For most changes of habits where it's possible, taking a hard line is much easier.

When I went vegetarian, I went cold turkey. The first two weeks, I wanted meat all the time, and it was hard to resist the temptation to eat it. The next month or so, I still wasn't sure I'd be able to keep it up, but it was easier.

Since then (years), I sometimes want meat, but it's gotten far easier.

I sometimes think about loosening up--I've considered rules like eating it once in awhile if I know it was humanely and environmentally raised (as much as possible), or bringing seafood back, or even eating meat that I know will otherwise go bad (which basically ends all my ethical objections).

The biggest reason I haven't is that it would be way harder and probably make my life worse overall. At this point, being vegetarian is super easy. I only sort of remember what most meat tastes like, I'm very used to not eating it, and I know I can do it.

Critically, it's never a decision I have to make; it's a given. If I made the line blurrier, then every time I saw meat that looked good, I would have to make a decision. The cognitive load of being a vegetarian would skyrocket, and I would probably have more of a feeling of missing out because I would think more about the possibility of not missing out.

I am logging back in specifically to address this comment in case it prevents somebody from trying AA due to misinformation.

First as others echo if you don't understand the addiction consider yourself lucky. If I drank one drink at the end I was physically compelled to have another. Imagine a terrible itch. You have to scratch it. Heavy drinking alcoholics have such strong physical addictions that detox without medical supervision can be life threatening. Your reaction wondering why millions of people choose AA and abstinence vs trying to "cut back" is misinformed but not uncommon.

Second and more importantly IMO the misconception that AA requires a traditional faith or GOD experience is what kept me out for years. Part of working the steps is finding "a higher power" and I know many atheists in the program that consider that to be Good Orderrly Direction (GOD) vs a spiritual or dogmatic experience.

But the true "work" of the program is centered around confronting your wreckage of the past and confronting life on life's terms vs utilizing alcohol as a mechanism to check out of life.

> I've never really understood the whole "alcoholic vs. sobriety" thing. Is it not possible to "learn" to drink less?

I believe that it is both addictive and alters one's state of mine are what makes it difficult to simply "learn to drink less". I suspect that it is technically possible, but going sober (avoiding the addition) is likely to be a much easier choice than trying to control the addiction. When it is something that can impact one's long-term health as significantly as alcholism can, it makes sense to go for the comparatively easier solution of avoiding alcohol altogether.

15 years sober here. Before that I drank like crazy while shipping a bunch of software that you've definitely heard of.

The only way this dumb monkey could quit was to quit altogether. Hey, if you can control your own drinking, that's great. But I know that I cannot.

Also, I'm an atheist in AA. It works for me.

The whole "God thing" of AA stopped me for quite a while. But the whole deity thing is optional, you just need a power greater than yourself and (ideally) a sponsor who can call you on your bullshit. I've heard the name "Jesus" a handful of times, and never from someone running a meeting.

I've never been Involved with AA, so I might not have the most accurate information, but I also wondered this one evening, and ended up reading a bunch of articles, as well as the AA Handbook's section on Step 2[1].

From what I gathered, AA wants you to trust your recovery to a Higher Power, because then you can depend on said higher power to pull you through times of personal weakness (because nobody's strong all the time, let alone a recovering alcoholic). The term Higher Power in the handbook often pretty explicitly refers to the Christian God, but I remember the same handbook saying that the connection to the Higher Power is a distinctly personal one, and that each AA member can choose to define their higher power as they wish.

It is true that a lot of AA members end up finding Jesus as part of their recovery, but many also get through it by trusting in a different god, or in humanity, or in the elegant universe, or in the transcendental power of the AA group itself.

From what I gathered that evening, AA's process is very much faith-based, but what you're putting your faith in is flexible, and doesn't really matter to most AA groups.

[1]http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_step2.pdf

    > I've never really understood the whole "alcoholic vs.
    > sobriety" thing.

Then you've never struggled with addiction.

I haven't, that's true. I'm asking these questions because I'd like to understand better, and your flippant response isn't a big help.

Unfortunately, people who have experienced addition are going to have a hard time understanding your position.

I too do not suffer from these kinds of habits directly or even through close family or friends, so other readers forgive me if I'm falling short of level-headed understanding here.

The question you seem to be asking is "Why isn't moderation an option" and addiction is, in part, the inability to moderate. Maybe you can't relate to that, but for somebody that has that inability, participating in any amount of the activity they have difficulty moderating is flirting with ruin. They use all of their ability to form and practice moderation habits on just avoiding taking the first step.

