This is, as you can see, my first post. I found this message board and registered because I need help.
I'm 31 and have been drinking heavily for about two years. I never really drank as a teenager or even as a college student. Drank socially with the occassional binge throughout my 20's, but it was never out of control. When I got separated and divorced 3 years ago, I started drinking more frequently, and it just progressed from there.
I don't tend to drink hard liquor...mainly just beer, with the occassional shot. But I have intense cravings and I can't stop once I start. I drink about 5 or 6 days a week, usually at the bar. I usually drink until I'm drunk. I occassionally drink enough to have black-out episodes and to throw-up. I get intense hangovers every time I drink, unless I let the buzz wear off completely before falling asleep. I call in sick to work and come in late to work on occassion due to drinking.
My wife and I are back together now, and our relationship is better than ever, and we have two beautiful daughters. But I can't stop drinking. I escape by going to the bar, eating wings, drinking beer, and playing trivia. But once I'm there, I can't stop drinking. I also smoke when I drink now, and I've never been a smoker.
I had a blood test done several months back and found out that I had high liver enzymes, apparently due to my heavy drinking. I stopped for two months because I was scared, and then when it was re-tested, it was better. So then I started drinking again.
I'm sick of being sick, I'm sick of upsetting my wife and making her worry about me, I'm sick of my four-year-old daughter asking me how many I've had, I'm sick of driving drunk, I'm sick of harming my body and my mind. I want to stop, but I can't. The urge to go is so overwhelming, and I always think I will be able to handle it this time, and I NEVER can. EVER.
I'm hungover today and feel terrible. I have immense guilt and anxiety. My stomach is in knots and I worry that my liver is bubbling with disease.
I'm sorry for the long, "woe-is-me" post, but I just really need some help/advice. I don't know what else to do. I'm utterly overwhelmed.
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Better days are in the cards, I feel. I feel it in the changing winds.... ~ Jimmy Buffett
If you don't stop, you will have problems arise from your habit. For example, if you drive after drinking, a DUI is eminent. Maybe not this year, but......
I drank hard liqour for years straight with a dose of Nyquil to finally knock my ass out. Without the Nyquil I could drink til sunrise. Come to learn booze and tylenol are a deadly combo.
You will learn things as you go along,too.
One thing I learned in AA: twenty drinks ain't enough and one is too many; boozing will land you in one of three places: jail, death, or institution.
Where you are headed is not pleasant. Get some help. See your doctor and get on a path to better health before you screw it up worse.
Welcome to this wonderful board. Well done on registering and posting to this board. When I first admitted to myself that I had a drink problem I was horrified, even though I had suspected it for some time. You're in the right place to get help, support and meaningful feed-back. There are some great people here.
I, too, never really drank as a teenager. But, my drinking picked up in my late twenties. By my mid-thirties I was a very heavy drinker. By my late thirties I was drinking alcoholically. It was only by looking back that I could see how my drinking had progressed.
My 'poison' was red wine. I would drink about three to four bottles each and every day. On the odd occasion when I refused to drink for a day, I was constantly obsessing about when I could next drink and how much. One thing that I did know from very early on, was that once I had started drinking I was physically incapable of putting that damned drink down. Time after time, I would drink until I was drunk. Black-outs and intense hangovers were part of a daily pattern for me.
I lost my long-term boyfriend because of my alcoholism. He simply couldn't take it and me any more. Looking back, I don't know how he stuck it for so long. But, we're working on getting together again.
I have had blood tests done to determine the state of health of my liver. I knew that they would come back with bad results. They did and that didn't deter me from drinking. It was just another excuse to drink. I recently had another liver check and it is getting healthier. The liver is amazing from that point of view.
In the end, Scott, I went to AA out of desperation. I was completely and utterly 'up against it'. I couldn't live with alcohol and I didn't think that I could live without it. AA has given me the support, encouragement and the tools to live my life without drinking. I no longer have an existence - I have a life again. And, a wonderful life it is.
I don't know if you have tried going to any AA meetings, but that might be a good place to go. They're not as scary as you might think. They're full of folk just like you, me and everyone else on this board. It might be worth thinking about.
But, I would suggest coming back to this board, reading and posting as much as you want. Please know that you are not on your own.
