I'm an alcoholic

in a twisted way I miss having warning signs or alarm bells going off with regards to my health

i am familiar with this in other things and it's a terrible trap! You already have a warning sign: the warning sign is that you're worried, and that you know you're not doing your body right. (yes, two bottles of wine a night can't be healthy) (also: yeah-- tea, water, juice)

So: good on you for noticing and for facing up to yourself, and taking it more public than your conversations with yourself even if only as far as ilx.

(my immediate thought - and apologies if this is horribly naive - is that if you drink in the evenings you should do something that leaves no time in the evenings for you to drink. maybe even take up running, so you're tired out and maybe won't feel like you have to drink before bed? idk, i am no doctor nor expert on addiction)

Do you have physical withdrawal symptoms if you don't drink every night? Do you drink at all during the day to avoid having such symptoms? It's one thing to focus on strategies for not drinking but it's a whole other thing if you're actively physically addicted to alcohol.

The latter might necessitate medical intervention.

also, even though the shame of it might be terrifying, i think it'd be worth talking to your doctor to see if you can get a medical perspective on stopping drinking (e.g. what physical symptoms to expect, whether you should taper down or stop outright). if your doctor recommends aa that doesn't mean you have to go!

uh, xpost with ENBB

Thank you all for attending this thread, it means a lot...

To answer Justine's questions:
- Yes, I have tried not to drink (or rather, not to buy wine), but I indeed must admit I get anxious if I don't have any wine in. Very anxious. As I said, it feels so habitual, I cannot for the life of me think of "me" going without my wine anymore. I just cannot.
- There wasn't a big trigger that caused this, no. It slowly crept in. I've always been prone to addiction (marihuana, for one, I shook that off years ago) and this particular behaviour runs in the family, but there wasn't a huge "event" that lead me into drinking this much. It just... happened.
- If I am away from home I can cope relatively easily. I don't go on a binge when away from home, I adjust to other people's drinking behaviour and pace and am ok with that, although when in company I am the one who drinks the most. When with my girlfriend I don't drink as much either, but that is also because, y'know, sex takes up a lot of time.
- I don't feel anxiety about not being home so I can drink, no (relatively speaking, that is).

The drinking is a solitudinous thing, yes, very much. But it's the habituality of it that makes it so deceiving, covering up that it is a real problem, for me.

Thank you Zora, I appreciate that, a lot. And Darraghmac, I drink alone, nobody is aware of how much I drink.

xp's, catching up

you're either boozed up or getting laid and *you're asking us* for advice

OK, it does not sound like you're physically dependent on alcohol. My mother is an alcoholic who has been in detox/rehab several times and from what you've described it doesn't sound like you would go through physical withdrawal which is a good thing. Mental addiction is a very very real thing but at least you don't have to tackle both aspects tho unfortunately the physical part is often easier to actually kick.

do wish to echo the admiration that you're facing this without being driven to it, btw. that can only be positive.

Thank you all, so much. I am struggling to express how much all of your responses mean to me. Especially because I feel like a total wuss being logged out and all. But it was just one step too far to "confess" all this and do this under my real dn too. And yet you all aren't judging me for it, which is.. amazing <3

@C Sharp Major: thand you. That is sound advice, but I have tried starting to drink later and later in the evening, only to find myself drinking at a much higher pace. It's crazy to say I don't have any control over that, because I do, but most times it feels like I don't. And I end up staring at two empty bottles of wine and thinking: how the hell did I down that in three hours?

@Erica, thank you so much, you are talking a lot of sense, as usual. No, I do not drink during the day. I don't have the slightest desire. "During the day" equals working, being out there. And I am not constantly thinking about drinking at night during the day either. But I will make damn sure that after work I buy enough wine to "see me through" (ugh).

I suppose you, ENBB and C# are right, I should discuss this with my MD. I hadn't the courage before, this is only blowing up in my face right now because of completely trivial reasons. But all the better, I suppose, finally trying to face it...

"I cannot for the life of me think of "me" going without my wine anymore"

This is a huge thing and is a big thing for me wrt smoking (something wich I've sort of but not entirely recently given up). It was very hard to see myself as a non-smoker because being a smoker was an enormous part of my identity, my daily ritual and just such a habit. I made myself focus on the benefits of not smoking namely health and money an started buying myself stuff with the money I saved from not buying cigarettes. It sounds silly but it's been really helpful. Maybe you could do similarly with wine?

when i was in my early 20s i had a similar problem, and at the point where i decided that it was a problem, i made a rule for myself that i couldn't drink alone, and stuck to it. i also went about a year not drinking at all, then slowly phased back in over the course of several years.

good luck!

