cleveramerican was nearly killed by drunk driver last night.

[BlueStateSaint]

Be easy on us addicts Beg. I'm an alcoholic myself.

I was going to point this out, about myself.  Almost 3 months clean and sober.  I do need to go to the meetings, and I do willingly.  Let's just say that I've met a few people that would fit the definition of "conservative" there.

[AllosaursRus]

I was going to point this out, about myself.  Almost 3 months clean and sober.  I do need to go to the meetings, and I do willingly.  Let's just say that I've met a few people that would fit the definition of "conservative" there.

One of the reasons I will have nothing to do with them is way too many libs! They're all so proud of themselves! Then they pop open a beer in the car when they leave. Besides, I enjoy my alcohol. I don't drink to get drunk. I try to keep an even keel. Kinda the same way Larry Hagman explained it.

Excess is wrong no matter how you try to make excuses. No one likes a sloberin' drunk. I've got a BIL that is an asshole as soon as he has 2 beers. Shoot me if I ever get to that point.

[BlueStateSaint]

One of the reasons I will have nothing to do with them is way too many libs! They're all so proud of themselves! Then they pop open a beer in the car when they leave. Besides, I enjoy my alcohol. I don't drink to get drunk. I try to keep an even keel. Kinda the same way Larry Hagman explained it.

Excess is wrong no matter how you try to make excuses. No one likes a sloberin' drunk. I've got a BIL that is an asshole as soon as he has 2 beers. Shoot me if I ever get to that point.

It all depends on the area.  My area is fairly conservative, so there's quite a number of like-minded people here--and in the rooms.

[AllosaursRus]

It all depends on the area.  My area is fairly conservative, so there's quite a number of like-minded people here--and in the rooms.

I live in N. Idaho! The only people at these meetings are libs. The rest of us try to handle our liquor. Don't get me wrong, there are conservatives at the meets, but they've been drowned out by the "woe is me" libs.

There's been an influx since you could sell a rancher in Southern Kalifornica for a million dollars! They all think this is paradise until it snows "ass deep to a tall Indian". We then tend to weed out the morons! If they don't move, we find 'em in a snow bank after the "thaw".

[BEG]

Be easy on us addicts Beg. I'm an alcoholic myself. Come from a long line of 'em. Difference is, I don't have to go to those damn meetins! Addiction is definitely in the genes. Ya just have to realize the fact and operate accordingly. I still drink like a fish but refrain from driving when I do. "Toots" gives me hell 'cause she has to do the drivin' if I get a call.

As a matter of fact, DUI's are my main clientele. Many refuse to take their punishment for being as smart as dog shit!

I was saying that I don't understand addicts.  If you read my post you would understand that I too come from a long line of addicts.  What I don't understand is they have "hit bottom" so many times yet continue with their addiction.  For me being arrested for a DUI would be "bottom" for me.  Being hospitalized for an overdose or alcohol poisoning would be "bottom" for me.    Losing my job because of my addiction would be "bottom" for me.  Running head on into someone else's car (and the thought of actually killing someone) would have been "bottom" for me.  Losing my husband and children would be past "bottom" for me.  I don't understand it.  Everyone I mentioned had at least one of the things happen to them (one, my step-sister, had everything I mentioned happen to her) yet they didn't hit bottom.  You want to know what made my step-dad stop drinking?  He knocked me down on the floor and CHOKED me.  My Mom got him off of me and I ran to the corner of the room.  I was in the corner with my mom standing in front of me and he was reaching around her trying to choke me again.  His mother was there, watching it all.  My brother called the police.  Want to know what I did that made him choke me?  He came home an hour and a half late for dinner, drunk as a skunk.  He was pissed that we had already eaten.  He was slamming cabinets doors and stuff around.  My mom was putting dishes in the dishwasher and he slammed the dishwasher door shut and broke all the dishes that my Mom had just put in the dishwasher.  I yelled, "Can't you even behave in front of your Mother?!?".  He came at me like a mad man.  That wasn't my step-dad choking me, that is not him.  Maybe because I have been on the receiving end of someone who is a drunk (more than once I might add) it makes me harder on alcoholics than the average person.

