I'm an alcoholic

My advice re: the first few nights without would be to get a fair bit of exercise before dinner, have a nice meal with maybe one glass of wine if you want to taper down your abstinence, and get some sleepy time tea or pop a Benadryl an hour before bedtime and do something very relaxing.

I've tried to cut back consumption lately and it's hard. I was drinking too much last year, and now I have to fight the urge to either drink nothing or have 1/3 bottle of whisky. Having one drink, whether it's right after work or before bed, seems to be moderation.

A real danger at this point would be to begin a frustration based cycle of desire for change, failure, blame, self-hatred. You accept you have concerns and are afraid and even unwilling to make changes, but you are still safe and functioning in day to day life.

Where alcohol first kicked my ass was when I became obsessed with not drinking/drinking and my emotional state got worse for me than the drinking itself. Early experiences in AA and 12 step cemented the idea of relapse equals death, and the drinking act became as big as "drink as suicide"/"drink as an alternative to suicide".

Long way of saying don't over-think yourself into a worse situation along the way. Give yourself outs and breaks without punishment wherever you end up on the path.

The physical withdrawal stuff can also be worrisome, high blood pressure and risk of seizure, but my research has led me to believe the danger is worse after more years and particularly, multiple withdrawal episodes. A doctor controlled detox with short-term benzos might protect.

I'm addicted again right now anyway and I've probably always been more comfortable this way. I'm at least safe and relatively happy, but I don't know how the days and nights would go with only me in my head.

I feel for you.

...quitting drinking seems way way worse to me, right now. Otherworldy. Which is why it is such a huge problem for me. I can't envision myself, my nights, without alcohol.

...can't bring myself to try it, going without alcohol one night. Which lead me to realise I have a big big problem on my hands here. I don't fear restlessness or boredom, but drinking alcohol has become such a habit that my biggest fear is to not drink alcohol and... then what? It's habit and I am scared straight thinking about having to ditch that habit.

― yeahloggedout

hey, logged out: glad you posted this, but sorry to hear that you're struggling so unhappily. i've been a non-chemically-dependent heavy/problem drinker on and off for most of my adult life, so i have some idea what you're going through. i do wonder, though, about the intensity of your commitment to the idea that going without drink is not just impossible but *unthinkable*. i mean, i've gotten myself into regular consumption ruts, but it's always been at least possible for me to consider going without. in fact, the thought of going without, the weird, crippled desire/determination to go without, has always been with me. i've habitually made sure there's booze in the house, but i've never been actively scared by the idea that i might have to go without. and i know that my experience is not yours, that everything is different for everyone, but i wonder if this might not be a compulsive pattern of some kind that's attached itself to drinking but isn't exactly a chemical dependency on alcohol. like you say, you've always been prone to addiction, and marijuana isn't chemically addictive in the sense that booze is. best advice i can give is that you see a therapist or at least talk to your doctor about this. you really need to do this. struggling helplessly and in isolation is no way to live.

gbx, thanks for dropping knowledge re: physical withdrawal from alcohol. I seriously had no idea that it could be dangerous in any way for long-term boozers to quit.

It can if it is too sudden, isnt that what did for Amy Winehouse?

i have no useful advice to give except good luck & stay strong.

OK I feel like I'm asking a dumb question, but if you don't really get drunk any more, what do you get out of drinking 2 bottles of wine a night? Nicely buzzed? If you woke up completely sober one day how different do you think you'd feel from your 'normal' state? You can tell I'm not a big drinker...

drinking becomes comfortable and "normal" when you don't really get full-on drunk anymore. that's my experience, anyway. the anticipation and experience of the first sip is hugely rewarding, and the onset buzz feels like coming home. after that, it's just sinking into a big, soft chair.

Alcoholism sucks. I keep hearing stories from my dad about what it did to him, his family and the "guilty party" (his mom). It fucking destroyed him. It destroyed my late grandfather. I am mad at my grandmother. If she had done it out of sadness (or something similar), I could understand and forgive. But she was just a raging alcoholic and a b*tch as well. She wasted 30 years of her and my grandfather's life. Pretty sad. But she quit finally. 30 years too late of course.

It's possible that you are self-medicating and using alcohol to maintain your mental equilibrium. You may need to look into another form of medication. Maybe you should start with seeing a therapist.

I used to drink only socially, but in the last three years or so I have begun using alcohol to manage my moods, on the regular. (It started when I was going a potential layoff that was later rescinded.) I also get a little freaked out if I don't have wine in the house, or if it's Sunday night and the liquor stores are closed. I grew up with alcoholism in my family, so I always told myself I would never abuse alcohol, but alcohol and I are getting more and friendly every day.

There's also the whole thing about habits, and creating good habits and negative habits for ourselves. I do a lot of good things for myself out of habit: cooking, going to yoga...so it's just as easy to get into good habits as bad habits...you just need to repeat the thing for awhile and then it becomes almost automatic.

hello, I am an alcoholic. I'm used to all these kinds of equivocations, 'am I? am I now? what is it?' etc. What it boils down to for me is, if you think you might have a problem with drinking, then you should find a way to stop. I don't think that 'alcoholic' is some strict diagnosable line; there is a lot of grey area and if you drink a lot but it isn't helping you any more but you cannot stop it would seem to me, based on my personal experience and my experience with others, that you have a problem. Things like "stopping completely is unthinkable to me" are big signifiers.

I'll also say that I'm in AA and have been for 6 years. It may be that I'm lucky because of where I live (california) that the issue of religion is like, maybe 1% of the program. So arguments that it is out of the question because you are allergic to religion don't hold water for me, but I"m willing to assume that this is more of a conflict for people who live in other parts of the country/world. Still, there is a lot in AA that is addressed toward the agnostic or atheist and you can take what works and leave the rest; what is most important is having a community of people with the same problem that you can talk to, not random people on the internet who can't really relate.

