alcohol rage

Alcohol Rage!

I present the ghastly story of my battle against liquor. This year I decided to give up alcohol, but matters did not go to plan... Let me know if the following has any bearing on your own experiences.



2nd January

[Below are booze-related extracts from emails I sent to Madpole, an old friend, unless otherwise stated]. Yesterday I made the first new years resolution I can remember. I declared that I am stopping boozing. It's not that I'm addicted, as you know, I'm not, not at least to the alcohol itself. When I drink, I do it to make myself feel sociable, and euphoric. I have long been considering though, as we discussed, that there are several downsides. The worst pitfall is the binge drinking aspect, where I firstly loose control of my desire to drink moderately, and subsequently, after a few hours, my personality can morph dangerously into that of an antagonistic idiot, so far removed from my sober persona as to be a Jeckyll and Hide transformation.

The epiphany came on new years eve, when a friend was genuinely outraged with the way I acted after 5 or 6 hours on the pop. It was a painful moment, and, more importantly, it was the last straw for me. No more drink, for Eadon! The best thing is, the sense of relief, the sense of future disasters averted, of convenience, and even dispensed-with expense, though that's a minor consideration. It is the drink-induced loss of control that trumps all else, even hangovers, and it is that which drives and motivates me never to drink again.

When I look back, my life has been blighted by drink. Regret, regret, regret! Every regret is either drunken folly, or hangover-induced paralysis and fatigue.

I should have given up ages ago, when my drinking indirectly lead to an oversight that endangered someone's life. I have not profited from drink. Indeed, being drunken has only served to alienate people.

Well, I'm slow to fix this flaw, but my lesson is at last not in vain. No more drunken folly. A couple of hours of euphoria is repaid by potentially unlimited misery. It feels great to have given up the booze.



3rd January

I remember first battling with the wisdom of getting paralytic on liquor in the late 90's. My ego prevented me from admitting to myself how unpleasant I was when drunk, because I wanted to believe, with the blindness of religious faith, that people liked me when I was drunk, to justify a night on the beer. So I suppose this was addictive behaviour, as the rationalisation was powerful.

I have long killed the delusion that I am not unpleasant when very drunk, and that admission is crucial to the step I have now taken.

I am determined not lose my resolve, like a dieter usually does. It is my profound hope and sincere wish and hope that I do not return to the ale, and have the hoards of Hell wreak havoc once again.

The thing that scares me the most is that I shall surrender to temptation, exacerbated by indifference, by the contempt brought on by familiarity. The only tactic that I can think of is that my fear of surrender shall play the role of addiction itself, that I need to turn this mortification of relapse into a phobia, to use that as a motivation... My addiction is not with booze but with the concept of thinking that I can master it, and that addiction is powerful. It is a game between me and the drug, and the more I lose, the more I try to emerge victorious.

Thus, if I am to win, then I must not give in to this addiction I have for the game. The addiction that I had/have? for booze that is interesting, because it is a social addiction, not a drug one, though there is probably a drug addiction too, like I'm mildly addicted to chocolate but can take or leave it, usually the latter to avoid the toxins.

Booze was my defence against other people. If I can see it that way, then the game becomes different, I have to master not booze, but other people! If I substitute the booze game with the "other people" game, then I should be able to sustain the motivation. It scares me though, that, as you say, I may just denounce my abstinence one day, and it's back to the twisted nightmare of binge drinking again.



4th january, [matters continue to go well for now.]

The phone rang last night, t'was [a friend], and as arranged on a previous piss-up we headed pub-wards. There we met another friend, and so the scene was set. For two hours or so, I consumed some soft drink or other and for two hours I fought against the desire to sup ale, as the lads knocked back three or four pints of guinness. Then we strolled off back home.

This morning I feel absolutely great, no hangover, no sense of regret, no sense of guilt, (well a bit, but that's just paranoia over the disaster of new years eve, and my disgrace at that time.) I discovered that my friends were congenial towards me despite that I was not drinking beer, and both were enthusiastic about meeting up again the following Sunday for more of the same. Their warmness to me proved to me that, at the very least, I was no worse off, with regards to their affections, than if I were sober.

