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

I'll bet you were!

The weather is absolutely mingin' up here-windy, sleety snow.

Whilst stuck in, think I might try going through one of my cupboards in crazee housewifey styley.

Enjoy, I'm leaving because my heating is gubbed and I've already waited in all bloody morning for the gas man. Fecking E-on, bunch of slackers.

Enjoy your cupboard clearing

How's everyone's evening treating them so far?

I'm without heating until next week at the earliest [brr], apparently the sesnor in the boiler, for want of a better word, is fcuked. I climbed into bed this afternoon cos it was sooooooo cold! .

Mt Sky TV box is on the blink too - tragedy - so DP called up and after a few tinkerings. they decided there was something wrong with the Sky+ box and it would require an engineer call out, that would cost us £65!!! Nae chance! I spend enough bloody money with these rogues, so we threatened to cancel and go with Virgin, and they magically offered us a free call out, 'just this once' if we agreed not to cancel our subscription. Yeehaw.

We were discussing today communication and the effect that drinking has on our ability to communicate with others, and also our feeling of being able to tackle problems such as those above.

So here's a question: Considering that communication is the cornerstone to being able to participate in all aspects of life, what areas do you feel that drinking or depending on alcohol has affected your communication skills: by avoiding stuff; feeling able to relate to people; get our point across or confidence in our ability to say what we want effectively.

I'm not talking here specifically when we're drinking, but the effect that it has on our lives 'the day after' or how we generally feel about ourselves in relation to others?

Avoiding stuff was the classic example of me. I'd avoid everything and anything...the door, phone calls, letters etc.

Since I'm 'attempting' to go without, I have tackled the gas, CANCELLED the Sky and attempted to reinstate my long forgotten tv licence.
Communication is the paramount key I feel.

I'm here for a little while if anyone wants to chat.

I was also thinking about communication is our closest relationships, that was really affected by my drinking. I think the fact that you are just sober, means that you are already on an better footing with your nearest and dearest, before we even begin to communicate.

And then there are the times when I get pissed off with people and got drunk, then tried to communicate and it ended it disaster. Many of my long standing friends still don't speak to me after my horrible drunken phone calls.

Well done on tackling those things PurpleOne, what a relief it must be?

It is sure a blessing for me OH, really it is.
It wasn't so much about the closest relationships, as there is really no one to be close too, but after a 'session', I'd just hide.

I was the world's classiest procrastinator..put it off until tomorrow, the beer would come around, hangover again and guess what! It'd still not get done.

I must admit I have had a drink tonight. Went to the pub on my own and armed with a magazine. Since it was my first night out alone in 3 months, had a meal and just one pint. Made it last until last orders then went home.
I specifically stayed until last orders because I'd used to pop into the off licence on the way home...I haven't this time.
And the dd's want to go out tomorrow for the day and it's up to me not to let them down by not getting up, so made a point of just the one. It's just nice to be out and have other things to focus on, rather than getting pissed all the damn time.

Had a huge row with EXH when I got back though...if I'd have been pissed he'd have walked all over me. (Caught him upstairs in my bedroom) [hmm) Yeah ok, I was 15 mins late, but also no excuse to go snooping either. Coming home sober, I shot my mouth off, made my point and kicked him out!
How's things?

Ohh what an arse. I'd have bopped him on the nose. How come he was in your house? Have you agreed on a a truce?

I'm not bad, DP's gone off to bed with the only heater we have at our disposal at the moment, so I may be having an enforced early night.

Where are with the AA stuff and drinking? Are you still going to meetings?

He was in my house because I wasn't there. When I'm there I don't let him in and he hates that. (due to him snooping once before) but I also hate the fact that he tries to push my front door wide open, stand there and gas....and make my house cold.

This is the first drink I've had in ages and on going to the pub (went on my own, personal choice) and thought it'd just be nice to have just one with my mixed grill. My fave beer was off tap, didn't even think about %age, just went with one that I liked and enjoyed it immensely. I went to a meeting last Thurs. Can't get to all of the ones I wish to, due to work and other commitments...I'm sure you understand.

But it's something I am working very hard on. People don't notice these things when your focussing really hard on stuff...and I have made lots of progress in my life. Facing things, dealing with things, getting things done there and then, making my lists....and taking DD2 to school! I am up early, I don't nap in the day anymore and I feel so much better!

