Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

[Doggygirl]

"Come on - let's have just one!!"

I was reading posts the last little while here, and it occurred to me that the notion of "just one" has been all pervasive for much of my drunken life.

When I woke up hungover, the day went from "none for me today!" to "well, just one will make me feel better." (and of course, there was never "just one")

When I have had my small successes with AF days, the notion of "just one" has done me in not once, not twice, but three times!! DUH. There is no "just one" for me.

I've known I have a problem for years - and I can't count the number of occassions where "just one" entered the thinking - whether drunk or sober or somewhere in between at the time such as: "Why can't I have just one like other people?"

Here is the REAL question I find myself asking this afternoon.

"What in the Sam Hill is so special about a lousy drink? Why have I been obsessed in so many different ways, for such a long time over the notion of one stupid drink?"

Heck - one drink doesn't even give me a buzz. It doesn't really taste good either (any notion of drinking for the "taste" of it is long since gone for me). Why why why?

Geez. What a Beast fantasy lie that "Just One" business is.

I don't want one. I've never wanted one. THIS lie needs to stop in its tracks, right there in my pea brain.

I don't want one now or ever and that is that.

DG
*************

[livingfree]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Lie #2
Just this ONCE.

[hippie37]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Great post Doggygirl!!

The realisation that I could never drink like normal people was one I too ignored for years. Why me? Why am I so different?. For me it's about the mental obsession more than anything. In the words of Craig Ferguson "I don't have a drinking problem.... I have a thinking problem."

Love and Happiness
Hippie
xx

[hippie37]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

[ame=

]YouTube - Ferguson Speaks From The Heart[/ame]

Here's the youtube clip I was talking about. He starts talking about his own alcoholism about 3.30 mins in I think.

[tlrgs]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

great post doggygirl i used to love saying that too and the truth is i would love to have just one ..but knowing where it all ends up that a pisser and asking myself everytime just one do i ever want to go back there hell no .. very lonely place to be for me

[Lucy Van Pelt]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

I remember hearing a saying once:

For an alcoholic, one is too many, and 100 is never enough. Makes alot of sense.

[Doggygirl]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

tlrgs;338738 wrote: great post doggygirl i used to love saying that too and the truth is i would love to have just one ..but knowing where it all ends up that a pisser and asking myself everytime just one do i ever want to go back there hell no .. very lonely place to be for me

But you know what? WHY do you want to have just one? What is so special about one frickin' drink? I know what you mean about obsessing over "just one" and figuring out eventually that you can't. But think about it.....how silly is even TRYING to convince ourselves there is something special about one? Today is really the first time I thought about the complete absurdity of giving power to one stinkin' cocktail. (the lie of it aside - we all know "one" isn't really what we want anyway.....)

OK - flipping back to watch the you tube vid!

DG
*************

[Thankful]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

"What in the Sam Hill is so special about a lousy drink? Why have I been obsessed in so many different ways, for such a long time over the notion of one stupid drink?"

Doggygirl, it was pretty much this question that finalized my desicion on whether or not I would mod. I drove myself crazy as soon as I hit day 30 AF and tried to rationalize every which way it would be ok to start drinking because I made it the first infamous 30. I put myself through hell and back until around day 75(?). The more I read and the more research I did on AL, the answer just kept getting easier. When I finally made up my mind, I felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. It was almost instant happiness because I decided that drinking was no longer an option for me. When you decide it's not an option, the obsession just fades away.

Stabbing myself with a knife is not an option for me, therefore I won't even consider doing it. Drinking is not an option for me, therefore I won't even consider doing it. I don't mean to make it sound so simple, but I believe the mind can heal us faster than any other tool that we have at our disposal.

Love, Me
:l

[Doggygirl]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Hippie, that video is awesome. I've never seen him before. I love the way he brought humor to discussing his own situation, without trivializing the seriousness of alcoholism in any way. (at least I "heard" him that way) I was about peeing myself laughing when he was talking about the 125 calorie Guinness and his beast brain thought up......"Diet! We'll go on a Diet!"