Their reality is very much different from yours or mine, the risks and rewards are entirely changed. Like airgapping an unpatched OS that's gone out of support and which hosts business-critical data, only an absolute countermeasure will suffice.

It's not a flippant response, but I would certainly consider yours to be. You have never suffered from addiction, therefore your frame of reference is skewed, but forgivable.

Having never suffered addiction you physically and psychologically cannot understand the affliction. It controls your thoughts, your body, your actions and decisions. It has costs well beyond every night drinking- costs paid in broken marriages, lost friendships and worse.

Pointing out that you have never suffered from addiction is not flippant. It is in response to a lot of what you have already written. You don't know the pain of which you are so dismissive, far apart from the 'coldness' of text. You express yourself and your understanding very well, and your words are sharp.

I think you don't understand what "flippant" means. The parent's response was certainly flippant. He displayed a (to borrow the phrase from dictionary.com) frivolous disrespect for my curiosity and questions.

I would absolutely agree that my frame of reference is different (I wouldn't say "skewed"; that's a bit of a weird and disrespectful way of putting it), but I'm asking questions with the intent to try to understand better what people who have struggled with addiction have to go through to get better.

You accuse me of being dismissive, but I am anything but: I am asking questions trying to understand the forces at work here. The parent was very dismissive of me and my effort to understand.

Let's teach by example here.

Dismissive: I think addiction isn't real because I've never experienced it.

Dismissive: I'm going to imply that your questions are stupid and invalid just because you haven't experienced what we're talking about.

Not dismissive: [pretty much everything I've said up till now]

Your attitude continues to be less than stellar. You act like a babe in the woods who has no frame of reference and only innocently asks questions to further educate yourself. From my perspective, you condescend, and continue to do so. You are a member of society, presumably older than sixteen, and so you very well know how pointed this line of questioning can be.

Perhaps my uncalled-for overreaction is due to the loss I've experienced at the cost of addiction, from my own mistakes and mistakes made around me. For me there has been a significant loss of life both in my immediate family and friends.

HN is a pretty weird place to ask these questions, and I understand perfectly well what flippant means- thanks for not being dismissive or condescending.

I admit I may overreact, but only because I find your questions- especially the way you responded to be- to me disingenuous.

Though I should never discourage someone from learning, and judging by my reaction i see why anonymity and text are the right place.

(i can tell that i overreacted, and responded emotionally and strangely. I am bipolar on top of addiction issues and reading this post back to myself it's apparent. I'm being an ass. I'm leaving my post because maybe my broken train of thought can be a bit of a learning experience? i'm sorry i am so rude.)

Thanks for explaining. I'm just trying to get the point across that I just don't understand, but would like to. I happen to think that HN is a pretty reasonable and normal place to engage in discussions about these sorts of things, so it seemed natural to me to ask.

I can only ask you to believe me when I say I'm not being disingenuous here: I am genuinely curious about all this stuff, especially since I have no first- or even second-hand experience with it. I am sorry if I come off as somewhat clinical or detached... as I mentioned and we all know, it's very hard to get tone across via a medium like this.

The problem with alcohol (and a lot of drugs) is that being intoxicated also impacts your judgement. Ever had a few drinks and thought "I can barely feel this", then after you sober up your like "wow, I was actually drunk".

That's why it's hard for an alcoholic to control their drinking. Having only a drink or two is easy to say when you're sober, but easy to excuse after the alcohol has kicked in.

I have struggled with addiction, and I don't understand it either.

A person of the right frame of mind can reduce their intake to a point of normality. There is no difference between an alcoholic and a healthy person other than their temporary blood chemistry and a predisposition to drinking. Framing it as an on/off is a tactic used by those who don't believe in the ability of another to moderate volume.

Addicts are getting a different chemical brain reward from non-addicts. An addict drinking alcohol is not someone who just really really enjoys it, anymore than someone who is depressed is really sad.

I like - very occasionally - to put a few coins in to a fruit machine, or to wager on an event. But I don't get the addictive impulse from it, I don't have to fight the voice in my head, I don't get the rush followed by the shame, and I don't and I don't get the feeling of unstoppable momentum from it that marks an addiction. I'd be willing to bet if I did it more frequently that it'd get that way.

I'm wondering what the point of this reply is. It comes off as accusatory and obvious, given the comment you're replying to. Is having struggled with addiction a point of pride for you? I ask this as someone who's struggled with it. The person you're replying to went through a good deal of trouble to make it clear they weren't trying to be insensitive. It just seems kind of rude to someone who seemed to be genuinely trying to understand a horrible affliction.

