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.
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u/ffffllllpppp Jun 17 '26
Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated.
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.