I'm An Alcoholic

[Richard Kimball 1494]

2 hours ago, El Diablo said:

That's pretty much the Big Book's description of the alcoholic. There's an old cliche that the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink and then the drink takes the man. That second part may or may not be confusing to people. To some it might mean that the drinker felt so good that surely another one would make them feel better.

That wasn't the case with me once I became an alcoholic. It might have been true early on, I don't really recall. What it meant at the end was the phenomenon of craving set in after the first drink.

It's a bit difficult to describe really but after the first drink, for me, the mind would become somewhat satiated but the body would in some weird way become even more uncomfortable, the nerves more agitated. I think I've heard that alcohol has a dual action, it's both an irritant and a sedative. Imbibing sets up a negative feedback loop of sorts that doesn't end until the entire spectrum is saturated and ALL systems are subdued. I drank well beyond my mental needs because of my physical need to quiet the nerves that were inflamed by the alcohol I had consumed to quiet the mental.

I guess the psychologist/psychiatrist wants to find the root mental cause, "why do you take that FIRST drink?" and that's a good quest. I think if you were to ask most anyone WHY they drank they'd tell you it was to feel good, or to feel better. Same with opiate users or most any drug abuser. Well, what does that mean you were feeling BEFORE you used? Not so good?

In a perfect world it would be best if we never felt the need to feel "better". For some of us who seem to become compulsive about the need to feel better, well, all the knowing in the world just doesn't seem to help me. I just need a way of living where I'm comfortable enough in my own skin that I don't WANT to take that first drink.

Maybe psychs can get there with some people. I don't know and frankly I didn't have the time to find out. For me it's also very unlikely that I would have been totally honest or even shown up for the appointments or shown up sober. So there's that.

I think psychology can be beneficial to someone who's not in active addiction or perhaps in addition to treatment in early sobriety because the psychs do have some useful and effective tools. I don't think they could have gotten an alkie like me sober. 

Good stuff. I'm pretty sure a psychiatrist wouldn't have helped me. A lot of it is just the dynamic of the meeting, where the shrink takes on the role of "messiah" where whether he tries to or not, he presents as the all knowing person who's there to solve my problems. It's easier to open up and be honest at an AA meeting. 

 

Psychiatrist meeting: "Yeah, I got drunk and pissed on a police car."

Psychiatrist: "You what?"

AA meeting: "Yeah, I got drunk and pissed on a police car."

Someone else: "Been there. Were you inside or outside the car when you did it?"

[El Diablo 4232]

Addendum: I've seen shrinks, when I was drinking. Their advice? Go to some AA meetings.

[ztejas 43419]

5 hours ago, El Diablo said:

That's pretty much the Big Book's description of the alcoholic. There's an old cliche that the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink and then the drink takes the man. That second part may or may not be confusing to people. To some it might mean that the drinker felt so good that surely another one would make them feel better.

That wasn't the case with me once I became an alcoholic. It might have been true early on, I don't really recall. What it meant at the end was the phenomenon of craving set in after the first drink.

It's a bit difficult to describe really but after the first drink, for me, the mind would become somewhat satiated but the body would in some weird way become even more uncomfortable, the nerves more agitated. I think I've heard that alcohol has a dual action, it's both an irritant and a sedative. Imbibing sets up a negative feedback loop of sorts that doesn't end until the entire spectrum is saturated and ALL systems are subdued. I drank well beyond my mental needs because of my physical need to quiet the nerves that were inflamed by the alcohol I had consumed to quiet the mental.

I guess the psychologist/psychiatrist wants to find the root mental cause, "why do you take that FIRST drink?" and that's a good quest. I think if you were to ask most anyone WHY they drank they'd tell you it was to feel good, or to feel better. Same with opiate users or most any drug abuser. Well, what does that mean you were feeling BEFORE you used? Not so good?

In a perfect world it would be best if we never felt the need to feel "better". For some of us who seem to become compulsive about the need to feel better, well, all the knowing in the world just doesn't seem to help me. I just need a way of living where I'm comfortable enough in my own skin that I don't WANT to take that first drink.

Maybe psychs can get there with some people. I don't know and frankly I didn't have the time to find out. For me it's also very unlikely that I would have been totally honest or even shown up for the appointments or shown up sober. So there's that.

I think psychology can be beneficial to someone who's not in active addiction or perhaps in addition to treatment in early sobriety because the psychs do have some useful and effective tools. I don't think they could have gotten an alkie like me sober. 

Agree with all of your first part. I said it up the thread, I'd rather have 0 drinks than 1 drink. 1 drink does nothing but make me want another one. 

