To really like being drunk?

[GrabtharsHammer]

I'm an alcoholic and I'm aiming for sobriety. I'm finding it really hard. I'm in two different groups (not AA, it's not for me). They dont expect abstinence straight away, it's more CBT based.

I've drunk a litre of vodka tonight and I love this feeling. I feel normal, if a bit buzzed.

I usually drink half a bottle of wine during the day so I can do the school run, I don't go in the playground in the morning so it's easier but I feel I need a drink to face the pick up. I'll then drink another bottle of wine in the evening. I don't really get hangovers but the financial hit is the main issue. Thatvand the fact my family hate it.

I crave sobriety. I love the idea. But I can't see how I can say goodbye to feeling like this ever again. Stone cold sober feels jagged and painful and it's not something I can imagine committing to.

Dh hates me drinking. He's exhausted this evening and wants to go to bed but won't leave me because I'm half cut and he doesn't trust I won't do anything silly (history of self harm and overdosing).

I won't, because I feel happy and chilled, but I want to stay up and watch shit telly. I'm basically ruining his life, and I know this, but I can't bear the idea that I'll never feel this way again.

We've tried having him control my drinking but it doesn't work. And I know from therapy that I have to control it myself or there's no point. But I feel like I'm stuck at a point. I know i need to stop drinking entirely but I'm scared.

I have bipolar 2 and BPD so my emotions are generally all over the place, and alcohol is like a comfort blanket.

The old adage about reaching rock bottom doesn't really apply because I've been there and life is generally good now. How on earth can I convince myself that alcohol is no good when it seems so nice?

I know, logically, that we'd be much richer and my health would improve, but I can't seem to take that step forward. I've done loads of paper exercises, like the costs and benefits scale and the hierarchy of values and all of that, but I can't seem to make it stick.
Am I just an awful person? Too selfish to quit?

I have two friends that I know of who each had an alcoholic parent. I probably have more but they're the ones I am aware of.
It ruined their childhoods. One in particular lost her mother to alcoholism. She doesn't drink at all, ever, but her sister is now alcoholic.
You ARE affecting your children; you have to be at the amounts you're drinking.
You are at risk of dying. Your liver can't handle that level of alcohol indefinitely.

You are not unreasonable to like being drunk. Being drunk feels awesome; most of us know that. But you can't keep putting that feeling before your children's needs.

So you're in therapy, OP? I'm assuming then that you know that what you're doing is self-medicating as a means of not feeling something. (CBT, btw, won't help you with that.) And that Bipolar Disorder is often a result of an inconsistent childhood - where you were constantly put on the back foot, constantly having to adapt and second-guess.

If any of this feels on point, then nothing will stop you from drinking until you address the cause.

Living with an alcoholic is absolutely horrible, even a functioning one. There is constant worry about so many things, it is depressing, it has a very negative effect on pretty much everything in what was once a happy relationship and there is always the dread of waking up the next day and knowing that nothing has changed and the wish that it would stop and normality could take over. The longing for a fresh start.

Please try to help yourself while you still have a family to support you because the pleasure you get from the drinking will be wiped out if you find you are alone.

Yeah YABU. I am the child of alcoholic parents and they ruined my childhood and teenage years. They were completely selfish, my mother still is, my dad is dead. But whatever anyone here says you'll still continue to be totally selfish and put the bottle before your husband and children. That's addiction for you.

I've abused alcohol all my life. I'm not an alcoholic. I don't need it to get through the day. But certain things are not enjoyable without a drink - and enough to get at least very tipsy.

Lately, however, I've started to get bad hangovers. Also, I struggle to finish the last can out of the usual four I drink at a time and I often feel a bit sick if I try to. I don't know if age has something to do with it (37) or if my body is finally protesting, but I'm rather glad that despite not being able to enjoy the things I used to in the evenings (always drank alone) I'm kind of forced to give it up.

It worries me that you can drink a litre of vodka and not be screaming drunk. It worries me that you drink at all around your kids (I stopped taking that kind of chance a long time ago as I worried something would happen to her whilst I was drunk and I couldn't drive her to the hospital). You can bet your life you are ruining your kids. Being hazed puts you in a bubble regardless of whether you think you're feeling normal and I'll bet you don't have a grip on much. I'll also bet it masks your real feelings and stops you feeling bad about yourself, which is why you need alcohol 'to feel normal'. It's called hair of the dog, isn't it? Just one of the classic signs of alcoholism.

Read this thread when you're sober. Not when you FEEL sober. When you are.

You have to love your children and family more than you love the drink. Do you?

