I would actually say that for a long time drugs prevented me from knowing how myself worked. I feel like I am still learning how I work now, but with drugs, I only know how I work through a filter.
I tend to find the opposite which is pretty funny because I figure out who I am when I don't care what others think of me or when I'm not overanalyzing my actions. However if those aren't big problems for somebody I could see how they wouldn't benefit in the same way. I think a lot of people look back at choices they make drunk or high and think no that's not me but really what the hell are we if we aren't our actions. Getting high or drunk doesn't change a person, it just emphasizes traits that already exist. Which in my mind brings them the surface to be processed. I could see how that would work differently for different people though.
So to me, I feel like I have been able to use the experience of not being sober to prevent myself from feeling the true cost of my actions. Like I can tell anybody I love them when I'm drunk because there's no cost to it; the alcohol kills my inhibitions and so the real me, who'd be holding back, nervous about the words and their consequences, is clouded by a me who doesn't have to think about those consequences and therefore can just charge ahead. I agree that we are our actions, not our words. But alcohol makes actions easy which I think gives them less weight. Does it mean more to forgive a former friend who's fought with you when you are drunk, and happy, in the moment, and inclined not to care, or when you're sober and you look at them and you can feel the heft of their past actions? Yes, sometimes I say or do things when drunk that make me realize how I feel about something, and I didn't know before that drunk moment. So I think you can glean insight from your drunk self too. But I think some actions should be hard because in reality they are hard actions. You should feel vulnerable when you tell someone for the first time that you love them, because that is an action of vulnerability. When I'm drunk I don't feel that vulnerability. edit: cc'ing lil because this serves as a sideways follow-up which dovetails a conversation we had many months ago. about five, i think.
I think we basically agree, I think drinking shows us a part of ourselves and sometimes forces us to think about why we can't be that person sober. Or alternatively it seems good enough and we don't bother trying to figure out what's stopping sober us from being for example vulnerable. So part of the process but not the whole thing. Story time ! I had a roommate who wasn't an alcoholic in the way people normally think because instead of needing to drink all the time he just wouldn't stop drinking once he started. The whole reason he did this is because sober him couldn't be vulnerable or show emotions at all. When he would get drunk enough he would be open and cry freely. He would talk about how he felt but if I tried to have the same conversation with him sober it was like I was talking to a different person. It was actually creepy since those moments when he would be open felt like seeing the real him but in the morning it would feel like he was some creepy robot thing. I think in his case it would have been really great if he just didn't drink but at the same time I don't think he ever would have been forced to look at his real self. He could look at the drinking as a step back and a negative event in his life but at the same time I wonder if he didn't drink if he would have ever actually seen himself. I'll never know but from what I know of him I don't think he would have ever let himself see that person. So, basically ya you can get insight from drugs or alcohol but there's multiple paths you can take once sober. You can either say hey I want to be able to do that sober or you can just drink whenever you need to be vulnerable. The second option isn't really becoming real self material though.
Yeah, this is a major problem. Alcohol either reduces or exasperates those issues depending on the environment and how much I've had to drink. Kind of agree with the analysis from _refugee_ on this one as far as the weight of ones action drunk versus sober. Granted, I don't feel love towards anybody right now and haven't in quite some time, and don't think any of my actions have much impact on anyone or even myself. But I think there's a reason drunk actions occur once that activation barrier is lowered. It's a disinclination to yourself, or at least, myself...kind of takes you out of yourself a bit and allows an action or thought to occur that wouldn't otherwise happen (even if it's been on your mind for a while - see: overanalysis). Fuck I've become nihilistic as of late, without even trying.I tend to find the opposite which is pretty funny because I figure out who I am when I don't care what others think of me or when I'm not overanalyzing my actions. However if those aren't big problems for somebody I could see how they wouldn't benefit in the same way.
But, like, what is "yourself" ? It takes you away from your over analyzing and low self esteem but that's not your whole self. That shouldn't be what defines you. To me that's just some shit on your personal shit heap of smelly shit that you have to clear away to get to "yourself". Whatever the fuck that is. That's were I'm at now at least, I might be somewhere else 5 years from now. kind of takes you out of yourself a bit
I've been a less severe of this for most of my life and most of the time don't really feel much of anything. It's kind of dissociative in a way where I realize people come, people go, people live, people die, almost to the point of callousness. Especially towards myself. Story: Recently grabbed a drink with a friend whom I have a bit of history with since moving out here. She explicitly called this out saying "You would be just as happy at home by yourself as you are here with me now". I couldn't tell her she was wrong, because she wasn't. Yaaaaay.The whole reason he did this is because sober him couldn't be vulnerable or show emotions at all. When he would get drunk enough he would be open and cry freely. He would talk about how he felt but if I tried to have the same conversation with him sober it was like I was talking to a different person. It was actually creepy since those moments when he would be open felt like seeing the real him but in the morning it would feel like he was some creepy robot thing.
I had a similar situation with him at one point. I had come back after a long time and we were going out for dinner which he wasn't excited at all for. He hated that he couldn't just be excited because he was to busy with all these worries in his head. I do the same thing to a lesser extent.
I have thought about this conversation a lot more since my last comment. One thing I concluded was, "You can cheat to pass the test, but at the cost of learning the material." Alcohol does allow a person an easy or fast way to resolve a situation, especially if a person's overly inhibited sober. (Anxiety, second-guessing, worrywarts, overthinkers.) I also thought that I think we mostly agree. I thought maybe we are describing flip sides of the same coin, and that maybe what we're saying is this: alcohol does offer an effective short-term fix to a lot of rough patches. But in the long-term it prevents good solutions and allows a person to avoid what they would do better to feel and learn how to handle.
I think where we disagree is just how we view that part of the process. It's tempting to see it as a negative that held us back. Like a short term fix that kept us from really progressing but I don't see it in a negative light. Like for my friend if it weren't for his drinking I don't think he would be where he is now which is in a great place. I could say the drinking held him back from being that person but I think it propelled him forward. It's common to look at every bad choice or wrong turn and see it negatively but those choices help shape us and put us on our path. The other day I realized it was very quiet and the baby gate was unlatched so my neice was probably sneaking off. When I went to get her she glared at me and as soon as I picked her up started wailing. In that moment she was becoming her own person, she knew she wanted to do something and was pushing back against authority that told her not to. We are always becoming our self, every minor thing or bad choice is a part of that process. To me it's a life long process that's in constant motion which nothing can hold us back from. Even if something feels like its holding us back it's really slowly shaping us and starting a fire that pushes us forward. This is a bit of a ramble but I think I got it down right, I just don't think growth is preventable.