I'm an alcoholic

So, based on recent observation, talks with the BF (who also acknowledges that he is an alcoholic), and a very intense house meeting where my drinking was brought up, I have come to accept the fact that I'm an alcoholic. I've known that I have had problems with the drink for a while, but only recently has it become an issue.

I guess what I'm wondering about is how I can change. I've cut back on drinking dramatically before and would like to do so again. I find a lot of the twelve-step type stuff a bit abysmal. Any thoughts?

Thanks for any advice. I really find it hard to talk about this, and appreciate honest responses.

xoxo
the table is the table

I don't drink at all(hate the taste nothing to do with anything else) , so I cant offer you any valuable advice, sorry. But good luck with it all! At least you're trying to do something about it!

As distasteful as you may find them (and believe me, I completely understand and sympathize with anyone repelled by the religious component of practically all of them), the structure of a 12 step program may be what you need. Regardless, you should speak to a professional counselor.

I wish you luck. I just had a good friend die due to alcohol. He had been an alcoholic for about 10-15 years and had a seizure in his sleep. He was trying to go cold turkey and his body freaked out. I also have alcoholism in my family and it has done more damage to our relationships than imaginable. All of this is a long way of saying you're making the right choice to address the issue and change. Good luck and you can definitely do it.

best of luck, homes, and w/r/t 12 step program's religious components, this thread elsewhere covers some of those concerns, it appears

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/newcomers-recovery/104342-any-non-religious-programs.html

Good luck, table.

^

you've taken the first very difficult step (so to speak) of self-recognition, that takes guts. as dan recommends don't be afraid to reach out for counseling.

good luck, TTITT.

Regardless, you should speak to a professional counselor.

v. good advice.

Thanks, everyone. Keep it coming.

the LifeRing thing linked to on that thread Omar— seems kind of perfect, especially since it was founded in Northern California, where I reside.

hey man--don't have time to get into anything (and in fact i should already be out the door and not on the internet at all at the moment) but just wanted to take an extra minute to say big kudos on being so open about this and taking any forward steps at all. i know i'm hitting dead-horse territory but w/o the gory details i've been around enough alcoholism and having the gusto to step up to this at all is pretty bigtime imo. good luck and all my best wishes.

My ex just told me about his first meeting at a gay-centric rehab type program. It sounded like a lot of drama, but I bet that's true of most group-based rehab activities.

hey table as someone who always has to watch their own intake i'll be thinking of you. best of luck pursuing help.

Table, can I ask if BF is seeking treatment too? Curious is all.

I think you are really brave...hope you find a program to get you on the right journey again. It takes courage, and it sounds like you've got it.

We need to talk about it. He wants to cut back. He's worried about himself to the same degree that I'm worried about myself. That said, there's no way either of us can go cold turkey. I mean, we both get the shakes and can't sleep if we don't drink at least a few beers a day.

And hey, thanks.

Sending my best. Omar's link looks really helpful.

you can do this

hey table, big ups on being so open about this. You are doing exactly what you should be at this stage, sounds like. I reached a similar impasse a couple years ago, and while everyone will find their own way of dealing with such things, one of the most important determining factors for me was sorting out whether my addiction was physical or purely emotional/psychological. You won't know this unless you stop for a while & watch for the telltale signs of physical withdrawal. Whether or not you are actually, physically addicted should have some bearing on which course of action you take. My two cents, anyway.

If you ever want to chat off-board about it, just drop me a line & would be happy to do so.

good luck

Take care, table. And if you hate the first meeting you go to, or don't connect with the people or the format, try another: another time, another neighborhood.

I mean, we both get the shakes and can't sleep if we don't drink at least a few beers a day.

I think this question has been answered. Tables, you should go in for detox before you do anything else.

oops sry didn't see that - yeah, so ^^ that, then

xxpost Eazy otm. My boss has been sober 20+ years, I talk to him a lot about AA, and that was a big thing: AA is so grassroots and varied that every one is different. One does not represent all, was what he said.

Do you drink much stronger than beer? Tbh the best thing I ever did re: drinking was just restrict myself to beer. Not too much, obv. Cold turkey's never worked for me or anyone I know, it always seemed to lead to an eventual blowout binge as alcohol becomes more and more a forbidden temptation type thing.

Oh and those seizures suck. Had one once, luckily was w a friend who had experience w epileptics and looked after me really well.

It's a hard thing. Once you've admitted it, all sorts of guilt things come into the rest of your life when you do drink. Don't hate yourself if you drink.

Detox should be handled professionally if you are physically addicted. (based on limited understanding) each ugly detox/withdrawal makes you more vulnerable to further problems the next time and the next time. there will be next times. Some benzos, and blood pressure monitoring are important in the first 3 to 7 days.

Cutting back can give you more time to continue drinking, but if you think you are really ready to have life without it at all, i dont know. Meetings are good. A counselor is good. Don't let anybody convince you that relapse=death. Sometimes relapse is better than death.

Fish oil, B-complex, don't overdo the caffeine. Meditation, physical activity. Breathe.

one of the tough things that i remember when i quit drinking for a while after having major problems is how to deal socially. Like a lot of social activity revolves around drinking. Changing habits and patterns that you're used to is hard.

Maybe another thing that would help is coming up with other things to do or things you want to do but haven't had the wherewithall to do because of drinking & partying? In a way giving yourself an incentive to change your behavior.

no good advice from me I'm afraid, but best of luck!

just curious -- any chance you're willing to share what prompted you to come to this conclusion? i understand if you don't want to document it here, but i'm a little curious as to how people come to this conclusion. it seems like a hard one to make and what many might consider a gray area, especially if they are behaving like others in their social circle.... either way, good luck dude.

don't have any experience w/ this personally or, thankfully, w/ in my family, so i'm just here to wish good luck and offer love

stay strong, it'll be worth it

echoing j0rdan's sentiments - <3 u t, you're a tough kid and i know you'll persevere

I have lots of clean and sober friends. They all went through NA/AA. None of them were religious before and none of them got religion after coming out the other side, but they all grumble/kvetch about the religiosity of NA/AA. Not to speak for them, but my sense is that the tradeoff of putting up with the "higher power" rhetoric of some AA/NA folk was worth staying clean (from alcohol and heroin, mostly). The good news is that they are still alive, and they're much, much happier. People in recovery do amazing stuff with the time/energy that used to go into getting fucked up. Teddy, I know you can do this, and I want to reassure you that you're still going to be you on the other side of this transformation.

12 step = running away long and fast and forever. fuck being cured by magic

good luck. this thread makes me feel i should look at my own habits, i am pretty sure by plenty of definitions i am an alcoholic, but then so are loads of people i know. and i hold down a job and never drink in the day etc.

Hi there, and good luck with this, TTITT

I've had lifelong problems with alcohol (and I do mean lifelong) but what follows is representative only of my experience, the biggest thing that I've learned WRT addiction is that one size does not fit all.

I have had nothing but bad experiences with AA. That's not even down the religious aspect, it's down to my particular personality - that I found it overly dependent on a certain kind of peer pressure and a group mentality. If you're a community minded person who has no trouble "joining" that may work for you. For me, it had the opposite effect - being in a room full of people saying they weren't going to drive only made me want to run the hell out of there and go drink some more. I was told this was some kind of adolescent rebellion - no, it's not. That maverick, "not the joining kind" thing is a deep part of my personality, and I don't want to have to fight against *it* as well as addiction, to help myself.

I've been to rehab twice, it did no good at all. I had a court order to stop drinking for a year while I was on probation - I quit for the year, no problem, then threw myself back into drinking, aggressively, when the probation was over.

I have not stopped, dead, but I finally, in my late 30s, came to a sensible relationship with drinking.

Part of that was going on SSRIs - that they did somehow flip a switch in my head, that that kind of *rush* I used to get when I started to get drunk (that "woooo! let's do this more! and more! and more! until we all fall down!") just didn't engage. Drinking made me tired and kind of sleepy, so if I wanted to drink at social situations, I had to have one and stop. (And I could do that, because the "whee! let's drink more!" urge never kicked in.)

But:
1) this was about the kind of alcoholic that I was, that I could say no to the first drink, I could even say no to the second drink, if I hadn't caught a buzz off it, but once that buzz had caught hold, I was gonna be there til I passed out, and nothing would stop me.

2) I would NOT recommend SSRIs as a method *solely* of coming off drink, as they are deeply addictive (or habit-forming or whatever they want to call it) - coming off SSRIs was harder than any alcohol detox I have ever done.

What did help is that while I was on SSRIs, I had to totally dismantle and reassemble certain aspects of my personality and large chunks of the *way* that I socialised.

It will hurt, but if you have friends that you are only ever around when you're drinking, you have to lose them. For other people - well, I live in England, which is a very pro-alcoholic society, I had to come up with valid excuses that could not be "aw, but come on!"-ed out of. "Sorry, I physically can't, I'm on medication" was a very good one. There were whole situations that I had to just remove from my life if I couldn't do without drinking - work socialising, I make an excuse every time and just don't go. After 1 or 2 times of you missing the work Xmas do, people stop asking. In a way, you kind of have to rebrand yourself as a non-drinker. I did this in my new job, when I started, I told my boss "I'm not really a pub kinda person" and always refused offers until people got the idea that I Was A Non-Drinker. (Once you have established this idea in their heads, and, more importantly, *yours*, you can start to go back to "oh, alright, I'l have a half glass of champagne at someone's birthday" but getting drunk, getting buzzed, is pretty much off the menu.)

Other situations that you associate really heavily with drinking - you may find your enjoyment of them affected. I learned to play gigs, as a musician, without drinking, but I started to realise that I didn't actually *enjoy* them, so I stopped. Sexuality became a huge no-go area for me, because I realised how hard it was for me to have sex without being drunk. I haven't figured a way around that one, yet. There are many social situations that I don't feel up to, without drinking - the idea of sitting in a pub for four hours to celebrate someone's birthday is actually kinda intolerable to me. Yeah, it's affected my relationships with friends when I say that I'll go to something, and then cometh the day, I just don't feel up to it - so I JUST DON'T GO. It sucks. It isn't fun. I've had to let go of a lot of the idea of me as "a fun person" if I can't *do* "fun" without being drunk. I still have social anxiety issues I have to deal with, but I'd rather deal with them than the alcoholism that was masking them. It seems more permanent. (And also holds out the hope that I will be able to "do" alcohol again in social situations that I don't find so difficult.)

As to the detox thing. That is probably something you are going to have to see a medical doctor about. I've done cold turkey detox in the criminal system - not fun. I can't tell if "a few beers during the day" means you go all day without drinking and then have to have a few beers at night to get you to bed, or if it means you crack open a stella (or your local equivalent) at breakfast and sozzle quietly through the whole day. The former is the kind of thing you can actually crack on your own through changing your habits (and will probably require reduction, not cold turkey - try doing it every other day, and on the days you don't, substitute some other really relaxing activity - take a bath, drinking chamomile tea while listening to classical music, have soppy sex and a backrub - whatever works for you - and try to find psychological ways of dealing with stress related sleep disorders.) If it's the latter, and you are drinking all day, every day - go to a doctor. That requires medical attention.

Sorry this is so overly long, and probably only really applicable to my personal situations, and not to yours. I just wanted to get across the idea that a person *can* do it - even if AA is not an option. It isn't *easy* but it is doable, and it is survivable.

Good luck to you both. You can do this.

Christ, that's even longer than I thought. Sorry.

I'm gonna run away now before I chicken out and ask a mod to remove it for fear of ILX and IRL repercussions for having been so honest. Sorry.

Shit, that'll teach me to post without proofreading for fear of not posting at all. Third paragraph should be:

being in a room full of people saying they weren't going to drive drink only made me want to run the hell out of there and go drink some more.

Best of luck with this, table. Realising that you have a drink problem is a big necessary step, well done.
My history: heavy drinker for 10 years, sober & teetotal for the past 8. I have to say that most of the time I still badly miss being able to have a drink, but...

"woooo! let's do this more! and more! and more! until we all fall down!"

^^^ realising that this wasn't fun or enjoyable any more really helped me stay off the booze during the first couple of years. Also, breaking contact with people who I used to hang out and get slaughtered with.

hey table, I don't have any advice to give but I'm really impressed by your openness and your ability to face the problem. Alcoholism runs in my family, but so does stubborn pride and an inability to talk about things or ask for help (esp if it's something with guilt involved, like drinking when you shouldn't), and I've seen it cause a lot of sadness over the years. So kudos to you, and I wish you the best of luck.

Superb post Kate, thanks. Um I think Dave Q said once (not to treat him as some Great Sage, but he's a smart guy) that if people who care abt you think you have a drinking problem, you have one. Haven't come across a better definition since. Alcoholism is v good friends w selfdeception.

<3s and good luck dude

Good luck, beat the demon, you *can* do it. I have seen alcohol destroy people and it sucks big time.

I am not an alcoholic, but my family members ABC and CBS both spent time as RAGING out of control alcoholics. Counseling and medications or whatever just perpetuate the isolation that an alcoholic experiences ("no one understands me", "I can't identify my problems", "I hate my job / neighbors so-called 'friends'"). ABC used to berate me too for being carefree. I said what kind of future should be spent with a miserable no-life person like YOU. He said that my "spiritual" attitude was idiotic and had no place in today's society. Cutting him out of my life for a few years helped. He had abandoned or trash-talked all his old friends too. The "success" model had gotten to him. Then he got fired from his job at a really super prestigious corporation (now disgraced ha ha - no I'm not telling you which one) and was forced into a spiritual crisis. I am in favor of this "tough love" approach. He ended up being bailed out by his "dumb" old friends.

Just as ABC was recovering, CBS developed a life-threatening alcohol problem, I mean going out several times a week and coming home staggering drunk and blacking out, ending up in the hospital. So then CBS and ABC were fighting, oblivious to everyone they were affecting. It didn't help that she dropped out of school and couldn't keep a job. CBS ended up in jail and everything. Same thing, caught up in work and money only fighting things and people that weren't worth fighting. I said I am sick of you complaining, just cut the bitches out of your life. So what if you are poor and have a criminal record, if you stop being a miserable drunk someone who believes in you will eventually take you under their wing.

Like I said, tough love works. So do socialization and group activities like vacations, healthy projects, going outside instead of sitting in front of the television. The alcoholic needs to get out of the isolation and counseling and pills and even some "programs" that berate or guilt trip the individual don't necessarily do that. Anti-individual attitudes are BAD, they end up creating lonely unhappy frustrated people, and a lot of alcohol programs aren't positive in nature, they are all about what the alcoholic is doing wrong and how the leader is always right.

Doesn't a person drink because they feel bad about themselves? Maybe I am wrong, but I lived with two alcoholics and they stopped drinking when they stopped trying to be someone else. Cut the negative influence from your life and develop yourself.

webmailing you, but hang in there.

Doesn't a person drink because they feel bad about themselves? Maybe I am wrong, but I lived with two alcoholics and they stopped drinking when they stopped trying to be someone else. Cut the negative influence from your life and develop yourself.

people drink and are alcoholics for all kinds of different reasons.

Agreed, but u s steel's description accurately describes me back then.

hey table, I don't have any advice to give but I'm really impressed by your openness and your ability to face the problem. Alcoholism runs in my family, but so does stubborn pride and an inability to talk about things or ask for help (esp if it's something with guilt involved, like drinking when you shouldn't), and I've seen it cause a lot of sadness over the years. So kudos to you, and I wish you the best of luck.

― the dialectic of specs (c sharp major),

^ can only echo this and repeat my honest admiration for your strength in attempting this in such an open way right off the bat.

and though kate and i have been butting heads lately, that was a fantastic post from her.

