Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

coyote-1 t1_ix8mml9 wrote

Reply to comment by WritingUnderMount in Tifu by ruining my relationship and a special night by Freerz

It really is. I LOVE to see the folks I’m with get drunk! I do not promote it, but if they choose that path I dig it. I get to see who they really are.… and thereby get to see who to avoid in the future.

Alcohol in and of itself is not addictive. Yes you can become dependent on it, but it is not straight-up addictive like heroin. Hundreds of millions of people can have a beer or a glass of wine, and not have to have another the next day or the day after that. They don’t have to get their fix. If alcohol were an addictive substance that would not be true; virtually everyone who ever has a drink would be spending their next many hours/days seeking the next drink.

The people who get addicted to alcohol do so for one main reason: it gives them license to be who they really are. The gal who is ordinarily prim and proper, but after four glasses of champagne she’s in a motel banging the bartender? The crazy uncle who usually sits sullenly in his recliner, but after three beers starts beating his wife and kids? Those are the folks who are addicted. And it is because the alcohol lets them be who they are. Takes away the socially acceptable mask they usually wear.

Who in the world does not want to be who they truly are?? THAT is what is addicting to these people; they get to be that socially unacceptable person they’ve been hiding away. All they need is a few drinks to reconnect with their true selves.

Virtually no one goes to AA meetings saying “yeah although I enjoy it and am harming no one, I drink too much so here I am”. It is almost always accompanied by “I did XXXXXXX, and in the process hurt others and/or embarrassed myself, and I keep doing it and can’t control it anymore” or something similar.

When they do these terrible things it is not the alcohol doing the thing. It is the person, the true person, doing the thing. Blaming alcohol or blaming an addiction to alcohol is evasion.

−15

Fthwrlddntskmfrsht t1_ix8w3fu wrote

Did you seriously just say alcohol isnt addictive and because ppl can drink one day and not the next then it doesnt count as addiction? Yikessss. You need to go read up on addiction. I got news for you: someone who’s been sober 25yrs after being an alcoholic is still addicted. After 25yrs straight of not drinking the next day/ they are still addicted. Another news flash: a heroin addict is also addicted for life. Just because they are sober for X years doesnt mean shit. That’s why the people who have recovered are VERY serious about their sobriety dates. All it takes is a single slip- even 25 yrs later, and their entire life can spiral out of control again.

5

coyote-1 t1_ix9179t wrote

You are restating what I said, and not accurately. I am not claiming that because someone somewhere can go a day without a drink, alcohol is not addictive. I stated that hundreds of millions can drink something today, and then not go for a ‘fix’ thereafter. They can go days or weeks or whatever, WITHOUT COUNTING DAYS, and not be obsessing over where/when they last had alcohol or where/when they might next have, or have to abstain from, having it again.

To repeat: were the substance itself addictive, that would not be the case. The bottle would enslave everyone it touches. IT DOES NOT.

But I can see where alcoholics wish to imagine that it’s the demon rum that is the problem. Beats the hell out of acknowledging maybe I just like anonymous wild sex or maybe I’m just a mean and nasty prick or whatever, in a world that approves of neither trait. Or perhaps spares one the effort of digging into one’s past to grasp exactly how one became that way.

−7

Fthwrlddntskmfrsht t1_ix9ayq9 wrote

You are so wildly misinformed it’s ridiculous. Do not spew your shit to anyone who is addicted to anything and please let them get help from actual professionals. To any real addict, you are DANGEROUS to talk to. You are going to ruin someone’s life by trying to be a know it all with no real credentials to do so. You do not understand the scientific ins and outs of addictions and it shows. I am not qualified to help others either- but the difference is I am out here correcting ppl who are clearly misinformed and who are likely spewing their BS to others. I am only giving my version of the info in order to combat others from providing help when they are not qualified.

My suggestion to anyone reading this all who knows they struggle with addiction: talk to a professional and avoid anyone like this guy like the plague bc they will misinform you and stop you from getting the help you need.

3

coyote-1 t1_ix9gu6r wrote

Who is stopping anyone from getting help?
I notice you are not refuting my points; instead, you are making adhominem attacks.

−4

Fthwrlddntskmfrsht t1_ix9kaig wrote

I didnt even read your response either time bc all I needed was to scan and understand you were trying to defend your original statements, which are impossible to defend.

You are dangerous. Please stop talking to me. Please stop misinforming other people too. If anyone ever asks you about how addiction works please just refer them to a professional who knows what addiction actually is- and dont even for a second start spewing them your own version of what is the actual addiction, etc. Again- you are dangerous. Go away.

3

jserif t1_ix8wz9x wrote

That’s not how alcohol addiction works; none of the science on it agrees with your take. Assigning your weird ideologies to addicts might make you feel very smart but don’t use them to try and shame people, let alone someone who says they were drugged.

2

coyote-1 t1_ix9566h wrote

What does the science say about why hundreds of millions can consume alcohol with no craving for it again? If the alcohol itself is the cause of addiction, how do we explain this?

