The two "Lochian" bits I've now seen don't strike as realistic, more like parodies, but are entertaining nevertheless...reminiscent of the Saw franchise.

Back on topic - I've personally decided that I'll allow myself to drink alcohol up to once per calendar month. Saying/living "ZERO BOOZE!" - especially with my level of dramatic abhorrence for the bloody stuff, simply lends too much emphasis to the issue so that it seems...inescapably nightmarish? Something like that. Up to once a month = booze sucks but if you must, do it once in a blue full moon. Bingo...for me.

Happy days

Bargaining with yourself?

Not really, just taking some of the emphasis off the issue whilst still living "ALCOHOL IS SHIT!" by hardly ever touching the stuff. Win win.

Well, who am I to talk? I use cannabis daily. I opted for a far less toxic and dangerous intoxicant. Haven't used alcohol in six or seven years.

hackenslash wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:drinking alcohol does in fact "go against everything I believe in." What do I believe in? That people need claim responsibility for our actions and thus behave responsibly.

I don't get this. Alcohol does not, in any way, shape or form, absolve you of responsibility for your actions.

I have what many would describe as an extremely unhealthy relationship with intoxicants in general, and with alcohol in particular, but I've never taken any action that wasn't still entirely my doing.

To the extent that alcohol has contributed to my actions at all, it's only ever in exposing what I really think because the usual veneer of civility slips in the face of some behaviour where, were I sober, I'd have been able to keep the mask in place. What this should tell us is that behaviour exhibited while intoxicated is your base behaviour. In vino veritas, one of the few truisms that actually holds water. Alcohol doesn't take over you, it reveals you.

Totally agree. think it does in daily life we constantly try to portray ourselves in diff shades. We are someone else when we are with our friends, someone diff in the office and someone diff when you are with your family. We compartmentalize our life very well.

Alcohol or other drugs do is numbs your brain by affecting it's cognitive capabilities. Now your brain doesn't have as much control on what to do or what to say in specific situations. That is why you will see most people will tell you the truth once they are drunk or wasted because lying takes effort, thinking is not easy so you can't lie properly.

Alcoholism can enhance state-dependent memory as well. In a study comparing the state-dependent memory effects of alcohol on both subjects with alcoholism and subjects without alcoholism, researchers found that the alcoholic subjects showed greater effects for state-dependent memory on tasks of recall and free association. This is not because alcohol better produces associations, but because the person with alcoholism lives a larger portion of their life under the influence of alcohol.[15] This produces changes in cognition and so when the person with alcoholism drinks, the intoxication primes their brain towards certain associations made in similar states. Essentially, the intoxicated and sober states of the alcoholic are in fact, different from the intoxicated and sober states of the non-alcoholic person, whose body is not as used to processing such large amounts of the substance.[15] For this reason, we see slightly larger effects of state-dependent memory while intoxicated for chronic drinkers than for those who do not drink often.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory

When a ship is launched, with joy and celebration, alcohol rides along by the side (a bottle of champagne is smashed on the hull). Celebrating NYE? Champagne or similar. Birthday parties? Booze. Friday/Saturday nights revelling in the freedom of not being stuck at the desk? Booze booze booze. So the association, at an unconscious (grimace) level, reinforced far more for the heavy consumer/alcoholic, is that being drunk/drinking/inebriated is associated with good times/party times/celebrations and so feels good/great, through (free) association and a form of state dependant memory. Makes sense to me at least.

As with so much in mental health: "once the cause is revealed and understood, the symptom can disappear" and I'm hopeful (and one pleasant day in since working this out) that my alcoholism/drinking has ended, for good this time.

Let life be the celebration, every waking moment of freedom, every delicious mouthful of food, every hug and tickle, no more need there be the recall of drunken British senseless inebriation to make life seem worth living.

Just before this thread descends into yet another symphony of spiteful self-pity, how many more of these "I'm-an-addict" threads do you plan to start?

Loathe as I am to do meta I was wondering if your witterings on this topic might be confined to a single, rank oubilette?

I found at least two:

(link 1)
(link 2)

It is stern testament to this forum's moribund grudge bearing pathetic irrelevance that the "MODS" would agree with the bitter, hateful Serpent over me on this, when in fact this thread is not about ME but rather state dependant memory and alcoholism - as it says on the tin, and I only added the "me" bit to explain why I'd bother to focus on the issue. Are the words "I" or "KIR" in the thread title of the thread I made which you deleted or.....you know what...I've been let down by the thick cunts in this forum too many times. Ban me now, or I'll make you. MODS

Dude, you should switch off and come back in the morning when you're sober.

Noted, and correct. in that I've had a few, in celebration at having successfully manned the till at the local PDSA 9-5 today (volunteering)....a big deal for me. "God" tm damn it, we have now officially made this thread about me. Sorry for my part. Sorry bastard? Hardly.

Oh, I know I was correct. I have some pretty keen insight in this sphere. You're not the only one hereabouts who's been known to go off on a drunken rant...

Sometimes people get it right on me/KIR/HJHJ/Theorease/Julius seizure (I was worried this thread wasn't now about me enough lol), yet at other times I'm "judged" to be drunk, online, when in fact I'm stone cold sober. Perhaps you have a 97% record on correctly denoting inebriation, perhaps not. 2c

ETA - oh dear Hackenslash, I seem to have "failed" to take your advice and have posted again! #switches off router

Keep It Real wrote:Sometimes people get it right on me/KIR/HJHJ/Theorease/Julius seizure (I was worried this thread wasn't now about me enough lol), yet at other times I'm "judged" to be drunk, online, when in fact I'm stone cold sober. Perhaps you have a 97% record on correctly denoting inebriation, perhaps not. 2c

I'm not aware of ever having offered an assessment previously, which is not to say I haven't, but I can usually tell from changes in syntax.

I woke up at 2am in dreadful concern that I had been angry/violent last night. I deduce that, in fact, I was violent/angry, and that was in this thread and what I posted. There's some real justification for my...rage...on this, but such "rage" is always regrettable more so than less so and...I don't know how to wind this comment up...been watching a lot of Dennis Leary recently....

Keep It Real wrote:I woke up at 2am in dreadful concern that I had been angry/violent last night. I deduce that, in fact, I was violent/angry, and that was in this thread and what I posted. There's some real justification for my...rage...on this, but such "rage" is always regrettable more so than less so and...I don't know how to wind this comment up...been watching a lot of Dennis Leary recently....

Maybe you should lay off the mascara thinner.

Here it is - going out on a high note perchance, quote me: "You can't type with your fists."

The Serpent wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:I woke up at 2am in dreadful concern that I had been angry/violent last night. I deduce that, in fact, I was violent/angry, and that was in this thread and what I posted. There's some real justification for my...rage...on this, but such "rage" is always regrettable more so than less so and...I don't know how to wind this comment up...been watching a lot of Dennis Leary recently....

Maybe you should lay off the mascara thinner.

Mascara...that's for eyelashes, right?