And tough love only works in very specific circumstances and with certain types of people--it can backfire, horribly, if used indiscriminately. (Or for things other than addictions--I'm not going to get into how I think the whole tough love philosophy has been a corrosive influence on the US since it started in the early eighties. That really belongs in one of the US Politics threads.)

Both parents are alcoholics and I know too well what it does to people, so I'm glad you've decided to stop it (relatively) early on.

What worked for you to help you quit drinking last time? Seems to me that while whatever you did was good enough to work for a short while, there are deeper problems that maybe you didn't address.

Not knowing all of your circumstances (not that anyone needs to in a public forum), it is difficult to give advice. Sometimes people are in an intractable situation that isn't entirely their fault and probably won't quit drinking until they are free of it, as in my story about my relative CBS.

Going back to Kate's post upthread (which was good, Kate, you shouldn't worry about it) - the peer pressure stuff is largely internal. My social circle (which intersects with Ted's) revolves a lot around drinking and smoking pot. But there are people in that circle that don't drink and/or don't smoke pot that aren't not seen as "fun people". Obviously, if you don't feel like a fun person and are not having fun in a situation, then the other people are gonna pick up on that. But, for the most part, esp. if booze and weed are involved, the other people are not really gonna be focused on whether or not you're indulging yourself.

yeah, OTM sarahel there. i know plenty of people who don't drink but smoke, who don't smoke but drink, etc.

anyway, i'm gonna answer some questions:

- in terms of how i came to this conclusion, i've known for a while. probably about a year. but only recently have i been coming 'clean' with myself about it, and not just laughing it off as if it was some sort of joke. bicycle accidents are scary. not remembering how i got home is scary. not being able to fall asleep without some alcohol in me is scary. so... yeah.

- ilxor akm: thanks, i got your webmail, and it's good to know that AA stuff is mostly secular out here. i'll hit you up with an email later today.

- kate, yeah, what you describe is what i fear. at the same time, i've spent months not drinking at all, and i've still been able to function both socially and creatively. it's just that it's been awhile. i refuse to go back on SSRIs or anything like that because they made me feel dead inside. nonetheless, thanks for your advice and support.

- um, in terms of HOW i drink: i mostly drink beer and malt liquor, occasionally whiskey. when i say i need to drink in order to fall asleep at night, it's not that i drink all day. i need to drink about two beers right before i fall asleep in order to have any sort of fitful rest.

- the last time i cut back dramatically, i was aided by a few things: a good friend had just been checked into the first of many rehab stints, i had had a violent outburst towards a friend. for years, i didn't drink much at all. i did A LOT of LSD and smoked pot on the regs, which helped somewhat, as it made me find alcohol repulsive. it was really when i was unemployed and living in a college town a few years back that my drinking started in earnest again, and hasn't abated since, though i've moved and created a different life for myself out here.

- i don't feel bad about myself, and have no desire to be someone else. i wish i wasn't poor, but don't we all.

- in all honesty, neither myself nor my parents have resources to do an official rehab stint. i drank very little last night (about a 40 oz), slept pretty well, and woke up feeling great this morning. the BF and i talked last night and we're going to cut back DRAMATICALLY together. it'll be really hard, but i also think that we can do it.

to everyone: thanks so much for your support and advice. you people are truly wonderful, and i love you.

If you need to talk, tabes, I'm here.

xp - you know i'm around and you know i think you're an awesome guy

But Kate - you're totally right about the "whoo! let's keep going until we fall down" rush - I had that Thurs night (and it had been quite a while) - but then while I was sitting away from my friends, discreetly puking into a trash can, the appeal of that quickly evaporated. And I resolved, "Never again!" but of course I question the meaning of "never" - but it was a good check.

I can highly recommend this http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/alcoholism/ which is also mentioned upthread. Quit drinking completely for 5 months last year just to see if i could, which was a big deal for someone who'd been hammering the booze pretty hard for the preceeding 5 years. Very frienly place it seemed while i was on it. Hope it works out.

I went to a really good rehab for addiction several years ago, but you had to have insurance for it. I wish people without insurance or sufficient coverage could get rehab like that. Only thing is you have to sit through interesting but depressing sessions with recovering heroin and cocaine addicts and then you feel guilty like you are spying on them.

Alcohol, you need to change your lifestyle. I used to spend too much time with the above people and other unnamed alcoholics and it dragged me down. That means changing your lifestyle and possibly your social circle, joining clubs or a gym or outdoors activity, taking a class etc.

much love and support to you, t3ddy <3

I've been to AA. It helped, I made it 9 mths and then...

But again, much suppo

So... yeah :'-(

In no way do I intend to hijack table's thread, or to frighten table once he sees this thread being bumped, hope he's doing great. But this thread seems most appropriate for something I just need to get off my chest. Emphasis on need, as opposed to want. I'm an ilx-regular but cannot bring myself to do this under my usual display name (please, no "guessing games" in here as to who I am, it's too serious an issue for that, I hope you will all respect that)

For nearly three years now, I have been drinking approximately two bottles of red wine a night. Sometimes it's a bit less, sometimes a bit more, but if I had to ballpark it, I'd say I average 1.5 bottles of red wine. Per night. Every single night.

Nearly three years. Ridiculous as it may sound, realising the sheer magnitute of how long that actually is only very recently struck me. A 1000 fucking days. And counting. Deep down I have known for a long time already that this is not good, but I didn't want to hear it, I suppose. Didn't want to acknowledge I had a problem. But I do.

Some random thoughts:
1) The "problem" is that I don't really get drunk anymore. Big surprise after this steady intake for so long huh? But getting drunk, and enduring the hangover the next day, would mean the body screaming out NO! THIS NO GOOD!. I've not had that for a loooong time. Which kind of made it less of a pressing issue, made it easier to dismiss I have a problem.
2) I function perfectly okay during the day. I have a job that carries a lot of responsibility, it asks a lot of me, and I deliver. My responsibility doesn't end with dealing with the outside world, it also means dealing with staff, people you see every day, being a superior. I'm basically the sole person responsible for a company that has a $2.5 million turnover per annum and has seven or eight people employed. And yet this massive intake of alcohol doesn't hinder me to do my job properly. Many a times I wish that it had, earlier...
3) I am not plagued or warned by any physical hindrance or health problems because of all this drinking. I am not gaining weight as people usually do when drinking a lot, I'm a thirty-something and am not experiencing any health issues. Yet.

Ofcourse any fool can reason that drinking two bottles of wine every night, for three years now, can't be healthy. It just can't. Right? Please tell me I am right in assuming this. For in a twisted way I miss having warning signs or alarm bells going off with regards to my health. But surely it can't be right. I do think that the lack of physical inconveniences contributed to me sticking my head in the sand for a long time. I am inclined that way, a bit, and it runs in the family; but that's all knowledge I secretly gathered after the fact, after I found myself in this position.

But sticking my head in the sand, ignoring or making light of it; I feel I can't do that, not anymore. It is the reason I am writing this and sending these bytes into cyberspace. I thought about doing this for a long time, had many a doubt, but the urge to just get this out on here is too strong. I suppose that's a good thing, acknowledging something isn't quite right?

I am afraid that I am damaging my health (which I obviously am), and noone in my close proximity has any idea about this. My family doesn't know, at work they have no idea, even my loving girlfriend knows nothing about this...

I don't know anymore. AA is out of the question, I am allergic to religion. Also, for shame. And I know how idiotic this may sound (but it illustrates the habituality of my drinking), but I am afraid of not drinking. I don't even know what other people drink at night. How do they get by? Tea? Water? I honestly can't even imagine what that's like, which makes me infinitely sad all the same.

If you made it this far you are as patient as a saint, I am sorry for wasting your time on a "lol drunk on the internet". But I felt I had no choice but to write this down, to finally acknowledge that I have a problem, if only to myself. Sorry for this way tl;dr post. But I don't know what to do anymore.

have you tried to not drink? like, "tonight i'm just not going to"? do you get anxious/panicky if you run out of wine and can't get any for the evening? was there something that triggered the nightly drinking 3 yrs ago? how do you cope if you're away from home (travelling, staying at your gf's place, etc.) - is there anxiety in not being able to be at home, in privacy, drinking?

sorry for all the questions, and the lack of any helpful words - i'd just like to know a bit more about your situation.

Hi there loggedoutdude. I don't have any good advices (1am, nothing good going on in my head at all), I just wanted to say well done for recognising this issue. I know quite a few people who drink more than you do and insist it's not a problem. It sounds like you're committed to finding a way through - good luck.

who do you drink with? who's even aware of how much you're drinking? in the same vein as just1ne's q's.

want to 2nd surfing's post--some folks I know wouldn't get as far as you have re: coming to this realization.

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

^^ 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

Hoose, like a Scottish house

or hoh-uhs like noos

(best wishes hoos)

hoos like the gow

^^^ the correct way, based on Hoos's explanation of its origin.

if you say it with the Spanish s it is soft, like "hooss" instead of "hooze"

a hoos by any other name

go get em hoos; i quit drinking a few years ago and am happier for it.

I've been through the desert on a hoos with no name

fie, xpost

hoos, your're gonna turn into forks, do with that knowledge what you will

celebrate and live happily ime/imo

hey hoos, how do u feel abt pottery

wouldn't trust it as far as he could throw it

teeehee

best of luck, hoos.

hey hoos, how do u feel abt pottery

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, June 18, 2015 3:35 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um i dunno...its cool to put stuff in?

that's the spirit

or, you know, lack thereof

haa

today I spent an hour driving my dad around Baltimore, helping him look for his car, which he misplaced while blackout drunk. he hasn't had a drink in 2 days, this was the thing that finally shook him up about how bad his drinking had gotten. he quit cigars successfully a few months ago so i have hope. trying to get him to consider going to AA. i really have no idea where his car could be, though.

hopefully it gets towed eventually? I'd just keep calling the police's towed vehicles phone # or w/e and be hopeful

Sorry to be flippant about an actual serious situation, but: some dude, where's my car

http://imallvirtual.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dude-Wheres-My-Car.jpg

I had a pal who called the police to report his car stolen, but when they found it 'abandoned in a diner parking lot,' the friend pieced together a narrative from stuff he had found (like a matchbook from the diner in his jacket pocket at home) and realized in some horror that he had parked it there during a full drunken blackout where he drove to the diner. It freaked him out enough to clean him up for a while, and he never got that bad again.

yeah sounds pretty similar to my dad's situation. he woke up the next morning with an uneaten pizza in the kitchen (from a place that doesn't deliver), so that's the only real indication of what he did that night, he remembers nothing.

he's called the towing yards and no dice...i guess you can tell the police about a missing vehicle even if it's not stolen or towed, right?

that sucks man. and yeah, if you let the cops know it's been "Stolen", you always have the out of saying dad simply misplaced it later. worst case scenario, you have to pay to get it out of police impound.

This recent Atlantic piece🔗 is an example.

Enjoying this so far, thanks for sharing

we found out where my dad's car was towed! now on with that whole sobriety thing.

yay! and best of luck

Im up to 3 beers a night. They are my primary source of carbs.

If you believe "A History of the World in Six Glasses," beer started out as liquid bread. Indeed, the origins of agriculture, bread, and beer are so intertwined (or so goes this theory) that the first breads were basically just a way to store the ingredients of beer - then someone figured out that it would be a decent foodstuff on its own. So anthropologically speaking, bread is just a solid form of beer and beer is just a liquid form of bread.

Of course, this is probably complete hooey (as so many of those "history seen through the lens of X" books are). I know a guy who got through a semester abroad by realizing that his meal plan could get him either a paltry meal, or a decent amount of stout - and he almost always chose the stout as both more filling and more caloric than the food.

Exactly three drinks a day will not kill you - it's probably not enough to get you drunk (unless you weigh like 90 pounds). The problem is that no alcoholic can always stop at exactly three.

My own drinking, historically, is not far off from that - almost never drinking to drunkenness, but having a couple drinks almost every day. Do this for 25 years and the result is Olympic-level tolerance.

*Perhaps* it's better to drink three beers every night than nothing all week, and then a 21-drink Saturday night binge. But those aren't the only two choices, and I am pretty sure neither of those patterns is very healthy.

Exactly three drinks a day will not kill you - it's probably not enough to get you drunk (unless you weigh like 90 pounds).

If I drink 3 beers I feel kind of fucked up and won't drive, and I weigh 220 or so. My wife who weighs substantially less can drink more and be fine which neither of us understand.

The problem is that no alcoholic can always stop at exactly three.

This is the thing that I didn't really get until a family member got sober and I talked to him about it. To me it's so easy, like at some point I know that if I have another drink I'm going to feel shitty tonight and hungover all day tomorrow and there's no point in doing so and I call it a night. He was incapable of NOT continuing to drink until he passed out or there was nothing left, at which time he would try to find more or do dumber things like cocaine.

He is an incredibly smart, incredibly well read guy with a PhD in philosophy and is also a militant atheist who knows more about religion than most people I know, and he did AA and was fine with it. I think a lot depends on where you are, and he was in a big enough city that he was able to find meetings attended by a bunch of musicians, DJs, skateboarders, tattoo artists, crust punks, metalheads, and so on so he didn't feel out of place or self conscious about not being religious. He, and most of the others, equated the "higher power" with whatever it was that they were unable to control or understand that drove them to drink.

It really did wonders for him, and he was pretty hardcore into it for a couple of years (I went to a meeting with him once which was kind of fascinating), almost like a replacement addiction, but I think only goes to meetings once in a while if he's stressed out or feeling low.

I guess what I'm saying is that if he can get past or rationalize the "higher power" thing, anyone probably can because I know few people who are as actively hostile to the idea of the supernatural as he is. And again, in big cities there are definitely meetings that cater to particular groups of more like-minded people.

Good luck though, whatever you do.

Sure but be careful: what "drove them to drink" can be a red herring, as I understand current received wisdom on addiction.

People frequently point to the shit they've been through as if it explains why they drink or take drugs or whatever. But plenty of people go through the same amount of shit (even, in some cases, lots more shit) without chemical dependency becoming a problem for them.

Indeed, you can drink quite a lot and not be an alcoholic. There's traditionally a distinction between a heavy drinker/problem drinker (who may down heroic amounts of hooch, and then do stupid things, but who is not chemically dependent) and an alcoholic (who may drink less, but whose body needs it more).

If AA feels right for your relative, great. If a different person prefers a different approach, that's great too.

Hey SD, best of luck to your dad. If you ever need to talk about being an adult kid of an alcoholic, well, I have way more experience than I'd like.

thanks

i blacked out for the first time ever like two weeks ago :\

it's really not fun.

There's traditionally a distinction between a heavy drinker/problem drinker (who may down heroic amounts of hooch, and then do stupid things, but who is not chemically dependent) and an alcoholic (who may drink less, but whose body needs it more).

Honestly I really don't know a whole lot about the mechanics of alcoholism/addiction despite it being prevalent in both my and my wife's families. In this particular situation there was no detox involved, just a confrontation from friends and family and a realization that his behavior had become a problem and he was unable to fix it without support from others. Can / does heavy drinking inevitably become a chemical dependency? Do AA or other programs make a distinction once the immediate medical situation is under control? I really don't know.

I do know that my father hates AA with a passion, mostly due to it not doing a thing to help his own father quit drinking so I understand it isn't right for everyone. I just often see the "higher power" thing cited as a reason for avoiding or dismissing it and my very small sample size was able to ignore this concern and had a positive outcome.

joygoat, my father is both an alcoholic (about 40 years sober) and a pretty well-respected alcoholism therapist / administrator of treatment programs / expert in the rehab field. I think his stance would be roughly as follows:

There is a group of people who are disposed (probably genetically) to be chemically dependent. Their bodies crave a substance (in this case, alcohol) out of all proportion. They cannot control these cravings, so their drinking is not a moral weakness but rather a disease. These people should not drink, because if they drink at all their bodies will want more next time, and still more the next time, etc. They have a physical addiction that entails a deadly spiral of diminishing returns.