On the psychologist part, no, a psychologist isn't going to help me get sober, but a psychologist can help me with my anxiety and depression, and that in turn helps me to get sober or drink less. 

Not saying A = B, B = C so A = C but it definitely helps. 

For me, the drinking has always been a symptom of my anxiety. But I've never gotten to the "drink in the morning to avoid withdrawals" type drinking. At that point, yeah, you need an intervention or medical help, not a therapist.

[El Diablo 4232]

43 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Agree with all of your first part. I said it up the thread, I'd rather have 0 drinks than 1 drink. 1 drink does nothing but make me want another one. 

On the psychologist part, no, a psychologist isn't going to help me get sober, but a psychologist can help me with my anxiety and depression, and that in turn helps me to get sober or drink less. 

Not saying A = B, B = C so A = C but it definitely helps. 

For me, the drinking has always been a symptom of my anxiety. But I've never gotten to the "drink in the morning to avoid withdrawals" type drinking. At that point, yeah, you need an intervention or medical help, not a therapist.

I don't think I said anything that disagrees with you, psychs have their place, absolutely. As for the morning drinking, I never, ever did that. Still managed to put away a handle every 2 days. It's not so much about how we drink, how often we drink or how much we drink. It's about what happens when we drink. For me, things happened that don't happen when I don't drink.

[TwiceHorn 31457]

2 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

I don't think I said anything that disagrees with you, psychs have their place, absolutely. As for the morning drinking, I never, ever did that. Still managed to put away a handle every 2 days. It's not so much about how we drink, how often we drink or how much we drink. It's about what happens when we drink. For me, things happened that don't happen when I don't drink.

Also, I think, about the "why" we drink, or the frequently seemingly complete absence of a rational why (and when, usually the worst possible timing).

[ztejas 43419]

3 hours ago, El Diablo said:

I don't think I said anything that disagrees with you, psychs have their place, absolutely. As for the morning drinking, I never, ever did that. Still managed to put away a handle every 2 days. It's not so much about how we drink, how often we drink or how much we drink. It's about what happens when we drink. For me, things happened that don't happen when I don't drink.

Definitely. I guess my point was there are different types of drinkers/alcoholics and some solutions work better for certain "types" than others. 

People like me that would get too hammered too often and fuck up when it happened, but not get hammered every night, will probably benefit less from something like inpatient than someone who will literally die if they stop cold turkey. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

14 hours ago, Celery Man said:

In South Austin, the vibe that has suited me the most has been Cherry Creek (near Crockett, in the corner of that mall with the catfish place - you can enter from the back alley where the alcoholics are smoking cigarettes).

I went to some early meetings at 617 Clifford that were pretty good.

Westlake is fine - a little bit older, the room makes me sleepy, nice folks but at some point I decided it wasn't my crowd.

Keep meaning to check out Bouldin.

Western Trails was pretty rough the time or two that I went.

I went once to the... big church near Matt's El Rancho on Lamar and it was a huge meeting that was pretty structured.  Seemed interesting.

Your mileage may vary, and different times are different (the late one at Cherry Creek has more newbies, I kinda like that one).  This is from dabbling around a while ago with different meetings.  But for a while, I'll just pop into Cherry Creek every now and then.

I am going to share my opinion here to chime in w/Celery's feedback. Fair or unfair, this is how I felt in these meetings.

Westlake (3-5 times): strong group, good sobriety, can appear a little plastic in places depending on how many court-ordered 25-yr olds are there. Weird room layout and gets crowded so get there early to make sure you're not sitting somewhere distracting.

Cherry Creek (5-7 times): strong group, good sobriety, not as whitebread as Westlake. May be a culture shock if you are high-bottom; may be a culture shock if you get out of the shower to pee. There are some regulars there who think they're the star of the show. Ignore them and focus on the message. CC sometimes divides into regular and (smaller) newcomer meetings so ask around if you go. 

Northland (2x recently, was a regular in 2015): your mileage may vary here. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle and certain NL meetings can seem kind of cliquish to a newcomer. But like Westlake and CC, there is terrific sobriety in the room. Of all the groups, this is the one I'd say KEEP GOING if you go once or twice and don't like it. 

Bouldin (3-5 times): fucking fantastic. If I were going to relocate based on AA, I'd move within walking distance. Nice mix of people, instantly friendly and welcoming. That is not to say the other groups AREN'T like that, just that I noticed Bouldin people doing this more readily than I saw it in other groups. Smaller room than CC, NL, WL.

Bridge to Shore (2 times): older, very white, affluent. Based on those adjectives, probably nothing about this meeting would surprise you. I was perfectly at ease there, years into AA. If I were a young newcomer, it might have been harder to feel at ease. 

