I feel so ashamed

[KatiesbigsisterSue]

I know I am catastrophising and that some of that is due to the morning after fear.

But I feel so ashamed because I feel like every time I drink socially I drink too much and make a fool of myself.

I ended up having drinks with some school mums last night. I didn’t do anything awful, but I know I was the most drunk. I came home and my kids were still up and I ended up in the toilet for an hour thinking I was going to be sick. My husband has commented this morning about “the state” I was in. He’s making a joke of it but I don’t find it funny.

It’s just not good enough for my children to see me like that. I know that yet I’ve done it multiple times. I didn’t do anything wild or awful but they knew I was in the toilet and they also saw me drunk. And they have many times.

Nothing awful happened, I know that. But I’m in my 40’s for gods sake. It’s not ok and it’s a bit pathetic.

I just feel so ashamed. Why couldn’t I just come home and go to bed like any other person.

I do drink alcohol regularly but not in this way. I’m wondering if I just need to stop drinking all together. I wouldn’t miss it week to week. I do like a nice g&t and a glass of fizz but really it’s adding nothing to my life except wasted calories. I clearly have no self control when I am socialising (when alcohol is a feature) so maybe I just don’t do it at all and save myself all of this stress. And set a good example to my children.

I do too..... I totally understand how you feel.
Be gentle on yourself tho. I'm sure you wurk hard, are a great mum, have little time to yourself etc, we all need a break xx

The thing with the Diet Coke is that you'll have more social pressure to drink (if everyone else is on prosecco and cocktails), whereas if you look as if you are having it too, they won't be ecen asking why are you not drinking.

I did the same. The only negative is dealing with drunk people when you’re sober, it’s like they’re on a different planet. But the feeling of being in control, looking just as good as at the start of the night, no hangover or hangxiety is so much bigger.

Are you able to plan your drinking when you go out.
Or do you sort of avoid planning to stop drinking because in your heart of hearts you know you are going to drink to some other limit.

Why do you drink too much when you are out? Do you have a core belief that not drinking too much is boring, or is it a self esteem thing. If you imagine a situation where you are drinking as you want to drink- do you even like that version of you?OP, what’s this really all about?

Yes I did tell people - it’s quite hard not to because alcohol is so embedded into our culture.
But I think it’s surely easier now - so many people give up booze for health kick reasons, and that’s all you need to say about it. It is bad for your health after all!
These days I tend to say that drinking didn’t agree with me so I stopped - that’s all the info required!
Be kind to yourself OP. Nice treats today.

My DH pretty much stopped drinking. He’s never discussed it with anyone. He gets the odd comment but mostly from people checking he’s sure he’s ok to be the driver again.

Thank you for your kindness. It’s making emotional.

I can be very hard on myself.

And I am totally able to take on board the hard hitting messages.

I stopped drinking, not because i had a problem but always seemed to have too much fun and not know when to stop!

If you want to stop, I actually think it's a great thing to go and I've never missed it. People will pressure you! A lot of people don't drink these days and I just say I don't enjoy it anymore which is true.

I don’t know what it’s about tbh. I just know that more and more after nights out I feel this way.

Why do I drink the excess when I go out? Genuinely not sure. It’s not for self esteem. I suppose I like the feeling - I enjoy the taste of what I drink. For example, I like beer. I like alcohol free beer too.

And no, I don’t know that I love the drunk version of me tbh. That’s not to say I haven’t nice times - I have of course.

I think if you were not THAT drunk but were in the loo for an hour you can honestly just say alcohol now makes you feel ill and you aren't drinking. Anyone with an issue with that is very unreasonable. If you want to stop, stop, and it sounds like you want to stop!

Just don't drink alcohol. I haven't for about 20 years. If you arrive at an event and simply start by drinking non-alcoholic you will not then be tempted to drink the alcohol, which feeds on itself and one leads to another.

If your friends comment or think it's weird, then they are not friends. All mine know I do not drink and I am quite popular as the driver!

I've been in your position, OP. I'm also in my 40s. Like you, my DH barely drinks. He has nothing against it, and will have maybe 5 glasses of wine a year, never two in a row.

It's easy to get carried away when you're having a good time and feeling good. There are also some friends who bring out this side more than others. Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm still a work in progress myself, but when I know I want to resist the urge for refills on a particular night, I usually order something I don't enjoy quite as much, because I know that will pace me. Smaller sips, less desire for a refill, etc.

I did cut alcohol out altogether about a year ago. I did feel better. Then the holidays came around... I've recently resolved to go back to only enjoying a glass of wine with a good meal and only on the days I either cook a nice meal or we go out, and being firm with my limits before I start. For me, I've learned that it's easier to not start drinking than it is to stop drinking.