What these people need to do is stop drinking immediately - and then continue to "actively not-drink" for the rest of their lives. This may require pretty much constant vigilance, because slipping a little tends to lead to slipping a lot.

Okay.

Then there are people who drink heavily, but are not necessarily chemically dependent. They may never get a chance to find whether they're chemically dependent (alcoholic) or not. Partly because they live in an alcohol-soaked culture (as does everyone in the West). In our culture, the most hospitable, civilized, and social thing you can do is offer someone a drink. Someone comes over to your house for dinner, and they bring a bottle of wine. You go to your bother-in-law's house to watch the football game, and you bring some beers. You want to have sex with someone? Start by buying them a drink. You go into a restaurant and the server comes by and asks you what you want to drink.

Most of the people in Group 1 and a goodly proportion of the people in Group 2 will end up doing deeply stupid things under the influence. They will vomit in inappropriate places; they will crash cars and hurt people; they will lose jobs, houses, wives; they will die miserable and alone.

The trouble is that Group 2 includes people who ought to be in Group 1, but also people who are just drunkards with poor self-control. Those people should probably cut back. And they should only drink in safe situations (designated drivers, rooms full of soft furniture, plenty of hydration, no vulnerable ex-girlfriends around). But moderation is probably possible for them.

I don't believe heavy drinking can "become" chemical dependency any more than you can give yourself AIDS. You either have it or you don't.

Non-chemically-dependent heavy drinkers may have a very difficult time slowing down. They may even suspect that they're addicted. But that's partly because they've never really tried not drinking, and partly because we live in a culture where it's almost weird to not drink. Indeed, in some situations you call attention to yourself if you decline.

Afterthought: some alcoholics don't even drink all that much, it's just that their drinking is disordered. Secretive... anxious... mandatory for rudimentary functioning. (1990s PSA: "If you need a drink to be social, that's not social drinking.")

At the same time, some heavy drinkers can do a hell of a lot of drinking without affecting their lives negatively. If you had a heroic amount of self-control you could probably down three beers a night and still be a good parent, spouse, friend, employee, and citizen. You might fall asleep in front of the TV every now and then, but if you don't beat your wife, lose your job, crash your car, or remove your pants at the office, perhaps you're not harming anyone.

At the same time, some heavy drinkers can do a hell of a lot of drinking without affecting their lives negatively. If you had a heroic amount of self-control you could probably down three beers a night and still be a good parent, spouse, friend, employee, and citizen. You might fall asleep in front of the TV every now and then, but if you don't beat your wife, lose your job, crash your car, or remove your pants at the office, perhaps you're not harming anyone.

― Ye Mad Puffin, Saturday, June 20, 2015 8:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is what an ex gf told me a couple of years ago--she said I wasn't an alcoholic because, even if I was drinking to excess every night, it didn't seem to be harming my life significantly, so there were no consequences that I was ignoring to continue drinking.

Had my first drink of the week last night. It made me inordinately sleepy, and I woke up with something of a headache. Sheesh.

good posts puffin

she said I wasn't an alcoholic because, even if I was drinking to excess every night

Not only may this be true, but from what you've revealed of yourself on ILX across the years, it is likely to be true, in Ye Mad Puffin's sense that you are probably not chemically dependent. However, if you have been drinking to excess every night for long periods, you have developed a de facto dependence on alcohol. It is good to back off, consciously and deliberately, so you can start using other methods for getting through your days and nights, ones that have a less deleterious effects on your system.

Glad to hear you are making progress.

Echoing Aimless - your ex-gf may have been right, but you are also right to cut back.

Excessive drinking may be habitual, escapist, and unhealthful, without necessarily being addictive.

Some people's beef with AA is that it treats both kinds of drinking as the same, and gives the same prescription for both. Another common criticism of AA is that in AA terms, anyone who thinks they're an alcoholic is an alcoholic. And anyone who doesn't think they're an alcoholic is in denial, so in practical terms everyone's an alcoholic and they should all be in AA.

Last night, on a long car ride to a bus station, same ex-gf gave me the long pitch for why she thought "SMART" & the CBT-driven approach weren't gonna work for me: "you need someone [a sponsor] who's been through this before to go through this with you." Proceeded to evangelize the 12 steps for an hour as we went down the highway. I tried to listen gamely, but she's deep in--been in the program for near 10 years--and there's no brook for backtalk.

I think I'll stick with my approach, at least for now.

it really sounds like a viable option, hoos. what really turned me off aa was the same kind of "we're all sinners here saved by the grace of god" vibe that is something i have to avoid even more than alcohol because of my rotten experiences with it. the atlantic article posits it as something culturally unique to the u.s. which is probably true. personally i think it's an addiction in its own right.

As long as you are thoroughly convinced that this is a step you need to take and you keep that thought firmly in the forefront of your mind, it will succeed for you. When you find yourself rationalizing, beware.

Addiction medicine in this country is horrendous, but improving.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

Everybody should be getting Naltrexone and advised about the Sinclair method.

Well ok not "everybody" but you get it

Thanks for this, Tom. I'm definitely gonna look into it.

If you believe "A History of the World in Six Glasses," beer started out as liquid bread. Indeed, the origins of agriculture, bread, and beer are so intertwined (or so goes this theory) that the first breads were basically just a way to store the ingredients of beer - then someone figured out that it would be a decent foodstuff on its own. So anthropologically speaking, bread is just a solid form of beer and beer is just a liquid form of bread.

Of course, this is probably complete hooey (as so many of those "history seen through the lens of X" books are). I know a guy who got through a semester abroad by realizing that his meal plan could get him either a paltry meal, or a decent amount of stout - and he almost always chose the stout as both more filling and more caloric than the food.

I recall Braudel in Civilization & Capitalism: Structures of Everyday Life discussing tendency of beer to substitute for bread in times of shortage? but I destroyed the book to make fun poem collages so can't look it up now :/

... sorry, a bit off-topic there
: :
/ /

I don't believe heavy drinking can "become" chemical dependency - can't it though? Alcohol is a drug and if someone is drinking extremely high levels of it their body will need it to function and they'll become violently ill if they don't have it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that alcohol withdrawal is one of the few withdrawals that can actually kill a person. I guess maybe you're saying that those in the second category you were describing can't become genetically predisposed like the first through heavy drinking but if they're drinking enough for any reason then they can become chemically dependent on it.

Right, you can't drink yourself into genetic predisposition to chemical dependency but you can, chronically, drink yourself into chemical dependency?

I think that you can, yes.

you can

I think I started to feel the beginnings of that a few weeks ago, when I woke up, went to work, *didn't* drink, and was hit with nausea & shakes & sweating by the time I sat down at my desk.

gbx what are your thoughts on naltrexone? obv I can Pubmed to my heart's content, but interested in your opinion specifically y'know.

Right, you can't drink yourself into genetic predisposition to chemical dependency but you can, chronically, drink yourself into chemical dependency?

yes duh

Substitute any drug known to be addictive, not having a predisposition ≠ immunity to eg crack

Sooo circling back then since this was sparked by one of Puffin's lovely long comments

thoughts on this Puffin?

Hows it going

you missing the drink or the habit of drinking or the situations youd be drinking in or does it not help for me to list shit

gbx what are your thoughts on naltrexone? obv I can Pubmed to my heart's content, but interested in your opinion specifically y'know.

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Wednesday, June 24, 2015 4:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

solidly pro at this point --- don't have a lot of clinical experience with it, but i'm hoping to get more. addiction psych is on my shortlist of areas of interest

addiction psych is on my shortlist of areas of interest

^^^good bro, thanking u :)

I think that habitual heavy drinkers do get physically conditioned to expect a regular buzz. This is bound up with simple force of habit - drinking every day makes a drink-free day seem wrong.

Plus the psychological type of addiction - the feeling that you can't cope without the insulation of booze between you and life. This makes you less and less able to marshal your own internal resources to the task of Dealing With Shit.

And yeah, there will be withdrawal symptoms. Also, the feeling Hoos mentioned that after a while without a drink, the first one or two are going to hit you pretty hard.

If this is where someone is, they are right to try to get out from under it, and to restore some control.

FWIW I still think that inescapable chemical dependency is a different creature from habitual heavy drinking / problem drinking, but in some senses it doesn't matter at this point. If you feel out of control, you should regain control via a means that makes sense for you.

Then the question becomes whether AA and complete abstinence are the right way out, or some other way is the right way out. Once you're not so underwater, perhaps then is the time to parse the finer points of physical vs. psychological addiction.

For the last ~10 months, I've been doing outpatient treatment. 3 group sessions per week, one individual session with a counselor per week. The program's given me something resembling a support network (helpful after years of isolating myself) + education in terms of stress management/setting boundaries/clarifying my personal values. I've gone from drinking every day to drinking maybe once every 2 months (if I get super pissed/stressed about something). The program I'm in really pushes people to attend AA meetings... I still haven't gone because it sounds really really like not my bag at all, but I'm going to finally (hopefully) give it a shot this coming Saturday.

Exercise and meditation have been helpful for me as well.

Congrats and keep at it! And don't write AA off too quickly - meetings I've been to have been very welcoming and not at all God-based, and often hilarious. Ppl are very, very into the program. Just be prepared to filter some of that stuff out so you can take what you need from the mtg. Good luck.

If the goal is never ever drinking again, AA appears to work for a lot of people. Except for the people it doesn't work for. Whether they truly can't do it, or just won't, is up for debate. We can simultaneously be glad that it works for people, and also glad to see the current wave of skepticism about AA, and a recognition that it is not for everyone.

The main thing that's helped me in seeking moderation is to limit my drinking to drinks that bring joy.

If any particular drink is about pleasure, it seems reasonable to me to allow myself to have it. Joy about a particular wine/food pairing, excitement about a new and interesting beer, toasting a convivial moment with friends, celebrating a new job or a wedding. Even something like a cold beer in reward for having mowed the lawn on a hot day can be joyous. The point is to want that specific drink in that specific moment, not just drink because there's still some beers in the fridge.

If the drink is about something other than pleasure, it's best to pass. Non-joyful reasons for drinking may include habit, oblivion, Silencing the Voices, avoiding the world, trying to blot out the memory of a difficult day, and drinking Just Because. Perhaps this last one is the worst culprit. If you plan to drink five beers, beer 1 might be refreshing. And beer 5 might feel like you've scaled a mountain. But beers 2 through 4 are just there because they're stepping stones on the way to the buzz you think you want.

I'm not going to moralize against drinking to get buzzed, or even to get drunk. These can be pleasurable feelings, and it's no surprise that people seek them out. But one of the cruel things about accumulated tolerance is that it takes more and more booze to get you to that pleasurable state, and that can be a deadly spiral. So if you want a buzz, my advice is to plan for a buzz. Choose your drinks wisely, enjoy them, and compress them in time in a way that makes sense for the effect you seek. Stay safe, and make sure you don't hurt anybody else in the process.

you missing the drink or the habit of drinking or the situations youd be drinking in or does it not help for me to list shit

― irl lol (darraghmac), Wednesday, June 24, 2015 11:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what's happening is that the reasons i drink are being severely underlined by strong cravings at their occurrence that i have to struggle not to act on.

last night in a fit i arrived home, stormed over to the fridge, tore the bottlecap off a club soda & threw it out the window before downing a bunch of fizzy water and retreating to my room for a long phone call with a friend.

If any particular drink is about pleasure, it seems reasonable to me to allow myself to have it. Joy about a particular wine/food pairing, excitement about a new and interesting beer, toasting a convivial moment with friends, celebrating a new job or a wedding. Even something like a cold beer in reward for having mowed the lawn on a hot day can be joyous. The point is to want that specific drink in that specific moment, not just drink because there's still some beers in the fridge.

If the drink is about something other than pleasure, it's best to pass. Non-joyful reasons for drinking may include habit, oblivion, Silencing the Voices, avoiding the world, trying to blot out the memory of a difficult day, and drinking Just Because. Perhaps this last one is the worst culprit. If you plan to drink five beers, beer 1 might be refreshing. And beer 5 might feel like you've scaled a mountain. But beers 2 through 4 are just there because they're stepping stones on the way to the buzz you think you want.

this is powerful stuff.

the reasons i drink are being severely underlined by strong cravings at their occurrence

this is bad phrasing--i'm the reason i drink, i just have my excuses.

Cravings happen. If a craving is driving you to bad places, however, you will need to either find the willpower to resist that craving, or somehow acquire that willpower. I don't want to sound all Puritanical 'n' shit, but there it is.

Me, I recently got a series of nasty health wakeup calls that require major lifestyle change. I am supposed to mostly stay away from beef, seafood, bacon, cheese, eggs, butter, and of course alcohol (alcohol in general, but beer specifically). In other words, pretty much everything that is fun and that brings joy to life. If they threw in sex and music, I'd have nothing left. So trying to eat oatmeal instead of bacon, eat falafel instead of steak, and drink water instead of beer requires a lot of vigilance. But reduction as a goal is a lot easier than abstinence.

don't need a drink.

don't need a drink.

i am gonna fill this fucking bottle with water and drink it

Surf the urge, hoos! It too shall pass!

<3

I got through it by talking to no one in particular on Twitter, oddly enough.

would posting nudie pics of Marco Rubio drive you to drink more or less

lol

luck hoos

thx every1

baby steps, hoos. u can do it <3

Then there are people who drink heavily, but are not necessarily chemically dependent. They may never get a chance to find whether they're chemically dependent (alcoholic) or not. Partly because they live in an alcohol-soaked culture (as does everyone in the West). In our culture, the most hospitable, civilized, and social thing you can do is offer someone a drink. Someone comes over to your house for dinner, and they bring a bottle of wine. You go to your bother-in-law's house to watch the football game, and you bring some beers. You want to have sex with someone? Start by buying them a drink. You go into a restaurant and the server comes by and asks you what you want to drink.

― Ye Mad Puffin, Saturday, June 20, 2015 1:50 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This post is so good and I think of it so often that I wanted to quote it just so it shows up in my recent post history for easy reference. Thanks for sharing, sincerely

I mean, the whole post is great, as are many of the posts on this thread, but that particular section is such a high mark of otm-ness.

Hope y'all are doing good out there, btw

so, then, how does one figure out "whether they're chemically dependent (alcoholic) or not?" not sure what the answer is in my case, but very sure that things are better for me and I'm a better person w/o the booze.

It seems to me that purely chemical dependence would manifest itself in symptoms which, at least at their start, are physical. Then you get the psychological feedback knowing your body is essentially asking for booze, and then you're off to the fucking races of a "Cannot WAIT until 5 o'clock" day.

I have greatly reduced my intake these last few months, and am much more vigilant as to how many I have when I do. Very happy to have made the change, for sure.

"so, then, how does one figure out "whether they're chemically dependent (alcoholic) or not?"

It's never a bad idea to slow down or stop drinking for a while and see how you feel. Withdrawal can entail both physical and psychological symptoms (as B.L.A.M. describes).

Personally, I love drinking. I sincerely and unapologetically love it (sorry not sorry). The beverages are tasty, the sensation of a mild buzz is quite nice, and booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds. But I also really really really don't want alcohol to fuck up my marriage, family, job, or life. That takes vigilance.