In fact, I had not raised my voice all night, which is an ugly tendency of mine after about three beers, but one that I've never been able to overcome. I feel that my chief fear, of being rejected if sober on a night out, was a mirage, a mirage that was nothing more than a wished for illusion to rationalise my desire to drink.

At one or two points I did feel uncomfortable in the company of my friends, but that is the problem I need to overcome, I need to learn to derive more pleasure from company, and not from the alcohol. And, whereas I had expected to feel awkward, I felt much less awkward than I had anticipated. Indeed, at the end of the night, I felt pretty good, but I wish pubs served better alcohol-free drinks that don't make you seem too homosexual, as fruit juice does :) Coffee would be ideal.

My chief thought this morning was that I have broken the spell of my chief delusion, a delusion that is ridiculous. My usual justification for drinking was that, to my mind, drink made other people more interesting. As I said earlier, my dangerous wishful thinking was that my drinking made me more interesting to others, possibly because I am more animated after a couple. However there is no reciprocality between other people appearing more interesting to me and me appearing more interesting to others.

Indeed, by the end of the night, I would usually be mentally incapacitated, certainly not charming, and after a long session, I would be repulsive. Even a two hour stint in the pub has led me to believe that my company was more enjoyable sober than pissed. Overturning my misconception, that was based on no more than faith, on wishful thinking, is a real epiphany.

One unexpected benefit of staying sober was the way I didn't feel what I shall term the "beer rations" anxiety, namely the anxiety I feel when I'm thirstier than my companions and wish to drink at my pace and not theirs. Another form of this anxiety is the feeling that closing time is approaching, which in effect chokes off the beer supply (unless one keeps drinking at home, chatting online, which usually entails a late night and even more savage grogginess the next day).

A benefit that I did expect was a kind of relief that I was not trading beer-induced euphoria today for a longer-lasting misery tomorrow. But even last night the temptation was strong. My chief temptation was to have "just one" before closing time. I resisted this temptation by saying to myself that even a single pint makes me feel a bit shit the next day, so why bother just for the sake of a single pint?

Once one gives in just a tiny bit, then the contents of Pandora's box are released, and no less for the door of this box being opened just a little. I passed the first test, but the real tests come, as you say, once the novelty of living a sober social life has worn off, and the memories of the hazards of booze are fading.

The experiment continues...

I do feel relief and in that sense a minor sense of happiness. It's not just enthusiasm, as trepidation is the other side of the coin, after all, I know I'm right, it is just that being right doesn't necessarily animate future actions. The problem is that, as I think we touched upon, of the dieter, who loses weight only to pile it back on. In the case of booze, there is, for me at least, no feeling of hunger or pangs. So I am safer from that regard. But there is the this demon in me that leads to mischief, and such is the risk that I am continually subjected to, that I shall count every day that I am without booze as a triumph.



6 January

Aaargh! The bugger of it is that experimenting with liquor is what lands me into so much trouble. [A guy at work] is Satan incarnate, he tempted me to go for a beer after work, and I felt disconcerted and stunned, so tempted was I to knock back a few beers. That I managed to resist this near infinite temptation is testament to my dread of hangovers, that has now become something of a phobia. I am doing the opposite of most afflicted people. Most people see phobias as something to be cured, but if I develop a phobia of hangovers, then it shall be the perfect incentive not to be tempted by ale!



11 January

Fear not! I'm not addicted to either smoking or drinking, if I were, I'd be habitual instead of a non-smoker and merely a social drinker.

Often swallowing alcohol is a euphoric pastime, but I notice that there is a stage AFTER that where I begin to get some lucidity back, and ironically this is the most dangerous time, because I become aware of falling off the top of the curve, yet I'm drunk enough sometimes not to take it in good humour. It is this life cycle of a session that I aim to control, rather than experimenting with extremes, I need to find ways to avoid drinking altogether: or when it's necessary to drink, as in [dining with new friends in London] last night, finding ways of not drinking much :) [ I broke my resolution, and drank wine and beer with the new friends. The night went well, and was great fun, but I was perilously close to disaster and got too drunk for comfort.]

