My favorite maxim is “Keep It Simple.” My method was to go to AA because it was something to do and there was support from others who were either struggling with the same problem or had succeeded in not drinking, some for many years.
I simply kept on putting off taking that first drink until all of a sudden I realized I hadn’t had a drink for 7 whole days! I’ve got 22 non drinking years and I remember that realization like it was yesterday afternoon. I didn’t worry one bit about the higher power stuff but it that’s what it takes then use it.
For years now drinking has just not been a part of my mode of living. It never even occurs to me any more, but every now and then I drop by an AA meeting just as a reminder that I’m not cured. I’m just an alcoholic who doesn’t drink.
OK. How do you know you are an alcoholic?
I am asking this because some people are worried about me as I drink 2 liters of whiskey a week.
I sometimes do take a day off of drinking and do not suffer any ill effects.
I know I shouldn’t be drinking and I am thinking about quitting, but I still enjoy it very much. (Reading this back tells me I am probably an alcoholic).
Is there some way you can tell for sure if you are an alcoholic?
I don’t know if there is a sure way to tell, but it seems to me if you decide not to drink one night when you normally drink (even if you are only drinking once or twice a week) and you are grumpy and restless because you’re trying not to drink there’s probably a problem.
I really think it varies from person to person. Some people can have a glass or two of wine or a couple of beers and be fine. I can’t. Once I start, I keep going until I’m drunk, regardless of my intentions of only having one or two. That’s also a problem. For me, it doesn’t matter if I only drank three times a week, it matters that it was a craving and a compulsion and I couldn’t control it. If I had a craving and tried not to drink, I felt like I was going out of my mind. Luckily, since I decided to quit and have gone back to NA meetings more regularly, the cravings are subsiding. Saturday nights are still hard, but as long as I keep myself occupied from 8-11, then the craving passes (as 11 pm is too late to start drinking for me).
So, you have to decide for yourself if you have a problem. To me, that seems like a lot of alcohol, but that’s not the issue. It’s the reasons for drinking and the mindset that goes along with the drinking.
Well, basically if you have to count sober days, you might have a problem. Drinking by yourself is often an indicator as well.
It’s a little more comlex for “social drinkers” like myself. I never drink by myself. Occassionally I’ll go to a bar by myself to get out of the hotel and mingle with other humans when I’m on the road. I don’t look forward to drinking so much as I look forward to going out and doing stuff. Unfortunately, “doing stuff” usually means involves drinking.
Just thinking about my social plans for this week:
-Monday - no plans (girlfriend at office happy hour - comes home slightly drunk and demands sex, spend rest of evening feeling dirty)
-Tuesday - Wings night. Against girlfriends wishes and better judgement, drag her out into rainstorm to local bar for Buffalo/BBQ wings special. Consumed with a single Bud Light. Girlfriend expresses concern about possible wings addiction.
-Weds - Probably just watch tv and play videogames
-Thurs - Couple of options - I’m on several happy hour mailing lists and there are two conflicting events in the city.
-Friday - Office happy hour - probably will spend an evening drinking excessively with coworkers
-Saturday - Fraternity/college football tailgate planned - 'nough said.
So while I only drink while socializing, I can’t help but notice that all my social activities revolve around drinking in some form.
OK. Thanks for your replies.
I think I might have a problem.
I do however think that I am still in time, to prevent serious addiction, although I have an addictive personality. (runs in the family, I am afraid).
I have also been a Cannabis-addict for more than half my life, and I think one poison is more than enough.
Now I am going to have to pick up excercising or something to fill my time. :rolleyes:
I quit drinking when I realized that my drinking was controlling my life rather than the other way around. I took great pains to make sure that I had everything set up so that I could drink - I made sure that I didn’t have to drive anywhere, that I wouldn’t run out of bourbon, that I didn’t have to talk coherently to anyone. It got to the point that I was planning my life around it.
I told the kids that they had to car pool - I’d be glad to drive them to where they wanted, but they had to arrange a ride home with someone else (so once I dropped them off, I was free to go home and drink). I limited my activities so I could be home by 7 or 8 - if it was too late in the evening, then I knew I would stay up too late drinking and I wouldn’t get enough sleep to function in the morning. I planned out my bourbon-buying trips so that a) my family didn’t know I was going to the liquor store and b) I rotated through the several liquor stores in town so the clerks wouldn’t know how much I was buying (towards the end it was 1 or 2 liters a week). I took pains to dispose of the bottles so my family wouldn’t see or hear them in the trash and realize how many there were.
I finally realized that all that planning, buying, drinking, and disposing of the bottles was crowding everything else out of my life - the things that were really important. I was missing out on seeing my kids grow up, because I was either busy packing them off so I could drink or too drunk to remember what they said to me when they got home. I quit drinking bourbon at home on January 25.
