Please help me. I'm an alcoholic

[Marryoneorbecomeone]

Just that really.

I know I have a problem, I'm behaving very badly, and I need to stop.

I drink because I'm bored and lonely in the evenings when the kids are in bed. My marriage is stale but he's a good man and I'm letting him down.

Do I just turn up at an AA meeting?

Hi Marry, what a lovely update, and you are doing so well! If not drinking gives you back your sense of being yourself, then it was absolutely the right thing to do for you. Onward and upward!

Someone with alcoholism is simply someone who cannot consistently control the amount they drink once they start, and someone who continues to drink despite it causing negative consequences in their lives.*

Thankyou. This is the bit I need to remember.

Thanks for coming back to update us, I was thinking about you . Well done for not having a drink today .

I'm glad you can already see a better future for yourself .

One month sober.

I couldn't have got started without the kind responses and encouragement in this thread. I can't read it without crying - I was in SUCH a bad place and I'm absolutely not there now.

Well done, Marry! I'm so happy for you. Life obstruct better sober. It is hard. It does take adjustment. It just gets easier and easier.

that's lovely to hear =)

have you thought of the Dry Jan thread here

or the Brave Babes battlebus? the support on the Dry June thread last year helped me a lot =)

Well done you. I'm 4 and a bit years sober now and haven't looked back. My life my relationships and my job all beyond my wildest dreams. I go to AA every week. That's the difference. It keeps it fresh in my mind and gives me strength. I'm so proud of you. Keep on going a day at a time xxx

Onceameer, I'm already on the DryJan thread!

Strawberryblondbint can you tell me how your life has improved? Whilst I'm enjoying sobriety it's also very scary too!

Totally proud of you, incredibly well done! I am doing Dry January too, the plan is to do January and June and carry on with no weekday drinking. Soon not drinking will be the new normal for you.

brilliant, marryone, see you and pointy there :)

Well done on your sober month!

God where do I start. Well I wake up early and refreshed after a good nights sleep. I can face people that I used to avoid as I couldn't remember if I had made a twat of myself the last time I saw them. Likewise I am not scared to use the phone as I haven't been talking shite to people and forgotten what I said. I no longer retch when I clean my teeth and I don't have the shits randomly. I don't buy chewing gum mouth wash and eye drops as much. I work better as my head is clear and my brain functions better. I don't pull sickies any more. I am a better mother. More patient and more energy. I have a husband. I lost one of those through drinking. My skin is better. My hair is better. My depression has lifted. Turned out that it wasn't depression that made me drink it was drink that made me depressed. I face up to things and don't bury my head in the sand and in a bottle. Financially I am better off. I am not restless irritable or discontent without a drink in my hand. I don't have to worry about where to get it. How to get it. How much is left or where to hide it. I feel calm. I try to be a better person. I am no longer a selfish arsehole. I am a new improved me.

Strawberryblondbint that's quite possibly the most positive and inspiring thing I've ever read about recovery, because you say it as it is.

Still dry here.

Thanks. I had to fall hard to get where I am now. So everything is better. You are doing so so well. It's people like you and your story that keep me sober. Treat the meetings like medicine. Every one will make you stronger and stop you forgetting how shit alcohol is for you xxx

Thanks strawberryblondbint. Can I ask you, and other AA'ers how you get a sponsor?

Also some of them talked about doing "readings" each morning. What are they reading? I was going to ask but was struck mute by nerves!

24 hours a day daily reflections book. All literature should be available at the meetings but you can also get kindle versions or buy yourself from Amazon. Nice way to start the day. With regards to a sponsor when you feel ready to get on the programme find another female who has a good length of sobriety behind them and who you feel you can talk to and ask them! It's that easy. No rush to get a sponsor but it is good if you find someone who would go for a coffee with you and let you ask questions. That's pretty much what I did and she is now my sponsor lol.

You described 'a little problem' with alcohol just upthread... this is what I've been kidding myself about for years...that little problem becomes bigger and bigger, the way you can/can't control the amount or frequency you drink WILL get worse, then it's car crash time. Don't let that happen...I went to my 1st AA meeting last Wednesday...all the same feeling as you and I had to go miles as I work and live in the village and am known (it really had to be Anonymous).
It was lovely...I was sitting in the car before hand, dreading it...watching people come and go, wondering if they would all be old men and I would be the only women (tho' at 50, I'm not in the 1st flush of youth myself).There were 9 of us altogether, 5 women and 4 men, ranging in ages from 30 to about late 60s/70.
The honesty was the revelatory thing, and the kindness...do hang around after, as another poster suggested, people chat to you. One man gave me the Alcoholic Anonymous blue book, as a gift....I was slightly worried, as I thought it may be an 'evangelical' God thing...it wasn't...all this book does is explain AA and give lots of stories. You don't HAVE to embrace God or even the higher power tho' I am trying at the moment (I am a staunch Richard Dawkins fan!). Am def going back as I think, for me this is the ONLY way forward. Good luck, keep posting.

