A couple months ago I drank a bottle of champagne with a girl. Then tried a few more drink and some beers with a few other girls. Just last night gave hard liquor a try for the first time. Just a few shots.
I am not sure about it. I can not seem to drink enough to get drunk. I kinda want to get drunk but it seems just old programing as I seem happy with at most three drinks on occasion. It is a whole new learning experience for me.
So far I just seem to like wine. A drink I rarely drank in my drinking and drugging days.
It is so different now. So completely different. I suppose I could fall off the deep end anytime. I could be playing with fire but it does seem different. I have not touched any drugs and don’t really desire to.
It is still early and I don’t really know what to think of it all. I kinda became so tired of my identity for the last 20+ years being obsessed with drinking and then not drinking and my identity being bound by that. I wanted to move on. I loved being sober but felt I was holding on to dates and identities that were holding me back, we will see. Almost no one knows though.
Some may say that I was never an alcoholic if I can drink now. I am not so sure of that.
I understand feeling bound up in that identity of addict-now-not-an-addict. Either way you feel you have been defined by that. And to have the chance to NOT be defined by that must be headspinning.
I do think you are playing with fire. Not to say you can’t learn to drink moderately now, not to say that your slide down a slippery slope is inevitable. But you’ve definitely got a lighted torch in your hand.
If you were in AA I’m sure (and I’m sure you’re sure) that if you went to a meeting now they’d all be telling you it’s the disease talking, that you have to stop, that you can’t drink moderately. Is that true? I dunno? YOU dunno.
My closest friend is alcoholic. I was around pretty much 24/7 when he spent a year realizing yes, he really was an alcoholic and that moderation wasn’t possible and after several attempts he finally quit, final attempt in conjunction with therapy. He was sober 10 or so years and then started testing the waters with a glass of wine here at a social function, a glass of wine there. Two years later he was in rehab, followed by a weekend jail sentence, as the result of a freeway accident in which the people in the other car were seriously injured.
So yeah, my perspective is pretty much, “Better safe than sorry.” You CAN let go of NOT DRINKING as the central part of your identity, but you don’t have to start drinking to prove it.
Well, I’ll step in for the A.A. crowd – seems like a really, really bad idea to me. After a long stretch where I wasn’t going to meetings, I’ve started up again – and the last three or four I’ve been to have all had someone who’s coming back to the rooms after a lapse.
A good friend of mine drank her way through college and after, then got sober for about two and a half years before deciding she felt like a loser because she couldn’t drink. She’s still obsessive about drinking. She does get drunk at times. She hasn’t had any major problems yet, but I think it’s going to end in disaster sooner or later.
I wish you the best, fifty-six, but I don’t really believe what you are doing can work. Whatever the case I hope you get help if you decide you need it and listen to people who know you.
Doesn’t everyone drink through college, or is it different in the US from the UK? Or is it the ‘and after’ that’s the important part?. I spent my first year of Uni well and truly drunk at least 4 times a week, and high almost as much. (I get the feeling from what I’ve read around here and seen on TV - not the best guide I know - that this would seem like a problem in the US), but these days (3rd year) I don’t really toke at all and I drink less than once a month.
It seems to me sometimes that it only becomes a problem if it’s made a problem.
However, if you were really an addict by standards of addiction, rather than the standards of American society, I’d say yes you’re definitely playing with fire. I think maybe you should confide in someone who won’t judge too harshly, but would steer you in the right direction if you start slipping off the rails. It might be you’ll slip back into old habits, and it may be better to catch it earlier on if that happens.
I guess what bother me is that I obsess about alcohol. I pisses me off at times.
From what seems my first drink ages ago through numerous disasters and life wrecking years and sobriety and major success building and what is so far and experimental trip back to drinking I think about the shit all the time. I don’t drink daily and not much at that and I still cant get the shit off my mind.
I guess I am thinking if I try normalized drinking it will go away. Sounds crazy even as I write it. Ahh… Fuck it I don’t wanna goto AA. I hate that place. I have been to so many treatment centers and AA meetings.
Want some honesty. i really don’t want anyone knowing about my casual drinking so I go through all sorts of stuff to find the right person to drink with. I hide it even if it is a glass of wine.
I am fucked oh well. The experiment is still ongoing but I feel a conclusion is forming. It is fucking part of my identity. I may or may not be able to control my drinking for long term but the reality of the obsession be it sober or not is becoming clear.
This might sound out of left field, but you might consider looking into Cognitive Behavior Therapy. CBT is not the traditional lie-on-a-couch-and-talk-about-your-parents type therapy. It’s designed to give you tools to break yourself out of destructive trains of though that have become a pattern in your life.
It wouldn’t change whether or not you’re an alcoholic but it might give you a more constructive way of thinking about yourself. After all - even if you are an alcoholic, you’re not solely an alcoholic.
This might be worth something, so that maybe you don’t have to attribute your (current/new) drinking habit to alcoholism - I’m guessing it would take around 6 drinks to get you drunk, compared to the 3 you’ve been having? It might be when you do drink, you prefer to be more than just tipsy, or maybe it might just be a higher threshold than others? But if you slip into alcoholic behaviours like hiding your drinking, drinking at inappropriate times, or getting properly drunk far too regularly then I think you’d be best admitting you have a problem again.
Just out of curiosity, what was your drinking like before you went sober, for the average day? (If you don’t mind sharing?)
