>7276976
Bruh, future doctor-bro here (med school student). I don't know why people think doctors are all brainwashed faggots, they're well-meaning and hard-working people who just want the best for their patients. A lot don't even like to prescribe their patients medications if they don't have to. Not like pharm companies can pay off or even give stuff like vacations to docs anymore with recent legislation
On a side note, I'm not sure how much seeing a doctor would help to stop drinking. The most they could do is refer you to a therapist or give you a pill that makes you nauseous when you drink (and if you want to drink, you just stop taking that pill for a couple days - problem solved)
>>7276983
this. gotta fill that vacuum in your schedule with something man. i find that weed helps a lot