This for me is a real battle, really difficult to avoid the allure of the sirens, I shout at decrees to untie me from this mast!! In my case I'm trying to prevent social debacles. [Certain other people] are fighting genuine genetic addiction and that's a whole different matter!!



12 January

[To change one's mind, and give up the demon drink is difficult.] It is like proving to a christian that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is NOT a contradiction of evolution, but they don't change their convictions to the contrary, because they do not want to know. People like to think they are objective, but of course we are not, we take what we want to take and are wilfully blind to the rest.

No one changes their mind about things they feel strongly about because emotions beat reasons. Only if you don't care can you change. And if you don't care then there is little incentive. Basically my experiment in giving up alcohol is about turning my emotions upside down, instead of feeling happy about beer, I am training myself to feel miserable about beer. Only when misery sets in - the fear of hangovers, the dread of acting like an ass, the danger of being out of control - the endless cycle of annoying girls by drunken behaviour - only by changing the emotions can we reprogram the brain.

My attempt to quit the rum could be a disaster. By focusing on booze, the attempt risks backfiring by my failing and becoming worse as a result, by becoming a hardened alcoholic. Our discourse and discussion of alcohol is steeped in angst, the concept of an alcohol free existence, even semi-free, is a destiny filled with consternation and uncertainty, it is a terrifying prospect. It is as if we are abandoning a channel of euphoria. Worse, it removes from our lives the chance of using alcohol as an excuse for our failures.

That last point just struck me, and was possibly influenced by my reading of Sartre! The experiment shall continue, but what is ironic is that I got drunk yesterday with [my new friends in London], and it was one of the happiest nights of the decade.

Without the experiment, though, it would have been terrible, because I wouldn't have been able to resist getting plastered TOO quickly!

By denying myself booze, when I do taste it, it is different, truly effective. In the place of drinking for the sake of drinking, it becomes a rare act, an act to be savoured for every crystal moment, a transcendental experience that mythical men might call spiritual.

Yet today I felt shite, and awoke feeling terrible. It was a close call as it was, as my joy was but a knife edge away from calamity!



3 February

I was observing my own behaviour last night [drinking whilst on the phone to Madpole], monitoring the effect of 1, 2, 3 4, 5 cans. The exact time that the conversation ended was the exact time when I lost a self-awareness because of the lager. This occurred after only 4 cans! It's hardly anything!

I promptly came to my senses, downed a load of water, shuffled over to the nite club across the street for half an hour, sipped a small bottle of beer, felt relaxed, came home. 4 cans! This experimental information about how long it takes to go into mindless "binge mode" is priceless. I could remember the moment when I changed from making sense [as if I ever do, haha] to just being boorish. At this point, any further conversation is invariably pure drivel...

This for me is the key revelation, the realisation that anything after (for me) 4 cans is sheer hell. Now that I have quantified that limit, I can hopefully build more resistance to falling into the trap...

What is scary is that the biggest transition from lucidity to drunken devil mode happens startlingly suddenly, it probably takes about half a can. Sanity to wretched misery takes a few swigs of beer... it's like falling over a cliff. And then all hell is unleashed... And the scary thing is, one doesn't see it coming at the critical moment... and then it's freefall, spinning out of control!

And from that point liquor does not refrain from beating us up. Disturbed sleep; the pathetic inability to concentrate the next day; no safety from ills of the soul; the paranoia. It was all there in the national gallery, there's a classic painting of Cupid grasping the honey comb and being punished for it severely as the incensed bees attack... An entire drinking pattern encapsulated in a painting!

The hardest thing is to allow the ego to realise that it is out of control....



7 February



[BLOODY HELL! I realised on Monday morning that an uncomfortable feeling I had suffered on Sunday evening, which I had interpreted as hunger, was in fact CHEMICAL cravings for alcohol! This was the first time I had ever suspected that I might be subject to a chemical addiction to alcohol! But looking back, I've had those hunger-like cravings quite often, it was just that, in my belief that I was not genuinely addicted, I didn't interpret them as alcohol cravings.]