I didn't announce to anyone that I wasn't drinking. I just switched to diet coke or iced tea. If anyone asks, you can always just say you have an early morning or you're on a medication that can't be mixed, or just be really honest that the side effects have been hitting you hard lately and you don't want to wake up feeling gross. At our age, people will fully understand.

Don't feel too bad, OP. Today is a new day! :)

Thank you to everyone who has posted.

I didn’t post to make myself feel better but some of the replies really have helped. And I do feel better - but I still want to make changes.

I felt so much despair this morning - and as I said earlier this is how I feel after most nights out now. Even if nothing bad has happened, this can’t be good for me.

You are a drunk. Just stop plenty of lovely non alcoholic options

Don’t feel ashamed. It’s the shame that traps people in the spiral of drinking. Get some quit lit, listen to some podcasts, and set yourself a target of 100 days sober to start. It sounds a lot but you can do it. I couldn’t do 2 days without wine and now I’m almost 4 years sober. It can be done x

OP: If you can decide not to have that first drink and actually follow through with it, great. If you can alternate one alcoholic drink and diet coke, great. And you can keep it up, great. But not wanting to have negative expectations, I suspect you might find it hard or unsustainable. That's why you are asking here.

To deal with it properly, you need support.
I found This Naked Mind really good. There was an online journal, with an online support group. You get lots of resources that go through why we drink and why we can't stop when we start. In fact if you do the paid course you are actually encouraged to drink at the beginning to properly evaluate your relationship with alcohol. Apparently most people stop earlier than the set time. (Encouraged is the wrong word, but you don’t stop immediately.) Good luck!

Btw: People who don't know about alcohol dependance shouldn't post in "Alcohol". Go to aibu or chat if you want to state an opinion. As for the "just stop" posters, you have no idea what you are talking about.

When you say carried away OP, what do you mean? Are you just dancing, chatting, laughing etc or are you climbing on tables and flirting with everyones husbands

It was a mum’s night out and a crippling shameful hangover in my forties that made me stop drinking 10 years ago. I thought i had a handle on my drinking once I’d had kids. Prior to kids I’d get into awful states regularly and have blackouts. Having kids put me into a false sense of security until that awful shameful hangover which made me feel almost suicidal. It reminded me that I can’t drink normally and of the potential for it to escalate. My teenage children have no recollection of me drunk thank god.

i read lots and lots of sober lit and podcasts and related to everyone I listened to. I told people I don’t drink because I can’t do hangovers (which is partly true) Now nobody asks me as I think it’s surprisingly normal not to drink these days. I didn’t make it a big deal and and count the days. It was just a quiet promise to myself.

It was the best decision I’ve ever made. Not feeling shame or fear. I still get a little frisson of smugness when I wake up without a hangover on a Saturday morning 10 years later.

I also don’t think it’s helpful to batter the OP into understanding it’s a problem or that she’s a drunk. She needs to process things in bitesized chunks as she’s probably too fragile today to process it. It doesn’t need to be a huge epiphany. You need to remember how you feel today and get reading and give yourself some compassion. The reading and learning about how awful alcohol is for me was what got me there.

You don’t have to be an alcoholic to decide drinking isn’t for you anymore. You can just have a break and see how it goes. If something makes you feel miserable or embarrassed, then just don’t do it for a bit.

If it was anything else, we’d be like, oh I don’t feel great after I do that (if say, eating dairy made you shit yourself!), then you’d give up dairy and just bring your oat milk with you when you go meet the mums for coffee. You wouldn’t just keep shitting yourself because you’ve always had milk in your coffee.

Oh absolutely the former!!

When I say carried away I just mean too drunk my the end of the night. Worse case - talk too much maybe.

Carried away for me means - too much alcohol and a hang over the next day. Friday night this meant sitting in the toilet when I got home for an hour. And then the absolute fear that I’ve maybe been a pain in the arse!

Nice, thanks for your input!

No I’m quite embarrassed by it, posted anon on fbook trying to find out about whether a meeting was on. Crackers really as soon as the able futures person came on the phone I was like here is a stranger and first thing I unloaded was about the drinking past.

My parents are now trying to convince me I don’t have and never had a problem, only real alcoholics wake up shaking, wanting vodka and other spirits ..happy conversations. Get me out of here.

You should absolutely be ready to answer questions - people will ask. So get some answers ready - something breezy and uninteresting, like “ i’ve stopped I just didn’t like how it would make me feel in the morning”. Then move the chat on. People can be funny when someone stops drinking, so make sure you are ready for some odd responses.

Fwiw, in my opinion, you don’t have to be an “alcoholic“ to decide to stop drinking, however you define that word.

If you feel bad about your drinking, and have before, then you probably would be better off stopping. I would not make a big deal of it, just switch to something else. It would be hard to lose all your socializing experiences, but there doesnt seem to be any need for that, just go alcohol free.