R4VEN
Well-known member
waybread, I get it totally, and am not in any way saying that alcohol abuse is good/useful/necessary. My best friend's father - while we were in primary school - was the town's butcher and drank to excess, especially on Saturdays. Alcohol and sharp knives do not mix, and this man terrorized his wife & kids until he ploughed his car into a tree when he was in his mid 40's. My friend still has a chipped tooth where she got between her father's gun and her mother when she was around 10. So I have seen alcohol's damage to the people around the alcoholic.
For me - and I suspect my son also - alcohol abuse gave me some time to grow up, to get to a stage in life when I felt strong enough (and desperate enough, too) to look at what I'd been running from. Everyone who drinks too much has that option. I had a couple of female friends who were doing the same thing, so in some ways we validated one another's behaviour. Both my sons have Moon in Pisces, so whilst I was always with them while they were growing up, I wasn't actually with them. I was always in a kind of Neptunian fog, wishing I was anywhere but there.
I believe that - for myself at least - I had to `go there' in order to access certain parts of myself which I previously had not known existed. Before my drinking days I was an opinionated, arrogant little sh*t, and I needed to `unravel' before I could put myself back together again. All addicts have that option, but many just don't acknowledge or recognise that they have options.
For me - and I suspect my son also - alcohol abuse gave me some time to grow up, to get to a stage in life when I felt strong enough (and desperate enough, too) to look at what I'd been running from. Everyone who drinks too much has that option. I had a couple of female friends who were doing the same thing, so in some ways we validated one another's behaviour. Both my sons have Moon in Pisces, so whilst I was always with them while they were growing up, I wasn't actually with them. I was always in a kind of Neptunian fog, wishing I was anywhere but there.
And that was the turning point for me. At the time I gave up it was because I loved my kids more than that, but I can now see that giving up the behaviour was more a demonstration of self-love, something addicts have great difficulty with. These days I only have maybe 2-3 glasses of white wine per year, and I don't particularly enjoy it. I no longer feel that I need it.waybread said:But I think the real test is for the heavy drinker to consider the impact of his/her habit [addiction in many cases] on other people.
I believe that - for myself at least - I had to `go there' in order to access certain parts of myself which I previously had not known existed. Before my drinking days I was an opinionated, arrogant little sh*t, and I needed to `unravel' before I could put myself back together again. All addicts have that option, but many just don't acknowledge or recognise that they have options.