Take care, won't you?
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
Welfome to the MIP board, Scott. It's a wonderful place to begin. I can suggest that you look up the AA meetings in your area. Face to face support is so important. That will give you a chance to connect with people that are working a program, and can show you the way they make it work for them. It's an individual thing, yet it is also a group effort. But face to face will intro you to the 12 Steps we use in trying to stay sober. Find someone with sobriety that you like, that you can identify with, and work with them. It is a scary step to take, I know, but alot less scary than the thought of losing everything you love and have worked towards.
Your story is much like alot of ours. Loneliness is a real trigger in the beginning, and the "comradarie" of other drinkers, someplace to forget the lonliness, is very common. But once you're snagged in this way, beleive me, it doesn't improve. The disease gets stronger and stronger, as I'm sure you've noticed. It will eat up your life and everything in it, I promise.
Stopping is a first step, but I know I needed/need the fellowship of other alcoholics, learned how they stayed sober. Just not drinking wasn't enough for me. Without the support, I would just be back in the bars.
I was only a youngster (compared to now) when my liver began messing up. Enzymes were only the beginning. In no time at all, I ended up yellow from hepatitis due to my liver's degeneration, and ignoring that, it all just got worse. I won't go into the physical trauma right now, but I tell you, the body rebels until you either start listening to it or die.
It's the psychology of the disease that is most frightening. It over powers your will power, it lies to you about just one more drink--things I'm sure you're discovering already.
I think contacting this board is a wonderful step, your awareness is another one. Your willingnes to do whatever it takes is another. Stay with us and use us as support, write here, talk to us, but we as a cyber group cannot take the place of AA itself, where the human contact can help you in real time. Please consider this. In the interim, keep posting and asking questions. We have all been where yu are. Warmly, Chris
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i found god in myself/and I loved her/i loved her fiercely--Ntozake Shange
Thank you all for your responses. I really appreciate it. Even though I know, on a cerebral level, that I'm "not alone" in this, it feels, emotionally, very lonely. It's good to have people to talk to about it.
I admit that I am very scared and hesitant to attend an AA meeting. I'd need to have a buzz to have the courage to go inside! My wife drove me to one a few months back, after a particularly bad night out, but I chickened out and would not go in.
The comraderie of the bar is what really draws me. It's like Cheers...everyone knows your name, and that feels good. I wish I could go and just have Sprite or water to drink, but I can't. I've tried that.
I've always been a hypochondriac, which is another reason why it's so absurd that I'm doing this to my body. I worry about rare diseases that I almost certainly won't ever get, yet I am doing things to my body with drinking and smoking that I KNOW will make me sick, eventually, and yet I don't stop.
Yes, the psychology of the disease is amazing. The sad thing is, I've always known I could become an alcoholic. The few times in college and just after college that I drank, I always enjoyed it immensely, and I used to tell people that it was a good thing I hadn't started drinking young, because I'd have ended up an alcoholic. Or I would tell people that it was a good thing I only drank every once in a while, because I enjoyed it so much I could easily become an alcoholic. Then, I got divorced, started drinking more often, and it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I do the thing too about obsessing over when I'll get to drink again. If I don't go to the bar one day, then I just can't wait to go the next day. Last night I justified going because I hadn't gone Monday night, and I knew I couldn't go tonight because I have other plans, so I justified going last night so that I wouldn't have to wait until Thursday....I told my wife that if I didn't go until Thursday, then it would have been 4 days since I had been, and I'd be more likely to stay all night and binge. So instead I went last night, and stayed all night and binged.
Strangely enough, I don't drink that much at home. I rarely buy beer, and even when I do buy beer, it usually takes me a couple of weeks to get through a 12-pack. It's just when I'm out at the bar that I am suseptible to overdoing it. And I overdo it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
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Better days are in the cards, I feel. I feel it in the changing winds.... ~ Jimmy Buffett
Well it sounds like the Progression of this illness is in full speed ahead in you, possibly you could find a way to get a copy of the AA book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Reading those 164 pages, regarding the obsession of every alcoholic to drink like a normal person. Once that cucumber has turned into a pickle, there is no way out, except the Program of AA, in my opinion.