I think the person I'm replying to used a lot of flowery language to say "Why can't you people just learn self control?" Invariably - because it's certainly not the first time I've heard it - there's an attached "(like me)" on the end of it. Next up: "I've never really understood why depressed people don't just try and make an effort to be happy"

I'm fortunate enough to have escaped from any serious addictions (outside of maybe eating a little too much garbage when I'm feeling a little down), but my mother's side of my family is absolutely packed to the rim with people who have/had powerful drug and alcohol addictions. I also have a close personal friend who has a similar family history and a brother-in-law who comes from a deeply damaged family as a result of alcohol and drug addiction. So, while I can't offer any insight from a first person perspective, I can offer some from a close outside party.

You should be very thankful that you don't suffer from it, nor have had close enough contact to addiction so that a question like you're asking seems reasonable. I urge you to spend a couple hours reading up on it and how it works (at least the parts we know and understand), how it's defined, and how it's treated. If you can find some intervention videos on youtube, it might be worth sitting through.

For my relatives who suffer(ed) from this kind of addiction, it simply becomes all they think about all the time. If they're at work, they're trying to figure out how to get home earlier to start drinking, or they'll try to figure out how to hide the smell of the alcohol behind powerful aftershave. If they're not drinking they're trying to figure out how to drink, and if they are drinking, they're trying to figure out how to stay conscious long enough to get to the next bottle. In my family at least, the addictions are usually co-present with various psychological ailments. The literature on drug/alcohol addiction is jammed full of information on this co-presence.

To an addict, the thing they're addicted to become everything to them. They'll use everybody around them and manipulate them to feed the addiction. If you can't help that purpose, then they'll throw you away and move on to the next supportive person. It becomes more important to them than sex, food, shelter, etc. If you're down to your last $15 and need to decide between food and booze/drugs, to an addict the choice is obvious, you don't have to eat every day.

The best analogy I can give is that addiction of this nature feels a little like slow motion drowning. If you don't get to the surface to get another breath, it's over. A drowning person will climb on top of their own mother to get to that air, and thus it's the same with substance addiction. Everything else becomes secondary.

Bizarrely, it's not always the substances that are addictive by themselves (like morphine), but a powerful psychological predisposition drives many addictions. For an addict who's been able to go clean/sober, giving them a drink or their drug of choice is a little like putting them back in that drowning situation and asking them if they really need that breath or if they can just hold it a little longer. To them it feels like functionally the same situation.

I've watched several friends and relatives die either directly from their addiction, or from some secondary issue caused by their addiction. It's maddening watching it happen. You can even have full-rational conversations with an addict about why it's bad and terrible and they'll agree and provide thoughtful responses about it. But right after that conversation they'll go and pour a drink. The closest example I can think of right now is to watch a few episodes of "Hoarders", ignore the hoarding itself, and watch the conversations with the hoarders. They're completely lucid, but there's something broken in their psyche that causes them to do what they're doing. An uncontrollable compulsion. If you can get through a half dozen episodes of "Hoarders" without going a little crazy, congratulations. I can barely make it through an episode without wanting to reach into the television and grab the people and shake some sense into them so they can see what they're doing.

To your central question, there are programs that attempt to wean addicts off of their addiction. But usually the goal is to get them down to zero. In many cases it's simply because they are so addicted to their substance that going cold turkey would likely kill them. Getting clean, even off of a serious alcohol addiction, can be medically difficult. It can be unbelievably unpleasant, from seizures to hallucinations.

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/alcohol-withdra...

Tolerances of people with very severe addictions can also be mind blowing. Blood alcohol levels that would kill most people might be the baseline an addict walks around with all day.

I know from some of my friends and relatives that AA has literally saved their lives. It's put them into a support structure full of people who also have gone through the same thing. It means they both have understanding, but also BS checkers...people who know when they're being manipulated because they were themselves manipulators. If you're struggling with a serious addiction, concern about deism is the absolute bottom of the list of things you have to worry about, but it is often used as an excuse not to join the program. I would also urge you to read up on the AA program, it's a powerful system full of some very deep wisdom. You can attend an "open" AA meeting if you're curious. It might be boring to a non-addict, but it can be the life-changing foundation for an addict. My relatives who are in AA never miss a meeting, and always find where the local AA meetings are whenever they travel. It's "religious" in the sense that following the program religiously has turned their entire lives around.

I also urge you to read up on the criticisms of AA and compare to other programs. Also, learning about AA and AA-like programs (like Narcotics Anonymous) as well as sound-alike but different programs (like Narcanon) can be useful as well. It's likely somebody you know does suffer from addiction, and understanding some of the things about it and how it works might enable you to save somebody's life.

