Self-sabotage is real
As my recovery was strengthening I became acutely aware of the extent to which my mind was actively working against me. Even after I had summoned sufficient strength to fend off the cravings I still had to navigate my way […]
Alcohol tolerance and changes to our brain
It is the reward system that drives addiction, but the consequences of regular and heavy drinking lead us to be not just addicted. Regular and heavy drinking causes changes in us, and most particularly changes in our brain and mind. […]
Where out-of-the-blue cravings come from
After the initial period of constantly fighting off cravings our recovery slowly settles down to be less demanding on a day-to-day basis until suddenly, out of the blue, we get hit by a huge craving. Just why these suddenly pop […]
When we stop
I knew for a long time what happened if I didn’t drink in the evening… I wouldn’t sleep. But what I didn’t realise was that this only showed me one of several changes that had occurred in my brain and […]
Alcohol is C2H6O… it isn’t magical!
Alcohol (ethanol) is a simple little chemical. It has two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms, and an oxygen atom. It doesn’t travel at speeds exceeding the speed of light and it doesn’t have the gravitational pull of a black hole… […]
I drank because…
I don’t get rattled often these days, but here’s something that gets me frustrated. I often read in recovery blogs, notice-boards, chat-rooms and online communities … “I drank because…” and usually what follows this rattles me. It troubles me and […]
Who becomes an alcoholic?
Why we’ve ended up in this position is a question that haunts us. It is as though knowing the answer will absolve us of the awful things we’ve done. But knowing the answer ultimately changes nothing; we are alcoholics, and […]
Understanding and learning from relapse
Relapse is a crushing and confusing experience. Stopping drinking is hard and I never understood quite how hard it was until I tried. It’s hard because sometimes the test can be ferocious, and sometimes it can be devious… my addiction kept finding new ways to challenge me. Until I realised just how hard it was, and how devious it could be, I didn’t bring enough to the attempt… that’s my experience. But relapse isn’t failure, it is education.
Where cravings come from
Cravings are an urgent sense of wanting, desire or longing for. They have no words, sound or shape; they are an intense feeling without form. Cravings may appear to come and go in a fickle manner, but they don’t come […]
Self-sabotage and the big lie
When we try to stop drinking we are confronted by many challenges. We have to overcome incredibly powerful cravings of course, but there is far more. Our daily routines have to change, people we associate with have to change, and […]
Relapse is growth
This post continues from Relapse! Relapse comes in many shapes and sizes. The first relapses we endured were failures to limit our drinking when we wanted to… e.g. “I’ll only have a couple”. It was when we realised that we […]
Is alcoholism a ‘disease’?
People coming to terms with a serious drinking problem struggle a lot with this idea. Many therapies for overcoming alcoholism describe it as a “disease”, but this is not always a helpful description. The principal problem with this is that […]
Chronic, progressive and fatal
This post builds on the details described in “The mechanics of alcoholism” and “The onset of addiction‘. It is better to have read those before continuing with this post. Alcoholism is a chronic illness that is progressive, and if unchecked, […]
The onset of addiction
This post follows on from the post “The mechanics of alcoholism“. It is more relevant if that is read first. The dopamine “reward system” as it is called is the starting point of addiction, but not everybody who drinks alcohol […]
The mechanics of alcoholism
There is no single point at which someone becomes alcoholic, and it is not determined by how much they drink. In fact alcoholism has remarkably little to do with alcohol at all. There is another drug, that our brain produces […]