Those are all fine meetings, my somewhat tongue in cheek critiques notwithstanding. Further west, the Lakeway groups are all extremely good (older, very white crowd). 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

I don't have any trauma in my childhood, certainly nothing to explain why I tried to drink myself to death nine months ago. Trauma may be a component or root cause for some people's story. It wasn't part of mine. I liked drinking from a young age, I liked feeling like I finally had an aspect to my personality that was rebellious and against the rules, I liked feeling euphoric and not bored, I liked being by myself and since drinking was the entire point of existing, I was just fine as long as I could get drunk. 

[Reagan1k 3024]

No trauma here - I'm just a drunk. 

I drank (and left to my own devices still would drink) to deal with the hole in my gut that was there from birth.  It was my solution for a while, I got good at it, and then it backfired on me.

This is probably too easy for me to say since I had no trauma, but knowing why we drink doesn't do anything to solve the problem once we cross that line - putting down the shovel and not making the hole deeper is the solution regardless of the cause.

[BearSchlong 8087]

17 hours ago, tucker said:

Went to my first meeting. Not as awkward as I thought it would be. 

Any tips on the Austin clubs?

Many of my closest friends attend Northland.

[Celery Man 20943]

6 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I am going to share my opinion here to chime in w/Celery's feedback. Fair or unfair, this is how I felt in these meetings.

Westlake (3-5 times): strong group, good sobriety, can appear a little plastic in places depending on how many court-ordered 25-yr olds are there. Weird room layout and gets crowded so get there early to make sure you're not sitting somewhere distracting.

Cherry Creek (5-7 times): strong group, good sobriety, not as whitebread as Westlake. May be a culture shock if you are high-bottom; may be a culture shock if you get out of the shower to pee. There are some regulars there who think they're the star of the show. Ignore them and focus on the message. CC sometimes divides into regular and (smaller) newcomer meetings so ask around if you go.  

that's a great characterization.  I went to several really good meetings at Westlake, but I think I had a thought on the lines of "man i bet this room drank lot of fucking merlot". And spot on with Cherry Creek as well.  Just as a note on the format - the normal meetings at Cherry Creek are typically topic, and then speaker calls on people (alternating male/female, which is a little unfair to timid women) to share and then opens up at the end.  "Thanks, I'm just listening today" if you don't want to talk, but I kinda like always being the verge of needing to share.  Forces more engaged listening.

I need to check out Bouldin.

 

I just got tagged to go on a trip to Hamburg in a couple of weeks, just finished booking my flights.  I'm remembering the last trip I took with this guy - panicking because there was no hotel bar and it was surrounded by highways/no convenience stores.  Watching the deflategate game at a Buffalo Wild Wings that I took my first ever Uber to, trying to get drunk enough to later fall asleep.  Being off/anxious the entire trip.   Fucking miserable.  This one won't be a vacation either with 30 hours of travel for two days of meetings but it's not a big complicated ordeal to figure out if I can keep my shit together and keep drinking and not fuck anything up.  It's just freedom.

[JohnnyRage 1617]

[tucker 238]

Really appreciate the tips. 

Going to check out Boundin later even though it is out of the way. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

14 hours ago, JohnnyRage said:

ha! my first 3-6 months of sobriety, I felt like 

then I started to feel like

[TwiceHorn 31457]

My first 3-6 months, especially the first 3-6 months, which ended in catastrophic, but mercifully brief relapse:

[El Diablo 4232]

This last go round? I spent the first year and beyond pissed off. I did my steps pissed off. Pissed off that I'd let myself fall for the lie that my brain had told me 14 years earlier. I was just waiting for the days to pass, the weeks, the months until the miracle happened. It of course did eventually and I'm not pissed anymore, far from it. But it's been a different sort of adventure than it was that first time around requiring a good bit of patience. Grateful in a deeper way now than I was during that 11 year stretch I'd accumulated previously. Days are more precious and so is the sobriety. Tick-tock.

[JohnnyRage 1617]

Stupid article about the 'ole rhyme about the order of the types of drinks doesn't matter. What matters is how drunk you feel and vomiting, i.e. over-drinking. No fucking duh.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/health/beer-before-wine-fine-myth-study/index.html

Because I'm an Alcoholic, what I wanted to know about would be the specific underlying processes so that I can be proactive in mitigating those negative consequences. I disagree with the article about it doesn't matter what you drink - I think that cheap stuff and sugary stuff exacerbate - but I digress.

Anyways, the reason for this share is because the last paragraph of the article is so simple yet so true. And for this alcoholic, that feedback loop wasn't strong enough until it was ultimately a broken neural network path.

Normies:

Quote

And although they didn't find a way to drink that would help people feel better the day after, the researchers say hangovers are not always bad news.