You admit to being an alcoholic yet I don't understand why you still "drink like a fish".  You say you don't "have" to go to those "damn meetings", I guess I don't understand why you don't go on your own free will.  If you are beyond those "damn meetings" why don't you just quit on your own?  I'm glad you refrain from driving for the safety of yourself and others but I don't get why you continue to drink if you are an self-admitted alcoholic.  I am not saying that alcoholics are bad people, I just don't understand it.  I don't understand the urge, the need, the want.  I guess the only thing I can related it to in my own life is when I am on high dose Prednisone and I am so hungry all the time.  When I am on it there are times I can't control my hunger and I eat everything in sight.  Perhaps that is what it is like.  

Oh by the way, that night that my step-dad choked me was his "bottom".  The next day and told his BOSS what he had done.  He would drink after work with people from work so he felt by telling his boss it would keep him from going out and drinking with them (although before "the incident" he kept alcohol in his drawer at work too so he wasn't just a "social alcoholic").  He also wrote me a letter saying how much he loved me and that he never wanted to be that person again.  He never was that person again.

[franksolich]

I live in N. Idaho! The only people at these meetings are libs. The rest of us try to handle our liquor. Don't get me wrong, there are conservatives at the meets, but they've been drowned out by the "woe is me" libs.

Yeah, I suppose one could say the same thing about Lincoln, Nebraska.

I've been dry since 1987, when I was young.

I went to these meetings and the after-meeting gatherings at the Village Inn or Perkins' restaurants, but to be bluntly honest, being deaf, such socializing, while it may help most, helped me not at all.

The reason I had quit drinking was the realization that, being deaf, one is somewhat more vulnerable than hearing people, and so it wasn't a good idea, even though I never got into any legal or financial mess because of drinking.

All of my "godfathers" in AA were touchy-feely liberals, guys with hyphenated last names, guys dominated by their women's-libber wives, who seemed to discount my own reasons for not drinking; that being deaf, I need 100% of all my wits, whatever wit I possess, just to survive.....that being more-than-sufficient reason alone.

I did this stuff for a couple of years, gradually winding down.

In the manner of medieval eastern European Yiddish folklore, I figured this was God's problem, and so one might as well let God deal with it.

[AllosaursRus]

You admit to being an alcoholic yet I don't understand why you still "drink like a fish".  You say you don't "have" to go to those "damn meetings", I guess I don't understand why you don't go on your own free will.  If you are beyond those "damn meetings" why don't you just quit on your own?  I'm glad you refrain from driving for the safety of yourself and others but I don't get why you continue to drink if you are an self-admitted alcoholic.  I am not saying that alcoholics are bad people, I just don't understand it.  I don't understand the urge, the need, the want.  I guess the only thing I can related it to in my own life is when I am on high dose Prednisone and I am so hungry all the time.  When I am on it there are times I can't control my hunger and I eat everything in sight.  Perhaps that is what it is like.  

What part of "I enjoy my alcohol" don't you get? Sure, I agree with you. many people have let their alcohol addiction ruin their lives and others. I have not!

Don't condemn me just because I drink and can control it! I've destroyed nothing except my liver, and the last time I checked, it belongs to me and this being America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, is my choice! As long as I don't effect you and yours, or anyone else, it's nunya business!

ETA: ( it's apparent to me Beg you have been hurt by someone's addiction. I feel for you. It's most likely why my mother divorced my dad when I was 8. I learned a long time ago you can't judge every person by their particular addiction. Some manage to go happily thru life without hurting others. I am one of them. I've helped several who could not control their alcohol intake. Some, once they start, cannot stop. That's the most dangerous of the group. Hence the bouncy we just read. Not every addict has that problem. Didn't you, yourself say you could have a drink and stop? Some cannot follow your exceptional willpower. )

[BEG]

What part of "I enjoy my alcohol" don't you get? Sure, I agree with you. many people have let their alcohol addiction ruin their lives and others. I have not!

Don't condemn me just because I drink and can control it! I've destroyed nothing except my liver, and the last time I checked, it belongs to me and this being America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, is my choice! As long as I don't effect you and yours, or anyone else, it's nunya business!

Wow, ok

[AllosaursRus]

In the manner of medieval eastern European Yiddish folklore, I figured this was God's problem, and so one might as well let God deal with it.

Truer words have never been spoken, Coach.

[AllosaursRus]

Wow, ok

I hope you will read the edit to that post Beg. I'm not trying to be an asshole. Though "Toots" says sometimes I just can't help it!

