Dependent Drinkers and Alcoholics (recovering or active) Support Thread II?

[kokeshi]

Welcome to the thread, the purpose of this is to give anyone, who is having any trouble with their drinking, to come and post about it honestly and without judgement.

There are many of us that use the thread for support and encouragement: some in recovery, others just needing a place to share about their worries. It's been going on in one form of another for a while now and has helped many people.

Everybody's welcome, no matter what stage your drinking is at.

Jump right in, the water's fine

purpleone your friend sounds like a really nice helpful guy NOT !! Your more fun pissed are you ? really or that just an excuse for him not to have to drink on his own . I for one think you sound like a lovely person and I think rather than ditch your friend ,you should allow me to tie him butt naked to a tree ,outside the nearest AA meeting with the words 'i scoff at alcoholics 'painted across his chest in gloss paint.But then again i have raging PMT so best not let me anywhere near him for at least 3 days

Noddy, that was in response to your post. I do appreciate that you have experience in having an alcoholic husband, but I don't think it's necessarily helpful without engaging a poster, qualifying what you mean or suggestions on how the drinker begins to address their alcohol problem. Your active participation in the thread is most welcome though

AH unhappy ,are you doing the 'im badly done too ,the whole worlds shite and im going to go and eat worms ' routine ? I used to think when things were tough that a bottle of wine would sort me out ,sometimes i even made it to bed ! The fact that you say you can drink with impunity because your Dp isnt there being disaproving says alot , But do you have my stubborn streak ,where in a peverse way makes you want the wine more ,after all ,your an adult ,you can decide when and where your going to drink and how much . Any of this making any sense or have I mortally offended you ? if i have i will go and stub my toe on the corner of a door as penance . Right tonight off ,you did really well at the weekend and tomorrows a new sparkely day (when i will eventually learn to spell!).

oww just fallen off my soapbox and hurt my toe.Its probably best to listen to someone like Koi who has more experience/commensense/social skills than I , so i shall take myself off to bed for a night of duvet stealing .Hope everyone is well and I really havent offended anyone

I suppose I spent so long trying in vain to control my drinking, and hoping I could, that I think if someone is trying to control their drinking, then they have a problem with alcohol. My friends who are'normal' drinkers don't have to think about or worry about controlling their drinking.
Remember people that when I post, I am an alcoholic. I am in recovery, but I spent a LONG time getting here, and also I am still very much learning to deal with this.

Hope this makes sense. Obviously I don't mean that when you see my name you think 'oh she's an alcoholic' as a definitive label, just I am writing from the further end of the spectrum, so to speak.

Oh absolutely teasle, your posts are really insightful, and are borne out or your own experience and troubles with alcohol. That's the difference though, people who have been there understand in a way that a 'normal' drinkers never will. I know professionals who work in alcohol treatment centres who say exactly the same thing.

JWFMT, anything you have to add is helpful. Even using this thread as a sort of diary of your journey as you go progress means that you'll be able to see your own progress, and like PurpleOne and BrassicMonkey, come to some quite 'sobering' conclusions about your relationship with drink and also what you may have to do to address that.

Thanks Koi ,sometimes i feel because i havent quite reached the depths others have that somehow what ive got to say is less relevant . I can relate to unhappy and her relationship with alcohol ,because it sounds so similar to my own ,obviousley everyones experiences are individual ,but things she has said really struck a cord .Well i have not had a drink so far this week and im getting to the point now where i dont want one ,its becoming more normal not to drink and i like it .Good luck and wishes to everyone else

I feel I should also come clean , I actually work on a gastro ward where I have seen countless people die of ALD ,the last one was only 41 ,5 years older than me . I used to kid myself ,thinking because i wasnt drinking the same quantities as the people i looked after then i couldnt have a problem . I realised though that I was starting to sound like them in my head if that makes sense . I really connected with the patient who died aged 41 ,not in any unprofesional /weird sense just that I could see similarities in the way his drinking had progressed and the insights he had towards the end ,unfortunately too late . Something that suprises me is that these people get no counselling while in hospital ,if they make it out they can see a community team ,but its up to them ,which i understand it has to be . Other people can be so judgemental about the ALD patients and it makes me feel very protective towards them , in a there for the grace of god kind of way ( also I dont think you should do the job if you cant be non judgemental,as we only see a snapshot of peoples lives ) . So you see I have a good idea of where problem drinking leads ,but it didnt stop me developing a problem .

