by Tom S.
I spent a lot of time, most of it drinking, trying to “figure out” why I drank like I did. I assumed, owing to circumstances in my family, that I was mentally ill and that my drinking was a means of “self-medicating”. I assumed that the pressures of my job and family caused me to drink to blot out or erase those situations with which I had to deal. I assumed that I drank like I did because I liked to, and, that it was normal and appropriate behavior, both personally and culturally.
Well, at least from my present perspective, all of my assumptions were wrong. I found that I drank like I did because… I drank like I did. I drank like I did as a result of my biology, my metabolism. Certainly, many things internal and external affected my drinking, but the “reason” for my drinking like I did was, simply, that I could. I was unable to drink in any other fashion.
With that understood, I was then able to get about the business of doing something about the “rest of my life.” To that end, I got some counseling, a different job, involvement with other sober people, and began to assemble the myriad other bits and pieces that have gone together to make the fabric of a new, sober, life.
I hope I haven’t beaten this one to death, I just want to make the point that drinking, as we do, is the product of our biology and not a result of bad choices, character defects, or any of a thousand other spurious causal factors.
Spend time on those things that will improve your sober life and leave behind the quest for “why”, it is a “how” question, anyway.
Tom
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