Buckley

I just found this forum today, and can’t explain how much strength and community I feel as a result.
I am 8 days sober today. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without a substance in my body for at least 15 years.
My story is a lot like others. I was unhappy in my marriage, and started drinking to diminish those feelings. I was a full-fledged binge drinker, and when we would have parties, I would end up embarrassing my husband (and myself) by getting so wasted that I would fall all over the place, end up blacking out, and wouldn’t remember anything the next day. The more my marriage fell apart, the more I drank.

I found out in October that my husband was having an “emotional affair” (whatever, it’s cheating), and I kicked him out and filed for divorce. This is when my problem with wine really spiraled out of control. One to two bottles of wine a night became every night, and as a result, I not only felt awful, my job performance began to suffer (though I was really able to hide it), and my self-esteem plummeted.

When I would run out of wine, I would start breaking into the hard stuff. At bars, I would do shot after tequila shot. I was drinking and driving and not remembering how I got home. I was blacking out on a regular basis. In March, I was driving home (wasted) from a date, and crashed my car. I didn’t know that I had crashed my car until the next morning when I went outside to leave for work. I have no idea what I hit or how I got home.

You would think that would have been my “bottom”, but my drinking continued, and continued to get worse.

I obviously have a million embarrassing drunk stories, we all do.

I hit my “bottom” last week. After binge drinking for an entire weekend (the garbage can was a wine bottle graveyard), I took Sunday to recover. Since I had an important presentation to give on Tuesday at work, I decided that I would be a good girl on Monday night and not drink. That didn’t happen.

When I woke up for work on Tuesday morning, my face was so swollen and my eyes were so puffy that I was ashamed of myself. I cried all morning, hating what I had become, and drove to work like a zombie. I didn’t even feel like a person. I pushed through my presentation, and when I got home that night, I looked in the mirror and was so disgusted that I actually told myself “YOU ARE DONE.” “You are only 34 years old, and you are destroying your life.”

It hasn’t been easy. I am finally sleeping through the night, though it took a good 4-5 days. I take alternate routes home from work, so I don’t drive past the liquor store. I count every day as being a HUGE accomplishment, even though to some, 8 days sober might seem like nothing.

I started therapy a few weeks ago, and my therapist has stressed that I need to replace drinking with other behaviors. This is hard. I don’t even know what my interests are anymore. I have had to cancel and turn down invitations from friends, simply because I can NOT be in a bar (or around wine) right now. I want to go to an AA meeting, but I’m terrified, which I know is ridiculous, but it’s the truth. Right now I’m flyin’ high on not drinking for 8 days, and praying that I don’t fall into the same habits again when the novelty wears off. I’ve tried SO MANY times to quit and never made it past 3 days. I have to do it this time. I'm just scared.

Anyway, thank you for your posts. I see so much of myself in many of you.