Make a contract with yourself and promise yourself never to drink again. Outline the reasons you want to stop…It’s making me fat, I don’t want to be sick every morning, it’s making me stupid. Be brutal with yourself. Sign and put it somewhere handy in an enevelope with the words READ THIS FIRST on the outside.
If you dislike the idea of AA as much as I did, promise yourself you’ll join if you can’t stop without it.
Your biggest enemy will be boredom. Find some hobbies. Start writing. Start drawing. Learn to play a musical instrument if you are so inclined. Take up at least one physical activity…running, bicycling or yoga. The endorphins will do you good.
Take some emotional inventory. Try to realize what your triggers are and why you are compelled to drink. Recently, I started doing some “forgiveness meditiations” to release long held anger and in doing so, I had the revelation that no one had hurt me during the time I was an alcoholic. It was a powerful moment.
Become invested in not drinking. Count the days proudly. Make it so that if you pick up a drink you will feel like you lost something important.
If you fail, learn from the relapse and try again. If you continue to fail get your ass to AA whether you like it or not. The people there will understand, there always one guy at the AA meeting in the back of the room with his arms crossed rolling his eyes. The folks at AA know that. A lot of them WERE that guy when they joined. You just might come around.
Yes. The DTs can straight up kill you. If this guy really only drinks at night through, he can likely sweat it out. If you need to drink some every morning, afternoon, AND night - you’re the type of alcoholic that can’t safely go cold turkey.
That’s awesome, Stealth. Great to hear. I’ve been drinking for about 26 years, heavily for about 5.
Whoa, I just noticed that I wrote 26 years, the same number as yours. I calcuated since I was 17 and subtracted the 2 years I did go cold turkey. Didn’t subtract the 20 months I was pregnant.
Either way though - and want2befree, this is serious - consult your doctor before you stop drinking. As Hello Again states, the DTs are serious business.
As an aside, you know what’s really sad? I had been attending a new church for about a year, and going to bible study. The church was forced to shut down and as a result, the bible study ended as well. The night of the last bible study, I walked into a bar I had often seen in my neighborhood, and oh boy, I added many more problems to my life than just drinking at home. … and therein lied the debauchery…
Probably. If I had a six-inch deep cut on my arm that I bandaged and took care of myself and had no outward signs of infection after a week, I’d probably be OK, too. I still should see a doctor, though - pretty low risk-reward payoff IMHO.
Anyone who released your health information would be fired. Medical staff know this.
Anyone who discriminated against an alcoholic would be in legal trouble because alcoholism is classified as a medical condition and has been since 1956.
I can understand someone not wanting people to know that they have an active drinking problem. But the above comments show just how unenlightened our society continues to be about alcoholism.
Because alcohol is an addictive substance a person can get addicted to it. We still attach a lot of fear and unnecessary shame to that. Its nothing to be ashamed of. You share a problem that at least ten percent of United States’ population is struggling with.
I personally believe it’s a mistake not to inform medical staff if you are alcoholic or a heavy drinker because it can cause serious problems in treatment of other issues.
Here’s one, though old, and I hope no hospital staff is as out of the know as this one was years ago:
I had an uncle die of alcohol withdrawal in a small town hospital after suffering a minor stroke. He probably would have survived if anyone had been able to recognize what was happening to him.
Here’s another, more recent: a family member struggling with trying to control her drinking saw a doctor for her “nerves.” She didn’t tell him about the true cause of her tremors and nausea. He prescribed a drug to “help” her and now she has two addictions.
Also there are many, many medications that are contraindicated with alcohol use.
Hah! My wife hates that I go to my particular “club” because we go to church in that town, I drive a distinctive car (though another guy in the club drives an identical one), and somebody we know might see me going to an AA meeting. I tell her the building is unmarked and they’ll just assume I’m going to one of the three bars within a hundred feet of it.
If you take the AA route, check to see if there are women’s meetings in your area. And remember that some guys in the meeting were like the guys in the bar. They are sober now, but that doesn’t mean their personalities have transformed.
[QUOTE=dropzone]
They are sober now, but that doesn’t mean their personalities have transformed.
[/QUOTE]
Female newcomers that appear at all vulnerable are sitting ducks for 13th steppers.
Although medical records are confidential, are health insurance providers privy to any of the information?
You need to sign a release of information for anyone other than your health care providers to see your medical charts.
There is also the possibility that if you talk about your concern about your drinking but haven’t made any decisions regarding it yet your physician may have a way of charting (or not charting) that which would provide you with some peace of mind. It’s worth asking.
You say, ‘Thinking “I’ll drink less tonight”, or “I won’t drink tonight” never worked for me.’ (Emphasis mine). But before that you tell the OP “The real answer is, you have to quit drinking permanently.” (As opposed to saying, "The real answer for me was that* I* had to quit drinking permanently.")
Big difference.
Since you are not familiar with the details of the OP’s situation you are in no position to tell them they have to quit drinking permanently. Just because YOU felt you needed to quit permanently is no reason to extrapolate your situation to others you (AFAIK) know nothing about.
This “black or white”, “alkie or normie (nothing in between)” simplicity sounds like some of the poorer advice handed out at some AA meetings, to wit: “If you think you may have a drinking problem then you are an alcoholic and must never, ever, touch a drop of alcohol again.”
Fortunately there are therapists and other professionals who realize that the negative effects alcohol consumption can cause are quite nuanced and vary widely from person to person.
This is real. This happens. But to AA this is heresy. To AA it is absolutely impossible, and they employ a tautology to prove it’s impossibility. Goes like this: “Well if your brother is able to drink normally then he was never an alcoholic in the first place!” Which is a convenient, pat answer (not to mention disingenuous) considering that if astro’s brother had walked into an AA meeting when he was a ‘serious problem drinker’ in his 20’s he would have unanimously been told that he was clearly an alcoholic and must never drink again.
The whole preachy, churchy, God thing that dropzone mentions is annoying as hell but it’s not even the biggest problem with AA. The biggest problem is they treat anyone and everyone who comes to them for help as a confirmed alcoholic who must never again drink alcohol.
Paradoxically, that biggest problem is also why AA is effective for some people. Some people need that quasi-religious approach. But it’s like giving chemotherapy to every patient in a hospital, regardless of their condition. Broken bone? Tummy ache? Hemorrhoids? No, no, no… you’re in denial. You have cancer, you just can’t admit it yet. Give 'em the chemo, stat!
It’s like carpet bombing–yeah, you got the target all right, but a whole bunch of other folks who shouldn’t have been involved got caught in the firestorm. Collateral damage.
[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. 1]
This is real. This happens
[/QUOTE]
This is true. It does happen. In the OPs case, though, it appears she has tried to step back, even abstaining for 2 years, yet continues to drink in a way that concerns her.
I don’t think she has to stop, or that it’s the only way, but I just wouldn’t spend a bunch of mental energy to to control it. I think that’s a colossal waste of time. Personally I think it’s much easier to quit altogether than to keep fucking around with it.
A spiritual solution or recovery group is not necessary either.
I agree. For some people who are experiencing undesired consequences of drinking alcohol it is simpler to just quit entirely than to deal with the headache of trying to drink moderately. This doesn’t mean those people necessarily need to stop drinking entirely or forever, just that they choose to because it is the best lifestyle choice for them.