[BEG]

ETA: ( it's apparent to me Beg you have been hurt by someone's addiction. I feel for you. It's most likely why my mother divorced my dad when I was 8. I learned a long time ago you can't judge every person by their particular addiction. Some manage to go happily thru life without hurting others. I am one of them. I've helped several who could not control their alcohol intake. Some, once they start, cannot stop. That's the most dangerous of the group. Hence the bouncy we just read. Not every addict has that problem. Didn't you, yourself say you could have a drink and stop? Some cannot follow your exceptional willpower. )

It isn't willpower that keeps me from drinking more than a drink, I don't have the urge to.  It has nothing to do with willpower.  If you remember in my first post where I talk about going to lunch with friends of my Mom's friend (her friends AA friends), we discussed me not needing to have another drink (or not even finishing a drink).  I think they mistook it as me saying I had willpower and they didn't.  That wasn't what I was saying, I don't have the urge to so I don't need the willpower.

I said in my first post that I do not UNDERSTAND addiction, maybe someone here can explain it to me in a way that I can understand it.  Oh and yes I have been hurt by addiction, more than you will ever know.  My real dad cared more about going to the bars and seeing his friends while he got drunk than he did about his kids.  He never hit me or even yelled at me but he was never around.  When he would come home it would be too late and we wouldn't get to see him except for the times he would think our rooms were the bathroom and piss on us.  Or the times he would vomit in bed and my Mom would be up in the middle of the night washing the sheets which would wake us up and we just "knew" what had happened, or the times my parents (both step-dad and my real dad) would fight and the neighbors heard and I was embarrassed to be seen by anyone outside of the house, or the time my brother died from a drug overdose.  I bet he would say he wasn't hurting anyone but himself too, but he did in fact hurt someone other than himself long before he even died.  There were many nights I laid awake crying because I was worried that he was going to die.  Look where his addiction got him....in the ground at the ripe old age of 43.  Yeah think that hurt a few people? 

So you go on ahead and tell yourself that you aren't hurting anyone else but yourself.  You don't have to have physically hurt anyone to have hurt them greatly.  I don't care if you are a dick to me, I still care about you.  If I didn't I wouldn't have bothered to respond. 

[YupItsMe]

I was saying that I don't understand addicts.  If you read my post you would understand that I too come from a long line of addicts.  What I don't understand is they have "hit bottom" so many times yet continue with their addiction.  For me being arrested for a DUI would be "bottom" for me.  Being hospitalized for an overdose or alcohol poisoning would be "bottom" for me.    Losing my job because of my addiction would be "bottom" for me.  Running head on into someone else's car (and the thought of actually killing someone) would have been "bottom" for me.  Losing my husband and children would be past "bottom" for me.  I don't understand it.  Everyone I mentioned had at least one of the things happen to them (one, my step-sister, had everything I mentioned happen to her) yet they didn't hit bottom.  You want to know what made my step-dad stop drinking?  He knocked me down on the floor and CHOKED me.  My Mom got him off of me and I ran to the corner of the room.  I was in the corner with my mom standing in front of me and he was reaching around her trying to choke me again.  His mother was there, watching it all.  My brother called the police.  Want to know what I did that made him choke me?  He came home an hour and a half late for dinner, drunk as a skunk.  He was pissed that we had already eaten.  He was slamming cabinets doors and stuff around.  My mom was putting dishes in the dishwasher and he slammed the dishwasher door shut and broke all the dishes that my Mom had just put in the dishwasher.  I yelled, "Can't you even behave in front of your Mother?!?".  He came at me like a mad man.  That wasn't my step-dad choking me, that is not him.  Maybe because I have been on the receiving end of someone who is a drunk (more than once I might add) it makes me harder on alcoholics than the average person.

You admit to being an alcoholic yet I don't understand why you still "drink like a fish".  You say you don't "have" to go to those "damn meetings", I guess I don't understand why you don't go on your own free will.  If you are beyond those "damn meetings" why don't you just quit on your own?  I'm glad you refrain from driving for the safety of yourself and others but I don't get why you continue to drink if you are an self-admitted alcoholic.  I am not saying that alcoholics are bad people, I just don't understand it.  I don't understand the urge, the need, the want.  I guess the only thing I can related it to in my own life is when I am on high dose Prednisone and I am so hungry all the time.  When I am on it there are times I can't control my hunger and I eat everything in sight.  Perhaps that is what it is like.  

