like many things we enjoy too much, it ends u being bad for you. its better if you can truly enjoy a good life without the constant urge for stimulants. hype , peer pressure, advertising etc are all responsible for pushing booze on us all........

the peer ressure "what did you do last weekend? oh I got mashed up mate , kicked off , smashed up the place, shagged her behind his back , it was awesome,,,,what did you do?
I drank tea and wrote a novel?
eh?

ever heard a conversation like that on mainstream tv ? me neither

I have addiction as a disease in general. Alcohol, drugs, food, sex it doesn't matter, i just always go to extremes.

I love alcohol, but i definitely have a very unhealthy relationship with it. Pretty much all of the relationships i have in my life are unhealthy.

Moderation is impossible for me.

..:hug:..I don't know if therapy would help, I don't mean specifically for alcohol or anything but more a cognitive behaviour therapy, to understand your addictive personality in general and then in understanding it and why you do things/react in certain ways, it can help you to control it and overcome it...maybe you've tried something like that before..?...

yea i've had plenty of therapy. psychologists, psychiatrists, medication, rehabs...

I'm definitely better than i was, it helps, but there is no cure. I think addiction is like autism in the sense that you can't cure it, but you can learn skills to help you deal with it better.

..yeah, you're absolutely right, there is no 'cure' as such, there are only skills you can learn to control it and that's such a difficult thing to do because you almost have to create a 'new life', where the addiction doesn't play a part of importance in it because it's like a little demon/devil in a way and always tries to push itself to the top of your list of priorities because it doesn't want you to control it, it hates to lose..?..and in itself it kind of creates all the situations that are perfect for a dependency/addiction to continue and keep you trapped...so that makes it so difficult to get away from it/creating a new lifestyle is hard for even the strongest person and addictions do weaken you in a lot of ways...but don't give up Alex, because I know you're strong and I know how tenacious you are as well..:laugh:...one day you're going to kick that little devil's ass and I'm going to smile when you do...

Thats where your problem lies.

My gdad was a heavy addict for alcohol and cigs when he was younger and told if he carried on he would die.

He stopped.

My parents just recently quit smoking after 20+ years with their own will power. Took my dad longer (he went on an e-cig before coming off completely).

Addiction is very treatable, you just need to want to treat it.

I think some have a lower tolerance level and are more susceptible to addiction, you see it running through families that could be an indicator... or it just be a learned coping mechanism?
With smoking I stopped due to the children asking me, and I felt guilty due to the cost anyway. Drinking was a harder one to kick and it wasn't until it began to affect my heath I stopped.

its purely down to greed and will power

Well it's really not, some people become so dependent on it that even if they desperately wanted to stop their bodies are so needy of it that it doesn't let them, if they don't have a drink they end up having seizures.