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?

Grabthars - I thinkmyou need to start by accepting that your drinking IS damaging your children.

Sit down and take a long, hard look at that fact. Stop denying it, stop minimising it, stop making excuses to yourself, and face up to the fact that you ARE damaging your family. Can you live with that?

Can you live with knowing what a huge burden you are putting on your husband?

What if you die, as a result of your alcoholism?

Please take the blinders off and be honest about the effects of your alcoholism on your family. Then ask yourself if you are happy to carry on doing that damage.

Based on personal experience, I would suggest NA as an alternative. I've only ever had issues with drugs, not alcohol, but at my meetings there were a good few alcoholics that preferred it. I went to AA once as a guest and hated it - but NA really worked for me.

One of the NA mantras was that there are only 3 options available to you when you are an addict - jails, institutions or death. And that is something that we addicts all agree on. Recovery is the only alternative, and to me, total abstinence has to be the key. I'm an all or nothing kind of gal I'm afraid.

I wish you all the very best

I had a thread on here a while ago about drinking wine in the park. Following that I referred myself to services. It took a little while but I've now been triaged and put into two separate groups. More help is available. Rehab is an option and I will discuss it with the facilitators tomorrow.

I just wanted to say that so you know that I am listening, I do take advice on board and I'm not just paying lip service to any ideas.

Stick with it op, you will get there

Don't do it for your health if it doesn't bother you
Don't do it for your husband if it doesn't bother you
Don't do it for yourself if it doesn't bother you

DO IT FOR YOUR CHILDREN

And yes, I am shouting that.

And I say this from the perspective of a child of an alcoholic (who is dead now. Of alcohol related illness)

You talked about drinking wine in the park, you don't seem to have moved on much. You're still drinking on the school.run.

You've had counselling for 3 weeks. How have you progressed? Does your DH know you are picking up your children drunk? You didnt answer that.

I understand you're mininising but are you taking it seriously? How do you see yourself stopping this cycle?

No Dh doesn't know.

I'm not sure how you think I'm minimising?

After three weeks of counselling it's gone like this: overdose straight after the first session which meant I was in hospital for three days, the next two weeks sober and then a blowout this week.

I'm certainly not expecting the counselling groups to fix me straight away. I am doing the work though, this last shit week has been a lapse.

You have received some excellent advice on this thread. Please continue with counselling and accept the offer of rehab. A bit of minor, temporary disruption for your children is absolutely worth it for a lifetime of stability and emotional wellbeing if their mother is sober.

And do talk to your husband. He needs to know what is happening. Your children may not know the extent of your drinking, but they certainly know what it is like to have an alcoholic mother (even if they wouldn't put it in those terms). I really feel for those children, especially your daughter who seems to be playing the role of scapegoat at the moment (based on other threads).

And I think you really don't like being drunk. You may appreciate the escape, the numbing of emotions, the lack of inhibition. But being in thrall to alcohol (and the turmoil and self-loathing that results) really can't be something you enjoy.

Grabthars - I think you are minimising because you are denying that your drinking is affecting your children, and you are saying that you are just 'buzzed' after a whole litre of vodka.

Why the suicide attempt? Did you want to die because you can't face the prospect of getting sober? Go into rehab! Try anything! Come on!

I've never denied that it's affecting the children. Ever. I'm very aware that it's having a detrimental affect on them, and on Dh.

And I only felt buzzed last night. I wasn't slurring or staggering and I dont have any gaps in my memory.

My father was an alcoholic and a selfish bastard at that because he like you could see no wrong in his actions. He died at 50 years old. Me and my siblings all watched as he drank himself into a stupor from morning to night, I do not drink as I appear to have no off switch like him and my brother is the same. You may think your children are unaffected but surely they see you drunk or hear you crying or see the scars and the aftermath of suicide attempts. You have a very selfish outlook on the whole situation and tbh I would rather leave than subject my children to the evils of addiction. You are very lucky that your husband has stuck around and he is very stupid in doing so.

Op. maybe next time you drink a litre of vodka ask someone to video you? I guarantee you'll be shocked by what you see and you will be looking like and acting like something a lot more than a little buzzed.

For fucks sake, when have I ever said they are unaffected?

Or that I can't see anything wrong with my drinking?

There's a fuck tonne of projection going on in this thread.

I don't care if you're Gazza and George Best all rolled into one. after a litre of vodka you are DRUNK. hideously, dangerously, uncontrollably drunk. fall downstairs and break your neck drunk. die in the night drunk.

to deny this is ridiculous.

I'm not denying I was drunk or that it's an insane amount of booze. I am telling you that I felt slightly pissed as opposed to rolling drunk. Whether that's how I really was I don't know, although Dh says I appeared fairly sober to him.

I'm not minimising by saying that, it's bloody terrifying tbh.

I can tell you when I first thought I'd stopped. I was in AA but couldn't string any time together. I went on a bender and woke up in the act of vomiting. I was on my back.

I was so frightened that I told myself that was it. I had to get on top of this. I could literally die in my sleep.

I carried on drinking for another four months. things got a LOT worse before the end.

sobriety is cold and loud and jagged. it screams in your face at four in the morning. living sober is living in the world with your nerves outside your skin. it HURTS.

it's still better on a bad day than any of my bad days drunk.

By the time you're drinking to just feel normal and you only feel normal and a bit buzzed off a litre of vodka drunk in a short space of time, you need rehab. The number of places available for rehab have been cut so much over the last decade that its only ever offered to the people who need it most, the people in most danger to themselves, the people who are most likely to lose everything. They're offering it to you. You are that person.

You get lots of support and sympathy as people love you and care about you, but head stroking and sympathy has never once helped to cure an alcoholic and ultimately it won't help or cure you either. I want you to get better. Stop the apologies and recriminations and self-hatred and go to rehab. Please.

I'm going to talk to them about rehab tomorrow. It's on the table but I think there are hoops to go through first, and it will probably have to wait until after my medical which they said could take up to a month.

I am starting to accept that it might be what I need though.

Op. I suspect your husband isn't being honest, I don't think anyone can appear fairly sober after a litre of vodka, even proper hard core alcoholics cannot manage that.

The fact he wouldn't leave you as he was worried possible reveals the lie in his words, but he should be honest with you. Telling you you appear sober after that much booze is simply pointless. You would have been very drunk indeed. There is no way round it.

Is this going to be stick to beat yourself with tonight? If everyone is vile enough will it be a good excuse?
Like when I used to try to stop smoking and would start a row subconsciously to give me an excuse to light up :(

I think it was last night when I posted, yes. I was a big mess of self loathing and was doing my usual 'posting as a form of self harm' crap.

I feel actually ok today. I have group tomorrow and it is a fresh week. I haven't drank today and I won't drink tomorrow. I'm going to do this.

I remember your last thread. Was your husband drinking with you last night? You need to tell him about doing the school run whilst pissed - he has the right to know that. You sound much brighter today and seem to be feeling much better. I hope that positivity continues for you this week.

I'm the adult (40s) child of a alcoholic mother. My mother has been in recovery and has not drunk alcohol since I was 6 years old. I have no memories of her drinking, or any harm she caused.

Do it for your children before they can remember.

He wasn't drinking last night. Long convoluted pathetic story where we had half a bottle of vodka left over that he'd hidden from me and I begged, cajoled and manipulated him into giving it to me.

I'll tell him about the drinking in the day, he does need to know.