 

"Unpleasant as hangovers are, we should remember that they do have one important benefit, at least: they are a protective warning sign that will certainly have aided humans over the ages to change their future behavior," said Dr. Kai Hensel, a senior clinical fellow at the University of Cambridge and senior author of the study, in a statement. "In other words, they can help us learn from our mistakes."

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by JohnnyRage

[ztejas 43419]

Quote

European researchers have bad news for the 76% of Americans who experience hangovers after a drinking session

What about the 24% that are lying?

And what the fuck is this beer and wine rhyme? Sounds like some namby-pamby bullshit (I bet we can blame the French). I want a study where participants drink a 6 pack of keystone then smash half a fifth of KD, then come back a week later and do it in reverse order. 

And then the administering researchers can quip "Did you feel in the clear, or have you never been drunk quicker?"

Edited February 9, 2019 by ztejas

[BearSchlong 8087]

Smdh @ rationality and drinking. Cannot understand why beer and wine are still served when there's perfectly good scotch in the world. Amateurs.

[El Diablo 4232]

I don't recall the context of the conversation but my old man once said (paraphrased) "You can't get drunk on beer". I don't know what ABV American brews were when he was growing up or maybe it was just that he had a slow drinking pace. 

[Al_4_ISU 12463]

10 minutes ago, El Diablo said:

I don't recall the context of the conversation but my old man once said (paraphrased) "You can't get drunk on beer". I don't know what ABV American brews were when he was growing up or maybe it was just that he had a slow drinking pace. 

Prior to the craft beer explosion, beer’s ABV was between 4-6%.

If your goal is severe inebriation, that’s not a real effective route.

[TwiceHorn 31457]

4 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Prior to the craft beer explosion, beer’s ABV was between 4-6%.

If your goal is severe inebriation, that’s not a real effective route.

Hold my beer (and gimme three more (25 years ago)).  Inefficient, quite effective.

Edited February 10, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[El Diablo 4232]

10 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Prior to the craft beer explosion, beer’s ABV was between 4-6%.

If your goal is severe inebriation, that’s not a real effective route.

I remember when 3.2 beer was a thing. And if my old man was talking about beer it was beer made between 1935 or so and up thru the 70's. I don't know what American mass produced swill was like then. And then again he may have just been repeating an old argument, I mean, he'd lived thru prohibition. I also recall him speaking with disgust of the "rum-dums" in the Army, the "real" drunks. So maybe there was a social line there of some sort with beer being acceptable because "you couldn't get drunk on it" but hard liquor was a no-no.

I just remember thinking "Oh dad, you're just not trying hard enough"

[Celery Man 20943]

Yeah even with weaker domestic pilsners that's bullshit.  I mean, maybe true if you're not drinking alcoholically, if you can untangle the paradox from that.  But you can certainly get shitfaced on Coors Light if you're drinking 4 an hour and being persistent.

[Augustus 3061]

Never had a problem getting shitfaced on a 30 pack of Miller Lite.

[Al_4_ISU 12463]

Maybe inefficient is what I meant.  If you’re goal is to get as drunk as possible, beer is a poor choice.  Yeah, you’ll get there, but if your goal is obliteration why bother with the time commitment?

[BBQ2Bayou 807]

Yes, he was. I PM'd him a couple times on shag when I knew I needed some help. But that's all I got. Don't know anything else and don't read CR.

[Augustus 3061]

5 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Maybe inefficient is what I meant.  If you’re goal is to get as drunk as possible, beer is a poor choice.  Yeah, you’ll get there, but if your goal is obliteration why bother with the time commitment?

I'd drunk mainly beer in my teens/20's but switched to the hard stuff by the time I was called up to the big leagues, so to speak.

Into my 40's, I had to switch back to beer, because no matter what I was drinking, I was throwing gulps back every few minutes at the most, and that gets untenable in a hurry with 100 proof.  I'd go through a bottle and into unconsciousness pdq.

The increased volume/lower alcohol content of the beer allowed me to gulp tons of liquid and stay relatively functional.  Relatively = able to make it to the bathroom to piss in a toilet and get my zipper most of the way back up.

Just typing that shit makes me realize how much I do not miss those days.

[TwiceHorn 31457]

The goal for an alky isn't really to get obliterated, although that is the end result, often as not.  It is usually to recapture that "perfect buzz," that may never actually have happened, but is nonetheless fixated in the mind of the drunk.  It lies somewhere on the continuum between pleasantly buzzed and boiled as an owl.

