DRY 7!!!

[mollyonthemove]

The new thread for the alcohol free and the wanna be free . come and join us

This is so awful, I want to be dead.

Should I take propranolol or diazepam? I need to be ok by Monday morning.

tsonlyme prior to your sobriety were you physically addicted? Did your GP know? Can you get on-call GP visit? Propanalol is a beta blocker so although can be used for anxiety it also affects your blood pressure. Diazepam will also help with anxiety - it would depend what doses you have of both drugs and would urge medical advice rather than self-medicating.

I don't really know about the medical side of it, but just wanted you to know I'm here too. What happened to make you drink again

Nothing happened except my stupid head winding me into knots. I did manage a bit of sleep but I've been tossing & turning since about 3. I've spoken to dh and apologised, he's a saint to put up with me.

I don't think I've ever been physically addicted, I did a home detox when I sobered up but I always thought it was OTT but it was a requirement of being prescribed Antabuse. Dh is going to supervise me starting back on them on Tuesday, I have to wait three days to make sure all the alcohol is out of my system.

God I feel terrible.

tsonlyme.

Great to hear that you're ok tsonlyme. Yep restart the Antabuse as soon as it's safe. If you're struggling come back here or maybe access a meeting locally? Well done for stopping

Well done tsonlyme it's So difficult. Hang on in there. Do something nice outside. Go in the garden, do some baking - keep yourself busy

How are you today tsonlyme?

Well ... I haven't done as well as I'd hoped but I haven't done dreadfully either. This weekend we had best friends over to stay and everybody drinks a lot. I discovered a helpful idea - very weak lager shandy with diet lemonade (very worried about my weight at the moment) so I stuck to that a lot. But I have drunk more than I wanted. But less than I would do usually. I feel mixed.

Tsonlyme, the despair and desperation you feel I can utterly relate to. The amount of 3am mornings lying in bed, unable to sleep, sweating, sick, absolutely despising my lack of self-control. But you are only just off the wagon and so you can get back on! It's good you have dh to support you.

All I can do is hope for a better week this week.

My father was an alcoholic who abstained for most of my childhood but started drinking when I was 15-18. He drank a LOT - at least a litre of gin a day and living with him was a nightmare for my brother and I. He had a very professional job and I have no idea how he managed to keep that going. None of us could bear to talk about it really but one evening my mum said to me that he had stopped - he joined AA and ended up being a counsellor there for the last years of his life. He died soon after. My brother swore never to drink a drop of alcohol and he never has. I wish I had made the same promise. It's such a bloody prison.

Thank you for the kindness. I'm ok I suppose, been eating small amounts & must have had around six pints of water! Still feel a bit crap but I'm getting there. Scared myself a bit so that'll ensure I get started back on the tablets on Tuesday.

Drinking really is a prison. I have broken out from it before & am resolved not to get sucked back in.

Do you mind me asking what the tablets are for? I haven't heard of them before ...

The tablets are Antabuse, also known as disulfiram. If you drink when taking them you feel v v ill- palpitations, headache, eyes go bright red, skin burns. I take half a tablet daily (I'm v sensitive to meds). Once I've taken one it lasts for a week before the side effects when drinking stop, I could take one only weekly I suppose but part of the way they work is that it removes all spontaneous bad decisions. Unfortunately I do periodically stop taking them. I usually restart them when I notice my head going to the bad place again but I didn't quite catch it this time

So is the idea that you take them forever or ween off them, like with nicotine replacement medication?

BadWool Progress not perfection is my mantra :) It's less than you would drink usually so that's good and you can crack on reducing again now. Lots of us here have alcoholic family members - me my Dad and my step-dad. It is genetically inherited and if your Dad started drinking when you were a teenager you'd have been environmentally influenced too. I was handed a loaded gun and it sounds like you were too.
tsonlyme happy to hear you're feeling better :) I hope this time your drinkers brain doesn't get the upper hand and figure that another stint of drinking would be a good idea!

