TheOnlyDryPaddy

I posted the thread before the OP was close to ready.

scrambled2012

Scolova

It helped in my case, but I don't believe that for everyone.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

Well, I guess this is the thread then.

TheOnlyDryPaddy

I'm not sure how to begin this, because I'm not really looking for a recovery program per se, but I do have my doubts about my future sobriety.

Briefly, I quit last May and went to AA and "worked the Steps" (whatever that means*), but I drank again in late October. I was wary about it, but I tried to operate under the assumptions that I could moderate my drinking, Needless to say, that was a failure. I progressively drank more and more, until I was fed up and decided that I couldn't continue to drink, if I had any hope of happiness.

I haven't had a drink in 29 days now.

I still have persistent doubts about staying stopped, most obviously because I am a persistent doubter, but I sometimes doubt the continuation of my current state because I wasn't desperate to quit. I was more distraught, and often even frantic, over the way that I had felt since long before I started drinking. In a way, I think that that was part the reason I didn't find AA to be a good fit for me, because I wanted, deep down inside, for the to provide me with more mental health support than I was already receiving.

Regardless of the shortcomings of my desire about AA, I'm not sure that I will be going back, but I was around long enough to take to heart what I though were the opinions I heard in AA about bottoms and believing what would happen if I didn't believe that I was going to die if I drank again. So, putting aside my (mis)interpretations of what I heard in AA, what hav other people's experiences been with believing their live to be in peril and continued abstinence?

Dee74

I think a bottom is not so much an event but the realisation that you can't live your life the way it is one more second.

For me, that took nearly dying, but it needn't be like that.

I don't want to give the impression that you should drink until you nearly die - many people I know didn't intend to die, but they did regardless....I'm one of the lucky ones.

I was a persistent doubter too - I was an all day every day drinker for 5 years and a heavy drinker for 20 - but I committed to 'not drinking today' until I was ready to expand those parameters a little.

5 years on now, and I'm still sober - if I can do it anyone can.
I didn't use AA - I just really really wanted to quit.

Personally I think if you need mental health support you need to look for that from mental health professionals.

There are also 12 step groups that deal specifically with Dual Diagnosis:
Dual Recovery Anonymous - a 12 Step Fellowship

D

doggonecarl

All it took for me was the realization that I wasn't calling the shots anymore, alcohol was. I want to make a choice while I was still able to. I choose to quit drinking. For good.

So can you.

SoberForMySon

I knew I wasn't going to die. I only drank a lot for a short time. But I knew I was risking my family and dogs, and that was enough.

least

that was my 'bottom' - all mental. i was sick of hating myself and wishing i were dead...

2granddaughters

You only went to AA for 4 months or so, you need to keep going.

This recovery doesn't happen overnight, for most it is a long educational process.
My compulsion to drink was gone in the first year but me life can still be unmanageable today. That's why I'm here now.

Wishing you the best.

Bob R

foodie1

Well I'm no expert, so let me start with that. I didn't believe I was going to die if I didn't stop drinking. And I'm pretty sure if I kept drinking that I could function for another 40-50 years, granted with some health problems. But I was miserable. I literally didn't even know just how miserable I was, I was so used to it.

The old saying, the bottom is when you stop digging, is what worked for me. Life wasn't awful for me, and I found myself doubting whether I was truly an alcoholic. I debated this fine point for 5 years while I watched myself drink more and more to catch the same buzz that used to come so easily. So I threw the name "alcoholic" aside and decided not to drink just for one night. The longest I'd gone in 20 years, since I was 14. And it was SO hard. Why was it so hard?? That was when I knew, and it didn't matter if I lived in a nice house, had a healthy marriage and a good job. It mattered that I was a slave.

JesseJe

Happened twice I thought I was gonna die. Once a few months ago I took a whole bunch of MDMA (like ecstasy it dehydradates you) drank about 15 beers, a bottle of wine and absynth over a 24 hr period. Had no water and danced all night until I passed out in bed.

Woke up and my body was convulsing and there was a massive ringing in my ears like an airplane. My vision went black and I fell over. Pretty scary. Managed to crawl to the kitchen and got water. Should have called an ambulance but I have an invincibility and denial complex.. I probably wasn't far from slipping into a coma. Dumb dumb dumb.

Continued to do much of the same every weekend until the last where I did so much cocaine for 2 days straight that my heart was going nuts, I lost all sense of reality and was having panic attacks like crazy for hours and hours. Pure nuts.

Now I am done. If I don't stop, I know I will die from this one day so that is what it took for me.

Value your life. Stay strong.

2granddaughters

Jesse, are you going to AA and NA meetings in TO ?

davidf938

You don't have to face death to stop drinking. You just might have to stop listening to what others want you to do. You must to figure out what you want more than that next drink and strive to reach that goal. For many of us, that will not be a lifetime of meetings. So be it! Find whatever it is that you want. Search the internet. Don't be afraid to try something new. Notice my icon? Thou shalt think for thyself? Try it. It works. Nobody knows you better than you do.

suic

Alcoholism is a fatal disease. Once one "diagnoses" themselves with it than it is insane to continue drinking when it is treatable.

johnny2times

NO! No one needs to go that far to get recovery, and i would urge anyone not to get to that stage, its NOT necessary! its a horrible place to be in your head when you start thinking that..trust me!

Spawn

for me yes!!!!!!!

my bottom was pretty dark.

littlefish

I come from a family with a lot of alcoholism: two alcoholic family members who passed away in recent history lived the last 2.5 decades of their lives in slow, miserable, poverty stricken, burn-out lifestyles, they died alone and homeless.

Unfortunately, you can live a long life to a normal age of death and be an alcoholic.
What scares me isn't dying from this disease, it is not ever really living.

What I experienced with my own alcoholism was reaching the point where I simply existed. My days were spent suffering from hangovers, starting to drink again early in the AM, getting drunk and during it all, having my mind occupied by 24/7 mental obsession. Then waking up and doing it all over again the next day. Not really living!

Lenina

while I knew I was doing some awful damage to my body, I was more worried I was going to continue to live. I could have had a stroke, fallen and broken my neck or many other things that would have left me in a state far worse than outright death. At the very least, I knew I was living the daily self-loathing and fear most alcoholics do. The panic attacks, the hiding, the crushing guilt following a binge.

I knew I couldn't kill myself and leave my much loved grandparents with that on their hearts. Or my friends, who loved me in spite of myself sick self. The only decent choice I had was to learn how to be sober and live a sober life.

I'm so grateful my grandparents got to know I was sober before they passed. they didn't have to worry about me. My friends got to know me again, as myself, not the isolating drunk lady, so they didn't have to worry.

For me, I had to get a plan. AA helped me a lot. ratiomal Recovery helped me the most, I think, in understanding about why I drank. AA helped with regaining my self respect.

I know there's some discussion about alcoholism being a disease or not. I tend to think maybe there's a physical part, like the pleasure receptors being extra sensitive. Truly, it doesn't matter. Whats important is to realize there is relief to be had from this addiction.

I hope this makes sense and is helpful.

Love from Lenina

GrowingDaily

I don't think you need to face death, but you do need to face reality. For some of us, myself included, that reality came by way of illness and impending death. But looking back now, I realize that if I had been able to really see my life for what it was when I was abusing, quitting probably wouldn't be that hard. But that's the thing... it's really hard to view yourself & your life objectively when you're using. Your perception is erroneous. Everyone else sees you for what you are - but you often can't. Seems like all you remember is the good times about using (which in my case was about the first 10 minutes of drinking), and forget all the pain (which in my case was every other time except those first 10 minutes).

I wish I had found a way earlier in life to see my world for what it really was.