I broke 12.5 years of sobriety. (Update)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Original thread.

After much consideration I decided to post an update. I have toughened my skin and I am prepaired for what anyone has to say. I know all to well that this subjct is painfull and deep for many. I was incredably frustrated with the original thread. There seemed an abundance of posters that cold not wait to spout off AA stuff without reading what I said or even others. I do however understand why. I will make every atempt to be honest with my situation. In the past I have proven I am an open book. Read my, Ask an ex Con thread for an example or read the entirety of the link I provided here. Dig deep of you want, ask anything, challenge everything.

OK it has been about a year and a half since my wonderful champaign night. This girl is fantastic wonderful and still in my life. She is not a girlfriend. To expand the story a bit she, I think, got sickened of hearing complain about my marriage and that I am gonna drink someday. She cracked it open and I drank.

Alright now on to the good part. I drink regularly. About 3-4 days a week. Get drunk, or mayby way drunk once a week or a bit more or less. The other times just a few. A few for me is 2-4 drinks. I drink everything now. And enjoy it. I do not hide my drinking. Although I never drink a drop around my kids. 11 and 4. I have had no legal trouble. I make no attempts at controlling my drinking and never have since I started. I drink how much I want and when I want and what I want. I sleap better I am more social. Less anxiety and a bit less OCD. No outbursts or violence. In fact I am less violent and fight prone.

OK now on to some other positives. I got a divorce that I couldent quite muster up the courage for before drinking. She did not know I started till after seperation. We were amicable enough to work together for a dissolution. We speek regularly and I am welcome in her house. I pay well abouve the require cs amount required. I have my kids about 40%. I closed my wonderful restaurant Spit-Fire Grille. Got a job at a failing but really nice place and turned it around. Place still ended up closing for unrelated reasons and started a new businss 299taco. A fantastick feat of endurance and extremes and over the top fun. I spend most of my time around bars selling good food. Just google it. Only a month or so old and we have several articles and presence on the web. I moved into a cabin on a 900ft ocean bluff with no running water. And a wood stove. I make due. My kids love it. I am well known, respected and loved. I always was but now with the business and social drinking much more so. My sex life great. I fell free and liberated. Maybe in part from the divorce.

I have had the most fantastic, stimulating, gut wrenching, hard, over the top fun, scary, fitful, liberating year of my life. New friends new life, new business. I write now. I suck at grammar and spelling because I did not goto high school but with extra diligence I can make stories happen.

I went way into debt during the last years on marriage. I recently quit paying my CC debts. Probally gonna declare bankruptcy. Or get sued or something.

Smoked pot a time or two with the right girls. I still only hang with girls. Pretty much all the time and almost exclusively with ones half my age. That is probally what keeps me in line. I surround my self with them all the time. There are some truely special ones in my life. I even love spending time with my ex wife.

I feel that I was an alcoholic and definitely a drug addict. I drank like one and acted like one. Went to many treatment centers and spent years in jail. Lots of AA time as well. I have come to the conclusion that if I started drinking straight out of AA I would be a mess. Well I kinda am now but I always have been. It is just that treatment and AA pound it so strongly into ones head that even one sip will send you back worse than before that well you begin to believe it. I told my self for about seven years that I would start drinking again someday. And I Just might be fine. Yea, I drink heavily. But is has been awesome. I feel at home and comfortable.

Am I gonna drop of the deep end? I dont know. Doesn’t seem like it. I have increased my drinking but it has been stable for about a year now. Possably slightly less. I had a drinking spree for a bit and have setted into this pattern.

I have not had a drink in two days. If you are wondering about my current state writing this. I am however writing this on my phone. Editing is a.bitch so I am just gonna hit submit and hope It is readable.

2

Your life sounds like a fast-paced ride to this boring old fart, but it doesn’t sound as tho your present drinking and occasional pot smoking are any detraction. Congrats on finding a comfortable place and good luck.

3

Yeah, I don’t have anything in the way of a frame of reference here, but I’m trying to imagine if I had a crazy Uncle Larry who was an ex-con and a former alcoholic and addict. If crazy Uncle Larry had been sober and married for 12 and a half years and then, in a six month period, gotten a divorce, declared bankruptcy, started some strange taco and booze business, started banging a bunch of girls half his age, and moved into a small shack without running water, I would think… wow, crazy Uncle Larry is really taking it to new heights.