And as a philosophical matter, I don't like being told what to do by... a beverage. Roughly: if it's ME deciding to open a beer, I open the beer. If I even suspect that a beer is saying "DRINK ME," I prefer to leave it in the fridge.

It helps to be contrary sometimes.

Ive a pretty good scotch shelf that I pass unnoticed for weeks on end and this strikes me as a vg balance

I need to get better at moderating intake when out in groups but one must be realistic I guess.

booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds. booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds.booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds.

otm. otm. otm.

In my opinion, if you can pass your scotch shelf you are probably not an alcoholic. If you even HAVE a "scotch shelf," that means you care about the tastes of specific scotches. You might have moods that correspond with different malts, blends, distilleries. An alcoholic craves not these things.

One time I happened to be out with my father and brother, and my brother ordered a chocolate martini. My father (who was both a former drunk and a reasonably well-regarded expert in the field) breathed a visible sigh of relief. Because no true alcoholic, he said, is going to order such a girly-ass drink as a fucking "chocolate martini."

Darraghmac, I suspect your drinking is probably more about taste and joy, rather than seeking oblivion or Silencing the Monster Within. If you pick up a drink because you want it, cool (within reason). If you are picking it up to Silence the Beast Within, please seek help.

I really appreciate your perspective here, Puffin

also, that story is hliarious

Because no true alcoholic, he said, is going to order such a girly-ass drink as a fucking "chocolate martini."

You know I would actually dispute this having worked at a college bar

(but also agree w/the general high quality of ye mad puff's posts itt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6sPgQlCQGA

In my opinion, if you can pass your scotch shelf you are probably not an alcoholic. If you even HAVE a "scotch shelf," that means you care about the tastes of specific scotches. You might have moods that correspond with different malts, blends, distilleries. An alcoholic craves not these things.

Nah this is not true at all.

so, then, how does one figure out "whether they're chemically dependent (alcoholic) or not?"

Pretty sure the answer is in whether or not you experience withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking.

x-post - and yeah I don't think that is true at all either

it's not

chemical dependence can be induced if you drink enough for long enough, the predisposition in yr soul may be a bit more complex than a simple genetic trigger. i know there are lots of professionals who do great work for their clients and change lives and save lives but i am wary of any simple causal account for all problem drinking, and wary of a hard line between alcoholism and problem drinking to be honest

situation plays so much of a part in all addictive or self-destructive behaviour

wary of a hard line between alcoholism and problem drinking to be honest

same

btw by way of update, i've mostly done well here--this has been a bad week, and i've found myself suddenly called to drinking in inappropriate places at inappropriate times, but my measured roll off has gone well overall and even my slips backwards have been unusu,ally cognizant and self-aware: "do you really want to drink this right now, knowing you'll feel fine in 30 minutes if you don't?" i've yet to decide how much this helps. but i have a better sense than ever of what drives my problem drinking, and i think that's a valuable thing.

good luck, hoos.

chemical dependency is imo in the big picture not a huge reason for the existence of addictions.

so i rolled backwards hard this week. drank at work. went through a bottle of rye in two nights at home. had a flask of bulleit saturday afternoon, then a friend came over and we had beers and i must have switched back to whiskey because at a certain point my memory stops and i woke up in bed in all my clothes with a text from aforementioned friend that i'd been an asshole the night before and they didn't want to see me for a few days.

set em up, knock em down. let's try again.

part of the process

onward ho!

I feel lucky that my stomach won't let me black out. Before I can make really bad decisions I start puking.

baby steps hoos <3

some great posts on this thread. puffin and sleepingbag, thanks. hoos i wish you all the best because you are a great poster and seem like a great guy too.

I feel lucky that my stomach won't let me black out. Before I can make really bad decisions I start puking.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, August 24, 2015 1:18 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, keeps my drinking in check for sure.

I ordered a book called "Refuge Recovery" by one of my favorite Buddhist teachers that sort of remakes AA around the Four Noble Truths & the Eightfold Path. Really looking forward to it, and restarting my long dormant meditation practice.

:( Sorry to hear about your faux pas Hoos; as someone who used to date a substance abuse therapist and enjoyed the little bits of secondhand info I picked up re: cognitive behavior therapy (her preferred approach), I find your ability to think like this

"do you really want to drink this right now, knowing you'll feel fine in 30 minutes if you don't?"

Just remember -- & hopefully you don't need to be told this, because you seem like a very self-aware dude, but I will say it just the same -- there will be times when it's hard for you to see or feel good about the progress you have made, but no matter what, you are ALWAYS on the road to recovery, and the work you put in to get you this far is in no danger of being lost. The mistake you made was simple overexertion: you put too much pressure on a part of yourself that is still growing and finding its way. But the sober part of you is only getting stronger! <3

at a certain point my memory stops and i woke up in bed in all my clothes with a text from aforementioned friend that i'd been an asshole the night before

saw this friend tonight, got the story--mortified. i said i was "angry" that they'd started seeing someone else, then tried to tip over some bit of furniture on our front porch. i hurt my hands doing it, which explains the scratches on my hands in the morning. they put me to bed, fixed the furniture, then went home. amazed this friend is still taking my calls.

and bernard, thank you. your encouragement means a lot.

i moved from my cubicle to an office today, and the former officeholder left me half a bottle of rum as a "housewarming gift." i put it in a drawer. got some very bad news in the afternoon, and a friend on gchat talked me through getting rid of the rum instead of drinking it.

All's I can say is that diet citrusy soda (or non-diet) can help at night b/c it feeds sugar to your brain. When I'm on the road a lot, I don't drink beer at all, yet I'll go for Diet 7up or whatevs and it'll fulfill the need.

Whenever I went thru dry periods at hot, diet or non-diet non-caffinated soda helped fill my brain's need for sugar.

Funny you should say that. I don't consider myself an alcoholic but I have enough hereditary bullshit that my 2(+) beers nightly (or near-nightly) were starting to indicate some health problems. I foreswore any alcohol for about a month or so, and in the last 4 months have drank about what I would have over a 2 week period. The key to it all has been diet 7-Up, which I now worry I'm drinking way too much of. Anyway the point is it has worked for me.

Yeah, at some point, as long as yer drinkin' soda or diet soda, you're probably better off than the heavy beer load. Alton Brown talked about trying to deny his brain sugar at night, which helped him not chug beer as much.

Hoos - so sorry all that happened, but hope the missteps become part of your path to a healthier situation. You may want to save the associated texts as a reminder of why you shouldn't get out of control.

Congrats on the office, but sheesh - these days it's vanishingly rare even for journalists to have Desk Booze. I speak as a former practitioner both of newspapering and office drinking. It's been twenty years since I encountered a workplace where it would have been an acceptable thing to be open about.

In any case best of luck to you, hope you get more control over things soon.

hi.

don't fucking hug me, don't try to hold my hand.

i hate AA.

whoa hey we got james frey up in here

Hypothesis: Going to any kind of meeting (book club, rotary club, knife fighting club) is just as helpful for alcoholics as an AA meeting. It's about filling in that hole, finding stuff to do/meaning in life/fulfillment that takes the place of the booze crave

But of course, nothing can substitute talking fellow alcoholics.. maybe alcoholic knife fighting club then

talking to fellow alcoholics. geez.

Not really. One can admit things to a fellow addict(s) one wouldn't admit to the book club or knitting circle. Making some human connection is much faster than for other shared "interests".

right. i'm just saying it can't be the only thing, i guess.

and tbh i'm kind of "talked out" at this point, have had my fill of bonding with other alcoholics for awhile.

not that i think i won't need that support ever again

have had my fill of bonding with other alcoholics for awhile.

nb: not on this board, just irl

the refuge recovery program and an attendant deepening of my buddhist practice have been really invaluable for me in the last 2 months sober. finally finishing my 'inventory' has been really hard and (uh) sobering as i've had to confront the ways this stuff has manifested not just in my recent past but throughout my life. it's been eye opening, heart opening. i'm learning a lot.

facing being human is the whole show. sounds like you are deep into it right now. you'll know it's getting better when you laugh.

btw, I'm not sure why monster mash revived this thread, but it sure looks like a pointless hit-and-run of a revival. wassup?

Maybe it's an explanation/apology for why he's pissing all over the Joanna Newsom thread.

I'm happy to go on record to say that most "alcoholics" are probably more in need of a scrip for naltrexone, a good (really good) therapist (who won't obsess or get overly distracted by the alcohol use disorder symptoms), followed by a psychiatrist who will write a scrip for something that will actually start to resolve the root cause issue(s).

AA is trash. There is no science that proves that it works for any appreciable percentage of people. We have a few famous anecdotes and maybe some of us have a few anecdotal relatives for examples. Basically nobody talks about the millions of people that AA has failed.

That's a little strong I guess. AA does work for some people. But the prevalence of the idea that it deserves to be the first preferred option for treatment is pretty much the worst.

Does AA fail any more often than other alcohol addiction treatment programs that are run on a shoestring by volunteers?

Probably about the same!

Having spent about 10 years around the recovery culture (rehabs, meetings, halfway houses, relapses, repeat repeat) I don't know that I've ever heard anyone claim that the 12 Steps failed them. But it's chicken/egg -- the program claims to work only for those who "work it", as in follow all 12 steps, a program which is so rigorous and involved that you can't complete it unless you've pretty much ceased abusing your substance chronically.

I've probly mentioned this before, but I'll rep for Smart Recovery, which is far more CBT-based and doesn't involve the potential for self-fulfilling labels:

http://www.smartrecovery.org

It's helped me out a lot.

yeah, smart really got me going & refuge kinda wedded the CBT to a buddhist framework i was more instinctively comfortable with--can recommend both to folks so inclined.

I did a yearlong group outpatient program through my medical provider. Helped a ton. CBT stuff, relaxation techniques, info about addiction, no moralizing. I used to drink heavily every night, now I drink a little every few months. I'm still a dunce, though. But I'm happier than I've been in a very very long time.

i should also say i'm on zoloft, which has REALLY helped the transition to occasional drinking. underlying depression, anxiety, blah blah. turns out you can't really drink if you want these pills to be effective.

Counterpoint: Zoloft drove me to drink (after 6-7 years, granted).

Probably also worth mentioning that I'm back on Lexapro after 5 years off--I think the renewal of meditation, sobriety, anti-depressants, and a clutch of new friendships all coming in at once have worked wonders for me overall.

I don't normally do longish posts and am pretty fucking shit at them, but this is what it is and it has been bothering me.

There is this dangerous person I grew up with who is possibly a psychopath. I don't have a FB account but about 5 years ago an old friend informed me he was using FB to stalk people and his latest tactic was maintaining a faux recovering alcoholic narrative to elicit sympathy or draw vulnerable people into his grasp, and one lass we went to school had bought this routine and had moved in with him. Just a couple of months later it was on the front of the local rag that he had subjected her to a violent assault that required hospital treatment, it was reported that he headbutted her and smashed her face into a coffee table.

Anyone who is switched on knows the guy is a menace. He has a history of extreme duplicity, fraud, theft and there are other far more unsavoury things. One example is when my niece (who was 11 at the time) told me he was asking her for naked pics on FB . I went crazy with my sister for not shopping him to the cops, but she didn't want to make a scene.

I say he is a psychopath because when I was 15 years old he once stole some of my paper-round money from my bedroom so I went to his house and threatened it back out of him. His mother complained that I was a thug, my mum retorted "well, he is a thief" and then she admitted he had a diagnosis of something like, erm from memory "psychopathic personality disorders" and had already been stealing from his granddad, who was in the latter stages of senile dementia.

I know alcoholics and drug addicts and am quite a heavy boozer myself and have a very good instinct for gravitating towards other boozer types. This fucker has never been an alcoholic and would make it look like hard work to become one. Some alcoholics drink Carling, but usually 10-20 a day at least.

His next move (after the violent assault) was to do a confessional piece in the local rag, cynically to wash away his last heinous crime. It is a criminally terrible piece, even by local rag standards. It contained no reference to his previous violent assault, nor the headline quote from the time "I will beat you all night long", just a lot of faux angst bs from a violent psychopath trying to stamp his own bullshit narrative on his own appalling history without taking any responsibility.

I am going off on this because this fucker has recently set up a local addiction support group on the premise that he is a recovered addict (which is patent bullshit) "who wants to put something back into the community". I dread to even contemplate how dangerous, or even useless he would be in the vicinity of vulnerable people looking for help.

Presumably this support group will just be a way to cultivate more victims

so he can assault them? i'm unclear on his m.o.

it would appear he lives in a smallish town? how could he get away with starting any sort group with his reputation?

so no one wants to do anything about the incident with your niece? that comes pretty close to a moral imperative i'd think

and though 'local addiction support group' rolls off the tongue, wtf is that really

I was assuming he wanted to get a lot of vulnerable people together to rip off or play head games with

AA groups can and do exclude the mean spirited. There's a fellow locally (New Orleans) who has banned from most AA meetings in town.

Boy, being banned from AA sounds like really really hitting rock bottom.

finally went to a meeting

good people

good to hear

lately playing off a lot of loneliness vs drunkiness, am trying to give loneliness a shot

loneliness is such an intense feeling... it's not like rage or anxiety where (in theory) i can catch myself early on and reset... loneliness is like a weird creeping fog that slowly permeates everything around me.. until all i experience glows harshly with despondent loneliness.

it's the suckiest miasma but i'm pretty sure going out and drinking (too much) isn't making it better in the long term. i've realised i really can't do much social interaction without the supportive hug of booze tho

I get that AA and its structure weird lots of ppl out but I've never found a more consistently welcoming and non-judgmental vibe anywhere. Go for it. There's no harm in trying.

I was running along a beach in SoCal at dawn yesterday and passed a VFW where it was clear that a meeting was gathering and the whole scene - beach, sunrise, AA vibe - made feel real good

For people who don't like AA, a friend of mine swears by http://www.smartrecovery.org/

Went to another meeting, different place. Buncha older people, pretty much fit the hardass trucker stereotype I have in my head. But they were hella nice and welcoming/forthcoming. Didn't realize it at the time but I felt great great great walking home.