9 February

A guy at work asked me out for a beer last night, and,shaken by some unpleasant event, I accepted. Knowing chemistry-brain angle, I limited myself to a few pints of piss poor lager over a few hours...



12 February

Spirits are just deadly, I remember as a student when me and this chick fancied each other at Sheffield and we would spend nights together and drink vodka til we were delirious. That way we never had sex. I look back with awe, we used to drown ourselves with vodka to win the courage to have sex, and we never did: the vodka somehow prevented the very pleasure that we drank to achieve.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Last night was a freaking nightmare, [a party] started off well, then descended into conversations of drunken drivel. Then I came down off a rum-fuelled high in a night club, and, having abandoned all sense of self preservation, I defied some commandment issued by an arsy, knuckle-dragging bouncer. It's the first time I've done something that suicidal I last scoffed a Big Mac (in the '90s) but it was exactly 6 hours after i started drinking immoderately - THE DANGER ZONE.

Once installed back at my computer, I chatted to a girl online, a regular chat friend, who told me that I was rotten to her on a previous drunken occasion. I explained that 5 or 6 hours into a heavy session I am just horrible, and not to take it personally. I was nice again as I was sobering up and catching some semblance of my senses. But I NEVER EVER EVER want to indulge in a heavy session again!



15 February

Niccolo Machiavelli said (flippantly) in The Prince that half our fate is fortune (chance) and half is skill. However skill can still overcome Fortune! Fortune is like a river that floods, and everyone in it's span is screwed by it.

Yet the skilled operator will not be screwed, because he will have prepared by building river defences, so the flood will affect him less. So fate ruins most people, but the skilled politician will not be doomed so cheaply for he has taken action to avert potential disasters. This philosophy offers an insight that practical matters, not spiritual matters, are key to progress.

People prefer to think that they are in the lap of fortune because when bad things happen to them, they can blame fortune (or alcohol for that matter). An onlooker observing those that put their woes down to pure bad luck might find incompetence and laziness to be the superior cause of their rueful misfortunes!



16 February

Not a drop to drink since Friday. Gradually my morale is improving. I am feeling less depressed, more energetic. It's nice to go to work feeling optimistic, even though I have a day of testing ahead of me. It's time to get into Guns n Roses, Slayer, Anthrax and various other metal heads :)

Booze, the thought suddenly occurs to me, is like TV! After not watching TV for a week, you gradually begin to appreciate life without TV, and realise that the TV addiction (not that I had any since I was a kid) had nothing to do with happiness!

I've never enjoyed the ownership of a flat belly, always been very slightly over-weight. As a kid, I was sure that I would be skinny when 25 because I would, by then, have drummed up the will power to get thin! Anything's possible in the future, right! (As an aside, I've noticed my weight goes up when I drink, and I am trimmer when I ease off the stuff). But, but in reality you also need wisdom, and most of all, action to do this! Sacrifices are involved!

This is true of drinking, it demands of you great sacrifices, but if you do not make these sacrifices, then you end up sacrificing a hell of a lot more, whether you like it or not!!!!

Sometimes inaction is fatal, and worthy action demands sacrifices. And these sacrifices involve destroying the status quo, and creating a new, uncertain life. Sacrifices may be unnerving, to give up liquor, to exchange one form of social life for another, to swap one freedom for another. But the time comes when if you fail to make sacrifices, then ruin shall follow. And, now I think about it, to a certain extent these past few years I have been ruined, and I still am! This is not a financial ruin, for I am not unprosperous, but it is an emotional ruin, a ruin of decaying happiness, authored by rum. So I am ruined, but men do recover all the stronger from states of ruin and sacrifices are crucial to reach the next level. Giving up booze involves suffering mental sacrifices that expose us to fear, even perceived boredom, and those are among the hardest sacrifices of all! Yet I shall further suppose that those sacrifices shall transition into pleasures once the habit forms...