Generally people take it for 6-12 months but I've asked my dr if I can take them indefinitely & she's agreed. I had to jump through some hoops to get it, had to see an addiction psychiatrist & do a home detox the go back to he GP & be breathalysed before I got the prescription. I guess hey have to make sure you're motivated because it can be very dangerous to drink on them. I was told if I accidentally (or deliberately!) drank any alcohol I should go straight to A&E. I have to careful what I eat too, no wine vinegar or balsamic . Some people can't even use skin products with alcohol in them but thankfully I seem ok with those, have you ever tried to buy skin/hair care stuff that doesn't have alcohol in it? Everything does!

Thanks Lucy. That's what I'm telling myself too. Doing much better today. Partly because I feel like shit! But, tentatively, I sense a total change in my mindset. I often feel like I'm 'rewarding' myself with a drink and that's different now. I feel like I'm letting myself down with a drink. I hope I can keep this feeling. It's all so fragile.

Tsonlyme - how much were you drinking before you got it from the GP? It sounds such a hard core medication that I'm sure I'd never be able to take it as I'm medication-phobic (yes, I know).

Difficult question, on average about three times a week around 35cl vodka. I've never been a daily drinker but the urge to binge was strong. I've been (mostly) sober for around three years. Before that I did AA but it really didn't work for me and I didn't feel safe there.

I'm more of a constant than a binge drinker. Oddly enough I hate being drunk. It's more a constant haze for me than a big whammy passing out affair.

BadWool it's less fragile than you think I suspect :)
tsonlyme if it works for you then great and sorry it's such a pain to manage the ancillary alcohol issue!

Morning all.... just checking in. Good to have you with us tsonly and thanks for the information... very interesting.

Alcoholic parents.... think my mum might have a tendency towards it. She does not drink alot,.... maybe a bottle of wine a day but slowly over the course of an evening, rarely more but her personality changes. Possibly her father. My Paternal great grandfather...... violent alcoholic apparently. Totally taboo subject in the family.

Look at all of us though.....we are seeing it recognizing it, understanding it and moving forwards positively to a bright bright future. You know, all of us on this thread, we are great.

:)

well, a bottle IS alot, I know, but it is really a glass at lunch, a glass preparing dinner, a glass with dinner sort of thing. What I would call restrained!

I know to us a bottle a night seems restrained but that's what, 70-80 units a week?

Plenty of alcoholics in my family. Strangely all my grandparents were too total, maybe there was a reason for that. Several uncles & aunts have issues though, my dad drank relatively heavily (and died quite young of a related cancer) & two of my cousins do too, that I know of.

CornChips, I'm along the same lines, drinking steadily, rarely getting rat-arsed unless there's even a slight bit of stress and then I turn straight for something stronger. Very pathetic. As if it helps!

My dad was always an alcoholic, he was when he met my mum but she threatened to leave him if he didn't stop and he wanted kids so he stopped and we never had any alcohol in the house until I was 15 when he started again. Three horrible years then of him being absolutely dreadful - abusive, depressed, wandering around naked in front of my friends. And this was a man who had a job of standing up in court defending people! To this day I'll never know how he managed to keep his job. But he did stop and he did help other people to stop. When he died there was a room full of flowers from ex AA members who he'd helped, we knew nothing about any of them. I think he'd be horrified to see me going the same way.

Anyway thinking about that makes me want a drink! I was really pleased with yesterday, I had defnitely less than a bottle of wine, no spirits and no desire to nip out for a miniature whisky 'top up'. My plan is to attempt one totally alcohol free day this week. Believe it or not that will be the first day with NO alcohol for well over 5 years, possibly more. DH likes a drink but he's very sensible and has Mon-Weds with none, Thurs and Fri with maybe a couple of bottles of beer (low 3%) and a bottle of red wine over Saturday and Sunday. I wish I could do that, just enjoy a moderate amount. But I don't think i can or ever will be able to. I would love to join him on his Mon-Wed alc free days, that's my current aim as it's less daunting than thinking of never drinking again.

Sorry for my exceptionally long posts ...

Good luck to everyone else xxx

BadWool Your dad sounds like mine! In the early days of stopping I'd have given my right arm to be able to drink moderately but now I really don't want to as it f*cks with my head too much and my life is genuinely happier without it You can do this :)