Oh by the way, that night that my step-dad choked me was his "bottom".  The next day and told his BOSS what he had done.  He would drink after work with people from work so he felt by telling his boss it would keep him from going out and drinking with them (although before "the incident" he kept alcohol in his drawer at work too so he wasn't just a "social alcoholic").  He also wrote me a letter saying how much he loved me and that he never wanted to be that person again.  He never was that person again.

   



Another alcoholic here BEG. And I agree with you.  It's really hard to understand.  That's what I'm working on the most is trying to understand what the hell is going on in my head.  The one thing I know after a few years in and out of AA is most alcoholics drank that way from day one.  There's a lot of issues involved, low self-esteem, not having good methods of coping with things and I believe there is a chemical imbalance of some kind.  I've been 5 mos cold sober and i'm fine as long as I keep walking past the bars, but if I ever stop i'll be out til closing.  Enough with the dry, boring stuff the truth of the matter is when I read your post I was thing about your bottom   

[BEG]

   



Another alcoholic here BEG. And I agree with you.  It's really hard to understand.  That's what I'm working on the most is trying to understand what the hell is going on in my head.  The one thing I know after a few years in and out of AA is most alcoholics drank that way from day one.  There's a lot of issues involved, low self-esteem, not having good methods of coping with things and I believe there is a chemical imbalance of some kind.  I've been 5 mos cold sober and i'm fine as long as I keep walking past the bars, but if I ever stop i'll be out til closing.  Enough with the dry, boring stuff the truth of the matter is when I read your post I was thing about your bottom   

Well I did keep saying "bottom".   

Good for you, you should be proud of yourself.    By the way, I wasn't preaching to anyone, I was telling what it's like to be on the receiving end of an addict.  You would think being surrounded by all these addicts I would understand it by now.  I don't and neither does my Mom (and she married two and gave birth to two).

[The Village Idiot]

Good for you, you should be proud of yourself.    By the way, I wasn't preaching to anyone, I was telling what it's like to be on the receiving end of an addict.  You would think being surrounded by all these addicts I would understand it by now.  I don't and neither does my Mom (and she married two and gave birth to two).

I don't understand it either. I grew with alcoholics and I have never wanted to touch it.

[YupItsMe]

Well I did keep saying "bottom".   

Good for you, you should be proud of yourself.    By the way, I wasn't preaching to anyone, I was telling what it's like to be on the receiving end of an addict.  You would think being surrounded by all these addicts I would understand it by now.  I don't and neither does my Mom (and she married two and gave birth to two).

  Never took it that way at all.  Believe me, I have enough counseling to know what it's like on the receiving end.  I was never physically abusive (not sure if I've ever struck anyone in anger since my brother when I was a kid), but I sure put my family through enough.  I'm fortunate they've all stayed with me and loved me anyway. Thanks for the kind words.

[BEG]

  Never took it that way at all.  Believe me, I have enough counseling to know what it's like on the receiving end.  I was never physically abusive (not sure if I've ever struck anyone in anger since my brother when I was a kid), but I sure put my family through enough.  I'm fortunate they've all stayed with me and loved me anyway. Thanks for the kind words.

Oh I still love every one of my family members who are addicts.   Even my step-sister, who is a liar and a drunk. 

[NHSparky]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=158x13055

5th District is Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Methuen, and Chelmsford.

A small enough area where a serious crash such as that would have been mentioned.  I dare say such a crash would have made the Boston newscasts the evening it happened, as do many DUI wrecks with injuries or serious property damage involved.

Yet strangely, nothing.  Can't imagine why...  

[formerlurker]

A small enough area where a serious crash such as that would have been mentioned.  I dare say such a crash would have made the Boston newscasts the evening it happened, as do many DUI wrecks with injuries or serious property damage involved.

Yet strangely, nothing.  Can't imagine why...  

I  can't even find anything about a new high school being approved on that date, lol -- nevermind the dang crash!!!

[Tucker]

I was going to point this out, about myself.  Almost 3 months clean and sober.  I do need to go to the meetings, and I do willingly.  Let's just say that I've met a few people that would fit the definition of "conservative" there.

15 years. :innocent: Never over drank. My wife's family never drank at all. She asked me to quit. Only took one request. Been dry since.