17 February



Even one night spent drinking alternating with the next night sober [which reflected my own boozing pattern at its worst] is enough for ruin because you suffer a hangover induced laziness and then, upon the point of convalescence, you drink and so the dire tale continues. So I have had, in effect, little leisure for months and years. Ale steals your time perhaps more than TV: the only saving grace of TV is that you're not totally deprived of your life when not watching the damned thing. TV doesn't give you a powerful hangover. Although even this is arguable, as TV deprivation does cause unpleasant side effects in a TV addict that are similar to those of drug withdrawal symptoms.

Last night when sober, I was elated from a visit to the National Gallery, then followed that with a beer. But a mere 1.5 cans has made me a touch sluggish today.

[Disaster! On the evening of the day I wrote the above, I was invited to a piss-up after work. I sank a few jars then staggered to the theatre to see a certain play I have been looking forward to. Alas, I drank red wine at the bar, and walked out in the second half. Arriving home, I sent a flurry of drunken text messages to a female friend I knew from only two encounters. The messages were fairly harmless, but ridiculous and that was that].



18 February

C@t@strophe! About two hours ago I discovered a message from my friend on my phone sent to me. She expressed great displeasure at the drink and dial messages and in that unnervingly patronising tone that only women can master, she has requested that I do not contact her again.

I can hardly blame her for being irate, I hit the self-destruct button last night. I did not sacrifice a night out, and I paid a dear price. I lament the way I did this to her.

Both times I met her I was affected by alcohol, apart from a brief moment when we first met.

Take my actions on our first meeting, I had three pints of beer on an empty stomach. Then, having probably forsaken any charm I might have had, I had the reprieve of an appointment to the theatre at her kind courtesy (we already had tickets). What happens? Before we are to meet, a guy at work implores, 'let's have a beer', so I wolf down 2 and a half pints, then stagger into the theatre, at the last moment, to meet her [for the second and last time].

It's almost as if I was determined to be a total ass in your company. It is this deep irrationality that is created by alcohol that has been such a negative factor in my life, which has been positive otherwise. I can honestly say that nothing good in my life was produced by the stuff.

Don't get me wrong, many a day I have had a couple of beers in the pub and gone home without trauma. But the difficulty is when I fall into the error of BINGE drinking.

Through my life my Mum has smoked incessantly, and I developed a real antipathy towards smoking. Gradually, and increasingly, I view alcohol as the greater evil. It is with alcohol that social degeneracy occurs, when one can feel a vague antagonism towards a person or thing that, when sober, one adores as a fine friend and talented genius!

There is no word less than insanity to describe this behaviour when drinking, it is a pure madness. The scary thing is, that I can be aware of what is happening, then another beer arrives, and to hell with it! Then there are these anxious cravings, where more booze is sought after!

[This guy I know, (no it ISN'T me, haha)] managed to entirely wreck his body and countenance with rum. This is ruin. Anyone could easily fall into the same trap, but he is an excellent advert for not drinking (or smoking). Without doubt, his condition is another incentive for anyone not to follow in his drunken footsteps, and, this might not much please him as a compliment, but I wish to appreciate him for setting this example of ruin!

He manages to commit himself fully to the gods of addiction, of seduction, and, like a Greek sacrificing a goat, he goes and sacrifices his entire body! Extraordinary! And does the decay of his physical condition cause a depression that further fuels his addictions? This is addiction to suffering indeed!

[A quote about addiction from a chess chat room sent to me by Madpole:
MadPole: why do you play chess if I may ask?
Soji-Okita: i'm addicted
MadPole: and how did You get addicted to playing chess Soji?
Soji-Okita: i think it's the joy of watching another person suffer
MadPole: Thank You! ]



24 February

I cajouled myself into a love-hate relationship with liquor, when I should have adopted a pure intolerance to it. It's repetitive and dull when you think about it! The difficulty is that it's easy, you can get drunk and not care. Addiction is seduction, and the outcome is simply STAGNATION!

