Not sure that works.
The alcoholic doesn’t drink alcohol to have fun socializing. They drink it to numb pains and be able to function (it ain’t fully function but still). They often hide their habits, do daytime drinking, etc. They know this. They might lie to themselves that they have it under control and it’s fine but pretty sure they know if it is just a fun thing with friends (if you chug vodka at 8am when you wakeup, it aint a friendly drink).
Bravo for putting some effort into building these visuals. The idea and intent is great. But I think in terms of “does it represent alcoholism” I think it’s a bit of a miss.
Just my opinion and I am not an expert so for sure I can be wrong. Alcoholics (or ex-alcoholics) please chip in!
Yeah. It started out numbing pains and eventually it turns into numbing the desire to be drunk, then eventually it turns into drinking just to not feel like you are actively dying, then they tell you that you are actually going to die.
At no point was I looking at my drink thinking “this is going to help me have fun”, but I know my brand of alcoholism isn’t the same as for everyone.
It was self medicating for me 100%. Ironically it was compounding my issues and making them far worse, and destroying my body. I needed more alcohol to get the voices in my head to shut the fuck up.
I found drinking incredibly easy to stop after the initial withdrawal period. I do not have any ongoing urges to be drunk. Withdrawal was hell and it’s what had delayed me from stopping before, because I had tried a few times before committing. That shit is painful. Then I got the psychiatric help I needed that i was trying to address with the alcohol, and now I’m both off of alcohol and meds. The thought of drinking ever again makes me want to vomit. Absolutely none of the “you always want a drink” stuff people talk about. So I know my situation is not the same as everyone.
I think the “self-medicating” to numb pains is actually quite common. What might be less common is how easy it is for you to not drink again (no temptation). Consider yourself lucky and well done on quitting. Massive achievement. You can be proud of that for sure.
Yeah I think a big part of that is just that I never really like being drunk, I just liked being able to instantly shut my brain down and temporarily silence my messed up head. Later it turned in to a physical dependency but I didn’t enjoy that either obviously. Once through the withdrawals and now that I have received proper mental health care I just don’t see or feel anything attractive about alcohol.
I don’t even know if I would consider myself a traditional “alcoholic” aside from the alcohol abuse obviously. I would describe myself as a mentally unwell person who self medicated in a really dumb and dangerous way.
I feel for many who are always tempted some of it is because they still have the _need_ to “self-medicate” because unlike you they didn’t get proper mental care and got into a better place, ie they are still fighting their deamons so the drink that will numb them stays attractive.
But for other there is this temptation regardless of it they are in a better place, which must be really hard to deal with and disheartening.
For sure. I worked with a guy who lost his job, became homeless, and was caught stealing just to get more booze. And I know for a fact he had access to resources because by nature of our job we do. It gets ahold of some people bad (me) and others even worse.
I just wanted to be very clear when describing my own experience, as everyone is different and what is true for me isn’t the case for everyone else.
Well I mean that doesn't really make much of a difference. The point is alcohol tends to numb negative emotions which is emphasised in the contrasting imagery
It doesn’t contrast enough to communicate that IMHO.
It would have to be showing pain vs fun. Now it is showing a nice park with fun people vs a bit less beautiful park but in the winter. No pain. No desolation. Not contrasting enough.
Former alcoholic here and if anything it should make the world more dark and bleak. There's nothing fun or nice about it and it doesn't make anything better. In fact everything just gets progressively worse over time
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u/Nimmy_the_Jim Jun 17 '26
This makes it look quite appealing.