[El Diablo 4232]

My sister was visiting from out of state this weekend and she dropped by for just a couple of minutes this afternoon and let me know that my nephew who I've mentioned on these boards before, is at the moment clean and sober. She said he did 3 weeks inpatient and has been out of that now for about 3 weeks. She says he has an AA sponsor and has been going to meetings. I was glad to hear it, he and I have always been somewhat close and I've worried about him for some years now. I think the consequences may have finally caught up to him though I don't know how they may have manifested themselves for him. He's a TTech guy but he's not all bad and I'm grateful and wishing him luck.

[Augustus 3061]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

The goal for an alky isn't really to get obliterated, although that is the end result, often as not.  It is usually to recapture that "perfect buzz," that may never actually have happened, but is nonetheless fixated in the mind of the drunk.  It lies somewhere on the continuum between pleasantly buzzed and boiled as an owl.

I hear a lot people describe that pursuit, and I mean a lot, over the years.

My experience was different in that regard, I guess.  Alcohol did for me what I wanted it to from age 15 to age 45, nearly without exception.

The craving just took it too far nearly every time, as well.  But it always hit the spot and kept me there for a good long while.

Till it nearly killed me.

[Augustus 3061]

1 hour ago, El Diablo said:

My sister was visiting from out of state this weekend and she dropped by for just a couple of minutes this afternoon and let me know that my nephew who I've mentioned on these boards before, is at the moment clean and sober. She said he did 3 weeks inpatient and has been out of that now for about 3 weeks. She says he has an AA sponsor and has been going to meetings. I was glad to hear it, he and I have always been somewhat close and I've worried about him for some years now. I think the consequences may have finally caught up to him though I don't know how they may have manifested themselves for him. He's a TTech guy but he's not all bad and I'm grateful and wishing him luck.

Good deal.

I have a sister who was a train wreck from the word go.  She finally got it a while back and has been sober in AA for 4 years.  Blows my mind.

[TwiceHorn 31457]

3 minutes ago, Augustus said:

I hear a lot people describe that pursuit, and I mean a lot, over the years.

My experience was different in that regard, I guess.  Alcohol did for me what I wanted it to from age 15 to age 45, nearly without exception.

The craving just took it too far nearly every time, as well.  But it always hit the spot and kept me there for a good long while.

Till it nearly killed me.

Oh I know.  If I couldn't get to or stop at that "perfect buzz," getting shitfaced or just passing out was fine.  I think it just symbolizes some idealized delusion of the drink that some or all of us go through to one degree or another. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

Interesting. Speaking from, apparently, further down the continuum, I only drank vodka at the end because anything that went in had a chance of coming back out so if I was going to keep it down, it needed to get me as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. And oblivion was my goal, to the degree I had one. I was drinking to lose consciousness, to not be aware of how much of a mess I was making of my life. It was wake up, drink, put HBO on and check work email/surf a bit while drinking, pass out, repeat. If I had a conference call, I would try to time it so I was more or less sober (HA), otherwise I did everything through email so I could stay as drunk as possible as much of the time as possible. I would eat once every five days or so. I was pretty much like an animal that knows it's dying and holes up somewhere quiet to wait for it. Quite a life I carved out for myself. At least I wasn't one of those freaks that drank isopropyl. Losers.

I remember the good times of beer drinking from my younger days, but those became obviously inaccessible to me a long time ago. I knew anytime I picked up a drink from 2015 on, the goal was oblivion and the result was either that or death. 

The only nice thing about that time is, in what little memory I have of it, it feels like it happened to someone else.

Today I get a nine month chip from my home group. 

Edited February 11, 2019 by SwanderedTalent

[Charles DeMar 221]

Great stuff on here, as always. 

 

Not looking for fanfare or anything, just felt good and felt like reporting 6 months yesterday.  Never tried this before, and still some fear around what's next, around the fleeting thoughts of "well, maybe when the kids are out of college, I can drink right," and other insanity that still persists.  Wife and I are doing better, finances are a mess from my f ups, but ... getting more clear, and I've made amends to my two older kids in a way that they both could understand in as rigorously honest a way as possible.  Spiritual progress is seeping into other areas of life, and that is something for which I have much gratitude, something that never would have worked in the past ... "well, that's f'd up, you did that wrong, you are not living up to MY expectations," etc.

 

Relationships are becoming stronger, but so are feelings - something I would not allow myself to feel for a long, long time.  It's strange to me and also something I know I cannot control, but something that I don't know how to "direct," if you will.  A big, jumbled mess of figuring out who God made me to be, but not figuring it out, because I can't even know!  I do know I can't control it, and letting go of that has been the most freeing part of it all. 

 

Lots of learning and hopefully growing ahead; thankful for sobriety today.

 

Thanks to all for your continued shares and advice.  It means the world to this guy, for sure.

