I am a mess. Somehow, in the past 2 years, I went from being a devoted father of two beautiful little girls with a great job and a big house and plenty of money to an divorced, unemployed, slobbering drunken piece of shit. Where once I used to look forward to an occasional night out with the boys and knocking back a few, now I don't enjoy drinking at all. I dread it, yet I can't seem to stop. It's a totally irrational, but seemingly invincible compulsion at this point. My every waking moment is spent planning my next trip to the goddamn bar. At this point, I think I may even have developed a physical dependency.
I am so disgusted with myself I can't even sit still.
Aloha Bob and this may be the turn around point for you if you so desire it as you have just connected with a large passel of others who have tried what you are now doing and also came to the very same conclusions and consequences that you have. You are home and if you plan with diligence what will be suggested to you here you might just be amazed...might be. Gotta know if you want out of that practice and lifestyle as much and as bad as we do. Gotta know if your losses have been total. Gotta know if you know that you have an unquenchable compulsion for alcohol inspite of all that it has cost you.
Before your next trip to the bar consider the above and then try something very different call the local AA number for the time and place of the next meeting and go there before and instead of the bar. Go with an open mind and know that the meeting is one hour long usually so you'll need two hours on the safe side so that you get there early enough to find a seat and to introduce yourself to someone else who needs to swap stories with you. After that hour plan on sticking around and talking with the fellowship that remains to talk and if some are going to coffee afterward ask if you can attend also.
From your own appraisal of your condition you are alcoholic...a sufferer of the mind mood and physically altering condition of dependence on alcohol before dependence on anything or person else. It seems like you have lost everything or just about except the opportunity to take these suggestions. You know what happens if you go to the bar...you don't seem to have experienced what happened when we didn't. It's your choice this time. You can let the booze make the choice for you again and then why not something different than the feelings, thoughts and actions you woke up with this morning.
Glad you found us and keep coming back....In support
Hey Bob, Sounds familiar. Real familiar. Not just me but millions of us. Read about the program and start on the road to recovery. You are NOT alone. Look at the Big Book online.
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Yes, sound familiar to me too, planning the drinking sessions but not able to control the outcomes, the guilt, the shame, the need to blot everything out, I'm five months in, and I don't think you'd regret it if you decided to give AA a go, I tried for 26 years to best it, control it, manipulate it, I only had excuses never reasons to drink but it was awful.
Welcome to MIP, Bob. I feel I can say confidently you're in the right place. I have heard your story so many times & seen as many recover. You can break free if you're willing. Attend some AA meetings & hook in with the fellowship. I found I couldn't & cannot do this alone. Hearing your story has already helped me stay sober today. I am sorry for your losses. I hope you can get well before you lose anything else. There is a life after alcohol. Things will get better for you. Maybe not how you might expect but you can be free of this obsession. Doing what's suggested, this is a promise. Goodluck & Godbless, Danielle x
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
Hello Bob, welcome to the board. just your explaining your problem is helping to keep us sober. that's how it works. we listen to each other talk about what alcohol has done to us and somehow we, collectively, stay sober together. get to a meeting and you'll see that you're just one of us. no better, no worse, not a bad guy, just a sick one trying to get well. stick around and help us to stay sober.
The first step towards sobriety is admitting we are powerless over alcohol and our lives are unmanagable.
Seems like you have taken that step here. Many others like yourself, started right here, saying something similar to what you've just said, and today they are sober, active, productive people with lives that would blow your mind.
This is the beginning. Take the next step(s) don't drink one day at a time, stay close to us on this board, and get yourself to a local AA meeting. Don't look at the differences, but look for the similarities in what you read and hear. Go to more than one meeting, try to go to a meeting every day if possible for a good while.
I was once told..."You don't have to feel or live like this ever again, if you don't want to, there is a way out".
That was 20 years ago. Today I am one of many whose lives have been literally changed for the better, simply because I surrendered and stopped trying to do every thing my way. I started to listen and take suggestions, and worked the 12 steps to the best of my ability.
Hope we see you here lots and lots and yes, its quite okay if you share from the heart and unburden yourself here.
Until I have more time to write Bob...Welcome and you are home with us. It is okay and things will get better. If you didn't get to this part of the journey, you wouldn't know the need to or have that gift to begin to turn it around and stay sober a day at a time.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
My genuine, humble thanks to you all for your kind replies. What I confessed to above, as I gather you know, is very painful and humiliating, and not the kind of thing you tell people in your day to day life. It's a very valuable thing to have outlet like this where candor is welcome and responses are forthcoming, relevent and meaningful.
