Former or current alcoholics, how do you hide your drinking?
 

I am a current and admitted closet drunk. I hide my bottles under my bed and then when I get to about 5 I put them in my big backpacking pack in my closet. When that fills, I wait until nobody is around and I throw them all in a garbage bag and drive to a dumpster behind a grocery store and dump them.

God I am so terribly ashamed of myself. Ugh.:c020:

I used to do my drinking while the ex was at work (night shift)...convenient, eh?

Problem was trying to get the evidence to the trash before she showed up in the morning. Half the time I passed out and/or forgot about it.

The guilt, the humiliation...all that wasted energy hiding my addiction. Ugh.

I'm sooooo glad I don't have to worry about that anymore!

I used to take extra bottles to the recycling bank rather than put them outside my house in my recycling box. I used to have a couple drinks before I got to a social event as well. I think I did hide a bottle of spirits in a cupboard so I could take swigs from it and get more drunk whilst I was publicly drinking glasses of wine. Mostly I just drank at home so no one saw exactly how much I drank.

i dont do this anymore,im free.you mentioned nothing about wanting to give up this treadmill,,well i cannot and will not tell you how to hide you empties,however if you decide you want to give up drinking then i will share with you my experience strength and hope.

There's a lot of us who have been where you've been and felt what you've felt. Shame can have a useful side if it leads us to become willing to change.

Hello Wilbur
Odds are everyone around you knows how much you drink already,and the only person you are really hiding from is yourself.
That's the way it was with me anyway.
Fred

Just think how much that backpack would rather be on your back with a tent, sleeping bag and some food, going up a mountain trail. Instead of in the closet, filled with empty vodka bottles.

I know where you are, dude, I was there. It's better over here, where you don't have to hide, and sneak around... Summer's just starting... Get Recovered!!

Mark

WilburKookmeyer.........:wavey:

Because I read your earlier post.....I know you are seeking
sobriety. You also have been given advice on how to
de tox safely. Seeing your doctor is the wisest way.

Many of us have quit drinking.....and so can you....:yup:
Welcome to SR and our Alcoholism ?Forum.

One of the biggest discoveries I made when I quit drinking was that what I thought was a secret, was common knowledge!!! The only person I was fooling whith all the sneaking and lying was me!!!

The more I tried to hide it the more obvious it became to others! Normal drinkers do not sit in the garage for hours alone, normal people do not need to spend hours every day outside alone supposedly doing yard work, normal people do not make a "SPECIAL" trip to the store to buy something for the house that either is not needed or could wait until the next day.

My entire family and most of my neighbors knew exactly what I was doing when I thought I was doing such a great job hiding it!

I hid it badly. I think my biggest weight off my shoulders is never having to worry about hiding anything again.

Yeah i have similar stories to you guys.

Yeah I hid them under my bed too. When that got a little suspicious (because they cling and make nosie) I would hide them in my sock drawers.

I would say I was going out for cigarettes, then buy some beer and quickly down two bottles of corona before I got home.

then I'd go back out 30 minutes later saying I was buying some milk or something that was missing from the fridge, then quickly down two more coronas before i returned home. And it's illegal to outdoors in NYC. So it was all really bad.

Repeat a few times and i'll be drunk eventually. And this would be after drinking all morning while i was home alone.

It was insanity, and just plain nasty trying to drink so quickly. Insanity. I'm glad it over for now, and i hope it stays over.

My kids never did find where I hid my bottles, but they knew I was drinking anyway.

As others have said you only think you are hiding it from others. Stop torturing yourself, it only gets worse.
The good news is you can be free from shame, for me the answer was the 12 steps of AA but whatever path to recovery you choose will be better than living the way you feel right now.

I live alone so didn't really have to hide but I was very ashamed of my drinking and had about 4 liquor stores that I would frequent on a rotating basis because I didn't want the people in the store to see me too often and think I had a drinking problem. All the hiding and lying is such a waste of time, one of my favorite things about being sober is NO MORE LIES! And no more lying starts with being honest with yourself.

Ugh thinking of those days gives me a chill up my spine. Yet one more reason I'm thankful for sobriety.. no more hiding, lying, guilt, shame....

I'm not sure whether you're asking for advice on how to hide empties or asking for advice on how to not have to hide them anymore. Carol says you're seeking sobriety, so I'll go with that. It's funny in a way that we all hid our bottles and thought we were being so clever. Fr Martin, in one of his tapes, talks about how he used to bury them. In fact we fool no one. Why I bothered to hide the empties is beyond me now, as everyone was aware of the fact that I was drinking.
You need to stop the insanity. I recommend you go to a few AA meetings. You'll meet a whole lot of folks just like yourself who used to think they were fooling everyone. They'll also show you how to get sober.

When my mother moved out of the house that was my childhood home, she called me and said, "I think I have some things that belongs to you. Will you come see if you want them?"

They were vodka bottles that had been hidden in the back of a closet for almost twenty years, since I was about 18. As an adult, I didn't hide my primary bottle -- I kept it in the freezer, but I had another under the sink behind the cleaning supplies that I'd use to refill it so that no one knew how much I was drinking.

And I'm a current alcoholic who's been sober for a few years now. I've recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body, but I'll never recover my ability to drink. I never had it in the first place.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

I did this too.
And then i'd wake and feel really guilty and repeat.

I never hid my drinking or anything, I sent one wife down the road,for having the audacity to tell me it was her or the alcohol.So I told her she had to go becuase mr. Budwiser was staying. My advice now is "To thine own self be true". Get rid of the alcohol and open your life up to sobreity. You will find life is alot easier without alcohol.