Charlie D

[Kennythetiger 9380]

Enjoying all of the activity on this thread from the last few days.

[Sparky 149]

2 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Interesting. Speaking from, apparently, further down the continuum, I only drank vodka at the end because anything that went in had a chance of coming back out so if I was going to keep it down, it needed to get me as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. And oblivion was my goal, to the degree I had one. I was drinking to lose consciousness, to not be aware of how much of a mess I was making of my life. It was wake up, drink, put HBO on and check work email/surf a bit while drinking, pass out, repeat. If I had a conference call, I would try to time it so I was more or less sober (HA), otherwise I did everything through email so I could stay as drunk as possible as much of the time as possible. I would eat once every five days or so. I was pretty much like an animal that knows it's dying and holes up somewhere quiet to wait for it. Quite a life I carved out for myself. At least I wasn't one of those freaks that drank isopropyl. Losers.

I remember the good times of beer drinking from my younger days, but those became obviously inaccessible to me a long time ago. I knew anytime I picked up a drink from 2015 on, the goal was oblivion and the result was either that or death. 

The only nice thing about that time is, in what little memory I have of it, it feels like it happened to someone else.

Today I get a nine month chip from my home group. 

One of the things that amazed me when I first got sober and into meetings was hearing stories that basically mirrored mine.  It was thru hearing those, and reading them later on, that really gave me hope and helped me realize I was not alone or some outlier.  I say that because reading your story sounds basically identical to the daily hell I lived in for way too long, well I didn't watch HBO it was more travel shows and news, but I still can very closely relate.  I take days when I am feeling down or not at 100 and think back to what would that day be if I was still in that hell and it makes me sick.  Congrats on your 9 months, that's a great achievement!

[gasman 114]

21 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

The goal for an alky isn't really to get obliterated, although that is the end result, often as not.  It is usually to recapture that "perfect buzz," that may never actually have happened, but is nonetheless fixated in the mind of the drunk.  It lies somewhere on the continuum between pleasantly buzzed and boiled as an owl.

This was me. At the time, I considered myself a craft beer nerd. Nevermind the fact that every beer just happened to be a double IPA, Imperial Stout, etc. I generally spun the bottle around to check out the ABV before every purchase. I eventually could not find the line between a smooth cool buzz and oblivion. I always thought that if I could have just not had that last one, I would not have ended up so shit faced. Next time, I would do better and this is how...  It took me coming into the rooms to understand that it was the first drink, not the last that got me drunk. 

[Dewey 3286]

Been a year and a month, and a couple days and in no time I was hating myself. Didnt even catch what I was doing. Just out of nowhere, didnt like myself, not one damn thing. It was fucking miserable. After having lunch with my sponsor yesterday, going home and thinking how full of shit I was, I started thumbing through Chuck Cs book, something I haven't read in a year. He talks about all the things we learn growing up. Respecting your elders, being nice to others, ect. No one ever taught us to be nice to ourselves, to like who we are. Boom, I felt better.
Then this morning I get a text from my sponsor "you may not like what I'm going to say and you can tell me to fuck off... but your ego is out of control and needs to be checked. You should be thankful you have two jobs and health insurance. Stop being an over worked baby."
Grateful for the program, my sponsor, my family and friends. And work, plenty of it.
Thanks guys

[tucker 238]

12 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Interesting. Speaking from, apparently, further down the continuum, I only drank vodka at the end because anything that went in had a chance of coming back out so if I was going to keep it down, it needed to get me as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. And oblivion was my goal, to the degree I had one. I was drinking to lose consciousness, to not be aware of how much of a mess I was making of my life. It was wake up, drink, put HBO on and check work email/surf a bit while drinking, pass out, repeat. If I had a conference call, I would try to time it so I was more or less sober (HA), otherwise I did everything through email so I could stay as drunk as possible as much of the time as possible. I would eat once every five days or so. I was pretty much like an animal that knows it's dying and holes up somewhere quiet to wait for it. Quite a life I carved out for myself. At least I wasn't one of those freaks that drank isopropyl. Losers.

I remember the good times of beer drinking from my younger days, but those became obviously inaccessible to me a long time ago. I knew anytime I picked up a drink from 2015 on, the goal was oblivion and the result was either that or death. 

The only nice thing about that time is, in what little memory I have of it, it feels like it happened to someone else.

Today I get a nine month chip from my home group. 

This hits close to home.  I started drinking late and really did it as part of work life then it moved into my social life. Over the years, I started drinking in more social situations. About 3 years ago, I switched to heavy drinking which meant let’s do vodka, because I can handle more and won’t be as hungover. 

