i need to stop drinking, but i dont want to go to AA or find jesus...

If you're not half-kidding about this, then probably the main thing is to switch from "help, kinda" to a serious "help," right? If not directed at AA or Jesus, then at friends, family, someone who can help keep you steady along the way. Also: why not AA? I think they get this unfortunate stereotype of smoky basement rooms and crusty old alcoholic seafarers or whatever, but plenty of their groups wind up looking exactly like the public at large. And there are plenty of AA subgroups or AA-type groups that might be more suited to you.

If the issue is that you don't want a program because you don't want to publically admit that it's a problem, then you might need to get over that, and quick.

This makes me want to join AA, and I'm not even an alcoholic!

do you still have an urge to drink then (even right now that you're terribly hungover)? i mean, i'm just trying to establish whether you feel like you're having a compulsive drinking problem, or just complaining that you're having a bad hangover.

if it's the former, then admitting it is the first step and seek help. if it's the latter, then perhaps next time you feel like drinking loads think about how bad this hangover is!

Check out the book "Changing for Good" by... Norcross? Something like that. Not just about booze, but smokes, coke, eating, etc.

but yeah, the scary thing is that i know right now, if i have a drink, ill feel better for awhile, like physically.

i dont drink everyday, but when i do, i drink FOR days sometimes

cos i think its fun (sometimes), cos i try to blot out pain or horrible memories (frequently, but predictibly i just end up making more horrible decisions)

but thats the problem with this AA/Jesus/spirituality of any kind as a solution. i just DONT believe. i know i don't. ive read very well, but i know im just hopelessly skeptical. i don't believe in some sort of higher power, and i could never fake it.

but these other organizations sound interesting

The trick is to isolate your compulsive behaviors (drinking), realize the triggers and stress sources that cause you to engage in your compulsive behaviors, and attack the systemic problems, not try to isolate one symptom and beat yourself up about it.

I mean, you could just quit drinking altogether for two weeks, or two months, or two years, or two decades. You wouldn't have actually solved your problems. Figure out why you feel the need to do it and then address THAT. It's only a couple of layers down, you'll see.

i mean, TOMBOT, i dont know how to go about addressing THAT, you know?

The trick is to isolate your compulsive behaviors (drinking), realize the triggers and stress sources that cause you to engage in your compulsive behaviors, and attack the systemic problems, not try to isolate one symptom and beat yourself up about it.

OTM I think, though I don't have a drinking problem, seems to fit with other compulsive behavior & stress.

It's weird, I probably read and heard a thousand times advice about changing your way of thinking before I really listened. Something about learning how to check this habit of cutting yourself down, almost instinctual self-defeating behavior, always coming up with (BS) reasons to not change and go on fucking things up.

DING DING DING

Ah, but beating yourself up is the name of the game in AA.

Step 1: Admit you are powerless over alcohol - that your life has become unmanageable.

Step2 : Came to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity.

Step3 : Made a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as we understand him.

These are, to any rational person, not the steps to getting your life back, they're steps to turning your life over to someone even more nebulous and nameless than yourself. Could be God, could be anyone. They're cultist bullshit.

That is not meant to be snarky. I empathise with a lot of this, behaviour and thought. All I can really say is, I'm mostly happy nowadays. Don't give up!

That said, kinda, I'm pretty much in your boat. But I agree with the people who've said that first you have to want to not be a drunk, and second you have to find out what makes part of you want to be one.

Two things that helped immensely with binge drinking (I know, not the same as classic alcoholism):

1) vitamin supplements. That physical craving for beer in specific is often a misinterpretation of the body's need for B complex vitamins.

2) SSRIs. I'm having a love/hate relationship with them at the moment, but I do have to say that they cut out a lot of that "wheee, I want another" urge.