Entering a S.L.E. soonish. Only thing I'm worried about is the food. Lol at me.

sounds cool, man

currently about 40 beers shy for April (3 a day), basically stopped entirely for the last two weeks. Getting sick with flu/cold garbage was the perfect excuse to quit. Last time I quit for two weeks was Peru in 2007, gonna go for a month this time. Spending the money on records :)

What is an SLE?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sober_living_environment

This some bullshit

talking to friends about not drinking would make me want to drink

in a nutshell, I decided to go cold-turkey in 2013, and loaded up on the pot (like, a bowl every 2 hours)

this supremely weaned my desire for booze (prior, i was drinking a liter of vermouth straight w/ Friday night pizza), then drinking wine to get rid of Saturday's hangover

Over the past 3 years, my alcohol consumption has really normalized -- i count how many drinks a year I have, and I've just broken 10 for 2016 -- 1 hangover all year

Over the 3 years, my usage of pot has been naturally decreasing down to "creative and/or recreational", so ultimately, it broke my alky cycle

Still a slippery slope tho, but counting the annual drinks and hangovers is working v well

nice

congrats PW

thanks airbody :-)

*check to see if I posted to thread previously, slowly shake my head, remember I really need to go to the gym instead of having that second whiskey*

also hi 5 to PW!

pw your current equilibrium is my goal for next year

anytime I'm invited for drinks, i kinda go into a state of "uh oh" -- am I ready? Can I count, today?

keeping check of my emotions and desires with each drink becomes a chore for remaining social -- I wouldn't recommend this tactic for everybody

Also, lol at my attempted apology tour of 2014 -- kinda annoyed people w/ emails and phone calls to say "hey, while I was a dick, you were great" -- and inferred a lot of "keep away until your better"

brad, keep us informed on your progress. seriously :-)

I feel like it's time I had a talk with myself. It's not like I'm boozing all the time, but i've been going in hard on the weekends, both nights, every weekend. i like socialising and seeing friends, but i don't know what it's like to go out without drinking, and there are a lot of excuses to do it - i've done it p much every weekend since i was old enough to drink. i have a friend, a bit older than me, who no longer drinks. he's happy enough coming out to the pub and drinking fizzy water. He even joined another friend in 'shots', except every time she had a tequila, he shotted a Coke, like a placebo. I find social situations a little tricky, intimidating even, when sober. I'm super conscious of myself and don't feel like I have much confidence in having anything to say. When lubricated, that all seems to change. But that's not really a way to be, is it?

this thread should really be on 77

I find social situations a little tricky, intimidating even, when sober. I'm super conscious of myself and don't feel like I have much confidence in having anything to say. When lubricated, that all seems to change. But that's not really a way to be, is it?

feeling you on this, except i tend to drink way too quickly and then just blather on like a complete idiot for the rest of the evening. always wake up the next day full of regret about the dumb stuff i've said, the shabby figure i must cut in public

where would my life be without regret about the dumb stuff i've said and the shabby figure i must cut and the complete strangers who tell me i spoke to them for 3 hours last weekend?

hey if they listened for 3 hours, it couldn't have been all drivel

feeling you on this, except i tend to drink way too quickly and then just blather on like a complete idiot for the rest of the evening. always wake up the next day full of regret about the dumb stuff i've said, the shabby figure i must cut in public

That thing where you're walking around on a Sunday lunchtime and get a flashback to that stupid thing you said and let out an audible 'UGH!'

ugh yes

isnt that everyone

like, thats "the fear" it has a name i meam cmon

yes, it's common as anything, ofc

sounds like you own it though deems, whereas, i fear, it totally owns me

deems otm

the thing about this is, i think alcoholism in its varying forms is often addressed as being a bit like drug or substance abuse where you're addicted to the high, which of course is true for a lot of people.

But for me it's a mixture of not wanting to feel lonely, having FOMO, and therefore wanting to socialise and meet people quite a lot, but at the same time not really feeling like i have the confidence or imagination to do this without getting hammered. the last thing i want to do these days is stay at home with my thoughts and feelings on a Friday night. i wish, like the friend i mentioned upthread, that i had that confidence to be able to drink soda water all night and still feel upbeat and interesting ,but it doesn't come naturally. And the thing is, I've actually become quite good at dealing with hangovers. As a light sleeper and insomniac, I've always been good at ignoring tiredness. Now I find I'm able to let alcohol-induced anxiety wash off me quite easily, and that worries me a bit.

would you say you are dry-curious?

lol NV

Even without alcohol (or alcoholism) as a component, regret and guilt are rarely useful/productive emotions.*

Even when completely sober I've said a boneheaded thing, cringed about it for days, and had it haunt each subsequent night like a chain-clanking ghost.

It's liberating to remember this: the other people in the room have probably forgotten it by now (if not within a few minutes). Everybody's dealing with their own shit, pretty much constantly, and they don't have a lot of leftover time for your shit. They're not spending time meticulously scrutinizing your behavior. Their mental cycles are all occupied with pointlessly regretting their own mistakes.

* = By this I only mean _useless_ thought-spirals of guilt and regret. If realizing you fucked up makes you change your behavior and make amends, that's not useless.

yea I had what you might call a "moment of clarity" one morning when I got a random FB message from a stranger saying "dude, what is your problem?"

god, i dont own it nick, i hate it

it's the fear tho i mean what are you gonna do

ymp otm, continuing a good average tbfttp

ymp otm

more on topic, i've been giving up drinking for months at a time lately and it's great. somewhere between fortunately and unfortunately i have replaced it almost entirely with weed

Over the 3 years, my usage of pot has been naturally decreasing down to "creative and/or recreational"

helpful to go back to the papawheelie post from a little over a year ago, looking forward to potentially winding down to this

happy to see this thread, dealing with this myself. in outpatient and doing AA regularly. still can’t wait for 5pm tho

this definitely runs in my family, people have done AA, people have been in hospitals, etc. there is an alcoholic (addictive) gene that can take many forms, not just alcohol itself, but that sensory/chemical/mental addiction, which can be gotten from anything: liquor, drugs, movies, videogames, relationships, (online) interactions, etc. anything that triggers a little part of your brain. some people do not have it and some do and it is v genetic. someday i intend on reading the books, i have heard great things about them, and seen many peoples' lives changed for the better.

imo it is v dangerous that alcohol abuse is treated so lightly in the public at large. there is a marketable coolness about it, the coolness of consuming yourself, so prevalent in pop culture. it is romanticized: the brilliant alcoholic writer, the mentally damaged self-harming painter. look at Prince, Tom Petty, Elvis, etc. all dying of prescription pain killers, something the claims more lives than street heroin, the modern plague of mass addiction.

It’s funny, so much of how people talk about this stuff has no resonance for me at all. I remember everything I said the night before and it’s pretty much all good stuff

If I’m afraid I made an arse of myself there will probably be other substances involved

When I was going to Inclusion meetings (which were great btw) there was a definite assumption that your drinking had become antisocial, that you had wrecked relationships maybe irrecoverably &c. None of that is really true for me (if anything, I’m a great drunk) but it was important to realise that that doesn’t change the fact that I’m a slave to it and it’s having a detrimental effect on my physical and mental health

Definitely relate to dog latin’s anxiety about facing social situations sober, that’s the most difficult thing to overcome - it’s also a direct result of alcohol misuse tbf

I quit a few years ago and can handle most social situations just fine but my number one annoyance now is the "late-night final round and/or dance party" that many of my friends (and spouse) love. At that point in the night I've just about had it but consider it a penance for my past mis-deeds. another big annoyance is ppl asking why i don't have a drink in my hand, but generally they're coming from a good place.

it's the non-social (solo) times that are my problem and I'll never get completely over that.

and it sure helps to know a circle of ppl around the neighborhood who are going through similar things. it's like the most accepting, supportive secret society and I love hanging w them amongst the drinkers.

It’s funny, so much of how people talk about this stuff has no resonance for me at all. I remember everything I said the night before and it’s pretty much all good stuff

Haha this rings so true. I do hate it the times I get maudlin or confessional, but this is rare. The (deadly) appeal, in social settings, is that I become such an excellent version of myself. But I am barely an alcoholic in society. The real drinking I do is solitary, pure bliss. And it's very productive, still, sometimes. I really get work done. If it weren't for the qualms of the body, I would be hard at it nightly forever.

wow! ambulance rides are expensive! especially stupid since all they did at the hospital was put me in a robe and tell me to sleep. could have called me a 7 dollar lyft home and draw up a cold shower instead and experience similar outcomes

sometimes medical intervention is required. acute alcohol poisoning is a real thing.

at least give me an IV is all i’m saying

An IV at that point is just the front end to a catheter

thanks all for explaining why i went to the hospital

global :( i'm rooting for you from afar <3

just one trip was all i needed! hope the same for you, glob

once i see the bill for my
little foray to the hospital and once i have been quietly explained to how i’m not allowed in my favorite bar i’m sure it will all make sense

<3 global

It will make zero sense! You fucked up. We all fuck up. Take time for yourself, go for a hike, dry out, remember the bill but don’t kick yourself.

idk, sometimes you just do the same things you do every other day and suddenly people are telling you that you fucked up! shit creeps up on you

global—

That is hard. I'm really lucky that I was an alone drinker. I'm sure something similar would have ended up happening to me had I ever ventured out into the bar scene. I guess, if there's a positive, just be thankful you didn't have to deal with police and / or face arrest / detainment.

i’m an alone drinker! just in bars sometimes. at least the guy who called them on me is probably the crustiest and most classic ‘door guy’ in town, he’s surely seen some shit

Pulling for you, keep it positive!

Most of my problems come from drinking.
I’m an alone drinker as well, tho I have friends over as well sometimes. Hope you’re alright global

going to therapy tonight, outpatient mtg tomorrow, AA wednesday. i’ve got the resources

Good luck man. Good steps too!!

I hope you can get something out of AA. I forced myself to go many times and hated it just as much the nth time as I did the first time. I'm not just trying to ironic or funny when I say that going to AA actually made me want to drink more. But, if you can get something out it, then go for it.

ya, i had a friend who bailed on AA after one session and instead just found a therapist to talk to.

AA can be great if you find a mtg that suits you. meetings can vary widely depending on who's there. they can be really fun or serious. they can lean heavily on the higher power stuff or barely mention it. the one consistent thing that I've noticed are that they are very welcoming and non-judgey. definitely worth giving it a shot. good luck!!!!

good luck! my little brother OD'd over ten years ago and has been using AA to stay clean ever since. i know several people that have maintained sobriety thru AA, it can definitely be a big help. especially if you travel often, you can find AA meetings pretty much everywhere.

Yeah aa isn’t for me - I want to quit drinking, not join a cult thx - and it can be a bit annoying when it’s pushed as THE treatment to the point of crowding out more effective/appropriate things. Luckily here in the uk there are a ton of group therapy programmes on the nhs that have nothing to do with 12-step doctrine - you sometimes get a tiny bit of culty talk from some members but on the part of the ppl running the sessions it’s not like “you must follow this method a couple of randos came up with a century ago”, it’s more about practical evidence-based advice. I can’t say I got much from Inclusion on the whole, I barely saw my case worker & never got the drugs I was supposed to get but the groups I attended were helpful I think. “Welcoming and non-judgey” about sums it up

i dont think i’m getting a ton out of AA, but my work wanta me to go and the people there are pretty interesting/funny and hey its a place to go that doesnt involve booze (generally, that is... apparently a guy got 86d the meeting before i joined because he was sauced)

I did AA for five years and it saved my life, and I needed every meeting I went to & am grateful for my time there.

huh there was a v drunk dude at one of the first meetings i went to and i was like OMG!!!! and nobody else even batted an eye.

i think it's totally possible to benefit from AA meetings without doing the 12-step program. It's just a nice place to sit and meditate and listen to ppl talk and I just about always walk away with a new insight into my own issues. i think maybe the meetings I go to are pretty low-key on The Program and especially the higher power talk.

this guy was apparently yelling and threatening people

Back in Reno, on the recommendation of my psychologist, the first AA meeting I ever went to was inside a casino. It was weird. It was upstairs, away from the gambling floor, in the area with meeting halls and such. Still, you literally had to walk past three or four bars to get there. And in the casino, the bars are always open. This particular meeting was Sunday morning at 9am. I guess it was mainly held for people that were staying in the hotel portion of the facility. I guess my therapist thought it would be a good idea to just sit in with a bunch of tourists. Less of a chance of bumping into someone I knew, maybe. I don't know.

I think, ultimately, I didn't get anything out of it because I had had my moment of clarity and stopped drinking before I even set foot in a meeting. I don't want to say I was "better" than the program, but I walked out of every meeting I went to feeling like I had regressed. I had already made the decision to stop drinking, so that wasn't really a problem for me. But, like I said earlier, being around those people and hearing nothing but (what I interpreted to be) depressing stories made me feel worse.

But, yes: that is a very good point — all of my uncomfortable feelings came from within. Everyone that I encountered in those meetings, regardless of where the meeting was or how many people were there, was always completely welcoming and empathetic. I had to get a little note card signed off for proof of attendance for a while for work and that was never an issue. It was always done gladly with a smile.

AA probably just helps a subset of alcoholics: those who drink to self-medicate psychological issues stemming from emotional isolation.

I viewed the actual Steps, including the higher power talk, as somewhat arbitrary and probably not that important. What was important was just getting into a room with empathetic others, and working one's way through the guilts and resentments that brought (at my estimate) 80% of the long-term attendees there.

Well guess what I fell off the wagon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Wz-FSF-nk

Don’t beat yourself up. Happens to lots of ppl everyday. Think about why it happened and whether or not you really want to get back on the wagon. If you don’t want to, it’s very hard to make it happen. If you do want to, you’ve got some work to do.

on the cusp of a week of sobriety! that sounds small, but not for me who was up to a twelve pack of like pale ale/IPA a day and a daily heavy drinker for years before that. there's the cliche that you have to want to quit. i did treatment and stuff but secretly didn't want to quit before, but now i finally do. i get why it's a cliche.

i was having dark thoughts about what my funeral would be like while drinking beer in bed at 5am before calling in sick to work and shit and realized this absolutely had to stop and my life was literally on the line. and when i did make it in i'd get afraid i was going to have a seizure from withdrawals at work.

in order to get on track i quit my job which was driving me insane (mon-fri, 9-5, with maybe 20 minutes of actual work throughout the day, at best- that's enough to drive anyone insane), underwent medically supervised detox (yeahhh valium) then holed up at my brother's house for the weekend to get away. i've made a two week sober calendar so my days are packed and it's been great. i make it a goal to submit at least one job application a day, go to two AA meetings a day, and i've started eating again, and sleeping well!

i figure it's time to dig into my savings and make myself right. i couldn't fake it anymore.

Wow! Good for you for taking these steps!

truly, i do not think i am a solitary cube 9-5 salary man. i like talking to people or having a tangible task. so in addition to looking within my field i've pursued some leads that are a complete 180 through friends like customer service at an art museum (weird schedule which would help me get to meetings, and have me working on weekends so i wouldn't sit around drinking all day) or harvesting lettuce and tomatoes all day at a hydroponic farm. and i always thought being a mailman wouldn't be so bad, pays okay, probably a pension of something, you have a tangible task to complete, get to go walk around around the city, i dunno it sounds like you could make it walking meditation.

i even googled 'garbageman salary' lol. idgaf it's my life

oh- the last irony of it all! i qualify for unemployment insurance which would technically be a significant pay cut- however, with all the money i was wasting on booze and the attendant shit like takeout and delivery and stuff it'd roughly equate to the same income. lol

gt i am very happy for you, that is amazing

Good job gt that’s huge.

Can’t go a day without 3-6 beers - I dont get drunk anymore but it’s like a comfort thing. Did get drunk last weekend and it was scary how wasted I was ...of course it was while making a new friend, probably why I don’t socially drink with new people

Very happy to hear your update global.

congratulations global!! you sound like you are really approaching this life change with a new attitude
i am especially glad to hear you are eating and sleeping again. you are going to feel so much better!! in so many ways. great work!

Hi everyone, I fucked up my life real good. Got any books to recommend? Yes I'm gonna go to AA although I'm sure I will hate it, I want all the tools in the toolbox.

'this naked mind' is a good one

nothing to recommend but good luck man

best to you, sleeve

yeah good luck sleeve.

thanks y'all, appreciate it

the only book i've read about being an alcoholic is drinking: a love story but it's v good. <3 to you sleeve

Take care, sleeve.

yeah, thoughts with you

Second vote for This Naked Mind. Also good rehab. SMART and Refuge Recovery are good AA alternatives. Getting sober is a pain in the ass but beats the alternative by a LOT. Also gets a hell of a lot easier with time. Good luck and keep posting; you never know who it helps.

Leslie Jamison’s The Recovering is excellent and somewhat out of the usual quit-lit model.

all the best, sleeve.

as a fair problem boozer meself sleeve I hope it works well for you pal.

echoing calz here. good luck.

One of the biggest problems is really accepting that you can't drink again. It's impossible to imagine life without. This sense of impossibility is what the phrase "one day at a time" is supposed to combat. It's like someone has brought in all the food you're going to eat in the next year. It's filling up the room, piled high to the ceiling and after being told you'll be consuming all of it a certain feeling of despair is natural. At that point you need to remember that you've already eaten several rooms full of food. Our relationship to the present doesn't call for imagining 30,000 barren days of no drinking. And when you do imagine your future that way you're leaving out some very important things you cannot know: all the good things that will fill up those days, things you are completely blind to now.

