I've been dealing with a few un-bloggable personal problems lately. I now understand why people retreat to the bottle as a coping mechanism. I see how alcohol provides an escape. In the past few weeks, I noticed I was drinking for all the wrong reasons. I've not gotten drunk, but my motivation was definitely wrong. So yesterday I consciously decided to drink no alcohol, and went on a bike ride instead. The experts always recommend exercise as a healthy way to handle stress, and I expected it to be a little bit incomplete. Like when they say you should snack on carrot sticks instead of carrot cake, it's just not the same. I was pleasantly surprised to see that exercise really is effective -- even better than alcohol.
Therefore, I see two reasons that I can proclaim my non-dependency:
1) I recognized when alcohol was becoming a problem for me
2) I found a healthier way to handle the urge to drink
Now all I have to do is maintain the good habit.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
I'm not an alcoholic
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Hahaha. I think it's a little more complicated than that.
ReplyDeleteEven alcoholics recognize that they have a problem and then take steps to correct for it. It doesn't make them any less dependent, it just means they have found a new way to cope. Maybe they substitute one drug (alcohol) for another (exercise), but the latter is probably healthier and less likely to be identified as a "problem" and as long as you don't think you have a problem, you don't.
At the same time, I'm not sure drinking for a day or two to cope with stress is bad or makes you an alcoholic either. It possibly just means you're in a bad place just then and that's the coping mechanism you've chosen.
As an interesting aside, if you exercise regularly, you are (supposedly) less likely to use alcohol or drugs. Something about taking pride in something on which you work so hard.
So, what's the matter? I was just thinking about you yesterday and today, thinking about how you haven't written in a while. How is my Jenny? Right, probably not great. Poor baby. It's going to get better.