That alcoholism can be cured in certain people?

[teenagehurtbag]

I'm a 30 year old woman. Have drank since I was around 12, it was always problematic for me since my first sip. I had never been able to say no, if I had one drink then I needed 100 more, my personality and behaviour would change completely. I binged most weekends from the age of 14 to 24.

At age 24 my binges turned daily, I would drink at a minimum 1.5 bottles every single night come rain or shine. I would promise myself every morning that I wouldn't drink that night but I always ended up doing it anyways. I functioned find from 24 - 27. Was able to keep being a mum and go to work/university and keep on top of everything and whilst everyone knew I liked a wine, no one knew the extent.

Summer 2019 when I was 27 my drinking got to an unmanageable level. I would drink from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. I would sleep in between and get up and drink more as soon as I woke. My daughter (5 at the time) had to go and live with her dad. All I cared about was alcohol. I was so ill, lost so much weight.

In September 2019 I got help, started counselling. In October 2019 I stopped drinking for 6 months. I really really enjoyed this break from alcohol. It changed everything for me. I got my daughter back in the December 2019.

I started drinking again in March 2020 when lockdown hit. It was a conscious decision and I set myself rules. No drinking when my daughter was with me/coming home, no drinking 2 nights in a row and no drinking in the day.

At first I thought I was doomed as the fact I had to set those rules were enough of a concern. However, 2 years later and I have stuck to each of my rules, have managed to graduate uni, start my masters in September. I can actually drink like a normal person now. For instance the other day I went out with my friends and had two cocktails and went home and didn't drink for the rest of the day.

So many people say drinking in moderation isn't possible and at first I'd of agreed, but two years on and alcohol has about the same grip on me as a McDonalds Big Mac burger

Maybe I wasn't a true alcoholic. Maybe I was drinking to mask depression etc. but every professional I met with during that time claimed I was an alcoholic and on the fast track to lolling myself.

AIBU to think some people can be cured?

There’s a lot of ‘experts’ on the disease of alcoholism on this thread…

If you had been addicted to cocaine or heroin would you view moderating as a success?

”I only take cocaine like normal people”

well yes actually. I know Of one very close friend that had a coke problem and now takes it very very rarely if someone else has it on them

Op I have a close relative who is an alcoholic she was sober for ten years and then gradually slipped back in to drinking again she thought she was in control, and at first she was, it would be a glass of wine on a special occasion or a few pints at a BBQ in the summer we thought she was the exception to the rule but before she or we knew it she was back down that hole again. She is really struggling atm and the way she describes it is that it's a constant battle every day to not drink sometimes she wins and sometimes she loses so to answer your question no I don't think an alcoholic can ever go back to drinking again because it may be a few months or a few years or even a decade Like my relative but you will inevitably lose control again. That's just my opinion and I'm not an expert but please be careful because your on a slippery slope.. I do wish you all the best ❤️

So you got your daughter back? Well done. It does sound like you're doing very well.

You could incorporate a warning signal for yourself and a rule if that happens?

For example you catch yourself having a drink outside of your rules, what do you do? Do you give yourself a whole week or month off? Do you decide to stop completely?

Just be honest with yourself. You also have a duty to your child.

I can empathise.

Have you had your liver function etc checked? My cousin died of liver failure in her 30s because of drinking. She collapsed and was hospitalised but continued drinking small amounts again pretty quickly and started a downward spiral when life became difficult because of perfectly normal work / financial stress (so don't kid yourself it can't happen to you - we all go through difficult periods and cope by doing something which makes us feel happy. Luckily my 'hook' is doing yoga and watching crappy tv- not likely to kill me).

Cousin had been sober (we think) for a short while tho when she died but she did nothing to take care of her health and deal with the damage she had already done to her body.

No. Not forever. It'll catch you, please try and stop before it does

Not buying it, sorry
Glad to have found this thread though as have been having a wobble over my divorce but reading all these posts cements the fact that my stbxh who regularly drank wine for breakfast but has now apparently moderated to the point 'it's not a problem anymore' is full of shit and only no alcohol at all is the right amount for someone like him
Also the daughter of an alcoholic mother who could sometimes stop or moderate but would eventually fall off the wagon and we were nc when she died at 58

You have an illness which tells you you don't have one. It will lie to you make you think you are somehow different or special to every other alcoholic. You are already doing that by thinking you have achieved something other alcoholics can't.

If you were so content with life you would have valued all you have gained from not drinking too much to gamble it by taking a drink. When you took that first drink did you really acknowledge it could cost you your life or your daughter? I can't actually believe you have manipulated your family into colluding with this delusion, this only fuels your conviction that you are right.

No one needs a drink, if all your previous experience of drinking was that you had no off switch then why would you try such a reckless experiment after a period of sobriety. Alcoholism is why and it's almost certainly not done with you yet.