Come and say hello on the Dry thread? We are on Dry 16 now in Relationships.. Seriously we are supportive and helpful and will be there for you.

I understand x you know you have a problem,and you want to change.thats a fantastic first step.x

What impact is this having on your children? Do you want them growing up with a childhood where their mother is an alcoholic? This is and will continue to affect them and will follow them into adulthood. Their well being has to come before your addiction. If you don't address this it will have a lasting impact upon them, not to mention your marriage.

I work in mental health so I do have some understanding of your issues. It sounds as though a residential rehab programme followed by counselling both for your addiction and your mental health issues would be appropriate but you need to be motivated to do this for it to be successful.

You sound in such denial about the severity of this. Go to rehab please. You are killing yourself slowly.

Once you have overcome this you can slowly deal with everything else. Your BPD, self harm etc etc won't be worked on while you drink.

My alcoholic step father really damaged our childhood in lots of ways, I didn't realise he was an alcoholic at the time, I wish he'd got help. He died of a massive heart attack aged 56. He left behind a damaged wife and 4 young children. He was so selfish.

You are so much better than this. You need to do this. You have to.

You could be me when I was drinking, except that I didn't have any children then. It's like looking in a mirror. Your selfishness and denial are absolute.

You are seriously screwing with your children. Even if they witness no dramas, children of alcoholic parents suffer from their emotional absence. You can't do anything to stop that. You are emotionally absent because you are pissed. In terms of intimacy, you might as well be in a sealed box. There are other ways in which alcoholics damage their OH and DC.

I get that you feel really good about life. Your self-satisfaction is plain for all to see. Why shouldn't you feel content? You're drinking. Your DH is showing no signs of chucking you out, and, to keep people off your back, you are attending counselling for your drinking. But from where I'm sitting I see someone whose counselling isn't working, someone who minimizes the harm they are doing to their DC and DH and someone who doesn't have any intention of stopping drinking.

I stopped drinking because I wanted you get sober more than anything else. I bit the bullet and went into rehab for 6 weeks. That was over 20 years ago and it remains my best decision.

But no alcoholic ever stopped drinking unless something else mattered more. While your primary relationship is with the drink you won't change.

Its so, so sad reading this as despite saying you want to fix this, you don't really believe how damaging you're being. Its all about you and that's what addiction does, it makes you selfish and makes everything about you.

So you're not at rock bottom at the moment, but what will it take? At the moment, siphoning your family finances into your drinking isn't enough. Picking up your kids after a drink isn't enough. Self harming when you're drunk isn't enough. Showing your children that drink is more important than them (and you are doing this) isn't enough. Worrying that your DH will leave isn't enough.

What about Social services becoming involved when someone realises you've been drinking when you pick up the kids? What about your children in therapy as your behaviour is screwing them up? Would that be enough?

How about if one of your children developed mental health issues themselves because of your behaviour, would that be enough, or would you still crack open the vodka on the weekend?

Maybe it would be your DH leaving you - but possibly not as if your kids aren't enough, why would he be?

You need to stop, you know that. I'd take the rehab option if I was you as short term pain could save so much damage to your children. Much more than your temporarily being away.

I hope you can change, I really do. Sadly, having seen many alcoholics, I don't hold much hope at the moment. I really think you may end up screwing up your life and the life of your husband and more importantly your children even more than you are doing at the moment. Its tragic.

You need professional advice rather than internet forum advice, but fwiw, rehab seems to make sense.

Your dh is enabling you. He needs to get support on how best to support you .

You're obviously self-medicating so you need to speak to your GP and get some help with that. Once you get sober you'll need help finding something to substitute for the alcohol. The PP's mother used chocolate, Amy Liptrot says wild swimming has been her substitute. You need to find the thing that works for you. And you need to stop for your family, living with an alcoholic destroys lives.

You want to stop but you don't want to stop. You have no power over alcohol because you have a disease, a disability. I don't hold with anything other than AA - there's no softly softly approach with alcoholism.

Or you can carry on making excuses and die slowly and horribly whilst you turn yellow, go into multi-organ failure and lie in a pool or your own piss and shit, like my father.

Sorry to be harsh but that was my reality as the child of an alcoholic.

op being alcoholic isn't selfish, not doing or trying to do anything about it - that's a different matter. This is coming from an alcoholic by the way, so you know the old saying "you can't kid a kidder?"

Firstly I would be concerned about the fact that you write so coherently after a litre of vodka, seems you would either be a troll or a chronic alcoholic drinking to the point of normality rather than drunkenness.