My drinking then started earlier in the week then earlier in the day but not really impacting work, I thought. A coworker would make an off comment as a joke but nothing impacted my career progression as most coworkers were also heavy drinkers. Slowly, my drinking led to unintended 3 or 4 day weekends which I played off as being sick. Clearly, I drank those recovery days though.

I thought I had a handle on it and was not a problem, because I would take two week breaks or do other moderation. Right after my break though I would go back to my black out drinking. I got to a point that I couldn’t moderate or take breaks. Had a bad few weeks and drank for 10 days straight not remembering almost any of it. 

Thankfully besides my ego and money for booze nothing was destroyed. I decided after that to admit that I am an alcoholic and wanted to go to AA. I definitely damaged many relationships in this process but hoping this journey is my way back. 

[JohnnyRage 1617]

 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

11 hours ago, Dewey said:

Been a year and a month, and a couple days and in no time I was hating myself. Didnt even catch what I was doing. Just out of nowhere, didnt like myself, not one damn thing. It was fucking miserable. After having lunch with my sponsor yesterday, going home and thinking how full of shit I was, I started thumbing through Chuck Cs book, something I haven't read in a year. He talks about all the things we learn growing up. Respecting your elders, being nice to others, ect. No one ever taught us to be nice to ourselves, to like who we are. Boom, I felt better.
Then this morning I get a text from my sponsor "you may not like what I'm going to say and you can tell me to fuck off... but your ego is out of control and needs to be checked. You should be thankful you have two jobs and health insurance. Stop being an over worked baby."
Grateful for the program, my sponsor, my family and friends. And work, plenty of it.
Thanks guys

Gratitude can be so hard. If you imagine what you'd wish or pray for if you didn't have it, and then compare that to what you have, it's amazing that we're so critical of what we actually have-- e.g., if you were unemployed and praying "God I wish I could pay the bills, just give me gainful employment", you'd be tickled pink to have two jobs and health insurance. But in the reality of having those jobs, you're probably like me-- "my job's not fulfilling or challenging or good enough for a genius like me, why won't they promote me to CEO?"

Whereas I'm fucking lucky to have not gotten shitcanned last year when I hit what I am currently praying is rock bottom. Whereas it wouldn't be unusual for someone my age in my income bracket to get RIF'ed and take a $30,000 pay cut and have to work twice as hard. You know? I should be grateful for this job every day, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how it doesn't suit my grand abilities. 

Or, when my disease is really roaring, how this job should be embarrassing for me to have because I have friends around my age who are VPs or CxOs, and why didn't I apply myself harder in school and why did <cue montage of the non-career-advancing choices I've made since I started high school> and when you get right down to it, aren't I kind of a loser? Doesn't it seem likely that I am wasting my time with all this AA shit? I can't help anyone, I can't stay sober, you know some people never make it and maybe I'm just meant to end up like Jason Molina or George Best. Does anyone really love me, anyway? 

By the grace of God, I don't feel that way right this minute-- but that thought spiral is always just accessible is I'm not vigilant about my spiritual condition. 

[BearSchlong 8087]

Gratitude can be so hard. If you imagine what you'd wish or pray for if you didn't have it, and then compare that to what you have, it's amazing that we're so critical of what we actually have-- e.g., if you were unemployed and praying "God I wish I could pay the bills, just give me gainful employment", you'd be tickled pink to have two jobs and health insurance. But in the reality of having those jobs, you're probably like me-- "my job's not fulfilling or challenging or good enough for a genius like me, why won't they promote me to CEO?"
Whereas I'm fucking lucky to have not gotten shitcanned last year when I hit what I am currently praying is rock bottom. Whereas it wouldn't be unusual for someone my age in my income bracket to get RIF'ed and take a $30,000 pay cut and have to work twice as hard. You know? I should be grateful for this job every day, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how it doesn't suit my grand abilities. 
Or, when my disease is really roaring, how this job should be embarrassing for me to have because I have friends around my age who are VPs or CxOs, and why didn't I apply myself harder in school and why did and when you get right down to it, aren't I kind of a loser? Doesn't it seem likely that I am wasting my time with all this AA shit? I can't help anyone, I can't stay sober, you know some people never make it and maybe I'm just meant to end up like Jason Molina or George Best. Does anyone really love me, anyway? 
By the grace of God, I don't feel that way right this minute-- but that thought spiral is always just accessible is I'm not vigilant about my spiritual condition. 

This is me. I'm the highest performing person in my specific job at my entire company, the highest paid guy in the building, and I'll get incredibly nuts when I feel like I'm not getting paid enough. Conversely, I won't even call clients that aren't going to make me a ton of money, like its beneath me. And when we have meetings and they are getting in the weeds on their needs, and I'm sitting there thinking well here is what I want to provide, not gonna help if you dont do it this way.