Try stopping drinking again. A social drinker might miss the sociability of a glass of wine or two but they wouldn't be filled with horror if alcohol was no longer available. Make a commitment not to drink for a year and then ask yourself how that feels and see if you can stick to it. If you are cured you will not have any sense of panic at the prospect and will not quickly start making excuses for why just one a this particular occasion won't matter.

Your disease will allow you this period of delusion before the wheels fall off, they always do. It's doesn't matter who else you like to about what you are doing you will always know at some level it's a lie. You would not be posting on the internet looking for confirmation if you really believed you were cured.

This is not a pile on, this is people with far too much experience of the real nature of alcoholism being honest with you.

I do wish you well but you are deceiving yourself. It's a shit disease. Good luck

Throwing myself into the thread and expecting a lot of criticism...I also had a massive alcohol problem when I was younger and pretty much lost everything - at the end like the OP my life basically consisted of drinking, sleeping/passing out and venturing out when desperate enough to buy more alcohol. At that point there was absolutely no pleasure involved+ it no longer even worked to help with anxiety, it was purely a desperate attempt to avoid how ill I felt when I was hungover.

I was lucky enough to get a physical detox, which frankly was the only way I could have broken out of the cycle at that point.

Afterwards I went to AA, every day, sometimes twice a day, for months. It was helpful at first, it gave me structure and a way of distracting myself. After about a year I was feeling stronger mentally and physically and started to find the constant discussions around alcohol weren't helpful anymore, I felt the meetings were contributing to an obsession with alcohol and stopping me moving on.

Actually tho I did find the Allen Carr books extremely helpful in giving me an alternative way of thinking about alcohol.

I was well enough to replace the structure of AA with a job and started studying with the OU, at the start just to keep me occupied but ended up graduating a few years later.

That's nearly two decades ago now and I occasionally drink alcohol, maybe a couple of times a year. I know everyone says that once you're addicted you always will be, but I'm really not bothered about drinking. I actually feel like my previous experiences have worked as pretty good aversion therapy - I will never drink enough to get drunk again.

Anyway I await my kicking!

It's taking that jump, isn't it? Into the cold water of sobriety which can be very lonely.

No kicking @MrsEdnaWelthorpe a very interesting insight
how did you get through the early weeks/months blue Thursdays, cosy Friday nights fire lit?? Barbecue summer evenings?

You know you are taking a big risk by drinking.
Being dependent on alcohol is like having an abusive partner, it may be nice for a while but then the shit hits they fan.
This is something your daughter will experience with you, as you are taking her along for the ride.

This is almost word for word what my mum had told me , she got sober 10 years ago in her early 40s, a few years ago she started thinking that maybe she could drink again in moderation and not tip back into alcoholism and for around 2 years we found out she had been drinking , occasionally, on holidays , at the weekend ,never in front of the rest of us , that she could have a glass or 2 and stop , that she could go a while without any drinking and like you she was promising that she would never go back to that dark place , maybe she wasn't like the other 'alcoholics' or maybe she was just self medicating her depression, very very recently she she crossed that line, her couple of drinks almost overnight turned into a bottle of vodka and now she is back in a rehab and desperately fighting those demons she beat before , but she is in a bad place .
I don't know what it feels like to be addicted to alcohol but just seeing it so close to me is enough to put me off and I have a drink on maybe one or two occasions a year , if I had been to that hell myself and escaped it I would be firmly bolting the door behind me and never daring to open it back up. That's just my view though , nothing is impossible of course and I hope you have a bright happy future.

At the beginning just a lot of AA meetings, which taught me I needed things to do in the evenings and I just stuck to that, night after night.

But after a while it became much easier. And like I said, alcohol made me so physically ill by the end that it worked like a kind of aversion therapy - in my brain getting drunk is associated with days of retching, being weak and covered in bruises, having no self respect and being treated like shit. So it doesn't appeal!

Oh and I now love exercise+ going to the gym! I know I've been very lucky though.

I don’t think time is a good measure for alcoholism. Every problem drinker I know can go ages without it, or moderate it to some degree. The people who don’t have problems with alcohol don’t need rules around it - they might cut back for weight loss or because they need to drive their kids around or whatever, but they don’t need the ‘I won’t drink if the day begins with a ‘t’ or an ‘S’.

People think alcoholism is being unable to go without a drink but it’s not - it’s prioritising alcohol above everything else. You say you functioned while drinking every day and I’m sure that’s true, I’m sure you survived but you absolutely would not have been at your best. You would always have been a bit too impatient, a bit too tired, a bit too distracted. And then your kid was taken from you. You are mad to think you’re in control.

