Good for you for recognizing there’s a problem and reaching out. Please, for your son’s sake, get a handle on this. I don’t know if you are an alcoholic, but it sounds like you’re unhappy with your attraction to alcohol and your apparent inability to stop until, as you say, you get sick or the booze is gone.
Don’t let him grow up in a house with an alcoholic parent. No matter how much he loves you he’ll always hate that aspect of your personality, and when you’re older, you’ll feel terrible about that. Best of luck to you.
Just a note on this side, since it seems to have slipped under the radar. I’m pre-diabetic.
My dad is full diabetic, so I’m fairly certain I have a genetic link.
My blood sugar is also well under control through diet and exercise.
When I’m tempted to eat sugary snacks…birthday cake, dessert, etc. I think of it as a long term trade off. I can have this piece of cake…but it might end up costing me a foot and my vision eventually. It’s an extreme view of the situation, but it’s also real. And when I look at it that way, it’s an easy decision for me.
If you eat properly when sober, and very poorly when drinking…maybe add this to your thought process before you decide to pick up that drink. And don’t forget the carbs in the beer! They count too.
And the best thing about stopping drinking is for the rest of your life you get people congratulating you for nothing other than having previously been a fuckup!
Just a word to the wise–we’ve seen debates about different strategies for achieving sobriety become quite heated and acrimonious. I’m asking everyone to keep things civil and positive. It’s OK to mention that AA or some other approach did or did not work for you, but try to avoid blanket condemnations of a particular therapy or approach. Even if something didn’t work for you or someone you know, it undoubtedly worked for someone else.
No poster singled out and no note or warning issued.
I am a recovering alcoholic and came by it honestly. I don’t know if you are understating the extent of it because it doesn’t seem hopeless from what you posted which is great but lots of people fall a lot harder and that could be you if things progress. Alcoholism is a neurological condition. It doesn’t matter if you call it a disease or anything else, it is medical in large part and becomes more so over time. There is a prescription drug called Campral that is fairly new to the U.S. It can be really good for some people that are struggling with binge drinking and it has few side effects and little downside as long as you have health insurance. Most doctors will give it to you if you ask. It doesn’t treat acute withdrawal but it does block the urge to drink more and more and it won’t hurt you if you do drink while taking it. Lots of people swear it is just the thing that they needed to finally break the cycle. That isn’t medical advice. It is just an option that people like you could ask your doctor about.
At age 38 you’re nearing the point of no return. Your body can absorb a huge amount of punishment over the years, but when things start to go bad, there’s likely going to be a rapid decline in your health. Alcohol takes a huge toll on your heart and liver, for starters.
But I’m sure you are aware of those problems, as well as the complications that diabetes presents. Ask yourself how important your family is to you. Your job? How about the quality of life after 50? From your wife’s immediate answer, it sounds like she might be on the verge of pulling the plug on your relationship. You’ve become high maintenance for her and it sounds like she’s fed up with enabling your behavior. Do you really want a court order to remove your child from your life?
I’ve been where you are. I believe that I inherited the dependency, but knowing that doesn’t help any. It’s compulsive behavior and a real addiction. I was able to dial it back on my own. My son, on the other hand, required my intervention; but any change really has to come from within, and he’s now sober three years after truly looking into the abyss of alcohol and drug abuse.
My point in all of this is that if you’re not truly motivated to drag your sorry ass out of the mess you’re in, no amount of intervention is likely to help. Your spouse can be a big support for you if you’re ready to quit, but make no mistake: she’s seen you dive into the bottle again and again; if you ask for her help and then kick her in the teeth, she’s likely to leave you this time. Good luck to you.
Newcrasher, everything you say sounds alcoholic, and I also think you are right on that edge. You can turn around and stop drinking, or you can become a raging drunk before trying to stop the train (which has little chance of working). There is not much middle ground. You have a fair chance of stopping now, and no fair chances at anything else. Everything I hear tells me that moderation will not work, moderation will not work, and moderation will not work.
Stop, rewire, be healthier, be more responsible, be better. AA didn’t seem perfect to me, but it helped, quite a lot. I hear there are other helpful options out there, too. Find some. I’ve been sober since October 1986. Come have a seltzer with me, while you still can.
You have done one of the hardest things to do and that is admit there is a problem.
The next step is a bit harder and that is doing something about the problem.
I’ve posted a bunch here about my alcoholism. It destroyed my life. I certainly hope that you can figure out how to stop drinking before it destroys yours.
A.A. worked for me and others on the 'Dope. Others have used different methods to quit. Find what works for you. If you have any questions about A.A. you can PM me and I will answer the best that I can. If you aren’t going to try A.A., talk to a shrink or someone at your church. Getting support while you are quitting is a very smart thing to do. Oh, and talk to your doc. You probably want to get blood work done and check on Mr. Liver.
My DH quit drinking 6 years ago under similar circumstances.
It seemed that on days he did drink, he continued to drink until all the drinkables in the house were gone. It was like there was no “off button” once he got started.
He often felt badly enough afterward that we had to tip-toe around and not make too many demands on him or make too much noise. He frequently had “the Monday morning flu” and missed work. He though sitting in the back yard drinking beer while the kids played was good enough parenting (It is not, according to me). Now, looking at old pictures, we both can see he’s
pretty snockered in too many of them.
I think some of his drinking was because he felt he didn’t have enough “me time” and drinking was his grownup way to relax and unwind. Also, the number of drinks crept up to larger and larger amounts over time. I don’t think he really realized at the end what a burden it had become to me and our children. I was considering leaving him, but had not reached the point of telling him about that yet.