AA, as a matter of principle, doesn’t teach you to manage moderation. But maybe that’s what you need.
Or maybe it isn’t. I find that these days I think about alcohol not at all, because I was raised teetotal, rarely drink, & don’t spend a lot of time around others who do.
If you feel the need to hide your drinking of “a glass of wine” yet you are NOT drinking to the point of intoxication, I dont see the point…
If you want to be able to start drinking socially, without obsessing over alcohol or getting hammered, hiding your moderate consumption seems counter-productive.
What ever you end up deciding, my best thoughts go out to you—Matthew
I wish you well and all but have to say that if you obsess about drinking even when you’re sober, you have a problem with drinking–even if you’re not actively drinking.
It sounds confusing, but if you are letting alcohol or the its absence rent space in your head constantly, I’d say you have a problem with alcohol.
IANAT and IANAD, but perhaps you should talk to someone about why you are obsessing? What is it you want to escape/avoid/bury? (It really doesn’t matter why you want to drink, I’m only suggesting you delve into this because perhaps if you figure that out, your obsession will fade away. Dunno).
Well, if you do end up wanting what folks in AA have, you know where to find it.
Speaking for myself, my experiments in returning to drinking or drugs never turned out well at all, though they did drag on for months or even a couple of years at a time. I’ve been much happier sober.
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out for you.
Hey there fifty-six! My name is NRichards. Don’t think we’ve met, so let me introduce my self. I’m in my mid 20’s, and have 3 brothers. I work in the addiction recovery field, as an overnight monitor in a rehab. I love dogs, but am way to busy for one now. My current frustration in life is trying to buy a cheap car that runs well, haha. I’ve been spending alot of my spare time helping my SO fix up his new house. This week we burned brush, which smells fantastic in the crisp air. I LOVE to cook. I spent 5 hours today making a pretty darn good dinner at my SO’s house. And speaking of which, during dinner, he asked me to move in with him! I’m at work right now, but I am still on cloud nine! I love my life, it is so fufilling. I work at a job I love, and I spend time with the man I love.
Oh yeah, I also go to AA. Not because my whole being is an Alcoholic/Addict, but because AA taught me how to be more than that. AA enabled me to have had this wonderful day. AA enabled me to meet my SO. I am an alcoholic/addict, yes. But I don’t drink or drug today so that I never have to feel again that is all I am.
I hope you can find your way back to the path, whatever that means for you. But I have a hunch that if you are debating things with yourself, deep down, you know the answer. Maybe you just can’t hear it yet.
The happiest moments of my adult life were sober. This was Fall 2007. I was planning a trip to Ireland with my Dad, and getting more focused on school.
I drank a brandy that first night in Ireland. This despite spending three consecutive times in a hospital to recover.
I remember I awoke feeling utterly depressed that I broke 4 months of sobriety drinking a brandy with my Dad in Ireland.
I slept all today thanks to scotch. I have terrible stomach pain when I drink, yet still do. Part of me wishes we gave the same hate we have to cigarettes to alcohol. I wish it would leave my life for good, but it doesn’t.
Alcohol gives a short window of happiness, but sobriety gave continuing happiness, for me at least. I hope to return to that continued happiness, but life gets in the way too much.
No, not everyone drinks their way through college. Half the girls in my dorm didn’t drink until they were 21 (you can drink at 18 in the UK, though, right?). The other half did to excess. Guess which half got in trouble and kicked out far more often?
Fifty-six, what I’m reading here is exactly what my dad said. He honestly believed that it wasn’t affecting him, that he wasn’t heading down the old path.
He started to get sloppier. He started to be violent earlier in frustration. But the alcohol wasn’t affecting him. It was just a glass of wine. Or two. He was a connoisseur. I started to get a little worried, but hey, he was an adult, he could handle it.
Then Mom was away one night and I got a call from her that he wasn’t answering the phone.
I thought he’d had a stroke. But it was just the alcohol. Spent the better part of a day cleaning and sobering him. Then I let him into the bathroom alone.
Spent the better part of the next day cleaning and sobering him again. I’d missed a bottle.
Trust me, dude. You’re lying to yourself. Don’t. Fucking. Do It.
The quantity and frequency was significant when not in jail/prison/rehab 7 days a week 12 plus drinks a day sometimes alot more plus pot. In addition to that daily pairing I also did at least one of the following; Acid, speed, pills, meth, cocaine snorting injecting crack’/rebase, heroine injecting, and various other drugs and inhalants. when in jail some but less. There are some posts about my past somewhere around here. this fromthe age of 15/16-26 started sooner but smaller amounts about 13/14.
Dude i dreamt about my first drink for years. I always though it was gonna be a nice single malt scotch or a nice whisky on the rocks witha fat cigar. I drank Champagne with fucking fresh raspberries in it. With a girl half my age. Then with the other girls I had peach wine with fresh peaches and some daiquiris and pina colodas I mixed up over the course of a couple weeks. I was not about to breakmy sobriety with fucking champagne alone. I don t hang around guys much. In my old days i was a mans man but really any more, just girls really.
Look it is kinda a small town. I dot really feel like explaining my drinking when I don’t even know what the hell is going on. Hell I hid my sobriety regularly. But yes still it is strange.
I’m at work right now, but I am still on cloud nine! I love my life, it is so fufilling. I work at a job I love, and I spend time with the man I love.