An Open Question

[StewartUK]

Hi guys if you've got time to read this then your throughts would be appreciated...

Basically I want to just throw this open to any input available because I've run out of places to turn. Im 25 and have been binge drinking from about the age of 15, typical weekend stuff fri/night smash up then abstienance (sp?) for most of the working week, for my university years this might have been more like thu/sun but the dynamic stayed the same mostly.

Ive experienced hangovers, bad bad bad ones and i also realise that hangovers tend to get worse with age and start to include not only that ****** headache and nausea but the "booze blues" aka few days of depression that can follow a heavy weekend, this stuff to me isnt what freaks me out as its experienced by most of my friends, who due to being Scottish are all frequent binge drinkers to . The thing ive been struggling with since about 2006-ish is the lack of recall im now faced with everytime I drink more or less, I cant see any difference in the amount i consume now but i get to a point where its just *blank* and then i wake up in bed usually fully clothed with my shoes still on. Im worried now because being a fairly all or nothing character ive many times vowed to quit which im sure is a frequent theme among many posters here, something usually brings me back like the promise of "tonight ill make sure this doesnt happen" and sometimes i manage it but most times i fail. Nothing bad ever happens (im told by my friends) they do however say i go into a zombie like state of just no coherence and fall asleep after sometime. Im not really sure what to do anymore, I dont feel it to be alcoholism by any definition, but its not good and i worry about the damage im doing to my brain as well as my body, every time i try to stop i usually cave eventually... all I know no is im sick and tired and cant go on this way anymore. If im hammered Saturday, i usually wake up Sunday feeling awul, and the Sunday night into Monday morning I wake up in sweats, the **** feeling is now carried into Tuesday afternoon and even wednesday. Im sorry for posting what to many people seems maybe like an obvious problem but im just confussed and scared now and any input from any of you would be great.

If you read all of that cheers

[suki44883]

Im not really sure what to do anymore, I dont feel it to be alcoholism by any definition, but its not good and i worry about the damage im doing to my brain as well as my body, every time i try to stop i usually cave eventually all I do know is im sick and tired and cant go on this way anymore.

Why don't you feel what you've been experiencing is alcoholism? If you drink when you don't really want to, drink to blackout regularly, or you drink even though you feel like crap, or you have a hard time avoiding drinking, why would that not be alcoholism?

[intention]

Originally Posted by StewartUK

The thing ive been struggling with since about 2006-ish is the lack of recall im now faced with everytime I drink more or less, I cant see any difference in the amount i consume now but i get to a point where its just *blank* and then i wake up in bed usually fully clothed with my shoes still on.

Hi Stewart and welcome.

This happened to me in my last year or so of drinking. I had a large capacity for alcohol as my tolerance had increased but I got to the stage where 2 glasses of wine put me into blackout where I had no recollection after the binge of what I had done. I do know from what others have said is that I was functioning normally, the memory just was not there.

This is because the brain becomes damaged over time by the alcohol consumption and the short term memory doesn't get stored in the long term memory bank - that's my way of describing it but I read plenty about the effects alcohol has on the brain and body in the book Beyond the Influence by Katherine Ketcham and William Asbury. The book states that when you reach this point of blacking out quickly you are in the middle stages of alcoholism. And it only gets worse from then on.

There's a sticky on this site to the first book by the same author called Under the Influence.

The problem with alcoholism is that no matter how bad the last drunk was and how much we swear off and resolve not to drink again, the mental obsession to drink is so overwhelming, we end up doing it again.....with even worse results.

Another problem with alcohol is that it tells us we are not alcoholic when our actions and lack of control suggest we are. Even a few weeks before my last drink I would look down on the local alkie near where I live who had a can of superstrength lager at 8 in the morning wandering the streets. You see, I only drank wine and I never drank in the morning.......well not before 10.30, lol, but because it was behind closed doors it didn't count. Denial is common with all alcoholics.

Do you have a problem? Are you an alcoholic? Well only you can decide that one. Checking out the book above may be of help to you.

That mental obsession I talked about - the only solution I found to removing that was working the 12 Step program of AA. Perhaps you may think about going to a few meetings and seeing if you can identify with some of the people there. It helps to not be alone. This is a frightening illness.
take care.

[StewartUK]

Thanks for your reply, the damage to my brain is really what worries me and what you say about the black outs scares me because it happens everytime without fail. I guess we dont tend to think of it as alcholism because like you say your not drinking in the morning or every night...but then maybe its just a different brand of alcholism.

The mental preoccupation about drinking is spot on, my day is totally preoccupied with either, feeling guilty about drinking, debating whether i do need to give up, trying to think of excuses to tell my mates for not drinking, worrying about the next social occassion when i feel i may have to drink. What you say makes alot of sense and I think i might not be quite ready to read this book yet, i fear the kind of damage i might have done to myself and my memory.