By a “prone to alcoholism” gene? How does such a gene expand through the gene pool, when it would have to be a gene that reduces one‘s survivability? How does it even surface to begin with? It’s not like ethyl alcohol has been a ’thing’ for all that long historically, it only ever existed in trace amounts in fruits where particular yeasts happened to have landed. In any concentration, it’s only the past many thousand years that it has surfaced.

Even if such a gene exists, it remains true that the substance itself is not the problem.

−1

jserif t1_ix96op7 wrote

Millions of people don’t have depression so by your subpar logic, depression isn’t a real problem and suicide is just something selfish people do. Which honestly isn’t really a “gotcha” response because your posts read the way one of those people would speak.

And the length of ethyl’s existence is a weird tangential response to the discussion of how addiction works. Substance abuse doesn’t rely on evolutionary response to each individual substance, but I think you know that. It’s just weird false philosophical points that “hint” at an incorrect answer, one that makes you feel very smart over your peers that drink.

Not sure why anyone would want to drink you, hopefully you’ve kept these shitty thoughts in your head while you’re out judging people who drink.

2

coyote-1 t1_ix9bhay wrote

Nowhere did I claim alcoholism is not real. Your reply is one of non-thinking, just knee jerk reaction.

There are millions of people who have a problem with alcohol. I never said otherwise. What I said is that the alcohol is not the cause. That’s a totally different thing than what you are attempting to insinuate here.

And I personally contend that “how addiction works” is widely misunderstood. There are people who are quite literally addicted to hand-washing. They do it tens or hundreds of times daily, when there is no rational need to do so. if addiction is always dependent upon a chemically interactive substance that modifies the brain or nervous system, as you seem to be implying here, what substance is involved in hand-washing that makes some people do it hundreds of times daily?

Millions of people are addicted to gambling. Millions of others can buy a lotto ticket today, and forget they have it in their wallet for months. Is Lotto the problem?

Millions of people can’t stop texting. They do it while walking, while driving. Millions of others don’t bother except when needed for business. Is the text app the problem?

The alcohol is not the issue. Else everyone who ever had a beer would be an alcoholic. The real issue is who the person really is, deep down under the mask they wear in public, and how alcohol allows them to get back to that person. Who would not want to be who they really are whenever possible? If de-inhibitor alcohol helps you get there, who in that scenario would not get addicted to it?

1

jserif t1_ix9d681 wrote

It is widely misunderstood, but that doesn’t give you license to use it to justify your own superiority. You call my response a non-thinking reaction, even though what I said was coherent. However, you then use many paragraphs to say that, incorrectly, I implied all addictive things are addictive due to the substance. You reached as far as you could and, surprise, you interpreted it in such a way that makes everyone who did get addicted sound much worse than those who did not. Your responses take some facts and filter them down until they lack any nuance of what the behaviors address in the addict, and finally, argue once again that a drunk person is just the “real” person. I’ll refer to your prior argument then, no doubt something you pulled out of your ass haphazardly; if we haven’t seen alcohol around for a good chunk of human history, then there never would have been any true human behavior before then.

You pretend as if removing inhibition is all alcohol does, you then use that to diagnose why alcoholics are addicted, and are pulling dramatic examples that don’t fit the discussion to bash your way to a perceived win instead of learning anything about yourself. Which… again, if you put yourself around drunk people because it’s fun to see who they truly are, then none of this is surprising so much as it’s just sad.

1

coyote-1 t1_ix9ihio wrote

I’m putting out a different paradigm. To date, virtually all paradigms start from the conclusion that the substance is the issue.

AGAIN: if the substance were the issue, everyone who touches it should become addicted... or like folks who’ve taken opiates to alleviate the pain of surgery, struggle a bit to emerge from that.

But alcohol is not like that. Hundreds of millions of people happily enjoy it, with no hint whatsoever of anything like addiction.

So by process of deduction: ALCOHOL ITSELF IS NOT THE ISSUE.

Issue not the substance. issue is the consumer.

1

jserif t1_ix9knrk wrote

That’s not a new paradigm though, it’s a staple in the issue that is talked about frequently. Saying that the consumer is the issue doesn’t make them bad people worthy of judgment. There’s a whole slew of variables as to why some people are more prone to addiction or what circumstances lead to behavioral addiction.

To that end, it’s not true that “virtually all” paradigms start at the substance. There’s been a huge shift towards mental health and community involvement as treatment for addiction.

This paradigm you’re putting out, however, is derailment from the original point. You believe that this individual who says he was drugged, having memory loss after drinking a routine amount of alcohol, was actually showing his true colors with the alcohol. The drugs didn’t seem to factor in your initial statement. My disagreement is that being drugged is a real problem, secondarily that alcohol abuse isn’t as simple as showing one’s true nature. Watching drunk friends or putting out different paradigms or talking about addiction, while interesting conversations, keeps shifting the fact that you ignored the crux of the incident to tie it into anecdotal experiences you have while others drink, and your philosophy behind this activity.

Getting drugged or getting drunk are two different things, and if you think OP is lying to hide his own mistakes of showing his true self (mostly due to your observations of drunk people, something you enjoy doing) then this argument becomes a matter of opinion and we can leave it at that.

1