I'm pretty early in the process of "recovery", if that's what I should call it, so first things first, I have very practical question I'm hoping someone can answer. It has to do with physical withdrawls. I hadn't really considered this as even an issue until recently when I went 24 hours without drinking and I felt heavy anxiety, depression and disorientation. My heart raced, I was unsteady, my hands trembled quite a bit and I broke out into frequent hot flashes, as well.
A little background info, I recently saw a doctor and told her what I was going through, and she suggested I might experience physical withdrawls if I stop drinking cold turkey. This honestly had never occured to me before as I'm strictly a light beer drinker and always been generally been very physically fit. That being said, I would guess I have averaged 12 beers a day for a little over two years with almost no days of total sobriety (over these 2 years I've ranged from about 190-200 lbs).
I guess my question is, I'm wondering if, judging from personal experiences and knowing the degree of my habit, if you think these symptoms are psychosomatic (I hope) or if they're very real (god that's scary and embarassing), and either way how do I deal with them moving forward.
And again, my sincere thanks for your replies.
-- Edited by bob cobb on Monday 21st of December 2009 10:22:23 PM
-- Edited by bob cobb on Monday 21st of December 2009 10:40:17 PM
Hey Bob, I was a beer drinker of about that magnitude. I experienced several days of withdrawal symptoms. It's good that you notified your Dr. Anxiety is common as alcohol relieves stress very well but in the process removes our natural ability to deal with stress. So we have to practice "not sweating the small stuff" or no big dealing everything. It's this anxiety that sets us up to want to drink. going to meetings every day for the first 90 days eases the anxiety through fellowship and comradery. You'll also learn other tools to cope with the transition period of drinking to being sober. It takes your mind and body some time to adjust. depression can be a short problem. I was depressed a good part of the first 60 days. Time is on your side and as time passes it's gets progressively better and the "good days" feel incredibly good, well worth the price of admission. Hang in there and stay close to this forum. Google for an AA meeting schedule in your area. It's just a group of people that you would have drank with that are now sober and enjoying life more than ever. Don't try to do this by yourself, there are forces working against you that you need to get an education about. Also loneliness is motivator to drink. The fellowship in the meetings is a cure for that. Good luck in your new journey.
Dean
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 22nd of December 2009 06:16:25 AM
It sure is great to meet you my friend, and all I can really say is stick around and keep on asking the questions. I would suggest making contact with real-time AA, which you will find contacts for online, but if you are just starting to realise you might have a probem (which we call alcoholism) keep on sharing here with us, for I feel pretty certain that you are in the right place, and if you ARE, then there is a whole new world waiting for you out there.
We are alcoholics who, through the 12-step programme of AA, have found the solution, and try to live in that solution, rather than carry on drinking, living in the problem.
Reading your post reminded ME of what it was like, and thankfully I now have the experience -not only of what it was like - but also 'what happened, and what it is like now' It would take me forever to tell you how good my life is NOW, but I can assure you, as difficult and painful as it sometime was (and IS) I have a wonderful sober life now, and family who disowned me now love me, and CHOOSE to spend time with me and actually come to ME with their problems.
Just in case you are wondering how much WORSE it can get, let me tell you that 2 days ago, I heard that my first husbands cousin, (who I always got on well with, and talked to about her drinking problem, but to no avail) was found dead on the bedroom floor by one of her daughters, who was visiting with her grandkids.
What a wonderfgul Christmas it will be for her 2 daughters and their children, without mum and grandma, and what a shock for her daughter to face. THIS could quite easily have been ME, her funeral will take pace on December 21st. Yet another victim of alcoholism.
Once I found AA I had a CHOICE!!! Today I CHOOSE not to drink, before AA I didn't have that choice, I HAD TO drink. Keep coming back, Bob, it really does work if you work it.
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
And...here I am again. 12 beers in and bound to finish 6 more. G** D**nit, what is wrong with me? Why can't I stop this? It's ridiculous and utterly illogical. I don't even enjoy it.
You're in the grip of a mental obsession so powerful that nothing can overcome it but a mental defence as built through the fellowship & 12steps of AA. At least I found this so. I slipped four times over the space of two months when I first came to AA & after the last one I realised that I had not even been sober between the drunks, that unless I began to live in the solution & do as suggested I would have no chance of staying sober by my own power. It became my knowledge & acceptance that I am powerless over alcohol & without help it is too much for me.
This experience will show you how despite your best intentions it was not enough to keep you away from that first drink. The sooner you attend live meetings the quicker you will learn about the nature of this fatal disease & how many of us have gotten from under that merciless obsession. You can do this but you have to put yourself into a position to be helped, Bob :) Keep coming back & don't lose your heart. Keep sharing with us, Bob. Godbless, Danielle x
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