Go and huddle with dp under the covers...it's so cold out there! I have dd2 in my bed and it'll be nice and warm when I shift her over and I get the warm patch Anyways, I'd best be off for now, have promised dcs a trip to the natural history museum tomorrow, some lunch and a walk by the Thames come snow or sun and I'd best get up early LOL

Have a good night everyone! x x

Hi everyone

I've just got back from my first meeting in ages (had to do shopping on the way home). Oh, God I wish I hadn't done the shopping actually. On the way through the carpark going back to the car, DS grabbed an abandonned trolley, spun it round and hit a parked car with it. I was just about to say 'thank fuck the owner's not in it, when he opened his car door. He'd been sitting there in the dark . He really shouted at DS to BE CAREFUL. I KNOW I'm being unreasonable and would have been pissed off had it been my car but he cried and I just can't bear anyone to make him feel bad. So, I asked him to get out and have a look for damage so that we could sort it out. He refused and just kept on shouting at DS that he should be MORE CAREFUL. I walked away at that point but I wanted to punch him (unreasonable I know) but accidents do happen, he's only 6 and I'm responsible for him so he should have shouted at me.

Aaaaanyway, the meeting was a good one. The chair was a really funny guy and there was a lot of sharing about how people felt when they first shared at a meeting. One guy said that he was so wound up about it that he became convinced that there was a mass conspiracy at each meeting he went to. Every time he worked up the courage to open his mouth someone else would jump in and talk over him. He decided that the way to deal with this was to never share and it took him 3 years to accept that this was bollox and it was only his fear holding him back

OH/Koi/Kokeshi, going back to some of the questions you've asked recently:

"What did/does alcohol do for you?"

At first it gave me a shield from my insecurites and people reacted differently to the new bold me. That changed though and by the time I was in my late teens I was using it to control my weight and was drinking alcoholically in my bedroom most nights. After DS was born I used it to cope with depression and it worked for a couple of years. It was only when it stopped doing anything for me and was causing more problems than it solved that I knew I had to cut it out. I really grieved when I first admitted that my drinking had gone beyond the stage of being able to return to social drinking. I suppose it had been like a magic genie throughout my life and had provided me with what I needed - escapism.

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?

It was so obvious looking back that my drinking wasn't normal from the age of about 15 when I was drinking every weekend and vomitting. I thought that was the mark of a good night out . It was still acceptable because of my age though. There was nothing normal about my drinking from then on but I didn't see that at the time. I only started to question it when I upset someone on here unintentionally because I was drunk. I stopped drinking for 10 days and then started again gradually. I lost all control at this point and started a thread on here a couple of months later. I would describe myself as a binge drinker. I'd drink as much as I could in each session, recover and then go straight back into another bender again.

3 medium term goals that would be achievable and beneficial are:

1 Go to at least one meeting each week
2 Menu plan for the week and stop wasting money on food that gets binned
3 Have a course of sunbeds to help with my psoriasis.

How did drinking affect my communication?

It meant that I COULD communicate at first. I was that nervous without a drink in me. Once I was drinking alcoholically I could only communicate with other drinkers. I was too afraid to call my sober friends and they didn't interest me much anymore. I was unpredictable and often abusive when I was drunk so I'm relieved that I didn't bother many people. Now I'm sober I'm like an awkward kid again, I've got to learn how to communicate face to face from scratch

Sorry to go on so much, I'm just catching up with you all.

Happy (belated) birthday Daisy xx

Yay BrassicMOnkey,welcome back to the thread and thanks for telling us about your experiences also. I think we often don't have a chance to really examine how we reached a certain place, you know, causes and conditions and how we end up all bent outta shape .

It;s been really useful for me this week anyway.

Sorry about DS getting shouted at by grumpy old man, poor wee thing. I get inordinately irate when anyone challenges DN, even if it's a peer . Right enough, he's not too bad at shoving a fellow toddler out the way when he wants something. I tend to look the other way when that happens though.

That's so funny about the conspiracy thing at the meeting, I used to hear so many things that I thought were directly targeted at me that I though everyone had gathered beforehand and discussed me and my history. LOL. Oh the ego. I was also convinced that I had nothing in common with these people either...even though they were 'addressing me' in their shares. How funny. Anyway, I was looking online, and I found something that made me laugh, it's a set of 12 steps, the programme 'we' worked before we addressed our drinking. It's especially pertinant to me as I'm meeting my sponsor tomorrow, and avoiding doing what I should be doing. Here you go see if anyone recognises anything:

The 12 Steps We Arrived With
--------

1. We admitted we were powerless over nothing - that we could manage our lives perfectly and those of anyone who would allow us.