I don't have any advice, but best of luck, YLO

@ENBB, I am sorry to hear about your mother. I have given the psycological/physical addiction question quite some thought recently: which one applies to me? But to be honest, I am too afraid to even try to go without it and see if I have physical withdrawal symptoms... if that makes sense? The thought of not having booze in the house is too scary. And the odd thing is: I never think of that as "scary", don't feel it that way at all, I cruise through the day with a demanding job and all, until the moment comes when I know the shops will be closing soon and I don't have any alcohol in the house. Which is when I have to go out and buy some...

This is a huge thing and is a big thing for me wrt smoking (something wich I've sort of but not entirely recently given up). It was very hard to see myself as a non-smoker because being a smoker was an enormous part of my identity, my daily ritual and just such a habit. I made myself focus on the benefits of not smoking namely health and money an started buying myself stuff with the money I saved from not buying cigarettes. It sounds silly but it's been really helpful. Maybe you could do similarly with wine?

Erica, omg yes I know what you mean. I actually quit smoking four months ago, after having smoked for 15 years. I -never- thought I could do it, at first, it was my third try, but I did, I persevered and yes it saves a shitload of money and it's the healthy way to go and I feel really good about it.
Yet meanwhile, and this is something I didn't realise before or didn't want to know, - no matter how hard it seemed to me to quit smoking - 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. I'd curse at tea or juice or water if they could hear me, I honestly have *no* idea how people just have an easy night in, drink some tea or water and go to sleep. I am so far removed from that notion. Which is exactly why it scares me so much right now.

fwiw (and bear in mind that while i am wearing my medical hat here I AM NOT A DOCTOR) the physical signs of addiction to alcohol do include anxiety when going without. also the dangerous physical signs of withdrawal don't generally make themselves known until just outside the window that many people give themselves for a 'night off' or what have you. or, more anecdotally, i know of someone who decided to quit drinking cold turkey after years of excess and they died from it. which isn't me trying to be scary, but rather: if you're on two bottles of wine a night (basically a 12pack), i would strongly urge you to consult a physician about how to approach your situation. even if only for the therapeutic benefit of talking to someone about it.

(that was heavily xposted, but hopefully of some use)

Again, thank you all for all your kind and helpful words. I truly feel like I am "misleading" you all not showing my real display name here and I do apologise for that, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that, for shame...

But thanks. Thank you all so much. It means a lot to see you all caring and giving a damn and responding in a constructive way.

x-posts Aw, thanks.

I drink roughly once a week (and have my own issues with that so I get how tough this can be) but the other six nights I have water, diet soda, coffee - anything. I think Sarah's suggestion of just setting a rule of not drinking alone an sticking to it is actually a very good one but know that sort of thing can be very hard to stick to especially if you get panicky without alcohol which iirc can actually be a sign of physical addiction so I would still probably consult a doc.

I wonder what you're so worried about wrt not having alcohol at night. Is that you will be restless, won't know what to do with yourself, bored . . . ? Maybe answering that will help you tackle the problem?

and (sorry for going in with tough talk), just to elucidate why quitting alcohol is scarier than cigarettes: in a very simplistic sense, alcohol basically unemploys certain neurotransmitters in your brain (GABA) whose job it is to counteract more excitatory transmitters. GABA says fuck it i don't have a job, and the excitatory transmitters amp up production because there's this alcohol sitting right there making life tough for them. if you withdraw the alcohol suddenly, you find that there's a surfeit of excitatory transmitters, and this is what leads to stuff like anxiety and, if it's a really bad job market for GABA, heart attacks and the like.

it's kind of an old saw in medicine that withdrawing from opiates and cigarettes is ~harder~ than alcohol, but alcohol withdrawal is the only kind that can kill you.

cf another anecdote from a friend who skipped a single night of drinking (he drinks...a lot) and called me the next day, panicked, asking if alcohol withdrawal was why he couldn't sleep and why his heart had been pounding all day. a: y.

@Dr. GBX ;-)

Thank you. I fear yet also believe you are right. I don't have the strength to simply go without drinks even a single night, I admit ashamedly. It is weird and very confrontational, as I never thought I would be this person, but writing this now, tonight, is my cry for help, however pathetic that may sound. And yes, I will take up your advice to speak to my physician about this - it is the shame I have to try and set aside that has kept me from doing so the last couple of days. Thank you.

Yeah, it's not pretty. My mom drinks from the morning on again now but at one point when she quit cold turkey she had a seizure in front of me. She was drinking at least a couple pints of vodaka day around the clock at that point though. GBX is right though - it's not something to mess with so I should reiterate the doc advice thing too.

