I am now back to Day One as well. <sigh> Glad I’m not alone! What did me in / or rather, what made me decide to try Not Drinking again, is that the current medical shrink doubled-up on my antidepression meds.
The previous medical shrink put me on Baclofen, one of the most evil drugs ever manufactured. That made me impossibly sleepy (tipping over on people seated next to me), dizzy (staggering worse that I ever had when drunk), and ultimately I had a horrifying night of hallucinations. And I was NOT drinking while taking that. I gave them back and requested a different medical shrink.
Ultimately, I found out that I really can’t combine any kind of antidepressant, muscle relaxant, antihistamine, etc. with alcohol. It’s amazing I’m still alive.
Not a big fan of AA here, but I DO have a wonderful, patient sponsor (who is atheist), and if I reach out to her, she’ll try to help. MUST call her today, or I’m apt to pick up that first drink again.
My oldest did that for her sister and mom at a recent wedding. My car broke down on the way home. She went off for a pee but the car still smelled like a brewery. Glad the tow truck showed before a cop. :eek:
After work, sober for the moment, sitting at the kitchen table, I suddenly had a pack of paramedics getting me on a gurney. I asked what they were doing.
“You had a seizure and we are taking you to the hospital.”
“I was wondering why my tongue’s bleeding. Seem to have broken a tooth, too.” I always take inventory when I hurt myself.
We, the doc and I concluded quickly that it was caused by alcohol withdrawal. The entire family was gathered there and they got to hear my little “secret,” as in not much of one. Tests pretty much confirmed it. Now I need to beat this before it kills me. Tuesday has the biker meeting, but I better see what Librium does before I try driving at night.
I’ve been to a few open AA meetings as a family member - and done the WW thing - and I think that there is truth to what you are saying - though it depends on the group - they all have different dynamics. But some seem to want to talk about how much they miss drinking/eating - and that doesn’t seem like a winning strategy.
Keep coming back. Some of us have to experiment before we believe that the disease keeps on lurking, whether we are drinking or not. Don’t let it get you.
In 1994, after six years of sobriety, I decided to go out and do research to find out if alcohol was still cunning, baffling and powerful. After three years of study, I concluded that indeed it was, on all three counts. It kicked my ass, went dormant until I was weak, then kicked my ass again. But after I dug a second hole remarkably like the first, only a little deeper, I finally put down the shovel in 1997.
Each day, I see that shovel in many places: my friends wield it to plant flowers or build a fence. There is a shovel store down the street with some very nice shovels for sale. And I think, some day I might dig a hole again, just a small one, because sometimes you just need a hole. But not today. I don’t need a hole today, and I don’t need a shovel today. And that’s how I have remained shovel and hole free for almost twenty years. I cannot say I won’t need a shovel or a hole tomorrow, and it is impossible for me to say I will never need a shovel or a hole, but as for today, I don’t need either one.
Peace, my friend. One day at a time. And don’t think about the past, or the future. Life consists of one day.
There’s always room back on the wagon, absurdistan1. And if you kept it to that one beer or one night or even two weeks, you remember why you went dry. You can do it again.
Cunning, baffling, and powerful is a beautiful phrase that describes any addiction. Alcohol, cocaine, and heroin are just substances, but their effects on the brain is what gives them their anthropomorphic power. When you are an addict, and I’d say getting hauled away in an ambulance establishes my bona fides, they have control over your body and your thinking. You think you have it licked, so it’s safe to stick a toe in the water. But the physical need has lain dormant, and it comes back in full force very quickly, so your tolerance and need are as great as before almost immediately. Nasty shit.
I always wonder how you are doing because we both got sober about the same time.
Before I got sober this time, I was on and off the wagon too many times. Alcohol finally kicked my ass and I do everything to not pick up that first drink.
An important thread for me to read. I’ve been wrestling with urges to start up again after three and a half years sober, and I though know that doing so is dangerous, eventually deadly, I fear the day when the craving outstrips my will to live. Because I have bad days like that, and all it takes is one really bad, fucked up day.
Craig Ferguson once gave a monologue about his own alcoholism, and he used a phrase to describe sobriety that I have never forgotten: “It requires a lifetime of vigilance.”