When you get sober you're going to start appreciating things you've been completely numb to. You'll be raw, like a newborn. Your senses will come alive. Emotions will resurface. You'll have to relearn how to do things you learned while drunk. Be patient with your new incapacities (usually things like socializing). It takes a long time for your brain to heal. The way you feel for those first six months or the first year is not the endstate. That's why you can't draw conclusions like "so this is how it's going to be from now on." That kind of thinking is going to make you miserable, and it will make you relapse. Your brain has stopped making certain chemicals because you've been bringing them in from the outside. Those areas come back online but it takes awhile. So, there's depression at first. You can outlast it.

As mentioned on another thread, I am struggling with booze. I never struggled until I tried to cut back/quit! Then it became weird and insidious, the drinking. Saturday night I brought a bottle to a friend’s bday party and got through half of it on my own. Didn’t drink last night and don’t plan to again.

What is hardest for me is just the sight of normal folks enjoying a drink... a patio with pints is the nicest thing to see on a hot afternoon. I tend to tell myself “they are drinking poison”, act (correctly) as if they are doing something that I myself am allergic to. I don’t have any serious allergies but I just think it: “you cannot do that thing”.

I’ve been very successful in staying off the booze. I think a lot of it is that my body reacts totally differently nowadays. Might be the meds I’m taking but I just end up feeling bloated and crappy when I have more than one drink, none of the electricity of the past.

good luck, friends

my drinking was a bit problematic earlier in the summer. like having one day off the booze in the space of a week, being hungover as hell at work day after day. i fell out out my bed one night and my gf had to rouse me from the floor because i hadn't woken up from the fall and just was content to sleep there. i didn't drink for 4 weeks this month. got drunk on saturday to break the fast. i can find an equilibrium sometimes, between too much and abstaining. like - just at weekends, just a bit drunk not shit-canned. but then invariably things will eventually get worse. of course when i abstain i also feel bad, but as del's quote says, id probably feel better further down the road.

Best indeed, sir.

sleeve, maybe check out lifering? Or rational recovery (Buddhist based). I’ve found NA meetings to be a lot better than AA meetings, in my limited experience.

No book recs, apart from like Pema Chodran and stuff not directly related to addiction

<3

Good luck, sleeve.

I had a much longer post that I deleted. But after reading del and flambo's posts (which have been posted since I last looked), I wish I had kept it. Main point is that I didn't think I was an alcoholic back when I was drinking, but I'm two years mostly dry and I'm realizing that the life choices I made and habits that I ingrained under the influence of booze are still having ripple effects for me now.

^^^ bingo, and thanks dude

I quit for a week in early July and seriously cut down, I lost ten pounds. So hey that's at least something under my belt. Then I had too much at the Mekons show in late July and partially blacked out the end of the evening :(

I'm sure my reduced consumption had a lot to do with that, but wow that's happened like 2 times in my whole life, the other was when I was a dumbass 17-year-old on cheap white wine

just out of curiosity how much were y'all drinking on a day to day basis?

I don’t have any serious allergies but I just think it: “you cannot do that thing”.

this is me and romantic relationships -- but at least i am fairly able ~now~ to drink in moderation -- sometimes i slip up (like Friday night). Anyway, best wishes!

xp 3-5

oh and since I have Aimless killfiled I would like to request that he not respond here

Best of luck, sleeve.

thanks pom

hey sleeve, sending good thoughts your way....take care and good luck w/it

Good luck! I've heard good things about AA, actually, even from people resistant to the program. Regardless, we're here for you!

^^ yeah that's what a friend of mine said, she leaves the stuff she hates and takes the stuff that works. All the tools in the toolbox.

Until this past March, I typically drank 3-4 drinks a night, five nights a week. Every couple weeks I’d have a party night.

March/April, I moved in with bf and the most notable change was “liquor cabinet”— I haven’t kept liquor in the house since my 20s, when I noticed I had a habit of, like, drinking much more when it was there to drink.

For the first two months I was drinking lots— on average, 8-10 oz of liquor a night. Then I was like “wow I feel bad a lot these days”. In May I made the resolution to cut down/stop entirely.

And that’s when things went REALLY weird. Drinking two/three nights a week, but insanely heavily. Invariably, if I have a pint with friends, it turns into three, and then I’m home and sneaking swigs behind bf’s back. At this point I’m not-drinking most days, but completely off-the-rails when I do.

I’m a great drunk! My only bad habit is I tend to express spicy opinions when I shouldn’t, and that’s only very occasionally. Otherwise, totally functional, fun, my cooking even improves. I have whipped up mapo tofu, pad thai, steak with bearnaise sauce while completely hammered and it’s been... no biggie.

But the mornings are bad. Mostly with the emotional stability stuff. I don’t feel especially guilty or upset about it, I’ve had a seriously traumatizing couple of years and some resultant alcoholism is to be expected, I love being sober and have no issues with social anxiety or anything, so yeah I’m sure I’ll be ok.

There’s just something weird happening that keeps me falling off the wagon. Lack of discipline? Need for a sponsor? I just have to keep fixed in my head “it is poison”, that has had the best results for me in the past.

sneaking swigs behind bf’s back

HI DERE

I interviewed Steve Earle once, and he told me that even a couple of decades into sobriety he sometimes still needed to call his sponsor five times a day. There was also that really moving Russell Brand essay he wrote after the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, iirc, kind of a sort of what-if scenario had he been unable to reach his sponsor one night at 2:00 in the morning. What might have happened.

sneaking swigs behind bf’s back

HI DERE

Oh, no, there was one night after he went to bed when I realized I'd finished a bottle of gin. I filled it half-full with water so we wouldn't notice the next morning, and replaced the bottle the next day. It has been brutal! I even have at least three times smoked half-a-joint before he got home so I could pretend to be "really fucking high on weed" instead of what I actually was: plastered.

I've had times in the past when I've been like "uh oh" about my drinking, and they've always been in times when I've been anxious or stressed about other stuff. There was one year-long tour I was on with a band, and they had a plush rider and there was consistently a nice bottle of something fancy there, like a Chateauneuf-du-Pape or a Morgon I knew was tasty. It would be a shame to not have a glass, I thought. I'd open it with the intention of sharing with others, but then I'd get through half-a-bottle myself and feel like shit the next day (my tolerance back then was pretty low). After a few months of this, I remember being in Paris and walking up Montorgeuil to a wine store I really liked with the intention of bringing back a couple of nice bottles for my then-bf. As I approached, and the wine bottles in the window came into focus, and the price tags adjacent to them, I remember feeling "I would pay that money to NOT have this bottle in front of me". I took a good year off drinking after that happened. But that was years ago.

I know that in terms of volume I don't even come close to several of my friends who've gone to AA. A close friend of mine was packing away 12-20 beers a night, and/or a 750 mL bottle of liquor. I'm glad I'm not in that boat. But still, the weird sneakiness is just out of shame... I cannot control my intake after even a single glass of wine. I have been saying I'm a zero: zero drinks is a perfect night.

yeah I am very thankful for the ability to be able to 'turn off' after 3-5 drinks and just sip on a Miller Lite or something. I know a lot of people don't have that switch. Having kids helps, because if you think a hangover sucks now, wait until you have to deal with small children at 7AM. or worse, when they wake up at 3AM and won't go back to sleep easily. that's a nightmare.

I know its not quite 'getting sober' but once you cut out shots & those prestige beers with like 8+% ABV you don't really miss them

The sad irony is that I've always been the responsible person in my social circle and my relationships. I've historically been the DD, the person who cleans up somebody's puke, the person splitting up a fight. I've been the annoying one who's been like "hey could we maybe get up to some sober fun this weekend" or chastising my friends the next day when the night turns to cocaine-- which, thank fuck, I've never even tried. There is a kind of grim comeuppance that me, with all my sanctimony, is the one who has had the booze start to have the traits of an addiction.

good luck, sleeve

good luck sleeve.

i'm proud of the fact that i only had two drinks last saturday and the saturday before that, after a few weeks of not drinking at all. but honestly even that was too much. i'm definitely one of those people for whom it makes the most sense to cut out alcohol completely.

Ya best of luck sleeve, sorry I didn’t say so right away!

aw geez no problem, I'm really looking for reading recs not sympathy, and thanks del griffith for that great quote - where is that from?

I don’t have a reading rec but this summer I didn’t drink for 2 weeks bc of a health issue, which I realized was the first time I ever attempted complete teetotaling for that long. During that time, I played 2 shows, my dog died suddenly, and I had to go on an overnight retreat w my coworkers — all situations in which I’d have gladly been drinking — and it was definitely hard! I drank inconceivable amounts of flavored seltzer and noticed that I did indeed feel different after about 10 days. Much less depressed, for starters, in spite of the dire circumstances.

Since those two weeks, I’ve been thinking that maybe alcohol just isn’t very good for me. Not terrible, but def not good. Not-drinking is way more appealing than it used to be. You’re not alone sleeve! It’s crazy seltzer time.

AA was very important to me for the first many years of my sobriety. I eventually dropped it because after the initial help, I actually found that it made me think more about drinking than not. Which is part of the philosophy but it was also making me profoundly depressed. That's just me though and I still know plenty of people who are very involved. Whether you go to AA or not, the Big Book is extremely helpful to read and it's very well written.

I like your post La Lechera

also akm I never heard of the big book before

I wish all the best for you sleeve

xpost sleeve I believe that is David Berman (the quote)

the 'big book' is the book "alcoholics anonymous".

you can read it online here: https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous

cool, thanks

and thanks UMS, unbelievably I have never gotten into the guy's work even though we have one degree of separation via Charlottesville friends

oh thanks to brimstead there as well, I don't even know what "lifering" is!

thanks akm

hey sleeve--hope you get to where you want to be. best of luck.

oh thanks to brimstead there as well, I don't even know what "lifering" is!

― sleeve, Monday, August 26, 2019 5:10 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's like aa/na but secular and more laid back, no twelve step program, etc.

(Obviously IANAD and i don't know what your health insurance situation is) but if you're struggling, it may be helpful to check out a substance abuse programs from a legit health provider. that's what really helped me in any case. best of luck.

xpost ah that is odd figured you would be into SJ.... great stuff though I might suggest now would not be the best time tbh

all the best, sleeve, we're all rooting for you

Hugs, sleeve

I was so excited about my plan for endless sparkling water through the day and bitters and soda and the bar, then my blarrrgh mom-in-law gave me a long speech about how carbonated water was terrible for your teeth and so great, now what? I do like flat water with lime but that was similarly shot down. Guess it’s water! Water water. Ok. Ice is nice.

I don't really think its that bad for your teeth

I think it's about the pH of one's saliva? If you chew some xylitol gum between sodas it should help.

I drink lots of Sodastream and my dentist told me it was fine as long as I'm not adding sugar. I think you're supposed to intersperse acidic drinks with regular water if you want to be careful.

hmmm

No long-term studies have looked at enamel erosion in the teeth of sparkling-water drinkers.

And club soda and carbonated mineral water (like plain San Pellegrino or Perrier) have added or naturally occurring minerals, which raise the pH to about 5, well outside the erosion zone.

and

Seltzer or sparkling water with nothing added has a pH between 3 and 4, so either may damage your enamel. But drinking them with food raises the pH of what’s in your mouth. “So it’s largely a problem if you’re drinking them alone,” says Ruby.

https://cspinet.org/tip/your-seltzer-habit-harming-your-teeth

this is good to know, I was planning on drinking a lot of shrubs and fancy sodas but this gives me pause

basically it's the CO2 into carbonic acid issue, just like the oceans

Topo Chico is the answer

I tried to find an image of Tintin immersing his face and arms in the water of an oasis with a speech bubble that reads “loving, loving water” but no dice but you get the idea

call all destroyer, your input is requested:

non-alcoholic cocktails: S/D, recipes, your input here

TS: burning your enamel vs burning your liver.

“So it’s largely a problem if you’re drinking them alone,” says Ruby.

xpost regarding non-alcohol cocktails, just for consideration because I don't know enough about addiction so am hesitant to post, but I did a small research project recently about no alcohol/low alcohol beverage trends and I did come across a lot of commentary about people in recovery needing to be careful about similar rituals, environments or palates with alcohol consumption possibly being triggering.

thank you, that's helpful.

https://longreads.com/2019/08/27/alcoholism-reading-list/

massive hugs to you, sleeve. Add a tiny tiny pinch of baking soda to your seltzer to buffer and reduce acidity, works great with the sodastream.

Topo Chico is the answer

To be clear, alcohol itself is not the current issue. My regular drinking has probably exacerbated other issues, and I decided it was best to quit while working the other things out. My doctor just told me "a problem drinker wouldn't be able to just quit on their own for a week" which I've done twice this year along with general cutting down. So I'm not sure I'm "really" an alcoholic, but I want to stop for a good six months minimum while I'm working on the other stuff (which is what fucked up my life, not the booze).

Your doctor gave an incorrect assessment of problem drinking.

yeah i just didn't drink for 4 weeks and oh boy am i a problem drinker

Yeah that’s an odd yardstick to use for a “problem”. I would think a truly dedicated drinker (speaking from experience here) could easily sweat it out for a week if it meant they could booze without restriction after the cold turkey.

i think you'd have to drink an awful lot of seltzer water to do anything to your teeth. don't worry about it. that's dumb.

"My doctor just told me "a problem drinker wouldn't be able to just quit on their own for a week" which I've done twice this year along with general cutting down."

your doctor is wrong.

though, I can see why he said that. I quit drinking on my own for something like 8 years at one point and I'm certainly a problem drinker as it became clear the minute I started again (at which point I then went into actual recovery). But even then I did have some poeple in AA asking if I was really sure I had a problem because it wasn't conceivable to them that anyone could stop drinking on their own for 8 years.

doctor in "fucking moron" shock

This makes me sad. I have a close family member who used to be absolved by his doctor and it led to endless bickering, mostly with me, about what it means for drinking to be interfering in our relationship. I have long narrative examples, but to me it should be enough for me to say “this is interfering in our relationship”

I do think taking lenient docs w a grain of salt is a good idea.

This was when I was much younger, decades ago. And it still stings to think about his doctor saying he was fit as a fiddle, don’t change a thing. Always felt to me like he was bro-coding his advice. See aforementioned grain of salt.

I quit drinking on my own for something like 8 years at one point and I'm certainly a problem drinker as it became clear the minute I started again (at which point I then went into actual recovery).

I had been quit for over two years when earlier this year I decided to see if I could "drink like a gentleman again" and enjoy an occasional glass of gin or scotch. Soon enough, I found myself on a bit of a bender drinking straight from the bottle again and really had to pull the brakes. Haven't done any official recovery business yet though.

problem drinking (or problem-anything) is any time you feel like its a problem & youre not in control of it, full stop. Doesnt matter how much you do it, how often, when, if youve stopped before.

I went into recovery for doing a thing that I wanted desperately to stop but couldnt stop. Doctor & therapist both were like "this doesnt seem like a problem bc its not really messing up your life like it typically does for 'problem [doers of this thing]'". My take was that if i am not in control of my actions to the extent that I cant stop doing something that I really really want to stop, to me thats a problem.

a lot of doctors seem to look at things purely from a perspective of diagnosis and treatment. "what are your symptoms? what are the physical harms? what treatment can we do?" and basically ignoring other concerns like your wellbeing

Physicians seem to think in terms of obvious withdrawal symptoms, and if you don’t have those, no problem... for *them* to have to deal with.