I had to laugh too. When I was in college I tended bar at a "Irish" pub (in Southern Illinois good old midwest USA). The owner was really, really a sad case and a couple years after I graduated, he died of alcohol poisoning. very sad. I used to work Tuesday nights with the Rugby crowd (the only college student night, thank goodness), Friday night with the "regulars" - they were every nighters but Friday at the end of the work week was special, and a great tip night, and then Saturday during the day.

I wasn't employed there a week before Mundo gave me the keys to the place - he didn't want to have to unlock the door for me on Saturday mornings. I had access to absolutely everything in the place. I was always honest with that, but others might not have been. (can we say...alcohol leads to bad judgement??)

The sad but funny thing on Saturday mornings is that there was ALWAYS at least two people and usually more totally passed out somewhere on the floor between the door, the stairs, and the main floor area where the bar was. I was really used to just kicking them awake, then making them bloody beers.

Halloween fell on a Saturday one year, and I dressed up like a martian. My room mate and I were howling laughing with the silver face paint and long green shiny false eyelashes and all tha jazz. By the time I arrived at work I really wasn't thinking about the costume any more - just the normal routine of waking up the drunks, making their hangover drinks, then getting on with my work to open the place.

When I started kicking and the eyes started opening......I couple folks thought they had been abducted by aliens! It was funny in a sad way - a sad way that I comprehend today that I didn't back then at 22 years old.

Of course I had already started down my own party path a few years before that. What I failed to see was that those guys - the pathetic ones who slept Friday nights on a carpet that probably hadn't been shampood in a decade and couldn't start the day without a bloody beer - started right where I did way back when. I'm sure many of them saw lots of the inside of taverns, and lots of funny (to a young person )but sad (to a well worn traveler on the path)stories too. But they never saw themselves in that place down the road, just like I didn't.

OK. Enough babble. Let's just say I can relate to the vid and Hippie thanks again for sharing it.

NO just one. Just None.

By this time tomorrow I'll be 2 weeks AF and I'm damn glad to be here.

DG
*************

[Doggygirl]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Thankful;338747 wrote: Stabbing myself with a knife is not an option for me, therefore I won't even consider doing it. Drinking is not an option for me, therefore I won't even consider doing it. I don't mean to make it sound so simple, but I believe the mind can heal us faster than any other tool that we have at our disposal.

Love, Me
:l

ITA that we sure make it seem a whole lot more complicated than it is! I love your analogy about stabbing yourself not being an option either.

DG

[ready2change]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Funny ?? thing for me, I never think I will have just one, I KNOW that isn't possible. I only drink for the buzz and one ain't gonna give it to me. So when I decide to drink, I know exactly where I am headed. I don't ever try to fool myself, cause I know me all to well. Yet I do it anyways, therein lies the craziness or the insanity of a drinking/thinking problem.

I am scared right now, because I have been hiding booze lately and that isn't supposed to be happening.

[vinophile]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Great post again DG,
First of all, I have NEVER just wanted one. I was born wanting at least two.I have been double-trouble since the beginning.

I think we all have to admit that we all got some reward in some way for starting to drink. Otherwise,from a behavior point of view, there would be no reason to have that drink. I adore the first few sips (ok the first two glasses). The problem is that I can not stop at two glasses and never will be able to stop at two glasses. Therefore, for the fleeting few minutes that I love ( and yes I must admit that I love those first few drinking moments) I suffer for the next 24-48 hours. IT IS JUST NOT WORTH IT ANY MORE!!!!

thanks for reminding me of that!!!

Janet

[Tiny]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Great thread-- loved the You Tube video ... sorry so short ... but today is my hectic day!
I am on day 7 and feel great!

[Larisa]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Great thread, DG. I don't have trouble with that particular lie, because I know I don't have any interest in drinking unless I can get drunk - otherwise, it would just make me mad. My lie is, today will be the LAST time - I have to today because [fill in the blank], but I am QUITTING AS OF TOMORROW. Funny how many years that last day has lasted!

[Accountable for Me]

Booze Beast Lie #1 - Just One

Me too. I never thought of just having 'one'. (or two, or 3, etc)

There were probably 3 occasions over the last year, I did well with 'just two' LOL.

Ultimately, when I drank, I had always known I would get sh*t faced. Unfortunately for me, my little brain would have it no other way. It kept telling me, "What is the point of having only one, or two? You hate the taste. You drink to get drunk! Chuggalug moochacho!"