EP 216: How Do You Help Someone Stop Drinking Before it’s Too Late? What if It’s You?

Boom Rethink the Drink,

Yesterday I had a chance to talk with my friend Drifter for his Sober Town Podcast. It was International Women's Day so we had planned to talk about the toxicity of alcohol marketing directed at women, but after a couple of days of multiple postings in our communities on the deadly result of alcohol addiction, we decided instead to focus on the questions of "how do you stop drinking before it goes too far?" - "how do you help someone you love who seems lost to the bottle?" Drifter and I have both lost brothers to their addictions and we have both found solid dry ground after breaking out of our addictions. Do we have the answers to these questions with the years of personal experience we both have as the addicted and the loved one of the addict? We came up with two answers by the end of our talk and those answers were all about beacons and light houses. My beacons that guided me to stop drinking and stay sober were young and old and somewhere in between. We all grew up with the basic premise that handling our liquor was a badge of courage in cultures and families that celebrate drinking hard and handling it. Cultures and families that laugh at hangovers, distrust sobriety, celebrates the drug and shame the addict. All of us started drinking as a right of passage from childhood into adulthood. Some of us waited until we came of age and some of us started drinking younger but in one way or another we were mimicking the behavior of the adults that we knew. Maybe we admired their ability to function highly, to handle their booze, or maybe we said we’d never drink like they did, but drink we did because that is what adults do. Those adults were our beacons and we followed where they led us. It makes perfect sense that to find another path beacons of a different sort are needed. And it makes perfect sense that those of us who have fought our way out of addiction after helplessly watching loved ones die- chose to be lighthouses -- join us for our conversation and find the links to the communities and articles we discuss in the Boozemusings post below.

 

 How Do You Help Someone Stop Drinking Before it’s Too Late? What if It’s You?

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain

The Spiritual Consequences of Alcohol Consumption

Beat the Alcohol Bully

 

Are you Sober Curious? Do you want to stop drinking or are you trying to drink more moderately? In a world where you may be questioned for not drinking with the crowd, we’ll help you to find your own path. I am Winged Victory, the founder of the Boom Rethink the Drink community and Boozemusings blog. I retired from a long and illustrious drinking career on March 6, 2015, by reading and writing in a creative, supportive, and inspiring online community called Hello Sunday Morning. I've been gratefully reaching back with words, ideas, and love ever since. Community is the cure. Open your mind to the possibilities. The Spirit is not in the Bottle it's in You.

 

Are you Sober Curious? Do you want to stop drinking or are you trying to drink more moderately? In a world where you may be questioned for not drinking with the crowd, we’ll help you to find your own path. 

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