Why is AA not for you? Is it because AA requires you to be honest with yourself? Or is it that AA thinks that the only way to start dealing with alcoholism is with sobriety? Could it be that CBT is allowing you to drink and that's why this method appeals to you at the minute? Or is it that CBT Counsellors haven't expressly told you you should stop?

I would say you haven't hit rock bottom...you might not identify with what I am saying, but the word YET, is something you should be thinking of in your drinking career, your DH hasn't left yet, your DC haven't been taken into care yet, however one thing that isn't a yet, but is happening right now is that you are ruining your husband and your children's mental health - as well as your own.

You are putting emotional pressure on them that children of school age should not have to cope with - and it is all because you want the buzz of drink.

Re your bi-polar, this also is being affected by drink, so cannot be used as an excuse.

I understand alcoholism, I understand the compulsion and obsession to drink, even at times drinking when I didn't want to drink, the swearing off drink the morning after the night before, the drinking to face situations...the drinking because I avoided situations .....the drinking to control the shakes.

The thing is, we suffer from a disease, a disease similar to cancer, HIV, motor neurones etc....suffering from a disease is used by us alcoholics as an excuse...part of the reason why we manipulate, lie and engineer situations for our own benefit.....the difference is we don't need to go to a dr to control our disease, we just need to take action to control it and stop getting worse.....every day we don't do it once we realise the problem is a day where we are selfish, self centred and tormenting our family.

I don't be annoyed at you for being an alcoholic, I do feel sorry that the disease has such a grip in you that you do not take proper action and deal with it, in the knowledge that it is hurting your family.

Oh gosh, I've read a few of your threads recently, I think you're great to admit this, but other things stand out.
You have a lovely big house, lots of nice new things, a great life etc.
That really is great, but it doesn't make up for the fact that you're an alcoholic, you can't hide behind a lifestyle.
Alcohol isn't giving you anything, it's taking from you, please take up the rehab.

"It works if you work it" (AA)
Suggest you listen to someone who's now sober and happy.
Or find something else that works.

This is hard to read.

You're so self absorbed you don't "get"the damage you are doing. Tbf this is what alcoholism is. Selfish addiction.

My exh was an alcoholic and your story makes my blood run cold. I feel bad for your DH because I've been on the end of tears and remorse but the drink still flowing. Its an awful place for your DH to be.

Does he know you pick up your children having had a drink? Or is that a secret? Most alcoholics have a secret or two?

Go to rehab. It will totally mess up your family routine, but so what? You need to get better. Your drinking is no longer about you.

I was raised by alcoholics, one parent dried up with the help of AA and regular meetings. Their experience led them to say that they can have a drink at any time but they just choose to not have one now. Be in the present and abstain in the now, the future's always some time away.

There's a lot of good advice on here but I suspect it's falling on deaf ears. Prawn accurately sums up how it must be for you; nice, comfortable life where your behaviour is accepted or goes unnoticed (everyone notices, believe me), and the only one who is suffering is you. Except for when you're drinking of course, when you feel great. It's all about you, you, you!

I'm on the other side of the fence. DH has a huge drink problem. He, like you, knows it but can't/won't stop. I feel he is lost to alcoholism. The destruction it does to families is immeasurable, but I bet you can't see the damage you've done to yours.

I don't respect DH anymore, I don't trust him after he stole from me, I don't love him the way I used to and the rift between us is irreparable. I am currently planning what the future holds for DS and I, without DH. He is blissfully unaware of this.

Your DH could very well be doing the same and you could lose it all in an instant. Your family's happiness should matter more to you than drinking, but it doesn't. The fact is your drinking is destroying you all, you owe it to your family, and yourself, to stop now, or you'll have nothing to live for but the next happy vodka buzz

Yabu but I don't think it makes a difference. Kid yourself as much as you want that your kids aren't affected but they are. My mum was a functioning alcoholic. She ruined my childhood and our relationship will never be the same. Your kids should be enough to make you want a better life for them. It's not about how vodka makes you feel, it's about how your kids feel when you've been drinking vodka.

I've found Cognitive Behavioural Therapy very effective. It gives you strategies for dealing with the present in a practical manner.
I also suggest finding an exercise that you like. Try a few different classes, take up cycling, commit to a triathlon - people do these things! You can be one of those people too! And then you want to go to bed early so you can so you can do the thing tomorrow. The thing becomes more important than the drink.
That buzzed feeling that we love - you can get it from endorphins from physical exertion. When you are drinking regularly and weak, this can seem very daunting, but you'll find that feeling, I promise.
I am now going to 6am yoga several days a week - old neli would never have imagined this as a possibiity! And drinking smaller quantities less often too