By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Did you quit drinking, but your life did not get better?

You quit drinking but nothing is better. Life was more fun, you were happier when you were drinking, at least you tell yourself you were. Now you wonder why after you quit nothing is getting better.

In the beginning Alcohol, like any drug seems like the magic cure to all that ails you. Old Ethel, Miss Alcohol, is better than having a cape hanging in the closet. Each time you take a drink it makes you feel like a superhero. The result of that drink is absolutely predictable and miraculous, at least in the beginning.

Then something happens. The magic is not as strong. You need to drink more to get the same result. You begin to think that maybe you should stop drinking, only how would you have fun, how would you cope without your best friend the bottle, by your side.

As the negative consequences of drinking mount up you may think that if only you stopped imbibing all your problems would be cured. So you stop and nothing changes. That hoped-for happy life has eluded you.

You couldn’t find a way to be happy before the drinking or you thought you needed the booze to heighten your enjoyment. Now you can’t be happy with or without the liquor.

You don’t want to be an alcoholic. Who would willingly sign on for that job? So you try to control your drinking. If you could just return to being a social drinker you think then drinking and life would be fun again. Normal people do not have to control their drinking. People with a problem are the ones who try to get back control.

If you are like many an alcoholic, you know you need to stop. The negative consequences are piling up. You may have DUI’s. There may be all manner of wreckage, divorces, broken relationships, and lost jobs. So with all the bad, that has been happening to you when you were drinking you expected that when you stopped things would be better. You thought you should be happy and your life on track. What went wrong?

What you find is that the problem was never the alcohol. The alcohol was your solution, only now that solution has stopped working. The solution has become a new problem, one you didn’t have before. The new problem is called addiction, or alcoholism. But you still have the problem that you don’t like your life, maybe you don’t even like you when you are not drinking.

The solution is not to learn to control the drinking. The solution is to learn to accept and cope with life. Just because you stopped drinking your other life problems have not been miraculously solved.

Changing your life involves changing you. You need to learn to cope with life’s problems without leaning on a substance. That substance will only hold you up for so long and then it becomes the thing that holds you back and holds you down.

Living your life on Alcohol is like living in a dense fog. You go through life not seeing or feeling anything and eventually you lose your way. When you live life numbed out on alcohol or painkillers, you don’t feel anything so you go on hurting yourself.

Is it time for you to start the process of changing yourself?

Related articles

• 11 signs you crossed the addiction line. Is it partying, drinking, and using or addiction? (counselorssoapbox.com)
• Addiction, substance use disorder, or chemical dependency (counselorssoapbox.com)
• Social or anti-social drinker? Dangers of emotional drug use. (counselorssoapbox.com)

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

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