Drinking

Drinking
I

Ivo

Registrant
I quit drinking of coffee few years ago because it can make me to be "hyperactive". After just one small cup of coffee I feel eruption of energy and can not sit in one place for more than few seconds. Other people are thinking that I am avoiding coffee because I want to have healthier way of living. The truth is that coffee is directly influencing my nervous system on very unpleasant way. The situation with alcohol is a little bit different, I can take 2-3 beers in 2-3 hours before this hyperactivity would emerge. My all alarms are set to this dangerous level and I am automatically stopping to drink on the first alarming sign of hyperactivity.
I never get drunk in my life, I think that it would destroy me totally. I am also scared to death that, if I lose control, I would try to do something very harmful to myself.
But you know, I live in macho society with huge drinking tradition and seems that I am not man enough if I am not able to drink much. I hate prejudices, they are so stupid.
Ivo
 
Ivo you said:
But you know, I live in macho society with huge drinking tradition and seems that I am not man enough if I am not able to drink much.
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Hey I used to drink like a fish. Been in AA for 27 years and sober since I was 35 (63 now). I think that people who drink to excess are hiding from something or are numbing out to get out of that place where they are. I do not think anywhere does it say that to be a man one has to drink to excess. Macho shit is just that. Ivo you are doing the right thing by not drinking because it does offer lots of temptation to self destruct. Drinking in itself can do that fine.

As to being influenced by coffee (caffein) I can understand completely. It gives you a high and heightens the awareness level and makes you hyper. In other circumstances do you have the same reaction without coffee. How about the use of tea or eating chocolate. They contain caffein also. Are you naturally hyper at all. It may be that a doctor can give you something to take the edge off and help you to relax.

If on the other hand it is caused by your SA I would ask if you are taking any therapy for it or talking to someone about it. Bottling up inside can lead to being really antsy.
 
Ivo
I used to drink until I couldn't drink any more, clinically I would have been an alcoholic, although I never had any craving to drink. I just enjoyed it.

Maybe I still drink too much? I've had two large glasses of wine already tonight, but these days I drink alcohol right up to the point where I start to feel drunkeness coming on - then I stop. I'll leave a full drink at that point.
I like a slight buzz from it, but being out of control doesn't do anything for me anymore, and I don't use recreational drugs anymore for the same reason.

Most societies are the same, men drink too much. But eventually my friends have accepted that I'm the one still standing at the end of the night.

But as for the coffee? I still drink WAY too much.

Dave
 
Ivo,

I never wanted to start drinking, because I never wanted to lose control, I used to watch others getting so drunk and just letting go, I was always worried that I might say things I should not say, like admitting what goes on in my head and losing friends.

I started drinking pretty heavy, and just numbing out. I can honestly say that does not work, it can sometimes magnify the problem.

If you want an excuse of why you drink so little, tell your friends, you are diabetic, or have a wheat allergy, they will understand.

On coffee, I love the stuff, but drink about one cup every two months, if that. I buy the strong filter type. I suppose if I look at it, I only ever drink it when I have so much work to do, I think it may carry me through, don't know whether it works.

Even though I love it, I very rarely drink the stuff. I remember being in a french cafe a couple of years ago, I drank about seven cups of the stuff waiting for someone. I had to drive through the night to germany, when I got out of the cafe, I felt so physically sick.

Drunk on coffee? Maybe.
Bill will never believe this,

take care

ste
 
I heard someone say once, in a society where everything clever has been said already, "I drank like an addict and used drugs like an alcoholic." I knew what he was talking about.

Having given up alcohol, and other drugs, I must admit I am still hooked on coffee - and a cigar would give me pause. Whether coffee or cigars are an escape is not of concern. It's giving me anything that I will use to escape really feeling, however unintended it may have been, that I no longer find acceptable to me.

Kenn
 
I have to be in the right mood to drink. I have to want to drink, but not be down. Which has been very rare. By that I mean I would drink maybe once every 6 months to a year. I drank a little more often when I worked with children at the hospital. They had issues I had not dealt with myself, that combined with the stress lead me to drink a little more often. Say maybe every 2-4 weeks.

I don't think that my girlfriend would be too happy if I were drinking, so it is not something I feel the need to do.

And I would drink to a good drunk.
 
As a recovering alcoholic of dubious sobriety my drug of choice today is tea vast amounts of the stuff, switched to decaf a few weeks ago no obvious benefits as such yet - but Im getting to be patient.

Regards

Archnut
 
Well, I definitely agree there's a lot of pressure to drink alcohol. You can't watch TV or read a magazine without someone trying to sell you some. But for some reason I have never had a problem with it the way I have other drugs.

I wonder if this pressure you're responding to is tied in to what the alcohol is doing for you vs. what the coffee does for you.

For me, I'd walk over hot coals to get to a line of coke. I used to tell myself it was because everyone around me was doing it. But in reality, I did it because I loved it. It was my addiction, not peer pressure.

When it comes to alcohol, I can have half a glass of beer and easily walk away and leave the rest. Or if I'm at a party and others are drinking and I want to quit, I just switch to lime and soda. If anyone asks why, I just say I've got a busy day tomorrow. So peer pressure doesn't bother me there, sort of like the way you can leave coffee alone without worrying about it.

The difference is that coke did things to me I really liked. Booze, on the other hand, doesn't. So in one case, peer pressure was a great excuse to do something I enjoyed. And in the other, the peer pressure is trying to get me to do something I don't particularly crave, so it's much easier to resist.

As to coffee. The only way anyone will get me to give up coffee is to pry the mug out of my cold, dead hands. :D
 
Welllll, I am sipping a Timmies as I type: for the non-Canuks, that is coffee (or tea). I have stopped drinking coffee after lunch as it makes it hard to go to sleep. I know about hyper-activity as I need my prescriptions to sleep or just calm down. I'd say I'm pretty well addicted to 'scripts as the bottle is pulling me towards it even now. I had a rather long email discussion with a noted feminist and that ALWAYS makes me EXTREMELY upset. My guts could make milkshakes they're churning so fast.

As for booze and other drugs.... I stopped them in 1978 because:

a) all of my family are/were drunks
b) I'd just had my wife run away with another man leaving me with two babies in Duff Roblin's Manitoba; which was NOT a good place to be a single dad.

So fear stopped me drinking and illegal drugging. I may or may not do something about the 'scripts. I'm not sure which ones I need just to function and which ones are crutches. I'm not sure I want to know....

jw
 
Originally posted by Ivo:

But you know, I live in macho society with huge drinking tradition and seems that I am not man enough if I am not able to drink much. I hate prejudices, they are so stupid.
Ivo
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Ivo, meet the Russian who no longer drinks, except for VERY rare occasions. I think certain societies (such as ours) have more of a predisposition to alcoholism and the illnesses that go with it. I never thought so much I had some drinking 'problem', although I had overindulged in the past and been obnoxious with it. But I was stupid enough to make the mistake of drinking a little too much and then driving last year. I am lucky it was like 2 in the morning, and I did not harm myself or anyone else, but it was dam stupid. Since then, I have had one episode of 'over drinking' to much for few weeks. And it scares me, because I sense it could be a problem for me. So no more, other then maybe a glass of wine if we go out to dinner, or a beer or two at home. Once a month or so. It's just not worth it, stereotypes be dammed.

leosha
 
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