thanks fio I really didn't mean to sound harsh but right at the beginning of dp's attempts to moderate I remember he had all sorts of rules like no day drinking no spirits only three and then stop it was only when he really 'got' AA that he realised your average person without a problem doesn't measure and analyse their drinking like that.He could never understand how sometimes I would have no alcohol or one glass or maybe 10(very rare!). It is so difficult but I really think abstaining is the only way with help to get you through it.For an alcoholic one drink is too many and 10 isn't enough

Justwater - yeah I think you hit the nail on the head - I do feel rather sorry for myself and all I want from the wine is to make myself not feel anything - sure that makes sense! I feel a little fuzzy today as I when I now open a bottle of wine I know I am going to finish it not just have one or two. My whole life seems to be about keeping people happy and that I know is what is making me so unhappy but I dont know how to stop that other than blot it out right now. Others that have asked "normal drinking" to me means 1 or 2 glasses not a whole bottle to myself. I do hide the fact that I drink so much from everyone in my life. I watch programmes on TV about the afefect it has on your body and I vow to stop but I have got a problem with it and I know I have reached the worst possible place with alcohol yet it hasnt affected my ability to work look after my child or function "normally" but how long will that last - sorry I've gone on a bit but its so good to able to talk about this

really should read post before hitting the button - what I meant to say is "I know I havent reached the worst possible place"

doh!!!

I too am drawn to the programmes about alcoholism and the detrimental effects on the body ,im sure this isnt just a professional interest ,before i admited i had a problem here ,i would find myself thinking ,well look im not on 2 litres of vodka a day ,but it is very bad for you and i must stop, while pouring the remains of a bottle of wine into a glass . I havent reached the very depths that alcohol dependency /addition can take you and im bloody glad i havent ,not just for me but anyone who cares for me . However im not going to kid myself that im fine and dandy either ,because im not YET. Unhappy I hope you dont think im being awful when i said about feeling sorry for yourself ,i just found that alcohol kept me in that mindset , i struggled to see the positives, found it easy to think lifes not fair ,why is it always me doing x,y and z , nobody helps me ,im just an unpaid skivvy ,infact my thinking became quite childlike . When im sober and my DH says something mean I fight back ,im an adult ,when i was drinking I would just feel tearful and have another glass of wine and go into myself . I suppose the long and short of it is ,my self worth is improving and with that my ability to say 'sod off do it yourself ,with those two arms /legs you were born with !'Unless of course it is a totally reasonable request in which case i am niceness personified

I'm a pathetic cow even when I havent had a drink and dont worry about the sorry yourself stuff - its true - but sometimes even when I dont feel sorry for myself I just find myself guzzling away !!!

You are NOT pathetic unhappy just UNHAPPY huge difference

Hi everyone

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've just noticed that this thread has dropped off of 'threads I'm on' and thought it was about time that I came in and made my 'confession'.

I started drinking again last week, but I've stopped again now. I don't know if it was the relapse, or the thing that triggered the relapse that has made me take things a step further since then. I've been talking to other alcoholics off board (thanks ) and a lot of issues that I haven't wanted to accept/realised their significance have surfaced. I wasn't ever really participating in AA properly because I was so anxious and wound up all the time and so I stopped going. I've seen my doctor now because I need some medication to help with the symptoms. I can't get anything though because of my recent relapse. He's referred me to an alcohol service in my area so I'm hanging on waiting for that to come through. I'm staying sober though and am continuing to talk through the issues that I think have caused the anxiety.