Appropriate dr input in these matters is “I do not have adequate expertise in this, please see so-and-so this week and follow up with me next week, I hear your concerns and take them seriously.”

Unless of course it is a doc well schooled in SUDs, in which case god love ‘em (paging dr gbx).

Oh! So I just consulted with my therapist about this. She reminded me of something that I'd forgotten-- the influence of gut flora on your moods and patterns. That a specific balance of gut flora that prefers alcohol will effectively motivate you to consume alcohol. My therapist gave the example of the parasite that infects mice and cats in sequence; at a certain point, the parasite (in the mouse) will desire to move to the cat, and the mouse will develop (as a result of the parasite's influence) an attraction to the smell of cats. The mouse effectively puts themselves in a position where they are caught, and consumed by the cat, and the parasite changes hosts in this way.

So I'm going to be mindful of that, and I'm going to go back on probiotics. I was taking them regularly until... four months ago? I'm gonna add that to the list of 'tools for sobriety'.

It’s unusually nice out. Time for another pint (famous last words).

the influence of gut flora on your moods and patterns. That a specific balance of gut flora that prefers alcohol will effectively motivate you to consume alcohol. My therapist gave the example of the parasite that infects mice and cats in sequence

OK let me rephrase: alcohol does not *seem* to be the primary driver of the primary problems/issues I am having. it does contribute to some related secondary problems, which is why I'm stopping. point taken re: doctor.

sorry for vague but this is absolutely not just about my drinking, I feel that's secondary at best.

I have another appt with a specialist tomorrow and will get their take.

Brain: there's no reason to have another drink right now, it won't make you feel any better but it might put you over the legal limit and you'll probably get a hangover

Mouth: sure I'll have another

xp to myself:

and I gave all my booze away yesterday btw

Speaking as a former microbiologist and current social worker, your therapist is practicing well out of their scope.

he's my GP

(sorry if that's what you meant there)

i think quincie was referring to fgti's post?

oh ok sorry!

Yeah my bad, was referring to fgti’s therapist.

Really? This theory was originally advanced to me by a previous therapist, and I read a number of articles about it (back in 2016). A quick google suggests there have been more studies published on the connection between gut flora and mental health. I mean, I defer to your expertise! I'm just surprised is all, she isn't the first person I'd heard about this from, this did seem to be a connection that was being researched.

MattK has more depth in this than me, but I can’t see how this convo was a meaningful contribution to a therapy session given that it is speculative and I dunno kind of a waste of your time?

lol last time i saw my dentist he was nutso about gut flora, these medical practitioners must really need some zest in their lives

More NEJM less buzzfeed bozo docs

speaking for myself i'm ok with being nutso about gut flora, it's better than having no reason at all for being batshit crazy

yeah you know, it's fine. good looking out.

My therapist is in her 60s and was an esteemed professor of psychology before she switched to solely pursuing her private practice, she's educated many other therapists in the city, everybody knows her and respects her. She is constantly reading new studies and linking me to them for my own reading. Maybe my retelling of her advice was quackish but I wouldn't call her a bozo, myself, she's absolutely helped me a great deal.

I think her point was following a description of a recent tendency I've noted within my own behaviours (specifically regarding alcohol and tobacco), and that once I've resolved to quit either substance, I've found that my consumptive patterns changed from being "frequent, but limited and controllable" to "sporadic, but copious and uncontrollable". I tell myself it's "my last drink" every time, I tell myself it's "my last smoke" every time, and yet, it continues. She posited that there was an "inner drinker" within me who was trying to override the logical side of my brain, convincing me of illogical things such as "yay, I'm a non-smoker now" as I stub out my next last cigarette, and "yay I can't wait to be sober starting tomorrow" as I finish my next last bourbon. Her point about gut flora and an apparently apocryphal anecdote about a mouse/cat parasite was less about the reality of either scenario, and more (I think) examples of how inner parts of the body can override logical instincts toward disciplined cessation, which was my question. I couldn't figure out why my "resolve to quit" was making my patterns more uncontrollable.

In my own personal life, I have a friend who swears that his mental health-- after years of trying various medications, meditations, exercise, sobriety, etc.-- was vastly improved by taking regular probiotics. I followed suit and noticed some change, too.

Not the NEJM, but here's a study from the British Medical Journal (reporting on a study published in General Psychiatry). https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/anxiety-might-be-alleviated-by-regulating-gut-bacteria/

lol it's ok man i wasn't casting aspersions, it's just, those gut flora ppl, they're so into it

You kinda gotta be, it's a substantial money drain.

FGTI there's good evidence that gut flora interact with mood and mental health, for sure. What there isn't evidence for, is alcohol creating a gut flora community that encourages you to seek alcohol, which is what your therapist said. But good gut health is not insignificant in having the mental reserves to deal with dependency etc. so I'm not disagreeing with your course of action. Hope that's helpful rather than antagonistic.

Well, I’m several days sober, but I been smoking weed more, and I guess the munchies plus the “late nite alcohol sugar” deprivation means that I’m going to eat this entire bowl of cherries, they are here in front of me, I will eat them.

that's good eatin'

ah, the downside of "plus, I won't get any of the calories of alcohol!"

Sometimes life IS a bowl of cherries.

I have periodic bouts of concern about my alcohol intake (classic after-work creeping wine binge) and have come up with a methodology that works for me. I guess it won't work for everyone, because of differing personality types. But. being somewhat Asperger-y, this can put a break in my consumption diary, even if I slide back later. (I slide back)
I'm putting this out in a genuine attempt to help...
What I do is make a grid in (say) Excel that has every day of the week across the top and every hour of the day down the L/H side. Thus, every cell represents an hour in a day. That should print out sorta pocket-size.
Then - every hour that goes by without any alcohol being consumed gets shaded in. Me being me, it's not long before the urge to keep the cells coloured-in overtakes the calling of the wine.
I am currently on 3 days clear, which in terms of potential alcoholism is significant.
Otherwise, I can quite easily achieve Adrian Chiles-levels of weekly unit intake, so I'm dead pleased with dragging that down to zero.
It may be said that a lot of the hours would have been alcohol-free anyway, but that provides the psychological boost of adding a few shadings at breakfast.
Best wishes to anyone coping/dealing/struggling with this issue.

I like it, I can totally see how that would appeal to my OCD record-collector side that loves to see all my green checkmarks on an artist's Discogs page

had a "lime twist" Topo Chico with lunch yesterday, not bad!

yeah I can see how that would work. a lot of the compulsion to drink more than you should is predicated off the idea of "well, I've already had one & broken the streak, so what's 5 more?" cuz I think of it in terms of "days you drank some alcohol" vs "days you didn't" which is pretty stupid

Is there a “I’m a stoner” thread?

no, but there should be

I was doing both nightly for a looong time. Usually around three to five beers which on its own doesn’t really fuck me up but adding the weed to it would get me pretty trashed. Knocking off the weed now and realizing how much it was acting as an anti-depressant for me. Just the weight of everything being lifted once it kicked in. Fortunately it’s somewhat easy to walk away from since it’s a little harder to get and not as physically addictive so just not having it around is doing the trick. Weed is great but being a stoner has really made me emotionally unavailable to my wife so I’ve gotta take a break.

There are a number of alkies, dead and living, in my family, nearly all of whim got successfully into sobriety with AA. I had some episodes of binge drinking from my 20s til my early 50s, but nothing for about 5 years now (it mustA been the blackout that led to the ER). I think I've gotten off relatively easy because I cut my beer intake for fear of getting really fat, and I hate the taste of most hard liquor.

i use marijuana,. I avoided it for a long time after getting sober but I'd never had an issue with pot while drinking, and have not had an issue with it since returning to it. that's not true for everyone obviously but for me it's actually been a massive life saver for anxiety and insomnia and general enjoyment of life.

with weed it's so much easier for me to not do than booze. but i have had stages of smoking weed every evening for > a year, whereas i can't remember the last time i drank alcohol every day for > a week.

I've gotten to a good point with weed now where i deliberately go to a dispensary that sells shitty, cheap weed, mix it together with rolling tobacco, and vape it. so it's a pretty light and non disruptive stone i can have while watching deep space 9 in the evening or whatever. and i buy maybe on average only a gram every week or so.

yeah main diff for me is that alcohol really does feel like you're poisoning yourself, the way your body reacts after it's worn off is pretty telling. if you woke up hungover but didn't have anything to drink the night before you'd probably go to the clinic

weed you don't really get that feeling. it doesn't feel much different for your body than say taking Benadryl or melatonin to help you sleep. idk what the negative health consequences really are

THC is not good if yer pregnant, apparently

also I suppose putting anything besides air into your lungs is probably bad, though I do know people who have smoked 1-2 packs a day for decades so in comparison idk how bad that really is

xp. if i get very high then i definitely get a stone-over where I'm dumb af.

buddy of mine is a foreman for a construction company and had to quite getting high at night because he would struggle to delegated to 30 dudes at 8am the next day.

it definitely fucks my short term memory.

has made me anxious as hell many times.

has caused psychosis in several dudes i knew when i was young, leading many of them to have quite negative life-consequences (one dropped out of medical school, one ended up being unemployed and living with his parents for several years).

definitely putting something on fire and breathing it in is a bad thing to do. though of course you can take edibles, vape

"also I suppose putting anything besides air into your lungs is probably bad, though I do know people who have smoked 1-2 packs a day for decades so in comparison idk how bad that really is"

i only do edibles.

"xp. if i get very high then i definitely get a stone-over where I'm dumb af."

yeah this can happen to. it is happening to me this morning because I got high AF last night and went and saw Ringo Starr. BTW if anyone thinks of going to see Ringo's All Star band I recommend being as high as possible.

if you woke up hungover but didn't have anything to drink the night before you'd probably go to the clinic

whoa, you must get some pretty severe hangovers then? the worst of mine are like mild PMS

Yeah, that's a long hangover. I think as I got older, my liver just got slower. I'd wake up after a drinky night feeling talkative and unstable, and then sad around noon, and then the hangover would hit around 4pm. But by 10pm I'd be "OK". I remember in my early 20s, any hangover I'd wake up with would be gone by noon, washed away with a couple of pints of water. Not anymore!

My (alcohol-) sober week has been pretty good! I'm feeling optimistic!

not for a while - mine are usually gone by 10-11 AM

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you've never tried alcohol in your life and woke up feeling like that, you'd probably wanna get yourself checked out

i've had hangovers where I felt like I was going to die (not an exaggeration) for up to 36 hours. I suppose I had regular alcohol poisoning when I drank.

I've had hangovers were I've vomitted many times, not been able to get out of bed until 16-20 hours after going to bed due to the severity of my headache, and had severely crippling anxiety for days afterwards - on occasions not sleeping for several nights afterwards due to this anxiety.

this would be on a bottle of whiskey or > 20 pints of beer type of drunk

yeah .... that's way more alcohol than I usually drink in one day ....

well I think we have established who the hardmen are (were)!

hardmen

more scotsman in my case

20 pints of beer is a lot of liquid.

yeah i think when crazy quantities of beer are involved it might be hyponatremia which makes the hangover so bad

there was a bar here that had a promotion where if you could drink a pint of all 13 of their craft beers (ranging from like 5-10% ABV) then it was all free and you'd get a T-shirt. in hindsight this was a wickedly irresponsible promotion to have since that amount of alcohol can be legitimately dangerous though admittedly I almost tried it myself, at least until a buddy of mine did and wound up puking all over someone's car

where was that? I tended bar in hawaii for a period of time and they only recently changed the law that you can serve someone more than one drink at a time. Like, if they wanted one for a friend or a table, you would have to identify where the extra drink was going or take it to them.

there were they were the strictest place I have ever bartended. You even needed a bartender card showing you completed the alcohol safety class.

Reading this thread is . . . er, sobering.

I quit smoking cigarettes 7 years ago and it made a huge difference on my alcohol intake. I used to tell myself, "one more cigarette" 2-3 times at the end of a night and of course I would have to have a drink with each one. Probably the best thing to replace alcohol with is regular exercise. I was able to get in a certain zone where I appreciated how the exercise made me feel about my self/body and too much booze would interfere with that feeling.

As I've gotten older I find the amount of alcohol that causes a mild hangover has gotten dramatically lower, especially if hard liquor is involved. If I do two martinis I can almost guarantee a hangover. I hate being hungover so this had been an effective deterrent for me.

That being said, I have a drink 7 days a week generally. Usually 1 high ABV beer each weeknight (plus a second lower ABV one once in a while). On a weekend evening I will usually split a bottle of wine and have 1-2 beers. Plus I will puff tuff once a weekend (averaging about 1-2 times per month). I feel like I have it pretty under control, but the idea of giving up drinking gives me the chills.

I have thoughts on this subj.

drinking is bad for your liver, and probably bad for your mind (in excess)

i personally originate from a classic blend of bad dna drinking ppl genes. roughly 3/4 of my ancestors on one side eventually succumbed to alcoholism

that said, alcohol is a huge boon for those of us who are insanely inhibited and don't even know where to begin when it comes to interacting with other human beings during weddings, funerals, job interviews, first dates, etc.

alchohol presses on the verbal part of the mind and sometimes makes ppl write better. they can stretch out and find the words.

donald trump is a teetotaler. his brother's death notwithstanding, fascists love to exercise weird standards of mental hygiene and shit.

i have done extremely regretable things while wasted on booze. mostly involving yelling at undeserved people incoherently. but that prompts the question, what dynamics prompted said yelling, why are societal mechanisms so repressive etc.

there are people who should probably never drink? they have a couple and then they land in second act of hamlet 2-land

dale pendell wrote a couple of books about psychoactive substances. he took every drug known to man/ladies. read his books. we need plants to even function fairly rudimentarily, whether sugar, chocolate, booze, etc.

it is an ecology. none of us live forever. is it bad to not live forever? death is not a bad thing!

being sick is not a bad thing. it's ok to be diseased.

Srs question: have you witnessed someone die from liver failure? Death is fine but to the extent that I can minimize the likelihood of that particular dying experience—I’ll do that.

Not IRL but 2 years ago my first boyfriend* died of complications related to severe alcoholism. i had seen/spoken with him exactly 1x since high school and was not aware of his alcoholism but obviously it was very very advanced. it was profoundly depressing not because i cared about him (sorry but tbh I did not) but because he was relatively young and was kind of a recluse and clearly the addiction got the best of him. dying at 41 from alcoholism -- no one wants to go out like that. it was a potent reminder that human bodies aren't fragile but they're fragile enough to collapse under the weight of prolonged heavy drinking.

*he was terrible to me, so i did not have fond feelings for him but he was significant in terms of my life history

A few years ago a nutritionist got me to do a cleanse and cut out alcohol/caffeine/meat/sugar/white flour/dairy and some other stuff for about a month. Basically reducing my diet down to the very minimum. I was surprised by the following results:

1. Of all the things I cut out, what I craved most was wine

2. The cleanse did not make me feel markedly better overall. The positive feelings of being "clean" were offset by a feeling of gloominess and anomie. It led me to believe that alcohol had been providing a certain base level cheerfulness to my life. Not just the actual drinking, but also knowing I could look forward to a drink every day, if I wanted it

Late, but best of luck to sleeve and all dealing with this. Sure know what it’s like.

thanks LBI

it's just a part of a larger problem, but it's something I can do to get more clarity and to show my partner that I can make changes. some of the stuff itt is so foreign to me, I can't imagine being able to drink more than, say, 8 drinks and I would get totally sick before even going to sleep if I did that. doesn't mean that I don't have a problem, but I guess it makes me grateful I don't/can't do that?

and yeah the partner of an extremely close friend died of liver failure, it was fucking horrifying. he vomited blood all over their house.

