The mind of an alcoholic can be very crafty, and quite the salesman. Your addicted body and brain will give you every reason and excuse imaginable to convince you to open up the bottle.
You've had a bad day at work, tomorrow is your day off, your fighting with your girlfriend/boyfriend, it's a Holiday, your "friends' asked you out to watch the ball game at the sports bar, etc.... The list goes on and on and on. The excuses that an alcoholic will make to rationalize or give validity to the "reasonable" decision to drink is endless.
I'll give you a few examples of some of the ridiculous excuses that I have made over the years. Whenever I have my daughter for the weekend (every other weekend visitation, since I'm divorced. Imagine that!), I always find the excuse to drink on the Thursday before so I won't have as much temptation to drink around my daughter during the weekend. I make sure that I get wasted enough on Thursday so I'll have a brutal hangover and won't even have the desire to drink for the weekend. I rationalize to myself, that I wouldn't be a good parent if she saw me drinking excessively so I might as well get trashed the day before that she comes over to the house.
I have managed to keep the vast majority of my alcoholism away from her for 13 years. So therefore, I tell myself that I'm a better parent if I don't drink when I'm around her. Two days of sobriety is manageable, although not entirely easy. The Sunday afternoons, the addiction comes back roaring strong telling me "Its almost time for some drinks my friend. Soon, you will be mine!"
Another excuse I make to drink alcohol, is going to events that I enjoy and have always associated alcohol with that particular event. Sporting events, concerts, bars (obviously), casinos, boating on the lake, or at least in my case just about any type of social event. I have always suffered from social anxiety, so deciding to medicate myself with alcohol was always an easy excuse to make.
Some people have such stressful lives at work, they use the excuse to drink daily as a way to "relax and unwind". What happens in the end however, is that their quality of sleep suffers, often they drink too much, and their stressful job gets even worse.
I remember the days of doing construction work throughout the hot and humid summer months. Nothing sounded better than having some cold beers after work. Just driving by the local bars in the area where you live (between 4-6 PM), you can certainly see that I'm not the only one that feels this way.
Everybody in this world has many hardships that come their way in their lives. The difference is "everybody" doesn't drink, or at least doesn't drink for the many reasons that an alcoholic does. Alcoholism makes you believe that it's your friend to help make the good times in your life even better, the stressful times less intense, and the sad times a little less painful.
An alcoholic can find an excuse to drink everyday of their lives, and to that alcoholic many of those will seem very rational. At times an alcoholic will know that the decisions that they are making are ruining their lives, but alcoholism leaves them powerless as they struggle aimlessly with their addiction.
Please feel free to add some of your own "excuses to drink" if you are an alcoholic, or some of the excuses that some of your friends and loved ones have made to encourage their own alcohol consumption.
Here is a great book that I have read about reversing the damage of alcoholism -
Eating for Recovery: The Essential Nutrition Plan to Reverse the Physical Damage of Alcoholism
2 comments:
I remember many of those rationalizations very clearly.
I have been trying to wrap my head around my husband's drinking for over 5 years and the one thing I notice is the growing collection of excuses to drink - stressful job, no job, overwhelmed with projects around the house, not getting enough sex, wants to stay up late (like 2-4am)to get projects done, etc, etc, etc... It is never ending and very frustrating. I appreciate your honesty on the subject.
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