>...are there non-religious versions of AA?

i've heard mention of a group? system? called rational recovery.

drinking less is extremely difficult because at first it goes really well, but then it gradually increases, and then all of a sudden you're drinking to excess again. the term "slippery slope" applies here. saying no to the 3rd drink is MUCH harder than saying no to the 1st - that's why lots of problem drinkers (i'm intentionally not using the word 'alcoholic' here) just stop completely, or drink one glass of wine at thanksgiving per year or whatever.

heavy drinkers find drinking intensely enjoyable - and (subtle difference here...) not displeasurable in any way whatsoever until hangover/puke. if you aren't the kind of person who's ever drank 15+ drinks in a single night, you just have no ability to comprehend this. it's not within your realm of understanding - your personality is just completely different. or your brain chemistry is such that after 3-4 drinks, you feel terrible.

if so, be thankful.

> it's not within your realm of understanding

There's another reason which you didn't mention. It's not personality, and it's not that I feel terrible after a few drinks. I drink very little because the following [1] is incomprehensible to me:

   Alcohol – Euphoria has been reported during the
   first 10–15 minutes of alcohol consumption.

I have gotten very drunk and yet not experienced euphoria or anything similar. To be sure, alcohol has physical effects on me (e.g. impairment of judgement and impairment of coordination). But it just doesn't do anything mental, for better or worse. I'd bet that many/most of the 60% or so of people that have less than one drink a week fall in that category. I.e. to us alcohol is "meh".

I'd much rather have chocolate or sugar than alcohol. E.g. I like Grand Marnier, but that's because it has a pleasant sweet taste, not because it has alcohol. I'll drink a few beers a year, but that's because I'm doing something social, like watching a football game with friends.

it's a combination of euphoria, a slight mania, boost in enthusiasm and motivation, and it quite possibly 'unlocks' part of your personality (i.e. the funny part, since it completely eliminates your inhibitions to tell racy jokes).

so just like you said, this is why it's so hard for problem drinkers to cut down. it's just a whole different experience than a person who has a couple and then feels dizzy and wants to sit down.

I have had 15+ drinks in a single night before, but probably only on 2-3 occasions in my life (one of them being my 30th birthday, where a mostly-sober friend was keeping track until 23 drinks). So I at least know what that's like, in isolation. But my personality doesn't push me to just go and go and go.

I'm not saying there isn't a slippery slope, but I personally cannot imagine my life without at least some alcohol. I assume for the case of someone where their (excessive) alcohol intake has a huge negative impact on their life, zero alcohol sounds like a much better deal than drinking a lot.

But I still question the accepted "fact" that this is really a fixed "personality" thing. We humans have extraordinary brains and have the power to -- possibly with help -- change a lot of things about our personality and emotional state. It seems hard to believe that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic" is actually absolutely true.

of course it's not absolutely true. you're not wise to something everyone else is blind to - some people are totally able to cut down. the people who say it's impossible are AA people, and that's basically a religion.

but look at you - 2-3 occasions in your life - the people who have problems cutting down are doing that 2-3 times a week and are completely functional. it's a completely different personality type.

the bottom line is, for a lot of people, it's a LOT easier to stop than to 'cut down'. this isn't a magical premise. in fact i think it makes a lot of sense. similarly, for a lot of people, stopping is impossible. and that's how you get numbers like 74 drinks a week which sounds fucking ludicrous at first blush, but is in fact quite doable.

One might expect alcohol consumption to be roughly normally distributed, but clearly it is not when the top 10% is so far off the chart. Imagine what it would be like to drink 74 drinks in a week. I've been a heavy drinker at times, but that amount blows my mind. And that's just the middle of the top 10%. I love me some booze, but that amount is so far beyond what I would consider enjoyable that there would have to be something seriously, irrationally wrong with me to partake to that degree on a regular basis.

That's what addiction is. It's like asking why someone with OCD can't simply not wash their hands. It's mind bending to even imagine for someone who hasn't had that experience. I've dealt with obsession and compulsion at times in my life (not as a disorder), and I know how hard it is for me to modify habits and fixations. True addiction is some next level shit.

I can understand why it's difficult for you to imagine how a person could be unable to stop with just one drink. It's similarly difficult for a non-depressed person to understand why a depressed person is miserable even when things seem to be going well, or for a neurotypical person to understand why an autistic person is freaked out by seemingly minor stimuli.

These are, however, all things that have been extensively studied and documented and affect millions of people. It's not necessary for you to be able to really get inside the head of an alcoholic, but that shouldn't keep you from accepting that this is simply how things are for some people.

"how come everyone isn't exactly like me? it's easy for me!"