I haven’t stopped drinking all together. I have had wine with dinner a few times and drinks on other occasions with friends and family. I was able to do that because it’s not the same as the real drinking - the sitting at home by myself sucking down bourbon and coke just to keep that feeling. I think, for me, that if I can just stay away from that, I’ll be all right.
Lobsang, good luck with what you’re doing. It’s hard, but it gets better. Believe me, it’s nice to get a *life * back.
I lost any steadiness in my hands. I couldn’t draw a straight line with a luminous marker. I ran my job on auto-pilot. Anything out of the ordinary would have me panicing. My hands shook when eating dinner with knife and fork. I felt like Ozzy Osbourne looks.
The last time I quit I could only relax if there was no alcohol in the house and no shops open to buy any. Doing night shifts was a curse because it meant shops were open when I finished work.
Each case is different, but I really hope that you are like me, and after a few days or a week you’ll feel on top of the world, like a huge weight has been lifted. Good luck! vinryk I am not an expert in what defines an alcoholic. 2 litres a week is less than I drank (around 3. At one point as much as 4 and a half) but It is probably too much. As others have said if you are drinking alone, and counting sober days as being unusual then you have a problem. There is a difference however between ‘drinking problem’ and ‘alcoholism’. I could be wrong but My understanding of alcoholics is that they are rarely sober at all, and their problem has basically taken over their lives. My life has always been ‘intact’ I was sober enough to function at work every day.
Good Luck **vinryk[/b and Jeeves (again).
And thanks to everyone else. Including those who say I am one of their fave posters. You need glasses, but thanks anyway!
This thread certainly gives a girl a lot to think about.
I have resisted sobriety since it was forced upon me at the age of 14. My parents decided to blame my problems on drugs, not on the crap going on in our house. So they put me in a teen rehab where they forced me into AA and NA and made me start “the 12 steps”. I stayed sober for six months. I don’t have a huge habit, but I am definitely a “regular” user. But at this point I’m old enough to know better. It’s nice to see plenty of people do it without the AA dogma. It makes me think I can too.
This thread actually makes me feel better about my own drinking. I am purely a social drinker. I NEVER drink alone. I will go out approximately once a weekend with friends, to a concert, party, bar, dinner, etc. and drink. Maybe twice a weekend, once a month or so. Hey, I’m 28 and single, that is what we do! Usually I will get tipsy/drunk, because it’s fun. It’s also to ease my social anxiety (shyness). It usually takes me at least 6 drinks to feel “good.” Problem is, if I drink enough to feel “good,” I always get a nasty nasty hangover.
The hangover is the worst part though. What I hate about my drinking is that if I am planning on going out on a certain night, I can pretty much rule out doing anything the next day until the afternoon at the earliest. So that makes it very hard to ever do anything on weeknights!
Anyway I guess you could call me a social drinker and a slight binge drinker, because I usually can’t just have 1 or 2, I usually have 5 or 7…
But on those weekends when I have no plans, and don’t go out, I am perfectly happy not to drink. When I lived with my boyfriend, and therefore always had something fun to do without leaving the house, I hardly ever drank!
Oh boy, I have experimented with anything and everything.
I have done evenings of just the finest vodka and soda (like Grey Goose and soda, with lime.) (They say clear/expensive liquors have less toxins, etc.) I don’t drink shitty liquor, and I don’t mix my liquors. I also like Maker’s Mark bourbon, and Bacardi rum. I will drink liquor and taper off to beer later, but never start with beer and switch to liquor.
I honestly think my body is allergic to alcohol. But boy do I love to go out and have a few drinks and party!
Well, before My recent quit. I wasn’t really experimenting, I just wanted to get addequately drunk. Whiskey, Beer, Liquer. The only thing that could give me a splitting headache in the morning was Port, or drinking too quickly (not often a problem)
I guess I am not prone to hangovers. Maybe people get hangovers from whiskey and beer. I never did.
Good luck to everybody who quits! You don’t know how screwed-up your life was, until later. I sure did not. I thought everybody drank the way I did, but it turned out the friends I had were drunks as well. After I quit, I had to quit seeing them as well. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I had trouble sleeping, but that passed with time. Do not worry about not getting enough sleep, go to sleep at night when you can, but make sure you also get up when you must. It’ll work out.
I’ve been sober now for 24 years, and doing just fine without any crutches, thank you very much. The hardest thing was to get my self-respect back, but little by little I recovered it. Right now I think I’m a pretty good guy, and if others disagree, they have a right to their opinion. I just do not have to agree with their evaluation, is all. Although there is room for self-improvement you must know when to quit because you can never please everybody. You are #1.
I was blessed with a body that reacts VERY poorly to alcohol so I limit myself to 2-3 drinks on Saturday night. It took awhile to learn this despite the effects. I rotate NA beer between rounds.
The bar I go to specializes in blues bands so there is a reason for people to show up for something other than alcohol. Quite a few of them are on the wagon and drink NA beer or soft drinks. It has worked well for them and I must say I feel much better since I limited my intake. Wish it hadn’t taken so long to figure it out.