Re: Alcoholism seen as a Nutritional Disease

Hi Chris,

The problem you describe -- controlling your drinking for a short period of time, followed by a return to drinking and a bender -- illustrates the relationship between the craving and the mental obsession. Your mind, even after a period of abstinence, will inevitably return to the idea that a drink or two would be a good idea.

There was a lot of confusion for me around that -- I would wake up after a drinking binge and have simply awful feelings of remorse over having drank again, coupled with terrible fear about what I did or might have done. I was a "brownout" drinker -- rather than completely blacking out all the time, I could usually piece together a few remnants of what I had done or where I had been, but rarely could I remember the whole time, which led to a lot of stress and worry, talking to people to try and figure out if I had said or done anything completely offensive, etc. The anxiety around that was terrible. And at the root of all of the panic was complete bewilderment over why I had taken the first drink to begin with.

I found the posts on glycerine interesting a few months ago, and again, I do believe that the physical craving enacted by the first drink is related to a blood-sugar problem. However, I don't believe that if you solve the physical craving you have solved the entire problem at all, because as you describe, the mind will return to the drink idea and a drink will follow.

One thing that helps me understand the insanity of the first drink is to list a lot of my drinking consequences (inappropriate/embarassing behaviour, waking up in strange places, jail, arguing/fighting with loved ones, physical degradation -- bruises galore, sprained ankles, unexplained cuts, etc. and not knowing exactly how I ever got those -- and so forth) and then seeing that despite how crazy all of that is, admitting that the real insanity rested in the period of time you describe: the obsession to take the first drink of the day or evening, which would result in some or all of those things happening!

Alcoholics used to be counseled, after they stopped drinking, to keep chocolates or other sweets nearby for when they had the desire for a drink, which speaks to the Sugar connection. I remember trying to do a version of this with a heavy carb dinner, etc. -- but inevitably the mind will take over and the drink will occur. I can't tell you how many times I swore I would not drink on a certain day and then had a drink, despite everything I tried or how earnestly I thought about alternate plans, etc.. It was completely baffling to me, and when people asked me why I didn't stop drinking, I had no response, because that was the question I kept asking myself. It was not a question that would be answered until I got really clear on the relationship between the physical craving and the mental obsession -- that the real problem an alcoholic faces centers in the mind, not in the body -- the craving would not matter at all if we never took the first drink.

My suggestion is that you get a copy of the AA basic text and read the first few chapters, paying close attention to "The Doctor's Opinion," where you will find a description of the phenomenon of craving, and "More About Alcohlism," where you will learn more about the mental obsession.




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