Conversation

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
the whole problem is with framing reaching for the drink as “weakness”; it’s fundamentally an exiling move, you’re othering the part of you that sees the drink as the best or only option for dealing with some shit
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
exiling imposes continual costs, you continually need to edit the exile out of your awareness, meanwhile it does not and cannot die, it just skulks in the shadows growing hairy and wild until maybe one day it comes back as you lay dying
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
i have no experience with alcoholism per se but i have plenty of addictive tendencies myself and what actually helps me is 1) respecting that a part of me needs the addiction to self-medicate and then 2) dealing with whatever pain i’m attempting to self-medicate
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Raymond
@rfinz
yeah big problem being huuuge variance in addictive tendencies—just had a friend die recently since they had a single drink on NYE and proceeded to accidentally drink themself to death (actual alcohol toxicity is what killed him) over the course of 2 weeks
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Raymond
@rfinz
anyway just making the case that there are circumstances in which the addictive drive can totally circumvent any self-reflective abilities one might have not common for this to be the case, tho
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
so, with respect, i will make the case that the “weakness” frame or other frames that exile the addictive part actually contribute to this whiplash effect where “relapsing” is this big dramatic thing
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
when you exile the addictive part it becomes more desperate because you’re ignoring it and fighting it. the way a person would. so if it *does* find a way to regain control it will desperately attempt to maintain that control by whatever means it can get its hands on
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
and with alcohol in particular what’s a great way to wrench control away from parts of you that are trying to impose “self-control”? more alcohol. especially if this is part of what was being self-medicated in the first place. please let me know if i am being unspeakably rude
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Raymond
@rfinz
yeah, I wish I knew more of my friend's circumstances—it never seemed like he was actively fighting temptation when he was around: I knew him from festivals, so he'd kinda do whatever he wanted just not alcohol, be hanging out at bars/dancing/carousing with very drunk people
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Raymond
@rfinz
I think there's something especially pernicious about GABA-active drugs (alcohol, benzos, GHB, phenibut)—that there's some people and some thresholds beyond which there's very little chance for self-reflection
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
@rfinz
and 3 others
most of what i’m talking about is not what to do in the moment that someone hands you a drink or the moment after your first drink, it’s the entire ongoing narrative / frame about how you conceive of “being an alcoholic” and hold “your alcoholism” as a part of you
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