I worked with alcoholics for a time, and I'm afraid I don't know one who could keep drinking in moderation long term - the mere fact that they felt the need to 'prove' they could do so 'safely' because the alternative is facing the difficult fact that they probably shouldn't drink. And that is not recovery, because it's not being honest with yourself.

Do I think that's true for everyone? I don't know. Alcohol is often used as a masking tool for other issues and if they're addressed, could someone theoretically remove the addiction element from it? Maybe. But I've never seen it happen.

Addiction requires lying - to other people, but mostly to yourself. A lot of addicts set themselves little rules (which are actually just little lies) to maintain the image of control, either for other people to see or for their own sense of self: "I only drink after lunchtime so I'm okay now", "I'll only use once a week and then it's not in control of me", "I never let it get as far as [bad situation] so I'm handling it".

That is, unfortunately, what this looks like to me - unwilling to completely let the addiction go and re-frame yourself as someone who does not drink in your mind, you've created a little lie that you're someone who will never go back past 'a reasonable amount to drink'. And the problem with those little lies is that it's a grey area - you're not a non-drinker, you just drink a bit. And then it's very easy for it to be a bit more and you haven't crossed a line, just blurred a definition.

Abstinence is so widespread because it creates a clear, defined boundary and you don't leave yourself any room for interpretation and gradual slipping.

I hope you're the exception, I genuinely do.

I don't know..
My father was/is an alcoholic. He was dry from the time I was 16 until about 5 years ago (so for almost 20 years). He made the conscious decision to drink again and told us all that was what he planned to do.
I mist admit my first thought (abd that of my brothers) was panic and anger and it stirred up loads of complex emotions. To date he has actually controlled it though- he shares a bottle of wine with mum on a Saturday then has the odd G&T on sunny days and bit more booze at social events.
I asked him how he can (seemingly) control it now when he couldn't during our childhood and he said its because he no longer has the stress of work to drive him to drink and also because his bi-polar disorder is now under control with medication.
I do wonder if it wouid slip out of control again if something awful happened but not so far.
Dad had a very long period of abstinence and his life is so different now (kids all grown up and left home, retired, financially more comfortable etc) that maybe it seems like a different lifetime but we all still have the memories of it all. I wouldn't risk it now OP, not whilst your daughter is still so young. Forgive me if this has been asked/answered but when you drink when daughter not there do you have a couple or do you get hammered?

I agree with this.

If you were just a normal drinker, and not an alcoholic, you wouldn't be tying yourself in knots to just have two drinks. Normal drinkers don't even have to think about it.

You've controlled your drinking well for 2 years but that doesn't mean you will for ever. Surely the safest thing to do is just not risk it?

For the sake of your daughter?

Where do you think this expertise comes from?

People are talking from first hand experience here! Out of concern for the OP.

@WeddingShedding It's the largest programme, with one of the highest failure rates.

Where on earth did I suggest every alcoholic was a rapist?
If you are on AIBU you are inviting people to reply
I was talking about my own personal experience
That ex was a very bad person
I know alcoholics who are very good people
But they are all deluded in some way. There is NO such thing as controlled drinking. Not sustainable long term anyway. The smallest crisis can risk anyone being back on full binge mode. I've had non alcoholic friends die of binges
You lost your daughter once... why would you even want a sip again... wasn't that a big enough wakeup call?
I wish you all the best I really do but this makes for worrying reading

Got to be an all or nothing Op
It really is
The 'Nothings for ever more' are the success stories
When I went to Al Anon, for those whose lives were affected by others drinking, I learnt it was only the tiniest, tiniest per cent that stay sober for ever more
So many success stories I heard were followed by misery and often bereavement a year later. It was utterly heartbreaking. Every single partner, friend , relative of my group relapsed, Every single one

@Fairislefandango AA has one of the highest failure rates of any alcohol addiction programme, abstinence is not the only route. Finding the root cause of the issue and treating that is usually the best place to start, after that you will know whether completely abstaining from alcohol in the future is necessary.

Do you have any stats and/or links to back that up?

Most of the alcoholics linked to my Al Anon group never attended AA, not a single meeting nor followed the programme. Like my ex, they refused. They said they'd rather be dead. He totally mocked me as I went to Al Anon only after we split. And yes he died

I am an Alcoholic,once an Alcoholic always an Alcoholic.I have been sober over 19years.

Lots of people who are called Alcoholics aren’t at all,they can stop drinking and find another hobby.Perhaps you are one of those?

The fact that you are even debating all this suggests to me you are far from a normal drinker,normal drinkers don’t give their drinking a second thought.

I have known lots of Alcoholics drink again and control their drinking,sometimes for years,but eventually it gets worse and they end up drinking more than ever.

I am in AA,we say Alcoholism is cunning,baffling and powerful.It is also patient.

You made the decision to drink again,you accept the consequences.