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Comment by verisimilidude | Hacker News Reader

Your comment resonates with me quite a bit.

During my high school years, I suffered a bad accident. My right forearm was pretty much shattered, almost amputated. For about a week after all the surgeries, I was on Vicodin 24/7. Just from that, I was addicted. The withdrawal was miserable, and obviously came at the worst possible time.

That one week with Vicodin continues to have profound effects on my life, even now that I'm in my 30s. My fear of addiction convinced me to stay away from all drugs and even drinking. I socialized with people who didn't drink, and found activities that didn't involve partying. All of my social groups and hobbies, to this day, are the legacy of my total adult sobriety. I can't even imagine who I'd be if I didn't have that awful experience with Vicodin.

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Okay, I have long wanted to know this about alcoholics and alcohol relapse sufferers:

Do one-time alcoholics - functional or otherwise - who have sought treatment and then completely quit drinking for a fair number of years, ever manage to go back to moderate & responsible alcohol consumption?

Is it pretty much a life of teetotalism, for them, after that?

Do you know of any friends or family who have recovered and enjoy alcohol responsibly?

My experience has been that almost all such people I know, resort to drinking non-alcohol fizzy drinks, fruit juices and other replacements, but never any booze, not even non-alcoholic beer.

Some people can do it.

But don't take my words for it. I'd like to quote from a blog post of Nic Sheff:

"Going into it, I figured that most of the stories would be like mine. But in interviewing these different addicts —addicts that have worked with some of the top addiction specialists in the country— I was surprised to find that quite a few of them have now, after an extended period of abstinence, been able to go back to drinking or smoking pot casually without spiraling out of control again.

It was a baffling revelation to me.

[...]

Take the example of the crystal meth addict I mentioned above. His drug use really skyrocketed around the time he was diagnosed with HIV.

[...]

There was a direct connection between his environmental circumstances and his using, a concept that I’d never actually experienced. I used for no reason at all. But he had a reason."

http://www.thefix.com/content/alcoholic-versus-problem-drink...

I don't think there is something like having no reason but he probably knows himself the best. You should check him out if you don't already know him, he wrote 2 books about his teenage meth addiction and his struggle for recovery.

As an expert in the subject, having stopped for 8.5 years, started, stopped again for almost 10, and started, and now stopped for another 8... um, nope.

I'm addicted to substances that haven't been invented yet... and my brain really enjoys being wasted... the Ramones "I wanna be sedated" pretty well sums it up.

So for someone like me, mind altering substances are dangerous because I have no brakes... even after years of being stopped... because I really don't want to "enjoy alcohol responsibly".... I want to enjoy alcohol irresponsibly.

"Do one-time alcoholics - functional or otherwise - who have sought treatment and then completely quit drinking for a fair number of years, ever manage to go back to moderate & responsible alcohol consumption?"

I did, but I've no idea how common that is. I had a fairly bad drinking problem in my early 20s. Very much the functional alcoholic. Once I kicked that (with a year or so of pretty close to abstinence — through personal choice, no programme) I went back to social drinking fine. Not had a problem since, which is about 20 odd years now.

I have a few rules of thumb (I generally don't have alcohol in the house past a decent bottle of whisky every month or so, and I don't drink alone) but sticking to them has never been hard, and the times I don't stick to 'em haven't cause a relapse and slide into doom.

From a couple of people I know who used to be alcoholics none of them touches alcohol any more. It’s like they’re afraid that if they drink even a glass of wine they might roll back to old habits.

As a side note, most alcoholics I’ve met advised me never to drink while at home. I never had any problem with drinking in my life, actually I can’t even understand how people get addicted to it in the first place since if I drink a lot I can’t function in a proper way, but I’ve followed that advice like it’s a small pearl of wisdom.

On the other hand, as someone who was addicted to nicotine I totally concur with the article. One morning I decided to quit it cold turkey and aside from the fact that the withdrawal phase was quite severe, I never looked back after it. I’m 8 years now free from cigarettes and I don’t miss them at all.