Thanks for your reply

[NEOMARXIST]

You sound like an alcoholic.

I am an alcoholic. A 'recovering' alcoholic with 8+ months sober now. Everything you describe happened to me. I got sober at 23. I am 24 now and born and raised in good ol' England. I know the binge-drinking culture well and was an avid fan for a good few years.

If you're an alclholic then the good times are long since gone. You will never be able to regain any control over your drinking and eventually you will find that a drink upon waking works wonders for your anxiety and 'booze blues'. A tramp doesn't usually start off that way you know. It takes many hard years of 'denial' for him to end up drinking tenants super on a street corner covered in his own p*ss and crap. That is end stage alcoholism. You will get there in the end eventually if you're an alcoholic and continue to drink. Maybe the prisons/mental institutions or grim reaper will get you first mindyou... More probable.

Don't wish to sound dramatic but most non alcoholics wont post on a recovery website worrying that they might be an alcoholic. Denial takes most alcoholics to the grave.

Everything you are experincing is all part of the natural cycle of alcoholism. A cycle in which more alcohol is the only solution. You may not think it now but if you're an alcoholic then you will do.

I can relate to your story 100%. By the way I was only a binge-drinker too. I was not a 24/7 street drinker but eventually I would be if I had continued to drink... but more probably them 'booze blues' would have killed me off way before then. Depression and alcoholism are very closely related. It's a very vicous cycle that you want to get out of whilst you still can.

getting sober for me meant fundamentally accepting that I'm an alcoholic and that I cannot drink alcohol. period. I manage this by not drinking 'just for today'. I have to dedicate my life around my recovery and making sure that I give my sobriety maximum priority. I am still very much a newcomer at 8 months.

I know where you're at and I don't want to go back there again. I chose to get off that merry-go-round. You can too if you want it badly enough.


All the Best

[CarolD]

I just shared this on another thread....and I think you really
need to consider it too.
The source is a sticky post....:Under The Influence"
the book that convinced me to stop drinking...

Page 108 & Others}
(Sorry it took me so long Carol, and THANKS for the sticky!)

The middle-stage alcoholic has probably been having blackouts from time to time. Blackouts are a very distinctive feature of alcoholism, and one symptom that clearly distinguishes alcoholics from non-alcoholics. The events which occur during an alcoholic blackout are not forgotten; they are simply not stored or are imperfectly stored in the brain. There is nothing there to be recalled later.

During a blackout, the alcoholic may be functioning normally and aware of everything that is happening around him. He continues to talk, walk, eat, drive a car, conduct a business deal, or make love to his wife. Yet on sobering up, he has no memory trace of what occurred during a certain time period -- it could be a minute, an hour, or even several days. In the early stages of the disease, blackouts are relatively infrequent, but as the disease progresses, they occur more often and last for longer periods of time.

Jack attended a series of weekend meetings held in a city 90 miles from his home. The last meeting ended in midafternoon, and Jack retired to the bar with several friends. It was happy hour, and the bartender announced a special on martinis: six ounces of gin for just $2.00. Jack drank four specials and then decided to order dinner before he drove home. With dinner, he drank a bottle of wine. It was late when he started driving, but he remembered watching the moon rise over the low hills. The next thing he knew and could later recall, he was travelling 110 mph and was 25 miles past his exit. He had driven 100 miles in a blackout.

It is not difficult to imagine how frightening blackouts can be. The alcoholic may wake up in the morning with no recall of the events of the previous evening. He gets out of bed, afraid to inspect his clothes -- did he get sick? Then the question occurs to him: "How did I get home?" He looks out the window, fearful that the car will be missing. He does not remember driving home.

The car is there, and he has another, even more frightening thought: "Did I hit something or someone?" He runs outside and looks at the front end. He searches the seats for clues to help him piece the lost time back together. Humiliating thoughts race through his mind: "Did I disgrace myself? Will my friends talk to me? How can I find out what happened when I am too embarrassed to admit that I don't remember?"

Blackouts can be so frightening that they make the alcoholic question his sanity. For the first time he may realize that he is in deep trouble with alcohol. Despite his increasing problems, however, the middle-stage alcoholic rarely considers giving up drinking...

Once I finally quitt drinking....no more blackouts....tho
each time I returned to alcohol...they came back

Carol here....alcoholic

[Boleo]

Originally Posted by StewartUK

... I wake up in sweats, the **** feeling is now carried into Tuesday afternoon and even wednesday...

Sounds like you are entering into DT's (Delirium Tremens). It's time you learn what the symptoms are:

https://health.google.com/health/ref/Delirium+tremens

[Toronto68]

Stewart, you talked about a lot of fear and worry over ending up in a situation you can't control. Your friends have told you nothing bad happens, but yet you are worried about the outcome. I'm not sure how to help with my input.