The marriage to booze gives us what? Nothing but cheap euphoria that lasts uh, 3 hours if you're lucky! I was sober last night, at my first ceroc dance lesson. Had a fab time. Then this morning, walking to work sober, I felt mildly drunk, intoxicated, as if I was on some kind of high, for no obvious reason.

I've not been pissed for one week, and already I feel pissed, just being sober. I'm climbing out of the ditch. Yes I shall leap into the ditch again, sans doubt. But I dread that day now.



25 February

Addictions I have conquered:

Sweets/chocolate (chemical)
Internet Chat (chemical(booze)/external)
Counterstrike (external)
Television (when a kid) (external)
Sugar, then milk in tea (chemical :)
Drinking (chemical)

I do say I have conquered all these addictions. As for drinking - having one beer every other night is fantastic. It is a million miles away from my old habit of drinking too much too fast.

These are the three chief states of liquor:
1) Light drinking (1 beer)
2) Binge beer drinking (4+ beers)
3) Binge spirits (half bottle of vodka +)

My trick is to do (1) only, and not every day. It is only now that I am changed enough to be able to do (1) without having the desire and compulsion to do (2) and (3).

Qualitatively, I see abandoning binge drinking as little different from abandoning chocolate. It's just a habit you can get out of. Now having the desire to get out of it is the hard part. But now, after a struggle for two months, I have programmed my mind so I now have that desire. Of my previous addictions listed above, all are ex-addictions. So even though there is never certainty, there is credible hope!

There was this alchie who one day said, that's it, I'm not touching another drop. When he enrolled to Alcoholics anonymous, the uninspired instructor told him he was not cured: he was a "dry drunk". He realised after a while, that this instructor female at Alchie Anon simply COULDN'T STAND the idea that he could quit without her help.

I was scared of a life without booze and would say ANYTHING to not look fate in the face! It is easier to be a slave to the Universe than it's master. I was driven by fear, not by open mindedness, Hahahahaha, now I'm talking bullshit :)



[End of email extracts]



I have written about this slightly embarrassing problem in the hope that someone else might benefit from reading these experiences and relating them to their own.

Without Madpole's intriguing experiences and insights, this philosophy of booze would have been even more insufficient, as, perhaps, would be my resolve to quit. The point of pasting those email extracts online was to show how subtly difficult it is to not drink! I had to alter my ideas about the concepts involved to have a fighting chance. Indeed people have actually confessed to me that they drink because not doing so makes them happy, and they do not enjoy being happy, they need to be down. I'm not even jesting! This is what alcohol does, it seduces you, it will inject a million reasons into your mind to justify more drink! It is hard to use logic to stop drinking. Drink causes untold woe: depression, wounded careers; violence; deaths on roads; manslaughter and murder. Drink makes for antagonised lovers; ruined families and traumatised childhoods; abused loved ones: liquor leads people to abject ruin.

Yet addiction to liquor is infinitely subtle and difficult to elude. You do not need to be what we think of as an alcoholic to be ruinously affected. Advertising for booze is ubiquitous, the alcohol lobby is powerful. Booze is accepted socially in most countries (the only rebellion in England is against drink drivers so far). Often there are temptations, and pressure (perceived or genuine) to drink socially. Everywhere there is justification, temptation and opportunity to drink.

It's an on-going struggle to avoiding binge drinking, and it is to be wished for that drinking becomes generally frowned upon. Our morally dubious government should discourage boozing, given the understated havoc it wreaks. Instead it is giving in to the booze lobbies. Recently the government permitted the advertising of spirits on television: having role models that kids might look up to, like Jools Holland, promote cheap whisky on TV is unethical and corrupt. That's alcohol!



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From:	Si	Subject:	booze blog	2006-05-24 00:17:33
From:	Jim	Subject:	update	2006-05-28 08:17:08
From:	Mawtom	Subject:	Addiction	2006-09-10 16:27:21
From:	Garble	Subject:	Alchohol	2007-10-21 21:24:55
From:	Debora	Subject:	Your feelings	2007-11-08 04:35:00
From:	Dave	Subject:	your a funny guy	2008-04-20 18:35:00

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