What drives your drinking? If people don’t mind sharing what drove their drinking in the past. Please share. I believe if I could address an underlying issue I could stop. There is a reason I want to keep drinking. Mine is my mother’s voice. I work with a therapist to eliminate my mother’s condescending controlling voice, but have been unsuccessful so far stopping her voice in my head.
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Just here to let you know it does get better. I personally have used a lot of impulsive behaviors to cope with ptsd triggers and drinking has been one, substance abuse has been one in the past, shopping, binge eating, etc. kinda like a behavior chain, my brain seeks chaos when I experience a ptsd trigger. Starting therapy has helped with this overwhelming impulsive feeling a ton but it’s still there sometimes and that’s after 3 years of therapy once a week.
I would 100% suggest therapy, it also sounds like you might really benefit from emdr.
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Routine, trauma, pain the rear kid, work, life. For 17 years it was mainly just the norm, social and something to do. When all of the other things hit hard the drinking intensified and I began drinking for the wrong reasons. On top of a therapist, I’d try a life coach and/or a health and wellness coach to maybe help switch things up. Good luck to you😊
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The disease of alcoholism drove my drinking. Plain and simple. As long as I could blame something for my drinking I could justify it. As long as I could say that my problems were big and special enough to drive me to drink, I could rationalize my drinking. Once I realized that my problems weren’t special, I could see that it was my addiction just telling me that I wasn’t ok and I should just go ahead and drink. Self pity will get you to drinking quicker than you can imagine.
FOMO. I love the nightlife, and alcohol and drugs are part of it. I don't crave as much as many others, perhaps, but when i start, i keep it going.
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For me, the biggest reason was social anxiety. I drank just to feel relaxed enough to relate to others and give me the freedom to feel like myself without the burden of my inner critic's voice. I also really enjoyed the taste and associated it with relaxation and a reward I used after a long, hard day or period of extreme stress or anxiety. I also associated it with celebration and saw it as a quintessential part of any type of gathering, party or holiday. It's hard to break those associations but it can be done with support and mindfulness.
I felt that. I relate to that a lot. It doesnt really have to do with drinking, but a lot of my depression and anxiety stem from her statements that im trying to re wire in my head. I used alcohol to escape my head. My memoriee, my flashbacks, my emotions or lack there of. It made everything so much worse because everything would just linger even heavier. Theres no drink strong enough to forget my trauma. So therapy is helping me live and understand through my experiences instead of pushing it away.
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I drank because I liked the effect. No other justification needed. I don’t drink now.
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Love. I’ve been with partner for 13 years and I love him as much now as I did when I was 17. He’s my world. But he drinks and we party and drink together… it’s what we do. I have to choose between being with the love of my life, or living a longer, healthier, more successful life that will have a gigantic painful hole in it.
Being a parent of special needs children and when I was younger it was the nightlife/clubs.
I drink bc I want to change how I feel. I cannot stand to be present.
Thank you for these replies. It has given me a lot of insight to something I was approaching to simply.
Escape. I drank to escape the committee in my head that was always feeding me negativity. The only way to shut up the committee was to drink.
That is why I drink and am desperately trying to quit. It silenced the negative voices temporarily, but once you sober up they are there waiting to torment me again.
How did you stop the voices without alcohol?
Did I say they stopped lol? A few things definitely help. First, I accepted that I have a disease, and that this disease messes with my mind because it wants me to feel horrible and drink. So, I need to be aware of my “stinking thinking”. If I’m aware of it, I literally laugh at it and tell it to shut up. The other thing I do is prayer and meditation. I ask the universe to help me and take away these negative feelings. During meditation I repeat many positive affirmations and feel the love and acceptance from the god of my understanding. It’s not perfect, but I do catch myself now a lot sooner when it starts. I’m aware that I don’t feel right much quicker and I can turn down the volume by the few things I mentioned above.
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When I was a teenager it was to numb my depression of losing my mother and moving away from everything I knew. As an adult, drinking was the norm. Going out? Must drink, stress? Must drink.. everything ended up with a drink. Good or bad.
Childhood trauma, not understanding why my father didn't love me. Boy, that cut like a knife. Caused all types of drama with men, physical and sexual abuse, and l ever learned or was taught how to manage my emotions and stress.