An allergy to the body, and an obsession of the mind, puts it in easy to understand wording for me. We are NEVER Cured, and that is why we need the Program and the working of the 12 Steps. The first Step is real easy, "We are Powerless over Alcohol - and our lives have become unmanageable".
If I was told today, that I had to walk into a bar, where everyone knew me and were drinking and ordering drinks for me, I would feel just as much fear as you do about going to an AA Meeting. But the difference would be, one action, would take my life, for SURE, and the other, going into an AA meeting, will continue to SAVE my life. This is a very deadly Disease that we share, all of us here, we are like men, who have lost their legs, to quote from the Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and we need each other, to continue with a relatively healthy life, that we do share. It is Strickly a WE program.
Had a busy morning, but I do need to get to a meeting today, not to socialize, although I do like some of the people, that's not the issue, I need to go to that meeting, after many years in Recovery, to maintain my Sober life.
If you were to go to one of those meetings, and continue going, everyday, there would be a built guarantee, that one of these days, you would look forward to going, just as you look for that comradary at your Bar. I see the difference as One is an Illusion, the Other one REAL.
The meaning of the word Courage, is that we do something, not because we are not afraid of doing it, we do it, in Spite of the Fear.
Looking so forward to getting to know you,
Putting the Plug in the Jug, and keeping it there, is what you will learn in those meetings. Seems that right now the Disease of Alcoholism is making all you choices. Just as Wren said, Alcohol is the Rapcious Creditor, (another quote from the book of AA) it will take all and everything good in your life until nothing is left, but you and the Booze.
These message boards allow cross talk so let me thank you directly. I lost my wife and child at the age of 28 to a separation (which is a divorce now 6 years later). Up to that point, I assumed I had some control over my ability to drink, but I never really did. From the time she took my boy from me ( I didn't miss her, but he was my life ) I drank every day for the next 3 years, along with smoking and popping every pill or substance i could get my hands on. I lost a good job in NYC, two cars, my child, and whatever semblance of a life because I was afraid to face up to the damage I had caused, the fact that i had a part to play in all this, and I wasn't capable of handling ANY of this on my own.
Enter Jails, institutions, and death( spiritual, emotional, mental). I was so low the only out became suicide. I tried twice, but was too chicken or otherwise the attempt was botched. At the end of that three years, I woke in a jail cell in a paper gown with my head split open. To this day, I am not really sure what happened, but it wasn't pretty. I ended up in Cherry hospital ( a nut house) then a treatment center. All I knew was something had to change because if it didn't I wasn't going to make it.
I started going to AA, and from day ONE, all I had was hate to keep me moving, and boy did I let people know. If you mentioned GOD, or that you were happy, I wanted to make you as miserable as I, because you just didn't get it. Someone finally told me maybe i should get a sponsor and try the 12 steps, because my way wasn't working. I told them I will work them to the best of my ability just to prove you wrong. And here I am three years later still practicing the steps I was taught by others. I haven't had the desire or need to run from my emotions, or to "escape" in that manner for some time, but it isn't easy, and it didn't all happen in a day.
I am still learning that my emotions and thoughts can kill me. The big difference for me today is I have a faith in something outside of myself, and when it gets really bad, I talk to other members I trust about those very issues. Here recently, I am in the biggiest battle that I have had to face. I have learned to love others, but not me. Funny, but probably the biggest thing that we suffer as human beings is lack of love for ourselves, and self punishment /torture is our answer. put down the 12 ounce clubs and step up to the plate Scott. Love you first, and the rest will follow.
Hey Scott! I'm an alcoholic named Jennifer....pretty much the only difference between you and I is I didn't drink in bars, I drank at home, the rest is familiar, it was usually only beer, until it was gone, and then whatever else was handy would do or if there was nothing handy, that meant a trip to the store which involved driving...... Once I took that first drink, I couldn't stop......Be assured, you have taken the hardest first step........if you just can't go to an AA meeting, why not buy yourself the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and start there. maybe CALL your local AA and speak with someone.....prayer helps.....I'll be praying for you........I'm glad you're here. Hope you stick around.
-- Edited by Doll at 19:05, 2006-08-02
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
Congratulations on Day 2! I really do mean that. The person with the most sobriety here is the person who woke up first this morning - it's that simple. This really is a program all about one day at a time.
