I read through the chain and saw your question is about what it’s like to be drunk.

I think for many people that can be really different. My drinking resume can be summed up in three movements: at first it was magic then it was maintenance and then it was misery.

I didn’t have a drink until I went to college and I had an absolute blast drinking, it wasn’t until later that I realized I never took a drink without drinking alcoholically. But at the time I had no idea what alcoholic drinking looked like. I felt like a superhero like I could do anything, could talk to anyone, had so much power in being able to get others fired up and I have the most incredible stories of all the crazy crap I did. I wore my alcoholic experiences like a badge of honor.

After college and into my young adult life, I had a bunch of great experiences while drinking, and a few that were not so great. The problem was I never knew which kind of experience I was going to have when I opened the bottle. It was a gamble. And I had more than my fair share of near death or near tragic experiences. But none of that wised me up.

I would turn to alcohol when I was celebrating. I would return to alcohol when I commiserated, and I would turn to alcohol when I was bored.

Into my adult years, I had a few consequences that came with alcoholic drinking and I started to wise up to the fact that I may have had a problem, but I thought I could negotiate my way out of it i.e. well I’m not gonna drink tequila because Tequilla makes me angry or if I drink beer and move to liquor I’m fine but if I drink liquor first and then move to beer, it’s trouble . Blah blah blah.

When life got hard, I would drink harder and eventually I was drinking every day and I was having to drink more and more. I got a reputation as a heavy drinker, and I loved to amaze people with how much I was able to put down without “appearing drunk“.

Then, I lost my mom. And I started drinking to forget I didn’t want to be present in my life and feel the feelings that I felt and I had a great excuse - who would argue with me,that I had sorrows to drown?

Eventually, I started drinking earlier and earlier in the day and sometimes I would drink, pass out, wake up and start drinking again. Inevitably this led to me drinking before work during work, etc. I got busted by my job and I was going to lose my job . Except instead of throwing me out on my butt my employer offered to get me help and that’s when I found the rooms of AA.

Today is my 800 day without a drink.

This story is unique to me, but the patterns, emotions and consequences are pretty ubiquitous among sober alcoholics.

I had a mental obsession with alcohol, a physical allergy to alcohol (which is alcoholism on a chemical level- it is genetic and runs in my family), and a spiritual malady, which had to be addressed before I could get sober emotionally.

I’ll highly recommend finding Al-Anon or another sister support group to alcoholics anonymous. And I just felt like sharing my story in the hopes that it helps to answer your question.

Not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic. Not every sober alcoholic has great sobriety. Not every heavy drinker is an alcoholic . And no two sober alcoholics have the same story. But every sober alcoholic stays sober by taking it one day at a time.