    > Do one-time alcoholics - functional or otherwise - who
    > have sought treatment and then completely quit drinking
    > for a fair number of years, ever manage to go back to
    > moderate & responsible alcohol consumption?

There's just not a single answer to this, so here are some thoughts:

* Been a long time since I gave up smoking. I think I could smoke every day for a month, and then stop again with it only being a medium-sized deal. Smoked for 7 years, ending up about 30 a day by the end.

* I gave up drinking just a few years ago. I have been given alcoholic drinks without knowing it on three occasions (and found out later), and it just wasn't a big deal at all. If I chose to have a drink, I think it'd take me many years to stop again. I am unsure if I will be able to sensibly drink again - I have a vague goal that I'll attempt it again in 10 years' time. I LOVE non-alcoholic beer

Watch it with the smoking one. I smoked for about 8 years (ages 19 to 27, minimum 12 cigs a day) then quit for a year and a half. Quitting was so easy. Then something bad happened in my life and I started smoking while stressed. I was only smoking for about a week and it took me months of repeated effort to quit the second time.

Part of the problem was that the first time I quit I was mentally happy, part of the problem was I knew "how easy" it was to quit the first time and this excuse makes it easier to spark up while you drink.

Now that I'm off them for good again I'm much more scared of them than I was before.

I was heavily addicted to first alcohol and then drugs from ages 14-17. In those three years I went from stealing liquor from my parents to ultimately shooting up IV oxycontin, doing cocaine and any other drug I could find. In those days (mid-late 90s) the internet drug market was just starting, so I would steal money and buy things like ketamine and lots of "research chemicals" (untested hallucinogens) online. I ended up in the ER with severe self-inflicted woulds all over my face and body (I believe I literally pulled my skin off with my bare hands while blacked out on oxycontin--I have no memory of it).

I'm now in my 30s, have a family and haven't touched a drug like that since. I tried smoking marijuana a few times in my 20s but no longer enjoyed it--all it did was make me extremely paranoid and withdrawn, and I felt hung over the next day.

These days I drink moderately. I have a glass of wine with dinner but never get drunk (nor have any desire to). I never go out to bars, never drink hard liquor, etc. A couple beers or glasses of wine is as far as it goes.

I believe my drug addiction was primarily caused by a miserable, unstable and abusive home life growing up. I had no way of coping other than escape and self-destruction. Once I was independent and out the house there was no longer a need for any of it. I'm profoundly grateful I lived through that period and I have a lot of empathy for children and teenagers who go down the road of addiction. I believe firmly that it is a failure in parenting, although not necessarily intentional on the part of the parents. Children need stability, love and structure.

Even if we assume that most alcoholics are capable of going back to alcohol in moderation I would expect most of them to be cautious enough to not try it. The advantages of alcohol consumption are small while the detriments of relapsing are high so one must be extremely certain that they can handle it before trying alcohol again is a rational choice.

I don't think there is an easy answer to this... It depends so much on the individual and their life. However, I think there are some general guidelines that work in a "most people, most of the time" kind-of-way.

With that said, I think that most severe alcoholics can never go back to drinking. The damage has been done, and they will always have that vulnerability. They may be able to control it for a while, even a surprisingly long time, but, if they go back to drinking or using then they will be thoroughly screwed.

There are people who may have issues that look like alcoholism, but are really different, like ADHD or depression. As those other issues get better, then the alcoholism will become less of a problem. For example, people with ADHD tend to have problems with impulse control. As people live their lives they learn that poor impulse control is, indeed, a real problem and they learn how to get it under control more-or-less on their own. That same lack of impulse control is disastrous when combined with alcohol. But, as their impulse control gets better, their problems with alcohol get easier, too.

Some people simply have had a crappy childhood, and, as they get more distance and grow out of those issues, then their tendency to addiction gets less.

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