1. We came to believe that there was no power greater than ourselves and the rest of the world was insane.

1. We made a decision to have our loved ones turn their wills and their lives over to our care even though they couldn't understand us at all.

1. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of everyone we knew.

1. We admitted to the whole world the exact nature of everyone else's wrongs.

1. We were entirely ready to make others give us the respect we deserved.

1. We demanded others do our will because we were always enlightened.

1. We made a list of all persons who had harmed us and became willing to go to any lengths to get even with them all.

1. We got direct revenge on such people wherever possible, except when to do so would cost us our lives or at the very least a jail sentence.

10. Continued to take inventory of others and when they were wrong promptly and repeatedly told them about it.

11. Sought through complaining and medication to improve our relations with others, as we would not understand them at all, asking only that they do things our way.

12. Having had a complete physical, emotional and spiritual breakdown as a result of these steps, we tried to blame others and to get sympathy and pity in all our affairs.

Great to have you back BM.

PurpleOne, I didn't mean to come across as though I was challenging you, just interested in how it's all going for you

Ha haaaaa. All those steps apply to me (not even pretending that I'm talking past-tense). I'm at the stage of knowing it though, so I suppose that's better than being in denial.

I came across a joke '12 Step Programme' for people that were addicted to 12 step programmes. I can't remember most of them, but step 9 was:

Make a list of all the people you've pissed off; go piss them off some more

Ooh, it was quiet yesterday. How's everyone doing?

It's quiet here today too. Have I scared them all away with my enormous message?

How is everyone? I was at a different meeting last night with my sister again. I'm having a day off from meetings today as I don't feel well, but hopefully I'll be fit enough for another one tomorrow.

We seem to get a bit of a lull at the weekend BM, not sure why? I thought this would be the busiest time! How did you find your meeting last night?

Sorry you're feeling ill, but at least it's not a hangover I guess .

I'm really tired, been out all day playing pirates with a three year old. He insists I participate fully in the make believe games, which requires me to hurtle down slides and ascend the climbing frames. I did get some funny looks, but I convinced myself they other adults were just jealous of my deftness and agility .

How has everyone fared over the weekend with their drinking/abstinence plans?

You're a fantastic aunt, doing all that with DN. I lost all agility and enthusiasm after giving birth to DS so it's a good job he's got a big kid for a dad .

Apart from having a cold (grrrr) I'm fine today. I cooked a nice dinner earlier and I'm going to sit on the sofa with a tub of Ben and Jerrys now and watch a DVD.

I've been texting my sister and best friend today trying to set up a girls night in next Saturday . BF would probably prefer a night out but I doubt she'd appreciate the responsibility

Sorry, meant to say that the meeting last night was good. I've never been to one before where a member does the teas and coffees right the way through the meeting. It was quite funny, passing sugar bowls, bottles of milk and plates of biscuits down the line, whilst trying to be quiet so as not to put the chair/sharer off

Perhaps it's due to the fact I only have to do it once a week by myself that helps! He gets the best of me . All the other days I have him, I share responsibility. He's at the stage of asking 'what's that? what's that?, what's that?' Rapid-fire and I have to be able to name accurately whatever he's pointing at.

It was his birthday on Saturday, so we're having a wee party for him tomorrow as well up at my Mum's house, with the obligatory Thomas the Tank engine cake, should be fun. This will be his 3rd party and cake this week . I guess there are advantages to having loads of family members. The best thing is, in his short life, he's never ever known me to drink or have that reputation of being the family black sheep. I was so happy when I was first trusted with taking him as a small baby, especially when I felt that all respect for me had gone.

BM, that would really annoy me with the constant teas and coffees, not least because every scrape of a spoon and chink of a mug sounds like it's right inside my head, even if it's halfway across the room!

You sound like you've had a nice sunday anyway. Ben & Jerry's...mmmmmmmmmmmm. What flavour? There's just one problem with that, the tub's too wee .

Right folks, where is everyone else? Tell us about your weekend, good or bad.

Has anyone ever tried any positive affirmations? If we're stuck in negative thought patterns and believe the worst about ourselves it's very difficult to affect change. I know loads of people who do this, on a daily basis and it really helps to turn around those negative automatic thoughts we have about ourselves. Have you ever thought 'I'm useless', or 'I'm weak' or 'I'm a failure' and not even realised you're doing it?