Are you asking for a way to hang on to control or to be happy with drinking?

Sometimes I think that I start out sleep with a fear of heights because my familiarity with complete lack of control (through my experiences with alcohol) is ingrained into my mind. Instead of drifting off into sleep, I get to fear that I am falling through a false move while drunk. I don't know if that is a sound diagnosis of what happens when I begin sleep or not. I'm not going to go back to drinking (or at least that is what I plan every day now that I've stopped.)

Is it fair to say that you are not happy with drinking?

[intention]

Originally Posted by StewartUK

Thanks for your reply, the damage to my brain is really what worries me and what you say about the black outs scares me because it happens everytime without fail. I guess we dont tend to think of it as alcholism because like you say your not drinking in the morning or every night...but then maybe its just a different brand of alcholism.

The mental preoccupation about drinking is spot on, my day is totally preoccupied with either, feeling guilty about drinking, debating whether i do need to give up, trying to think of excuses to tell my mates for not drinking, worrying about the next social occassion when i feel i may have to drink. What you say makes alot of sense and I think i might not be quite ready to read this book yet, i fear the kind of damage i might have done to myself and my memory.

Thanks for your reply

Hi Stewart,

There was a lot of time in my active drinking life when I was not drinking. When I was not drinking, I was completely obsessed with not drinking. All the time I would be thinking, "I've done well not drinking today", "Last week I was drinking on this day so I am doing well" etc etc. It was constant thinking about not drinking.

The the obsession to drink would take over and instead of thinking about not drinking, I would start thinking about drinking. And the the inevitable would happen.

The obsession over alcohol drove me insane. I no longer have it after working the 12 Steps of AA.

I can understand if you are not ready to read the book but it is a good idea to stay here and keep posting. You'll get lots of support.

[yeahgr8]

Man i forgot about the all or nothing thing, that was my favourite saying...all or nothing kind of guy, no half measures for me and i used to really proud of that too...i didn't realise that it is simply the tell tale sign of a person that is inbalanced...obviously if i had some sort of balance i would have been able to maintain some sort of consistency...amazing how i forget things like that!

Hmm anyway you're doing what i was doing at 25, heavy drinkers will find a reason to stop, e.g. kid, marriage, job etc...alcoholics may manage to stop for a while but then will go back to it, will screw up their own life and anyone that is unfortunate to get near to them...what may seem as a small problem at the moment could be a big warning to get help and stop now.

Give you an example, someone i know got pancreatitus through surgery in the states, was told she can never drink again...so she laughed it off as no more making a fool of myself then which she never did as she never had a problem with drink...thats what normal people's reactions are like...if you think you don't need help to stop then stop yourself for one year, if you can't stop then get help quick, best of luck:-)

Me i went on to drink until 38 and it got a lot worse, ended up finding what i needed in the rooms of AA...oh and be careful of comparisons, just because you have found a group of people to get pisssed with don't think for a second that is what happy, sane, mature people do because i promise you it isn't!

[william1872]

Stuart,

I sent you a pm, I wish you well in what it is you seek? For me AA has worked wonders, not only has it saved my life it's gave me my family back, self respect etc, etc, etc.

My illness over the years was a progressive one that had to take me to my knees before I gave up and done something about it, almost cost my life to and I believe today if I had kept on drinking I wouldn't be here today.

I to started off as a binge drinker with blackouts etc, then withdrawl, then finally daily drinking. booze took me to hell and left me there.

The amount of genuine friends who care for me I've met in AA is unreal, far out-weighs so-called friends I had when I was drinking and I speak to someone from AA on a daily basis, used to scare the life out of me thinking I'd never have another drink the rest of my life, I don't look that far ahead now and just don't pick up a drink today.

William

[CAPTAINZING2000]

Originally Posted by CarolD

I just shared this on another thread....and I think you really
need to consider it too.
The source is a sticky post....:Under The Influence"
the book that convinced me to stop drinking...



Once I finally quitt drinking....no more blackouts....tho
each time I returned to alcohol...they came back

Carol here....alcoholic

Someone told my story there

[StewartUK]

Can I just start by saying a heartfelt ressounding thankyou for taking the time to read and reply to my message, it means alot that a total stranger is willing to share their experiences in order to help someone out.

Your stories are very familar to me and It helps to hear about them. I think the fact that I could go weeks and often months without a drink has perhaps clouded my own vision of my drinking behaviour as being under control, when it clearly isn't. Intentions post cries pretty true to me as if i wasnt trying not to drink then I was thinking about the next time i would drink, not looking forward to it but thinking "i hope i can control it this time", "i hope i dont black out" etc etc etc, i suppose the key here is if i was trying not to drink or trying to plan how id control myself then its still obsessive thinking about drinking.