I don't want to start any kind of pro/ anti AA fite here, but if you're uncomfortable with it, you don't need to buy the 'it's the only way' view. It's not. If there's such a thing as an alcoholic, that was me 10 years ago - then I stopped: no group, no drugs, no nothing: i just decided I wasn't drinking anymore and didn't.

It wasn't easy, but physical dependence and habit were easier to break than the disbelief and annoyance of friends in social situations. I've enough bad memories of me drunk to combat any temptation to backslide.

I'm not posting this as some kind of stance on the subject: just to say it is possible to stop, and stopping just means stopping.

oh I agree. that didn't work for me but it works for some people.

don't have anything to add of substance but wishing you all the best loggedout

^^ Yeah, that's me as well. Don't have a golden tip or guide to get out of this, but I wish you all the very best. I think it shows great courage to open up about this; even if it's anonymous; the important thing is you are starting to face your demon. Which rightfully deserves all the praise imho. That's a major first step, don't underestimate that. Please be well, and try and seek professional help.

don't have anything to add of substance but wishing you all the best loggedout

Same here. I don't feel like I am in any way qualified to give advice on this topic to anyone, but I do wish you the best.

As I understand addiction, and maybe this is just for those who are self-medicating, is that you have a certain sober baseline of feeling and functioning, which while not good, is sort of adequate...but then eventually, with drugs or alcohol, you have a substance-aided baseline, which is not that good either, but you lose the ability to access your original baseline of emotions. The substance baseline becomes the new baseline and the original threshold becomes unreachable; it doesn't exist anymore.

Or, as William Burroughs said, (paraphrasing): I had a lot of little problems and I traded them in for one big problem.

Goin cold turkey, enuff iz enuff.
Thank god/whatever for music

Tapering myself off slowly--hoping to be at zero by the end of August. Not quitting forever, I don't think--but I'm not in a position to fully control my drinking right now, and that has to change.

godspeed, HOOS!

good feels to you, hoos. Hit me up anytime if you want to meet for non-drinky distractions!

be well, hoos

i wonder how yeahloggedout is doing

courage hoos

gl hoos

it's been almost a year, feel like it's probably permanent, grateful i didn't need aa meetings. the stability has been essential to me becoming half of the mess i was. good luck hoos.

rooting for you hoos, i don't think there's one royal road to getting control so weigh up your strategies and go with whatever works best for you

http://www.amazon.com/Responsible-Drinking-Moderation-Management-Approach/dp/1572242949/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434397008&sr=1-1&keywords=responsible+drinking

^^^worth a look while you take a break (or don't)

Good decision, hoos. Much better to reassert control while control is still in reach. Good luck. Just stay focused on the goal and the reasons for it and you'll be fine.

Responsible Drinking Paperback – 21 Jul 2003

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Two Stars
By puremince on 23 May 2015

Useful pints but never worked for me

hahaha that is too perfect

but for real some of my fellow social work stoodents have worked in the substance use disorder (aka SUD, the term now replacing "substance abuse" in professional circles) field and harm reduction/other non-abstinence-based methodologies are a viable, evidence-based alternative to AA and the like.

:)

it does look like a useful book though

good wishes of course.....

thanks, everyone.

Recent interview-based research indicated that tobacco was the most common gateway for alcohol and other addictions. I found that quitting cigs made quitting booze much easier. Did go more or less cold turkey re both, but not simultaneously. But, booze-wise, I was pretty much a weekend warrior/fule anyway. As indicated upthread, v. dangerous to go cold turkey on your own, in many cases (Townes Van Zandt died of a heart attack that way).

"useful pints" made my day

Somebody pointed me to SMART Recovery, and that's given me just the kind of framework I'm looking for--I've got a plan now that's gonna lead me to a period of sobriety starting in September. To, through & from there I'll figure out how to deal with the things that make me drink. Once I've made that something I can control confidently, no matter how long that takes, I might welcome myself to a beer again.

This is an excerpt from an article on James Taylor that I've kept around to help me with my own demons:

"Well, when I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible inside my own skin for about six months," Taylor says. "And the only thing that gave me any real relief was - was strenuous physical activity. It made me feel good for a while. Maybe it's endorphins, or whatever. I sort of swapped addictions and got into...physical exercise."

Today he at least appears to be a poster boy for the 12-step road to recovery.

"When you say I - I seem like a, you know, a - a sort of solid, rock-solid image of sanity, you know, it doesn't feel that way to me, especially when I wake up at, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning, you know, you know, anxious," Taylor reveals.

He describes his anxiety: "It doesn't seem to - to matter what it is."

"(Itseems to be, yeah, free-floating anxiety that'll attach to anything," Taylor explains."The difference, essentially, is that I know that it doesn't last forever."

Echoing the good wishes for hoos (though, just sayin, it might be easier if your name didn't rhyme with booze).

From what I read lately, the current wisdom does seem to be shifting, allowing greater space for tapering and moderation as possibilities (vs. the all-or-nothing MUSTness and in-yo-face religiosity of AA).
This recent Atlantic piece is an example.

Yeah I read that great article a while ago, it's part of why I sought out other approaches.

Big Booze AKA The Harddrinker

Sorry

you could atone w/ a good 'designated driver' hoosjoke

thanks for linking that article xps

The Finns are famously private

lol

haaaaaaaa

Big Booze AKA The Harddrinker

― supreme problematics (D-40), Wednesday, June 17, 2015 5:28 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Does hoos really rhyme with booze or have I been saying one of those wrong for awhile

gl btw hoos

how else would u say hooz