How does it feel not to be an alcoholic?

Question

I am one but I've been dry 8 mths. How does it feel to know that you have had enough to drink?I've never felt that.and what is the point of having just one or two? Doesn't that just make you want more and more?and what does a hangover feel like to you? Is it just a bit of a headache or do you ever really suffer with psychologically with them?

Answer 1

Tea total for 6 years now m8. I don't miss it one bit!

Answer 2

I think it has more to do with seeking the flavor and not the buzz. In years past, before I acquired a taste for wine or (slowly) beer, I'd either drink water or soda, or if the mood struck, get hammered by the quickest means possible (poison of choice was Long Island Iced Tea). However, it felt very uncomfortable to lose control and the idea of a DUI scared the bejeebus out of me so I'd know I was done. If I had the burning desire to have a glass in my hand and be sipping on something, I'd get a coke or water.
You ask what it's like to feel like to know that you've had enough. I think that's about as hard to describe as trying to describe NOT knowing when you've had enough. Like I said, the prospect of a DUI or possibly hurting or killing another person in an accident scares the hell out of me...I'm not going to set myself up for that possibility...period. I guess the thing is, at no point in the time that I'm drinking, do I ever forget that...ever. Don't get me wrong, I've been sloshed beyond being able to speak. But before I ever started, I either had a ride, or was staying the night.
For the longest time, I was a lightweight...two drinks and I'm gone (granted, two LIIT's were not skimpy on the booze) so there really wasn't enough alcohol in my system to get me hung over. The occasional binge, however, left me not necessarily hung over, but completely uinterested in another drink for a few days. The smell of booze would make my stomach turn.

So, to answer your question, to know that I've had enough...it makes me feel a little "grown up" in that I know I'm doing what I should even if it's not what I want or would like. I confess that being "grown up" sucks a lot more than I would have thought as a kid. When you mention "...what is the point of having just one or two?" It goes back to taste a little, and also the realization that it isn't a challenge of "how far can you go?" EVERY time.

As you mentioned, you've been dry for a while, so you're dealing with it in a way that seems to work. No two people are alike, so what works for me may not work for everybody, or even anybody else. However, you now have my perspective. Hopefully this might help better than most others who think that berating you for obsessing over it is the answer.

Either way, congrats on the 8 months...it's not easy.

Answer 3

I can't remember. Started drinking to overcome crippling shyness and it was downhill from there. You're doing amazingly well to have been dry for 8 months. I would like to get over it myself, but every time I think of the fact that I could never have even just one drink - not ever - well, it depresses me so much that I have to go pour myself another glass of wine. Non-alcoholics don't get how much drink is our friend. It cheers us up when we are lonely or sad, it lets us stick two fingers up to the world when we get rubbished yet again, and it takes away our shyness and anxiety. Nothing else can do those things. But it is a terrible dependency to have, and I do admire those people who don't 'need' it. Wish I could stop at just the two small ones!

Best of luck to you anyway.

Answer 4

I know I have had enough when I start feeling dizzy and/or I try and take a drink and I gag on it and end up spitting it out (embarrassing, too!). Hangovers are horrible for me. I usually puke several times and then begin to dry heave. The pain in my stomache is unbearable. I usually do not feel well again until late afternoon the next day (from getting drunk the night before).

Answer 5

Congrats on your sobriety. For me, I'm particularly sensitive to alcohol, so I catch a buzz pretty fast. If I have more than 3 drinks, I start getting nauseous. But despite all of that, I am satisfied with 1 or 2 drinks because I drink for the flavor and enjoyment. I have my moments when I want to get trashed, but those are few and far between and I choose those moments. Hangovers are pretty bad for me. Headache, nausea, fatigue, depression. I can handle a hangover every once ina while, but if I drink on a regular basis, it voids out my medication for depression and I get really really depressed and angry. Therefore, I'm forced to control my drinking.

Answer 6

That is a tough question. An alcoholic doesn't know what it is like to not be one and someone who isn't doesn't know what it is like to be. You sound like you are trying to learn how to be a social drinker...don't. If you are an alcoholic, you will always be one. Instead of looking at it as something terrible, look at it as an allergy to alcohol. That is what it really is and if more people would start thinking that way, there would be alot less stigma attached to it. If you got deathly sick everything you ate steak would you keep eating it because everyone else liked it??? I have always maintained that if you went to a restaurant and got as sick on food as you get on booze, you'd hire a lawyer and quit going back. Yet we pay our bartenders good money to make us sick and keep going back!! Learn to accept yourself as having a terrible allergic reaction to alcohol. It is the only way. Remember, there isn't anything wrong with having fun sober. If your 'friends' bug you to drink, just tell them you can't because you are highly allergic and let it go at that. They don't need to know anything else. By the way, you do know that being dry for 8 months, doesn't mean you are sober. Alcohol stays in the system for a very long time. Also, your words spell out a 'dry drunk' to other alcoholics....By the way, congrats on your keeping clean!!!

Answer 7

As an alcoholic, sober almost 30 years, now, I stopped because IT DIDN'T WORK ANYMORE! "It turned on me." It no longer did for me what it once did in a predictable, reliable way. This is the honest reason I stopped. Someone defined an alcoholic as one who cannot GUARANTEE where one drink will eventually take him. I can remember when I was not an alcoholic (age 20). It was not an ISSUE if I had one or not. Sometimes I did; sometimes I didn't. It was all the same to me. It was not an issue either way. I never dwelled on the subject (at that time).

Answer 8

i am 23 and all my mates think about is going out and drinking that much that they dont know what they are doing, which we get in to fights and are in the long run doing a lot of harm to are bodys. we know that but we still do it i feel the affects from it realy bad when i drink in a night 3 pints of carling 8 double voka red bulls and 2 jd and cokes and a jd and smernof ice mixed. all for me to come home and come on the computer, go sleep and wake up feeling bad about how much i drank, if this does not make sence its because i am a bit pissed, i have forgot the question so im going sleep now so night night

Answer 9

I feel you have to be pretty stubborn and refuse to drink more after you've reached a certain limit (eg. an amount of drink, money or time). Knowing that its not worth the hangover or the sobering up and generally feeling sh*t plays a part for me.

However, i know that myself and someone who is an alcoholic may drink for different reasons. I'm sure there are alcoholics who drink to escape problems instead of trying to "socialise".

Answer 10

i always drink much water before i go to bed and never get one but sometimes i forget to and the next day i just feel like i did not get any sleep and have a silt headache (just like if i do physical work with out water)

for me it feels like i drink a little too much or i get worried that i will be to drunk so i barley drink, i can never find the correct level but then again i don't drink all the time, just when im with friends on some of the weekends

Answer 11

Good for you, stay away from it, you know yourself that one or two drinks will never be enough. The only cure for alcolholism is not to touch the stuff. Do you feel much better in yourself since being dry and life has a better outlook, if it,s yes than you are doing fantastic. Keep it up, you know it makes sense.