Have a great day and take care,
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
I came into AA 6.5 months ago. It blows my mind that I have remained sober this long! I was a chronic alcoholic...I drank everyday for 6 months straight...and 5-6 times a week leading up to that. 1 day sober was a miracle for me, let alone 2.
AA Meetings and what the program offers is what has kept me sober, one day at a time. I really encourage you to go...that comraderie you talked about at the bar, well it's even better within the fellowship of AA. Not only that, but you will quickly find that it's genuine, unlike that in the bar. It amazes me still how once I stopped drinking, my phone stopped ringing. That's right....all my drinking buddies don't call me anymore. Ya really think the barkeep and waitresses are your friends? They just want your money, man...they already know you're a drunk... may even feel sorry for you...but hey, you keep the doors open! What about all those comrads you drink with. How many of them would be attending your funeral or visiting you in the hospital? Maybe a couple...maybe none.
DanaBanana: What you said is SO true....I think those bartenders and those drinking buddies are my friends, but they are not my friends.
This is something I've continually struggled with. Feeling like I wanted to go to the bar because I want to "see my friends" and "hang out with the guys." Those people are not my friends. They're merely partners in crime, and they don't give a damn about me. It's SO true. That's just yet another delusion this whole game gives you.
My wife doesn't believe me that I'm going to quit this time. Who can blame her? I've been here before, and she's heard it all before. But I'm committed to making it real this time. I want so bad to stop drinking so I can prove to her that I'm not lying this time.
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Better days are in the cards, I feel. I feel it in the changing winds.... ~ Jimmy Buffett
"My wife doesn't believe me that I'm going to quit this time. Who can blame her?"....
I sooo understand that feeling, Scott. I have been sober 18 months and last night I went up to kiss my husb... he was asleep in the bed and I had just brushed my teeth and used orange-flavored mouthwash... half asleep, he said quietly, "Oh nooo... I smell somethin' baaaddd...."
I had to chuckle... I did not feel at all defensive, at this stage in the game. I gave him a big scare over a couple of weeks in a relapse 18 months ago... I just reassured him... I said, "dear, I just brushed my teeth and used mouthwash... no need to worry..." He fell right back asleep.
I allowed him to be suspicious at first, and did not take it offensively... I knew I had given him plenty of reason to be fearful. The more I got off my butt and went to meetings and the counselling I opted for in addition, the less 'worried' he was. Now my AA girl-buds are popping in our house all the time... and he enjoys their company too.
Well Scott...sounds like you want our way of life badly enough...so if this is the truth, then you'll be willing to go to any length to get it-but for YOURSELF-you have to want sobriety for YOU!
There's a saying in AA called "HOW"...it stands for "Honesty, Openmindedness, and Willingness" these are the 3 backbones of how AA works for people. It also translates into the first 3 Steps of the 12 Step Program-the suggested solution for members of AA.
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable. (Honesty)
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.(Openmindedness)
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. (Willingness)
"My wife doesn't believe me that I'm going to quit this time. Who can blame her? I've been here before, and she's heard it all before."
Hi Scott,
What you said was so true to me and to my alcoholism. I have been exactly where you are with my boyfriend. I guess that so many of us have been there, too. I 'hid' the amount of alcohol that I was drinking, except that I couldn't hide the effect that it was having on me.
After several years of seeing me drunk, almost daily, he decided that he had had enough and left to save himself. I carried on drinking, of course. But, now, with a few months of sobriety behind me, I can so clearly see that he did what he had to do. We're working on getting back together right now.
Recently, he was staying with me. I had told him that I used to drink alcohol out of a coffee mug so that he wouldn't realise what I was drinking. I went into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee and started on doing a few jobs while I was there. After a few minutes he came rushing in to check that I wasn't back to my old habits. I wasn't happy and made it clear.
I was being completely stupid and wrong . How could I expect him to suddenly start trusting me again? What I have broken through my drinking takes time to re-build. But, we're working on it. And, it is getting better.
Take care, Scott, and keep going to meetings and keep coming back here, won't you?
Carol
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
we are here if you need us, Scott!!!