Also you shouldn't feel shame. It's really common and it's not your fault. Probably pretty good to bear in mind that doctors see crazy stuff all the time and will not judge you or think of you differently. They're there to help.

http://cheerfulmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/inverted-u-graph-stress-challenge.gif

this is relevant

and xp you should not feel shame about this. shame will not help you feel healthy or happy, and is kind of a big problem i have with AA as a treatment modality for addiction (but that's just folks i guess). that being said: finding a sponsor, even if you won't have any truck with AA, is a good idea.

i do wish you the best of luck!

or what enbb said

First, I wish you all success in learning not to drink. It will be a huge relief for your liver, if nothing else.

I have only one suggestion that might be useful. Doing something like this requires facing the idea that you, alone, are not likely to get out of this without some help. Go ahead and try to do it alone, if that's where you need to start the process. If that does work out, then more power to you!

But addictions get built into your very cells and evicting them is usually more than a matter of personal will power, especially the first year or so. Alone is not as good as with the support of lover, friends and family. If you can't find closer-to-hand help, come here; we're lots better than nothing.

Good luck!

Buried in this NYT article about stores tracking your shopping habits was some really interesting research about...HABITS.

While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain was working furiously. ... as each rat learned how to complete the maze more quickly, its mental activity decreased. As the path became more and more automatic — as it became a habit — the rats started thinking less and less.

This process, in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine, is called “chunking.” There are dozens, if not hundreds, of behavioral chunks we rely on every day. Some are simple: you automatically put toothpaste on your toothbrush before sticking it in your mouth.

The process within our brains that creates habits is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop — cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward — becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become neurologically intertwined until a sense of craving emerges.

This is IN ADDITION TO all the medical stuff & chemical dependency--your brain is undermining you all the time on these kinds of things. But maybe it helps to know that it is?

@Erica,

"I wonder what you're so worried about wrt not having alcohol at night. Is that you will be restless, won't know what to do with yourself, bored . . . ? Maybe answering that will help you tackle the problem?"

I wonder that myself, but 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.

@Gbx, thanks.. that's the stone cold truth... It is not harsh, it is very helpful. It all the more says I need professional help with this. Which, tonight, is very encouraging and helpful to hear.

@Aimless, aww thank you, indeed, addiction is founding itself into my very cells, I am finding that out. And I want clear myself, my cells, my identity, of that, but right now feel I will never achieve that (which is dramatic, I know, but also why I called upon ilx tonight in hiding no less, not something I would normally chose to do)

@Laurel.... :'-( ... yes, I did not know that but it is *exactly* how I feel, the habituality of it, and feeling I can't escape my own hard-wired brain patterns steering me that way... jez, it must be the firs time ever that something about rats made me fill up. Thank you so much.

I'm off to bed now, again, thank you all for you responses. It means more than I can express

aimless also otm

it is crucial to find an ally---and to understand that allies exist.

xp Laurel: totes. off the cuff, that seems to me to be very much in line with a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy. which is why (as we discussed even???) habits like smoking are approached from contextual avenues as much as medical---"i open a beer when i get home why becuase i got home" or "i am smoking a cigarette because i am driving to work"

hey, as someone who has to consciously watch myself w/r/t intake i just want to say good luck and hang in there

Gbx: yeah! Also interesting is the laziness of the brain, that it will "chunk" as much stuff as possible to avoid doing extra thinking!

I don't have any advice, but best of luck, YLO

― "renegade" gnome (remy bean), Thursday, February 16, 2012 7:40 PM (1 hour ago)

Echoing this.

Good luck to you yeahloggedout, I admire you for being so honest and real with yourself.

Gbx: yeah! Also interesting is the laziness of the brain, that it will "chunk" as much stuff as possible to avoid doing extra thinking!

― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Thursday, February 16, 2012 8:43 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i give you...libertarians

ylo this will be hard but not that hard and you are and will be the person you know and recognize in the morning

There is a guy on Cracked.com (JOhn Cheese) who had some very poignant and honest and funny articles about quitting drinking. I am not going to post them here and say "HEY I READ A THING ONCE" but they gave me a profound respect for him and for any recovering alcoholic.

ylo this will be hard but not that hard and you are and will be the person you know and recognize in the morning

^^^ the fact that your drinking isn't crucial to your day-to-day functioning is in your favour. ime with alcoholics, the simple fact that, even without serious warning signs, you are aware that this habit is bad and you want to stop it is a HUGE thing, and i think you've taken the first steps to successfully overcoming this. and i don't think your drinking is any more shameful than the fact that i MUST have a cigarette when i get home from work - i don't think about smoking all day long, but if i get home from work and i don't have cigs, and i can't get any, i feel v v panicky.

anyway - all the best to you, you're taking the hard road but it'll be worth it.

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