Here's a wee list of affirmations, which, by saying them repeatedly on a daily basis, helps to change these subconscious negativities and thus help us to become more positive in ourselves. This is just one I've come across.

I am grounded and centered.

I let go of fear.

I let go of pain.

I live in love.

I live life in the present.

I trust the flow of life.

I am the healing light of Spirit in action.

I ask for and listen to my inner guidance.

I carry serenity and calm with me.

I accept circumstances and people as they are.

I am the freedom of the wind

I am the sun rising on a crisp fall morning.

I am the small shared smile of a stranger.

I am the laughter of a child.

I am the light of peace.

I am the breath of Spirit.

I am the strength of a thousand horses.

I am the courage of a new day.

I am the love of a child.

I am joy.

I am always present.

I am whole.

I am grateful!

Inspirational affirmations are powerful tools for changing the emotional compass from down to up.

It feels a bit cheesy at first but go on, give it a try!

Hello everyone - those affirmations sound good might give them a go.

Managed to stay away from the vino on Friday, succumbed Saturday and stayed away Sunday - not a bad weekend in all.

Saturday was a tough one though I planned not to drink then I saw other woman (who is pregnant by my dp) and decided f... it go for it - felt crap all day yesterday and hope to do better this week - as lent is coming up may even try to do that.

Back to other points mentioned above - communicating - I dont communicate with anyone really - my children yes but no adults- I dont express how I feel to my dp I have friends but no one close enough that I want to talk to - I have noticed over the past 2 - 3 years (thats how long I have been drinking more) that I just work and go home I dont want to socialise - god I sound incredibly sad dont I . Up until last year I had a bf we had been friends since we were teenagers but her affair and her using me constantly as an alibi instead of friend has kind of ended that relationship too. I feel like I should miss her but I dont - is that drink related too or just because I felt she was not a good friend anymore?

Hi unhappy, 2 outta 3 is a good result, concentrate on the positives and not the bad days. The pregnant woman seems to be a real trigger for your drinking though, does she live very close, or are there ways to avoid her for your own sanity?

I'm not sure whether you said you are on ADs? To be honest, all of the things you describe: lack of interest in socialising, unhappiness, isolating sound like symptoms of depression. If you drink when you're already depressed, it just makes it seem worse, they have a negative reinforcing effect on each other.

One of the problems seems to be that you need to get back on to a level where you feel like participating in life, so I think a wee trip to the GP would be in order. He may even be able to get you some talking therapy as well, to help you work through some of these issues. Do you think you are depressed?

Oh, I think that friend sounds incredibly selfish, it's supposed to be a two-way street. Not good if you felt like she was just using you. You'll find better friends, you just have to start believing that your worthwhile enough to have them.

Message withdrawn

Hi souvenir. I was just off for a couple of hours sleep when i saw this. I was reading it and thought "this sounds so familiar". . It's lovely to have you posting again btw, you were missed.

I don't know what to say about the lager really. With your drinking history, and IMO it's extraordinary the way your tolerance shot up so quickly, I think you're always going to be at risk of a bad experience leading to dependance again .

I don't know what to suggest apart from keep posting, keep the 24 hour rule in mind and maybe consider AA? I know you'll probably feel that you don't drink enough for it, but your history and emotional dependance would make it a really worthwhile thing to do.

It's good to hear from you anyway. Hopefully someone with better advice will be along soon. I'm really sorry to hear that you're worrying.

Hi souvenir, great to have you back (it's kokeshi). I'm just about to pop out but I just wanted to acknowledge your post before I go. I think it just takes time and I willingess to see through our own behaviour, to be honest, to come to a realisation that drink is really a problem for us. Not specifically at the moment that you're getting blizted, but the emotional and physical affects are beginning to creep up on you again.

What I do know is that once you've gone past that stage of being able to control drink, it's unlikely that you will regain it. And by that I don't mean drinking and not stopping, I mean not having to have it or obsessing about it. I guess what I'm saying that a problem drinker will never get back to being a non-problem drinker. This is quoted in medical literature, Scientific journals and also AA. The fact is, there are among other things, permanent structural changes in the brain of a person with alcohol dependence which aren't reversible.

So, where does that leave you? I guess it's really up to you now to decide what you need. Are you ready to give it up yet? Stay with us on the thread and keep psoting, you might be able to come to some conclusions of your own.

Welcome back

Good post BM