I'm actually feeling a lot better than I was before the relapse. It's therapeutic to have a safe place to talk, even if it also feels a bit self-indulgent and as if I'm trying to absolve myself. Hopefully my referral will be here soon and I'll be able to get some meds and be back in AA.

Welcome to unhappy

Hi BM, thanks so much for your honesty on here. Welcome back, I missed you. This, for me, highlights just how serious drink problems really are is. It's really not to be played around with, and that's why I'm really pleased that people are coming on to this thread at points where their drinking is not 'that bad' because you can see from me and others who've gone a little further on in their drinking careers, once it does get that bad, it's really difficult to pick your way out of. Even if you are armed with all the facts and figures, or you are safe in the knowledge that you haven't lost too much (job, family, health), there is one thing for sure. There is only one way that problem drinkers go, that's down. If you can find a way of tackling drink before you get to the stage I did, then please make every effort to do this. The whole 'I'm not as bad as that person' as a classic sign of denial, and pretty likely that you'll already have issues with drink.

As much as I, or any of the other poster on here, can tell you how they ended up like this, every single person has to reach the point where they are ready to admit it to themselves. By coming on here and honestly examining for the first time how much you drink, questioning the patterns of your drinking, rituals, secretive behaviour, obsessive thinking, it allows you to see for yourself what stage you're at. It's more difficult to do this by ourselves as well always just come to the conclusion that 'I'm not that bad...yet'.

Someone joked to to me yesterday that an alcoholic can be defined as 'someone who drinks more than me'...that just about sums it up doesn't it?

Thanks for qualifying that noddy

God Fio, that's really spooky about Stephen King, I said something yesterday that was like that, practically word for word. I just thought everyone felt the same as me at the beginning, then I couldn't work out how in our final year of uni people screwed the nut and just stopped or cut down, whereas I carried on drinking the same way.

Even when I did realise that a) I had a hyooooooge problem with drink and b) I was physically and emotionally fucked, it still couldn't see a way out of it. I would definitely be 6 feet under by now though, had I carried on. There's no doubt about that.

BM I really hope your referral comes through for you soon, its great that you have people to talk with who truly understand what your going through . I think you are incredibly brave ,so many people wont/dont admit they need help until its too late ,good luck

HI BM, glad you are back. The thread isn't the same without you.

Looks like you have all had really interesting conversations while I've been away, there's loads on here for me to think about.

Everyones contributions are brilliant. It doesn't matter what stage we are at- i never got as 'bad' as loads of other people, but that doesn't mean I didn't have a problem.

Will check in later, its good to see the thread so active.

Hey Koi

Hi folks, I'm doing a course at the moment - a kinda alcohol education thing - and I thought it might be useful to discuss some of the things that have been brought up so far. I only started it yesterday but it's been really interesting for me to examine my previous relationship with alcohol from this angle.

So I'll ask a question for everyone on here:

What did/does alcohol do for you? I'm thinking here about the motivations for picking up a drink, and also the feelings it induces when we drink it.

Secondly, at what stage did you start to question your drinking behaviour, which aspects of it now do you consider as not 'normal'? What kind of drinker would you describe youself as, if you were being absolutely brutally honest with yourself?

I'll start. Alcohol, for me, was like a love affair from the very beginning. I remember feeling, even at the age of 13, of for the first time 'fitting in' and feeling confortable in my own skin. It was like the missing piece of the jigsaw.

Secondly, I started questioning my relationship with alcohol very early on, I think I was psychologically dependent really quickly. At university I was quite shy and felt like I needed to drink to be 'sociable'. Being a student afforded me the opportunity to drink recklessly and I suppose I convinced myself that I was just like everyone else. By the time I was in my final year, at 21, I was not only psychologically dependent, but physically addicted. I hadn't a clue really just how much trouble I was in. I carried on for quite a few years after that, despite those early warning signs, and took it right to the edge of my sanity. I thought I was too young/intelligent/strong to be an 'alcoholic', which I wrongly perceived at that time to be the old smelly tramp in the gutter.

So, anyone else?

oh sorry, this is kokeshi in my Rabbie Burns outfit...