Forgive me, I didn't read the whole thread....see above. I was short of time yesterday and was just excited to see someone else going down the same route as me. You are way, way beyond me. Congratulations, I am awfully admiring of you.

I am only 4 days sober, as above my last drink was Tuesday night before my 1st AA meeting on Wed.
However...I have stumbled today. I have just taken my eldest to the train station to go back to Cambridge. She has Asperger's and finds life difficult...always see the negative. In Cambridge, although they pay for accommodation, they have to completely empty their rooms each 8 weeks. The guidelines about storing were changed half way through last term, so we packed for the guidelines sent to us in June. We live in Dorset. It is a wretched journey from there to here and I am not a confident enough driver to do the trip. My DH is working all this weekend so couldn't take her. She has too much to manage the journey. It all started with her not having a laptop strap. I went looking in DH's study for an equivalent and found a small bottle of white port that my BIL had given me for Christmas. I thought all alcohol was out of the house. I have just got back from the station, trying to guide her through this low time (she is studying Chinese which has the lowest satisfaction rate of all courses, with huge emphasis on getting a 1st and struggling with perfectionism, so she works constantly and never feels she's done enough but never feels satisfied). Thinking about what I have learnt from that little blue book I was given, I tried to buoy her up, suggesting trying to find just one, however tiny positive thing in her day. (She will only eat packet soup as she won't go into the kitchen to use the microwave in case she sees someone and has to talk to them, just an example of how limited her life is).
I put her on the train and wept and wept. I worry so much about her in a way I don't about the other two younger ones.
I KNEW rationally, this is a normal reaction.. I was telling myself, on the way back, that this was normal sadness...I should be able to cope with that sadness without resorting to trying to blunt/anaesthetise it.
So, I have drunk about 50mls of it. I applied all the lies/excuses that we all do as alcoholics...it was given to me....I need it as I have just waved off my daughter...200mls of 20% is still nothing like 750mls of 14%...I will have to drink the rest in order to 'expunge' the house of alcohol. I can't throw it away.
Please wish me luck someone for tomorrow and tomorrow... I will be going back to AA on Wednesday and will need to tell them. Courage to everyone else.

Hi Grammar - so sorry you've had what sounds like a horrible, rough day but please, please do not beat yourself up about any of it. You don't have to make excuses (I'm sober through AA too and have had the odd relapse) - we're all brilliant at justifying ourselves but ultimately it really doesn't matter. What matters and what is hugely important is that this is a blip a small relapse, it's but a tiny split second in the rest of your life and you'll resume your path.

If you cannot throw it away then drink it. Get it over with dispose of the bottle, telephone (ideally) someone from AA or if not someone else Distract yourself. Get the Big Book out and have a read of it. Tidy out a cupboard. Ask a friend to come over and have a good cry and explain about your daughter and how you worry about her (which sounds totally valid). These are all ways in which I have tried to shift the emphasis once my brain has engaged in "drink mode" which, whether you've gone a few days, weeks or months can click back alarmingly quickly.

You sound as if you need some support before Wednesday. Please reach out and get some - we've all been there and all done it. for you.

Thank you Lobster. It's been no more rough than many others...but it was the way I dealt with the emotions that were flawed. I drank it all , 200mls and then wanted to go across the road for a bottle of wine but DH came in early at about 3 and I could not, thank goodness.
I was feeling so strong until today and the combination of saying goodbye, dealing with the stressors and then finding the alcohol...too much.
Tomorrow, I will be strong again and am still reading the blue book. Thank you so much for your lovey response.

Haven't read the whole thread but suggest to anyone to come over the the Brave Babes threads on here for anyone struggling with their alcohol consumption . No judging and endless support.

Hi again Grammar and very well done to you! Whatever the reasons it really matters not - the point is that you had a small blip and you rose again, read the book and are feeling strong. Yes, ideally we don't relapse but none of us is perfect and in the event that it happens, we keep it (or try to keep it) from becoming a full blown relapse and get back on track - just as you have done. All the very best for tomorrow and for your meeting on Wednesday.

And thank you ma - I have been on the Brave Babes threads in the past and have found them brilliantly supportive and may well venture over there in the near future.

Thank you again Lobster for your words of strength. Have been to work and actually broke down and cried as I'd just heard the news of David Bowie's death. I think it was exacerbated by my fragility. I put it down (to my colleague who found me) to feeling sad about seeing off my eldest to uni again yesterday and my youngest with whom I've always had such a close relationship with, becoming monosyllabic at 13. All of which is true...but I also realised I could cry legitimately about DB who was such a huge love of my teens and 20's, indeed always.
Part of me is always trying to hide bits of myself and present an image of wholesomeness to the world. It actually felt liberating and cleansing to cry.
Have had an unashamedly emotional evening watching tributes, finished by a good laugh with watching the Extras episode with DB in it. He was genius, beautiful, edgy, androgynous, poetic, ethereal and also had a sense of humour....and now must stop otherwise, it my post will get moved to the DB thread. Maybe I could use David Bowie as my higher power??...

How are you, Marry?