And then crazy Uncle Larry would stand there with a big-haired girl in each arm and say something like, “It’s awesome! I finally feel at home!” And then silly 80’s sitcom theme music would play over the end credits of That’s My Larry!

4

So you have money to drink, but not to pay your debts? Nice.

5

I think the main reason they do this is that it’s true in a serious majority of cases. Let’s hope you are in the minority.

6

Never mind - enjoy your drinks.

7

Just want to point out that the debts were acquired before the divorce, he’s keeping up with his child support, and whether not drinking would help pay off his debts depends on how much he owes and how much he’s paying a drink.

8

Morbid curiosity: what does the phrase “keeps me in line” mean to you?

9

What I’ve noticed about the addicts I’ve known in my life is that they blow through the warning signs. In fact that’s the main thing that marks them as addicts instead of people having a good time occasionally.

You seem to be blowing through the warning signs pretty fast. In your other thread you mentioned you run a restaurant where you met some of these younger girls. Are you likely to put their jobs in jeopardy with your upcoming bankruptcy? That would be a hell of a way to pay them back for what you believe has been a good influence on you.

Enjoy,
Steven

10

To address the OP. The best working analysis of addiction that I’ve heard is something that seems to make a problem better but actually makes it worse. Take a good look at your drinking to make sure that you’re not trying to solve problems with it, because it just doesn’t work.

11

Deliberately paying out money for leisure activities rather than for accrued debt is pretty much the definition of “deadbeat”, and Alaska is full of end-of-the-roaders living in shacks and dodging responsibility.

12

Heck, I thought it was pretty much the definition of “American”! :smiley:

13

You’re a child. Grow the fuck up and take responsibility for the shit you have inflicted on yourself and your family.

14

He’ll have to quit indulging in that cycle of drinking, denial and rationalization first.

15

Sorry to hear that. :frowning: Sounds scary when you put it like that and follow up with stuff like this:

Now if you said something like “been drinking a little bit more or less, not preoccupied about getting drunk,” or something like that, then maybe, but…

Doesn’t sound good.

16

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thought this reading the OP.

Seriously, drinking more days than you don’t, ditching your wife to fool around with women half your age, and blowing off debt that you incurred so you can party doesn’t make you a good parent.

However, I suspect ‘Good Parent’ is pretty low on your list of goals.

17

One thing that strikes me from the OP is that it sounds like your marriage was crappy, and you’re better out of it, but you started drinking again at about the same time you ended your marriage, and you might be mistakenly attributing all the positive changes in your life to drinking again, instead of just being out of a bad marriage.

I wish you nothing but the best, but in my experience, you’re not on the path to good things. Self-medicating all your problems with alcohol instead of dealing with them usually doesn’t end well.

18

If you are truly concerned about the OP’s drinking, I think it would go better if you didn’t actually attack him.

I am concerned for one reason: He knows this is the type of response he’d get, and yet he felt a need to share with us. That smacks of needing validation. That is not a good sign. It implies you suspect that something may be going wrong.

This is something you need to investigate, OP. You need to be 100% honest with yourself. Maybe you haven’t fallen completely off yet, but you are showing the classic signs of not paying attention to your psychological needs, and that is very likely to lead to the same problem you had before.

At the very least, please get yourself to a psychologist who can help you with your OCD and other issues, so you won’t be self-medicating, which can again lead to the problem you had before. (Heck, I suspect most alcoholics got that way because they were self medicating.)

19

Personally I don’t give a crap about the OP’s drinking - he can drink himself into a ditch for all I care.

I feel sorry for his children who instead of a dad have an overgrown party boy. They certainly don’t deserve to have to deal with the fallout if his life goes off the rails and drinking and getting drunk weekly, hanging out with women half your age and blowing off debts with the idea of being sued is coming pretty close to ‘going off the rails’ IMHO.

20

I’m not an expert on alcoholism or whatever, but IMO this doesn’t seem like it will end well. Uh, good luck though, OP. I think you need it.