21 years old and realised that I really need to cut out drinking. I am not a frequent drinker, but when I do drink I cannot stop.
Back story is nothing terrible. Mother and father had a very unamicable break up when I was 16. Went to university at 18, where I didn't drink a lot in my third year and I only turned 18 like 3 weeks before going to university.
University was not the best experience for me. I was very homesick, didn't make many friends and got into a few abusive relationships one with resulted in myself getting pregnant and having an abortion.
After university, I went immediately into my dream job working as a mental healthcare assistant - the job itself is very challenging and I found myself going to the pub after work quite frequently. However as this point I was able to have only one and stop.
Move forward to Christmas and that's when the problems started. My boyfriend and myself were having a lot of issues. We never really resolved these issues and I am finding myself getting black out drunk and not remembering a thing. My boyfriend and I split up today and I moved back in with my mum.
Decided I really need help and to stop drinking so much that I cannot remember the night.
So far alcohol has lost me friends, a relationship with the love of my life and has got myself in some very unpleasant situations that I would not wish upon anyone.
My journey starts today.
Only you can decide if you are an alcoholic or not, but even at your young age, it appears that you have suffered quite a bit of consequences due to your drinking. If you imagine that your life will generally be downhill from here, AA might be for you too. The forward to the 1st edition of the Big Book says that we alcoholics can "recover" implying that recovery as a lifelong process is a misconception: "To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book."
As implied, AA is the easier, softer way. Know that alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease and that there is a recovery therapy that works where there used to be none, just no "cure!"
The secret to AA is that only another alcoholic can truly understand an alcoholic, like walking 10 miles in an alcoholic's shoes (1 mile isn't enough)! We pledge our abstinence for 24 hours at a time (ODAT = One Day At a Time) and put our disease into remission activating it with the first drink.
-- Edited by SoberInMI on Sunday 4th of June 2017 08:11:56 PM
Seems you've experienced quite a lot of emotional trauma. I hope you can seek professional help for those issues, if you need it.
Drinking to blackout is an indicator of a drinking problem. You might try going to some AA meetings to see whether AA could be for you. Do you have AA meetings in your area?
Seems you've experienced quite a lot of emotional trauma. I hope you can seek professional help for those issues, if you need it.
Drinking to blackout is an indicator of a drinking problem. You might try going to some AA meetings to see whether AA could be for you. Do you have AA meetings in your area?
In AA we don't give "advice" directly. Instead we offer our experience, strength and hope, how we and others have solved a problem "suggesting" a possible solution because alcoholics are not good at taking instruction or direction. But if it appears to be our own idea .... it just might be.
Indirectly you have indicated that it is your opinion that the OP needs professional help, perhaps taking the OP's inventory.
I do recognize that you had the best of intentions here.
-- Edited by SoberInMI on Wednesday 7th of June 2017 08:17:18 AM
