Sober and Struggling
Hello all,
I was referred to this forum by a friend who has been trying to help me get my life back together. I'm fairly young but I've been abusing alcohol since my teenage years. It started out as harmless fun and I never thought anything of it, but as the years went on, things started to go downhill.
My drinking increased exponentially throughout college and I started drinking for the wrong reasons. Instead of drinking to socialize, I started drinking to escape the struggles of reality. My parents were experiencing health issues and the thought of life without them started to scare me. I have a sister who is mentally challenged and the fear of being her permanent caretaker was starting to hit me. I work in a high stress environment and I'm surrounded by people who are constantly drinking because of their stress.
What started out as a few drinks here and there has turned into drinking full bottles of hard alcohol and blacking out over and over again. To make things worse, I've become a highly functioning alcoholic and most people cannot tell when I've had too much to drink.
I've been battling health problems over the last couple of years and I've been in and out of doctors' offices. I've been told numerous times that I need to get my drinking under control or I'll risk permanent damage. I've tried time and time again to give up alcohol or to at least minimize my intake, but I've failed every single time. My breaking point finally came two weeks ago after I ended up in the emergency room after consuming alcohol nonstop for 3 days.
Reality began to set in and I began wondering how things got so bad. My parents were scared for my wellbeing and the few friends that knew about my ER trip were shocked that things were this bad. A close friend of mine, who referred me to this site, pleaded with me on the phone to make changes before it was too late. I finally decided that I had to give up alcohol before it was too late.
As of today, I am now 10 days sober and I'm struggling to continue. The initial withdrawal has been difficult to deal with. I'm having trouble sleeping and my hands have become very shaky. I've lost my appetite and I have a hard time staying focused during the day. I'm beginning to worry that I'll fall back into my old ways which is why I joined this forum. I was reluctant to join an AA program, mostly because I'm not sure if its right for me or how the program works.
After reading through numerous postings, I'm hoping I can find some guidance on this site and some suggestions on how to cope with the initial withdrawal. Any words of wisdom or comments would be greatly appreciated. I never thought giving something up would be so hard...