I did attend one AA meeting- I went to the wrong meeting and should have gone to Al-Anon (LOL!)- and I think that scared him enough that he just decided to stop. I’m sure that was not the only factor. I think, too, that he started to think of how much his dad drank and how he viewed his dad in that light, which is to say not very well.
He did not go to AA, but he has no strong feelings for or against them. He just felt it was something he could do on his own and he has been successful at it.
I wish you luck. My DH is a much more fun and interesting person, and a much better parent now.
It’s never too late to drop a bad habit and your wife and kids will enjoy you much more for it.
Let me say a huge thanks to all of you who have lent advice, kind words, and tough love.
I am doing pretty well. I have not had a drink since my last binge last weekend. So that is one week. I have not begun any official support or treatment. Grunting through te tough times and relying on support from my family and close friends, who I have told.
The wife and I made a point to spend time with friends who don’t drink this weekend. It removed a certain level of temptation. I do think about having a drink in many situations.
I ran a half marathon in 2009. While training for it I found a really healthy lifestyle. I didn’t want to drink because it would affect my running. When I had another “big thing” to focus on, it really helped. Tomorrow I am beginning training for a full marathon. Hopefully I can find that healthy groove again.
Thanks again for your concern. It’s nice to know there are people out there who have been there and are willing to share.
Really? Because from what the OP describes, he sounds like a classic text book alchoholic. Drinking alone. Inability to stop. Drinking every day. Aranging activities so he has access to alchohol.
I’m a big social drinker. But the difference is that I have an “off” switch where I can just pack up and go home. Or when some idiot buys a round of shots, quietly disposing of mine in the nearest potted plant. The true alchoholic is unable to dial it back a notch.
One thing that I think is key is to find activities that don’t relate to drinking. Running seems like a good start. Another is to stop associating alchohol to every possible activity.
That sounds like someone who’s not counting the days: you still remember the date you stopped, but you’re not struggling any more. Congratulations.
newcrasher, you know you’ll have to bring marathon pics, right?
Middlebro has never even gotten drunk: the first time he drank alcohol, he realized that the only reason he hadn’t ended up facedown on the floor was that there simply hadn’t been enough alcohol available. He took, then and there, the option to “find something else to get addicted to, something which is actually Good For Me”. I had a similar reaction to tobacco (I can count on the fingers of one hand how many cigarrettes I’ve smoked or lighted up and have fingers left - yet when I’m anxious, I feel like I could kill for one). Littlebro was a binge drinker for about 15 years; he’s now stopped, and again one of the things he’s done is consciously look for other foci in his life: building spreadsheets to help people design Warhammer 40K armies is not most people’s idea of a fun thing, but it’s a healthier way to spend a Friday night than inside a bottle of peach liquor.
Running certainly sounds like a much better option than most; wish you the best.
I hear your story. I laugh and think it’s certainly not me, I have no problems with alcohol, I only go overboard a few times a year.
Then I realize that I have no control between two drinks and ten. And I have to stop for good.
It has been just about six weeks. I had a sip of something around New Year’s. It tasted like failure, but I don’t even count it. With that I say six weeks is nothing. I’ve done it a hundred times. I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll go back on it and make myself so ill I end up with bigger problems than too much alcohol.
Avoid the trap of mindless sentimentalist self-absorbed emotional mental onanism, and acknowledge the fact that alcohol has a physiological impact on your brain, as it does on everyone.
The question of why you tend to choose to self-medicate yourself with alcohol, is another issue. The answer of what to do about it is either stop consuming it, or get help in stopping you from consuming it.
That’s it. The rest come later. First, either stop, or find a way to stop consuming alcohol. If you need help in dealing with your life without it, there is help for this situation.
Disengage the emotional load of your drunk state from the actual steps of consuming alcohol, for starts.
Hey, you and I must have quit right around the same time! I’d forgotten exactly how many years it had been - once I passed 4-5 years it just seemed like a really long time. But when cleaning out my old office recently I found a calendar from when I was attempting to moderate and counting my drinks, and saw that I stopped April 25, 2004.
I think that drinking - and not drinking - is a pretty individual matter. Good luck in finding out the solution that works for you and yours.
I tried AA. It didn’t work for me, but what did work was finally realizing that everything I had–everything I’d worked for, and everything I was, was being destroyed. I was killing myself, literally and figuratively.
For years, I drank primarily on the weekends, then by the end of my drinking days, it became nearly every night. I’d be smashed by dinner time. My daughters were young; the oldest was about 8, and my youngest was a newborn. I was becoming ashamed of myself, so I quit. With some help from my wife: she was fed up with me, and threatened to leave me. I didn’t want that, so I quit. It took a few tries, but I did it.
I drank for 22 years, from age 16 until 38. On January 31, 2011, I will have been sober for 11 years.
You’ll find your own way of kicking alcohol in the ass. I wish you luck; it’s definitely worth it.
Today is 2 weeks since my last drink. I feel like I am in good control. We are at Great Wolf Lodge for a family weekend. Considering a drink after the kids go to bed.
Obviously, only you can decide if your control is good enough to do this. I, however, would strongly advise against it. Stay clean for a couple more weeks, and see how you’re doing then. I’d also think your wife would greatly appreciate you abstaining during a family weekend. If you drink tonight, and it goes badly, that will forever color her memories of what should be a pleasant family get-away.
Can’t tell you what to do, but I sincerely hope you reconsider this.
newscrasher, it takes at least 21 days for a new habit to become a regular habit. Some psychologists say 21 days, some say 28. But 21 days is the minimum.
Don’t break your streak at 14 days - you’re past the halfway mark! Keep up the good work and focus on the big picture: a happy family event and a healthy new running lifestyle.
You’re an alcoholic. You don’t have control. You can’t stop at one. You will never become a moderate drinker. You have the gene. You need to accept that you can’t drink at all.
