Remember the old Lays Potato Chip commercial – Bet you can’t eat just one? Change “eat” to “drink” and it could be a great commercial for a rehab center, or a moderation management organization. I think the question arises in the dark mind of every recovering alcoholic at least once, “As soon as I get this snafu under control, can’t I begin to drink moderately again? Can’t I have just one drink?”
I Can Never Drink Again?
I have told you that my biggest impediment to giving up drinking was getting my head around the notion I would not be able to imbibe again. It was like Poe’s raven was sitting on my windowsill, heralding my bleak future with, “Nevermore! Nevermore!” I thought I would lose a big part of who I was, that I wouldn’t be funny anymore, that my biting wit would lose its bark…
Frankly, I’m not as funny as I was. I did lose a piece of myself, but I have yet to find a person (other than me on rare occasion) who misses the drinking Marilyn. My jokes had become too vicious, my revelry a little too outrageous for the likes of innocents…
I have come to grips with the situation, but to address the question in the minds of those who have not, the answer (according to Psychology Today) comes down to “what kind of drinker you are – why do you drink, how much do you drink, and how long have you been in this pattern?”
The answers to these questions are vital, because the longer you have been in a two-fisted drinking situation, the more your consumption changes the physical characteristics of your brain.
This is your brain on alcohol…
Problem drinkers may still be motivated by cognition. In other words they are still thinking, knowing, and remembering they want a drink to ease stress, get a buzz, be social, etc. These non-dependent problem drinkers can oftentimes go from over-drinking into moderate drinking with relative success.
But there seems to be a fail safe point after which problem drinkers can no longer manage their drinking. And there is a huge difference between the brain of a non-dependent problem drinker and the brain of a person addicted to alcohol.
For the addicted brain, the only real option is total abstinence. Because the addicted brain does not want just one.
*****************************************
I am embarrassed to say this commercial kind of reminds me of my late-stage drinking days… Fiona and me in the den of iniquity, with a bottle of hooch and a bag of processed sugar. And what were the Lays people thinking with this obvious nod to addiction?
Bet you can’t drink just one…