Srs question: have you witnessed someone die from liver failure? Death is fine but to the extent that I can minimize the likelihood of that particular dying experience—I’ll do that.

being in a body is the ultimate indignity. i take it as a given that I will die in a bad and embarrassing way. How could it be any different? The human body is disgusting.

...

not wrong tbh

mine's nice

don't harsh bodies like that, I mean have you seen my glorious penis

the protuberances can be beautiful... the overall system is gross and disgusting. the shit moving (or not moving) through the intestinal tract, etc. the food stuck in the gums and putrefying there. the slavery to gravity.

unidirectional faces

yes bodies have some issues, most of the alternatives are worse though

such as?

think of what sort of karma we must have incurred to be embodied (presumably!) in these literal shit machines!

xp jacking in to cyberspace—what if ukrainians ransomware your unattended meatslab??!

can we not give james cameron any more ideas pls

this is where I say that I don't get most movies bc i don't identify w the body. but true! what do i reasonably have to do with my body or my thoughts? they all arrive unbidden, and then fade away. the greatest sinner of all is the mind, which claims identity with the ephemeral body. look into it. what truly exists? upon inspection not the body nor the mind.

what truly exists?

....

...

..
your mom

Bodies kick ass, fuiud

xpost

that was actually my default answer for years when ppl would ask me "where are you from?"

but now I know that it's wrong. where I am from is now. taken further, where ~I~ am from, nowhere. all of this is because of me.

however beautiful yr precious mind is, you can’t get a badass tattoo on it

the fourth great turning of the wheel xxxp

,/del/];

look into it. i gave up everything and have no interest in anything except as sandcastles that children play with. i wouldn't say it if i didn't live it.

Bodies are cool and poop is pretty cool too, don't get it on yourself or anything but it deserves respect

What the hell has happened to the boozer thread

it's a shambles

Should not have expected otherwise obv.

I'm just sobering up from a day of drinking--things have been very emotionally tough the past few months, and I started therapy for the first time about two weeks ago. I was open with my therapist about my binge drinking habits, but I sort of sidestepped the fact that while I just enjoy the feeling of being drunk, sometimes I get drunk when I don't want to be. She tried to ask a clarifying question a number of times, "but do you ABUSE alcohol?" And I kept saying that I don't know what she means by "abuse," but if it means what I think it means, then yes. I don't know why she had to ask more than twice, but she insisted on the question. I couldn't tell if she didn't believe me or if I wasn't clear.

I don't always know how to reconcile that I want to drink even when I don't want to drink.

Should be a full day of drinking tomorrow, an annual barbecue I attend is happening.

Love lawn games and beers.

As an aside

Jesus Christ boys, the fuckin acid reflux.

thats the fuckin truth but

sorry thread turned to shit

ianaa but im on passing filial terms or have been bytimes with a few doozies and sincere good luck to all dealing regardless of inclination to discuss bodies/poop itt

I am glad bodies shit out most of the mass they consume instead of growing and growing until they are stars. Stars for my mean dad, the king.

being sick is not a bad thing. it's ok to be diseased.

Other del, this seems like an irresponsible and insensitive thing to post on a thread that was only bumped because one of our own, some guy named sleeve, felt strongly enough about his sickness that he would go to this channel for some support in fighting it. It's sort of the whole point of this thread. No one using it for their intended purpose needs to know about gut flora research, read drunk peoples thought experiments, or hear excuses about how we can be one with everything, including sickness. Just, no. Knowing what I know about recovery-seeking among the powerless, they want literature pertinent to that mode of thought. Is it too much to ask that we resist the impulse to channel the shittiest imitation of kerouac we can muster, and instead simply support (or simply not not support) someone we may want to pretend is our friend?

Been having a rough go of it, and things are slated to get harder--hoping for recommendations on managing urges when in a minefield of triggers.

What are your triggers?

"Stars for my mean dad, the king" this is my favorite GYBE/Mogwai collaboration album!

Let’s stay focused ppl

I know this won’t seem like a big deal maybe but I am 48 hours smoke-free— down from 10-15 a day overnight

I know that at hour 73 it’s like angels singing and I feel like I can run 10 miles so I’m holding on through it

Weird how stress/anxiety alleviation brings back your capacity toward discipline

xps yo del griffith thanks for that supportive post, really appreciate it. sorry for late response.

9 days, things are good, 12-step is good and I'm lucky I clicked with the 1st group

I'm even more of a soda snob than I was before, was always a fan

had lime-coriander bitters in soda with simple while I DJd last night at the local bar, hell yeah.

Get it, dogg. I will never not like hearing success stories about people setting and respecting limits for themselves.

The butters and soda trick is revelatory it’s like “ok hanging out in bars while sober isn’t so bad”. A few places in LA used to assume I was DD and give them to me for free

what is the protocol re: n/a drinks at bars? on the rare occasion that I'm in one these days, and order a club soda, I expect not to be charged. Esp if I'm among a group of boozers. Am I out of line?

I always get charged for bitters and soda but it's $2, don't care.

plain water i would not pay for but anything else -- even water with lime -- i tip a dollar at least. someone has to wash that glass and it beats paying $8 for a beer.

otm

good luck / strength re smoking, flambo!

Thank you! I have a craving every minute or so, and then a “what could be wrong with just one” subroutine, followed by a “no, no, you are so happy right now without them”, and then a dopamine rush of self-righteousness

grab that rush, it’s how I quit smoking

sleeve, you may like this article. It's about a master somm who has been sober for 25 years. He does a lot of current work on the physiology and cultural differences of tasting.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhuyghe/2017/08/09/alcoholism-and-addiction-in-the-wine-industry-a-candid-perspective-from-a-master-of-wine/#3e8f46b76ce7

derp, he's a master of wine not master somm.

haha like I would know the difference

thanks :)

This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibx8JpIIq28

this is gonna start with a bunch of whining but it gets positive by the end!

my sad little journey started two and a half years ago, with a bar calling an ambulance on me for my violently excessive drinking, which brought me to the hospital and helped me delude myself that quitting my then-quality job was somehow a good idea, i believe it is outlined above. ended up going through 30-day treatment which eventually made me pretty cynical about the recovery industry in the united states, it was basically a month of barely-facilitated AA meetings dominated by racist electricians from iowa (but with once a week access to hot tubs!). it also stuck me with a massive bill of $xx,xxx (won't say precise amount). after treatment i supported myself via multiple minimum-wage jobs with terrible hours which only increased my misery, was waffling between months of sobriety and weeks of benders. tried many AA meetings but they alternately depressed me or alienated me. but due to some perseverance, my previous work background, and some major luck i scored an extremely quality position a year or so ago which massively helped me, healthwise. it's almost as if your means and life situation are contributing factors to your mental health?

even with this new job i did need some 1:1 therapy and tried to do that as best i could (then got stuck with another multi-thousand bill under the tutelage of an ex drunk who would actually interrupt me while i was trying to share my thoughts! apparently to be a LADC in my state doesn't really require much, i think he was using his role to maintain his own sobriety).

anyway, even with severe debt and after trying a lot of the typically suggested conventional recovery things i started taking naltrexone via the sinclair method. naltrexone is an inhibitor which suppresses your brain's reward system towards booze and slowly deprograms your love for alcohol. it has done wonders for me, i still drink a little too much, but i wake up early every morning, and am doing quite well in most parts of my life even through COVID and quarantine which honestly would have killed me before. my drinking dropped by 50% almost instantly, and it continues to slowly drop. my life has never been better career, work, or relationship-wise. also you can fucking die from going cold turkey and from my on and off the wagon approach (look up kindling) and i am sure i was on that path... in fact at one point i did have auditory and visual hallucinations and was very close to a seizure. i don't want to evangelize but this has helped me so much and if anyone out there is looking for a different way to recover in your own way please DM me!

also, fuck the USA, our healthcare system, and our doctrinaire approach to 'recovery' and beyond. even bill w was okay with psychedelics

glad you’re alive and doing better!

six months without a drink felt hard towards the end so i gave myself two nice strong belgian beers but I didn’t enjoy the experience at all. I think i may have finally programmed myself off of alcohol for good. pot, luck, somewhat fanatical exercise, love were helpful in my case.

pot, luck

lol

any time i've quit for an extended period of time beer totally resumes its original vile profile for me. it's like "oh i taught myself this was good"

<3 to you global tetrahedon, glad you're doing better

The recovery industry in the US is so incredibly uneven, it makes me crazy. I had the kind of rehab experience that everyone should have--including people who don't have a substance use problem! Top-notch staff with actual graduate degrees, strong medical support, plenty of fresh air and opportunities for exercise (this is important), excellent and nourishing food (this is also important!), emphasis on getting good sleep and enough rest overall (very important!). No 12-stepping; lots of informed, evidence-based psychoeducation and individual/family counseling. Seriously, everyone should get to go do this. Oh and it was covered by my insurance (which I was lucky enough to have).

I have no idea what the ratio of high-quality rehabs to crap rehabs may be, but my guess is dismal.

Pro tip: avoid rehabs in Florida. That place seems to be a total recovery shitshow.

Good luck, global.

I've a buddy who's a therapist at a Palm Beach County rehab. He's said you wouldn't believe the four or five celebrities who've passed through (and returned).

I know someone who blabbed about the celebrities in his AA group. Seemed shitty.

My friend mentioned no names.

i agree that everyone (including non addicts!) should do some kind of (quality) rehab

the one i was at seemed to be fueled by union types. i guess they have the good insurance and the construction industry is rife with substance problems. but this often made sessions feel like one was out at the job site

naltrexone (and its injectable, vivitrol) is great, i recommend it (and the sinclair method) all the time

good for you, global, and good luck

glad to hear things are going well, global

yes, loved reading your post

agree that everyone (including non addicts!) should do some kind of (quality) rehab

if only there were some kind of effective rehab program for addiction to wealth in excess of one's basic needs.

my favourite uncle died yesterday at 60 years old. of my mum's 3 brothers, all younger than her, he lived the longest. the oldest died at 50 of a heart attack 12 years ago. the youngest died at 56 of a stroke 2 years ago, he had been suffering from throat cancer and an aggressive prostate cancer, both of which were terminal and inoperable. all 3 of them were drinkers. the youngest was a classic alcoholic archetype and chain-smoker. the other two were respectable, successful men, never drank to the stage of foolishness, didn't drink at home, and didn't drink spirits, just pints, but were in the pub every day of their lives that it was at all possible. you might also call them alcoholics. we have no familial predisposition towards heart disease.

i quit drinking in september. i sort of hate sobriety. i think about drink a lot. when i think about my uncle who passed away yesterday and the way he drank - for fun, socially, having a good laugh, with a pleasant meal, really enjoying life, knowing everyone who drank in the local pub and being part of a community, i find it hard to say it would be better if he had lived a sober life and not died yesterday. it would've been an utterly different life, devoid of many of its chief pleasures. but i know my own propensity for drinking like my other uncle, the alcoholic, who would drink mainly in the pub, but until absolutely obliterated, and would drink at home alone when the pub closed, and was asking my grandmother for money as a middle-aged man, because he'd spent all his perfectly respectable wage packet from working as a joiner on booze.

i wish i hadn't grown up somewhere where the pub was the agora. if id been viennese instead of glasgwegian would this even by an issue?

Tell me about it, jim.

One of my uncle's died last year of prostate cancer. He was one of the few ones who'd stopped drinking and wasn't an alcoholic. The NHS couldn't help him because his kidneys were gone and he had left his condition untreated until it got terminal. I had to explain to mum that although he'd been teetotal for years, he was still chain-smoking rollups and also often buying speed off old dodgy smackhead friends of mine, it's amazing he lived as long as he did taking that shit.

Good exploration of the cultural continuum of alcohol dependency jim

The mother's side have/had it bad (two from six nonfunctional, one functional, one married a fuckin *worldie*) but culturally it's very notable how it has seriously dwindled into the next generation. Quick mental survey of the forty cousins i know of on that side we have only one who would compare and he got it from his father rather than my aunt

Materfamilias herself was, and i forget the exact multiplier, four or five times over the old driving limit the night she burned the house down, and had been out of her mind riddled for at least the decade before that but likelier closer to twice that tbh (my memories of extreme parental drunkenness and the ensuing mess rank among my earliest)

The aul fellas side are very respectable, would drink more like the "better" version you describe- especially the men, fishermen/businessmen who've progressed to a bottle of chardonnay a night (every night) rather than brawling twice a week after vodka binges. The aulfella himself the worst of them tbh.

Of us four boys one cannot/shouldnt drink and took twenty years to know it, one took almost as long to learn how he could and couldnt, one doesnt socialise at all and one never drank, very pointedly so.

Im the one who has learned how i can drink, but thats in the irish context tbf- its not like im the one holding back at a fap or anything.

So yeah, its complicated

And sympathies on yr uncle and luck with the drinking yrself

thanks, deems

Wow.

I'm as steady as she goes (every night), fairly high functioning as things go, and unlikely to make changes. I wish jim and others in this thread the best with their decisions and say that they are probably the correct ones.

Jim fwiw just about everyone I've ever known says that the not drinking thing gets easier and less suckish over time, which has been my experience as well. I no longer think about drinking very much, and when I do it is more a wistful thing, nothing like an actual craving. I sometimes have FOMO but then I remember that because I am only one person living my one life I am going to miss out on most things anyway, so why get too worked up about it.

It's pretty nuts how incredibly drinky western culture is. To be outside of that takes getting used to, for sure.

Hi folks,

Currently 122 days into Not Drinking Ever Again. Long story; details posted els7whe7re.

I had reason to look at my posts itt from, gah, 2015. Honestly, I was kinda dreading reading them, because I have generally been an enthusiastic drinker and, in some ways, a cheerleader for booze:

Personally, I love drinking. I sincerely and unapologetically love it (sorry not sorry). The beverages are tasty, the sensation of a mild buzz is quite nice, and booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds. But I also really really really don't want alcohol to fuck up my marriage, family, job, or life. That takes vigilance.

But upon re-reading, my posts probably weren't that bad or dangerous to others; they just seem... glib. Self-interested and self-exonerating. I wasn't wrong, mostly, just overly confident and a trifle naive. My apologies.

A brush with actual death (robe-wearing, scythe-bearing Death) has subtly changed my thinking on this.

I think it's fine to change one's attitude to alcohol.

Like all things, if drinking works for you and you can temper it and it's not adversely affecting your life, there's nothing wrong with enjoying it.

And then if it stops working for you, it's a very fine idea to renege on that, step back and do exactly what you're doing.

Keep it up YMP, this is great work. It takes strength to cut out something you previously loved in life. Massive respect!

I've gone 5 days without booze now. It wasn't like I was in any kind of crisis, more like a bit skint and was thinking, shit, I can't afford a grocery shop and I'm skint until next wednesday. But then I had a radical rethink and realised I could afford a more than adequate grocery shop if I skipped out the red wine and beer. Crazy idea but it's working out ok.

The insomnia is a pain but I'm not feeling as tired and am getting more housework done, it's the rare novelty value of feeling normally healthy that I'm appreciating. But I predict at some point in the next month I will fall off this wagon (again).

I was up at 2am last night, cleaning the cooker. Absolutely insane sober behaviour!

I am getting better all the time at managing my drinking, albeit with the occasional slip, and albeit every minor hangover is a lot in my dotage

Thing is, when I'm mindful and managing my mental health and not binge drinking, I still find the melancholy loneliness which is probably gonna be my base state for life, and sometimes going to the pub is the only step away from that place I can find