I'm so sick, a egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Lol.

[Cashless752 11]

OK. I can't do it anymore. I don't know how I'm going to get through this, but I have to. I cannot go inpatient... it's either outpatient or tapering. Been a heavy drinker for about a decade, mostly just at night. I can't remember the last night I went without a single drink. It's been years. As I moved up the corporate ladder, and became the sole breadwinner, and had more and more kids, the pressures mounted and this was my medication. I've been reading this thread all day, and I appreciate all of the honesty. 

Any other advice?

[Dertyberd 394]

Where do you live? Any of us would be happy to talk with you about it and guide you through it.  

[El Diablo 4232]

35 minutes ago, Cashless752 said:

OK. I can't do it anymore. I don't know how I'm going to get through this, but I have to. I cannot go inpatient... it's either outpatient or tapering. Been a heavy drinker for about a decade, mostly just at night. I can't remember the last night I went without a single drink. It's been years. As I moved up the corporate ladder, and became the sole breadwinner, and had more and more kids, the pressures mounted and this was my medication. I've been reading this thread all day, and I appreciate all of the honesty. 

Any other advice?

You can do what I did, check into a hospital (ER) on a Friday, tell 'em why you're there. They'll get you over the first 72 hours and get ya back to work. PRIOR to that you need to get to an AA meeting, grab anyone there that sounds like they know the deal and tell them your plan, tell them you need a sponsor. Take it from there. Get detoxed and have a plan for after you get discharged. No excuses if you're serious.

[Dewey 3286]

I've taken people to a behavioral hospital and detoxed them, a bit of insurance. Also have done the ER, but they were out inside of 24 hours with a scrip of lithium.

Definitely get someone from AA to help you through if you dont want inpatient treatment. Maybe after 3 or 4 days, find an out patient program and stay positive.

[Augustus 3061]

On 2/11/2019 at 11:11 AM, Sparky said:

One of the things that amazed me when I first got sober and into meetings was hearing stories that basically mirrored mine.  It was thru hearing those, and reading them later on, that really gave me hope and helped me realize I was not alone or some outlier.  I say that because reading your story sounds basically identical to the daily hell I lived in for way too long, well I didn't watch HBO it was more travel shows and news, but I still can very closely relate.  I take days when I am feeling down or not at 100 and think back to what would that day be if I was still in that hell and it makes me sick.  Congrats on your 9 months, that's a great achievement!

Easily one of the best experiences of my life was my first AA meeting.  Surrounded by these people talking about what their lives had been like and being bombarded for the first time in my life with the discovery that there were many people who understood exactly what it was like to be me.  They gave so many examples that were just spot on.

I went from thinking no one would/could understand, to realizing that I'd never need to try to explain to these people what my existence was like.

Maybe the greatest relief I've ever felt.  A lifelong, enormous feeling of isolation evaporated in the span of an hour.

[Augustus 3061]

1 hour ago, Cashless752 said:

OK. I can't do it anymore. I don't know how I'm going to get through this, but I have to. I cannot go inpatient... it's either outpatient or tapering. Been a heavy drinker for about a decade, mostly just at night. I can't remember the last night I went without a single drink. It's been years. As I moved up the corporate ladder, and became the sole breadwinner, and had more and more kids, the pressures mounted and this was my medication. I've been reading this thread all day, and I appreciate all of the honesty. 

Any other advice?

I was gonna ask if you'd ever had any serious issues during withdrawal, but if  you've drunk every day for 10 years, you haven't had a chance.

DT's and the health risks associated with them are real, and attempting to taper yourself is a tall order.

Can you not take just a few days or more to get into detox?  Do you have health insurance?

I can try to get you some resources, just post here or PM me.  I've worked in treatment for quite a while, and I don't believe inpatient treatment is entirely necessary for the alky who is willing to go to any lengths.  But detox is a medical issue and should be treated as the health risk it is.

[Augustus 3061]

On 2/12/2019 at 1:28 PM, BearSchlong said:

This is me. I'm the highest performing person in my specific job at my entire company, the highest paid guy in the building, and I'll get incredibly nuts when I feel like I'm not getting paid enough. Conversely, I won't even call clients that aren't going to make me a ton of money, like its beneath me. And when we have meetings and they are getting in the weeds on their needs, and I'm sitting there thinking well here is what I want to provide, not gonna help if you dont do it this way.

I'm so sick, a egomaniac with an inferiority complex. Lol.

This is just my opinion.

You're not sick.  You're mindful and aware.

The sickness lies in being deluded about or denying those thoughts and feelings.