To stop kidding myself and admit i have a problem

[TheoriginalLEM]

with alcohol. Have spent the whole day in bed. vomiting and hallucinating.

am so angry and disgusted with myself

im not 18 im 46

i drink wine most nights. i don't even enjoy it anymore.

Have any of you been able to just go cold turkey? i am actually scared now

Fwiw user23689954w79 I didn't tell OP not to stop drinking, I advised her to seek medical advice.

Hope you feel like you can come back here Lem. I've seen you posting a lot and you do always come across as a lovely person. You've been very brave to post.

With all due respect I saw my mother decide to stop many, many times after suffering vomiting and hallucinations. Whenever she'd push it too far and drink was incapacitating her she'd decide that was enough and she was stopping. It usually lasted no more than a few days then she was back to the ever glass of lager alongside her from 2pm every day.

Coincidentally, it was 7 years ago tonight that all her organs shut down after she had a week long binge whilst also taking metronidazole for a mouth infection. She spent 3 weeks in intensive care then but managed to rally. She had such a scare she vowed never to ever drink again. Within 6 months she was back drinking, started with low alcohol stuff before eventually drinking back in the old patterns she had, from about lunchtime onwards with a glass in her hand constantly.

She could have lived if she hadn't gone back to it but she didn't change her fundamental habits, she lasted another 5 years with lots of hospital trips in between to dry her out. OP, I don't want to frighten you but I'm not exaggerating when I say she looked like zelda from the terrahawks. She was yellow, wizened, all her teeth fell out and she bled from around the eyes, her hair fell out. She died in the end from sepsis, ascites had made her abdomen so huge she prolapsed all her gynae organs and she was overwhelmed by infection.

Please, please get help, with all the will in the world my mother just couldn't do it on her own, she gave up a 40 year cigarette habit but couldn't kick the drink, even after she was medically detoxed. You need CBT to change your habits and it'll be a lifetimes work to stay dry. Get as much help as you can. It's very, very hard to do it alone.

Come and say hello on the Dry thread :) We are very supportive :)
If you are hallucinating and vomiting you need to seek help now, tbh.

And yes go and see your GP, and cut down the amount you drink while you wait for an appointment. It is the sensible thing to do. Just stopping cold turkey can be dangerous in some circumstances.
Well done for recognizing you have a problem with alcohol. Be kind to yourself in the mean time.

A.A generally want people to make a start, today. I've never heard of them recommending medical detox to female wine drinkers, in fact the only advice in their literature is to keep your sugar levels up. Presumably, the physically addicted male all-day spirit-drinkers come to them from treatment and are out of the danger zone as it were.

I'm of the belief that it's better to be safe than sorry especially given the symptoms the OP has described.

Hope you're feeling better LEM and that you are able to take those horrible feelings and put them to good use as you make positive changes

I second Soberistas.com, it is brilliant. Alcohol had started to absolutely take over my life! I am now nearly 3 years alcohol free, my drinking habits were a bottle to a bottle and half mist nights, no off switch! Regular hangovers....
Well done for recognising it, get yourself logged onto soberistas to understand all the options! There is loads of help X x

Having worked years in A&E departments and helping to detox hundreds of poor souls, I would definately advise that you pop to A&E as you need to be medicated and monitored if you plan to just stop. The alcohol advisory service advise people to cut down and then stop, but not everybody has the strength of mind to do this without cheating! I really hope you are ok. I have lost two friends in the last year, both in their early 50s down to drugs and alcohol. Please be sensible. You will never regret stopping once you start to feel well again. Sending my love and support.

LEM

Yours is one of the few poster names I recognise on here.
So you've recognised you have a serious problem with alcohol.
Good on you.
Every journey begins with the first step yadda yaddy and you've taken that step.

Now go and seek RL help.
There'll be an AA meeting near you tonight. Go.

Look after yourself, be very kind and loving to yourself and take good care

I write a sobriety bog here www.alcoholfree2016.com. I am 249 odd days sober from where you are now ,,,

We can see the OP has been given some sensible and supportive advice however, we must remind you that noone on Mumsnet replaces a RL medical expert and we would always advise seeking real-life professional help.
Goodluck OP

Thank you so much for all the kindness.

Tbh i haven't been that drunk for ages, over a year, and whilst i don't think I'm addicted per se i do drink too much. probably 2 bottles of wine a week and maybe some beer. I feel that it would not take me very much to slip from drinking too much to being addicted.

Really frightened myself today and its a wake up call.

thsnks again gor the advice. ill take a look at the other threads

Good luck, OP.

I don't know you, OP, but you have my support and my faith that you can do it.

Given your statement that you have 2 bottles of wine a week l, OP I mean this in the nicest possible way but are you sure it was alcohol that made you feel so bad? Unless you drank 2 bottles in one sitting?

OP I probably drank 5 nights out of 7. Not wine but spirits, not usually enough to make me unwell next day, but 2/3 times a month I would lose it completely and drink myself into a complete mess. I stopped cold turkey after a 2 day hangover and haven't looked at a drink in 3 years.

LEM ,I recognise you from your kindness around the boards,i hope you have found some useful advice from this thread, please be kind to yourself.

crunchy i did wonder! in fact i asked my friend if there was the possibility of my drinks being spiked as i had little if any recall of the night. She said i was guzzling jagermeister from the bottle

Also i am on medication for anxiety so i really shouldn't be drinking at all.

I managed to drag myself to the fireworks with dd but still feel sick asapig. I didn't want my lack of self control to ruin dd's weekend.

Two bottles of wine and some beer is way, way less than I was having at my peak. Not enough to be causing you to have hallucinations. I don't know how much you had the night before to make you so ill, but it doesn't sound like that's your usual pattern. Getting that drunk isn't a good idea though, so it may well be a good idea to put the brakes on. Especially in combination with the meds.

Good luck making changes - whatever they turn out to be.

Jagermeister is lethal stuff, it's made me ill.

I wonder if you've got into the habit of drinking a lot socially because of your anxiety? It took me a long time to realise I was self medicating with alcohol and other substances to overcome my anxiety and shyness around people. It helped me overcome that and be that funny bubbly person I couldn't be sober.

Anyway, I'm probably stating the obvious. I hope you're feeling more human now. Wishing you strength, it's a cliche but take it day by day.

Best of luck Lem

LEM if you want to stop great, but if it worth taking a fee days to mull things over when you're not feeling like death warmed up?

On the rare occasions I've had one over the eight I spend the next day saying 'never touching a drop again' and 'why, why why' in between hurling. The impulse rarely lasts when the monster hangover clears. Make some decisions then rather than when you're feeling grotty.

Obviously drinking too much on tablets is far from clever, but in day to day life your alcohol consumption doesn't seem wildly excessive Do you find your day to day drinking problematic or is it just these occasional binges that are giving you real cause for concern?

Lem, how are you feeling now (assuming you are still up)?
If you don't want or are unable to see medical advice at the moment try and get rehydrated by drinking water.
To answer your question, I had a drinking problem, drank much more than you did (though not every day) and went cold turkey, by myself. I had cravings for about a week, but no physical problems.
I was teetotal for about 6 years after that, have drunk twice this year on social ocassions, I got cravings again afterwards but was able to resist.
And lastly, please don't feel angry and disgusted with yourself. Having a drink problem (or any other addiction) doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't mean you are weak or any other negative characteristics.It's just a health problem, something that you can overcome. Millions and millions of people around the world have been in the same boat as you, it's just part of being human.