I dont know if i feel ready or willing to call my own behaviour alcoholism, maybe thats denial im not sure but I do know i want to stop and ive made this promise to myself many times over the years only to find that i break it under the prentence that ive learned my lesson from previous times and i'll make sure the black outs dont happen, it might work for 1 weeks, 2 weeks 3 weeks but invariably the night comes round again when its 10pm *bam* and im back to square 1 vowing never again, a tiring cycle.

So without rambling to much I just wanna say thanks and that im gonna stick around on these forums in the hope of finding some sort of support while I decide how im gonna tackle this problem in my life.

[Toronto68]

Stewart, that sounds like a good idea to me. I think you will find it worth the time to interact with people here. I notice it looks like you joined in 2006 - were you not coming back frequently? (I have only been here since Feb.)

[NEOMARXIST]

All I would add to you Stewart is that untill I was willing to accept my behaviour of that of an alcoholic then inevitably I ended up back to square one again. I have no control when i drink booze and thus when i would end up drinking again then I would wake up after blacking out again. I came to realise that this would always be the case with me and drinking. Once that invisible line is crossed then there isn't any turning back into controlled drinking in my experince, not that I ever drank sensibly anyway or ever wanted to, it ain't in my makeup to drink sensibly and civilised. Screw that.

Knowing I am an alcoholic stops me from picking that first drink up, as being young in UK, then without acceptance that I am an alcoholic then it's pretty unlikely that i wouldn't eventually take that first drink again, and then *BAM*, back to square one again. You see what I mean? So far from being a negative, actually admitting I am an alcoholic enables me to live life sober as it reafirms to me everyday why I must not take that first drink like all of those other smiley, happy people.

All The Best Mate.

[soidog]

Stewart - Your pattern is very normal. I used to drink every night, a lot. Then I started moving to just binge-drinking on the weekends. But I absolutely would black out and have very bad hangovers (which got worse with age/time) that included withdrawal symptoms from the binge drinking (tremors, insomnia, etc, followed by depression or anxiety for the first couple days after the binge). By Wed or Thu I'd be OK, but then Friday would come around and the cycle would begin again.

Although I managed to do relatively well at work (and I do have a demanding and stressful job), I also recognize that my performance has suffered over the years and that is because of alcohol. The fact that you have already recognized your alcoholism and its short and long term effects on you is a very positive step.

[littlefish]

One of the most important changes that AA had to make was recognising that young people can become alcoholics. And very quickly at that.

The idea of young alcoholics was rejected in the beginning because people wanted to hold onto the idea that a "real" alcoholic had to lose everything, had be older, had to be a guy, a white guy, lose his house and car and wife, blah blah and end up out on the street with a little brown bag and clothes that haven't been washed for weeks.
But, it's not like that.

It took a long time for me to reach chronic stage, decades. But I also tried really hard to avoid being an alcoholic. That's another thread.

When I listen to young recovered alcoholics share their stories at AA meetings, it fills me with surprise at how fast it happened to them. I never really reached the black out stage. I drank slowly and steadily all day long and then reached the pass out phase.
Pass out is a different thing from a black out, and there are also brown outs.

Black outs are common with quick drinkers who consume a lot of high percentage alcohol in a very short amount of time.

What I would do in your situation is learn everything you possibly can about the disease of alcoholism. Maybe consider the idea that you reject the label of alcoholism because you are so young. I would highly recommend going to an open AA meeting, and if you can find a YPAA (Young people's AA), that would be even better. It could be a great thing for you to listen to some young speakers. And also see them: see young, healthy and stable recovered alcoholics under the age of 30.

[StewartUK]

Toronto - ye i joined and didnt come back, I think the joining date is in itself a bit of a wake up call about just how long ive been struggling with stuff but i plan to stay in contact this time, i think its for the best.

Littlefish - that makes sense as i drink ridicolously quickly and usually premium strength beers, my drinking behaviour is pretty comparable to someone just running at high speed into a brick wall, the wall being the inevitable black out.

Thanks again guys for your words of support

[Toronto68]

Stewart, I'm happy to hear that.

The period between 2006 and 2010 is a good stretch, yes, and I understand why that would freak you out. Just think about how that 4 years can multiply by 4 though. That is approximately the stretch of time that I just plugged along ("functioning") in the knowledge of my aaddiction and put it off, put it off. And that was preceded by a smaller chunk of time that I would drink less frequently, and mostly just to have a hoot socially, but also when I would experiment with altering my state of mind methodically....sometimes to deal with unhappiness about somebody's medical diagnosis, sometimes to alleviate the pain I felt from people's comments that made me feel like an alien, sometimes to just get inside a place only I couuld get into magically, like it was some kind of safe womb for an adult. That is an accumulation of years in misery I didn't need to have. I deserved better all along.

I want something better for you too, and I hope you latch on to the feeling for your own self.