0percentABV

First time poster long time reader. Almost 1 year ago (day after the Super Bowl, Feb 6, 2012 in particular) I woke up hungover calling into work "sick" for the last time. Since then I started 4 months sober, felt good about myself so I decided to get back into the game, 3 months later I quit again, that lasted about a month and from late September to, ironically, the exact date of when I initially quit, Feb 6, 2013 I tried controlling my drinking again to no avail. I have been sober ever since.

I'll try to make my history quick. Started drinking in high school and I was an instant drunk. I even had court ordered in treatment for 28 days and spent 3 years in and out of therapy. Graduated from high school and immediately got myself a nice needle habit, cocaine, meth and morphine. That lasted about 2 years when I bolted home and moved to the big city, MPLS, MN and started college. Quit drugs and hard liquor and just drank beer, granted a lot of beer at times but for the most part I wasn't getting blitzed but I was slowly becoming a functioning alcoholic. Then about 6 years ago I went into a liquor store, had a bunch of extra cash and decided to delve into the craft beers that were just starting to become popular and just like that I became a craft beer junkie.

For those that don't know what craft beer is it's usually made from a smaller, sometimes local brewery. The alcohol is slightly to extremely higher than the Miller, Buds and Coors and it comes in all kinds of styles. At the time I've had craft beer before, a lot in fact, but I never really got into until my new job gave me more money to spend and thus I became more interested. I think also that my social life was dwindling after college and I didn't go out much anymore and this was a craze and it became a new social outlet for me. Breweries were popping up, new beers were flooding the bars and stores and it was a good time to be a beer lover, still is in fact. I started writing a beer blog, I became a tour guide at a local brewery, I made new friends involved in the beer world, brewers, distributors. Dare I say I made a name for myself. I was recognized by people and was a go to guy. I made myself a nice little hobby and fun things were happening.

But as the next 5 years started to pass I noticed that I was drinking a lot more. I was having more and more hangovers and they were getting worse. I was spending tons of cash. I was going on beer vacations. To sum it up, my life was revolving around beer. I even had two children during this time and I thought that things would slow down but they didn't. I started trying to maintain. To hold off till the weekend. Only drinking a couple a night. I took breaks here and there but I always started off where I left off and I always fell back into my pattern: wake up hungover on Monday, held off drinking (maybe) for the night or 1 or 2 days then I would get a six pack, plan on drinking only 3 and I would drink all 6. Then the weekend would come and though the plan was always to keep in to a minimum it NEVER happened and I would wake up Monday morning with a hangover and a new vow to not go down this road again, but I would. If you know craft beer it's like wine, it's a sin to drink from the bottle. But I was done with the formalities, I drank em all from the bottle. I had all these tulip glasses but they started collecting dust. Funny, but this was a big sign for me that I've gone beyond appreciation of good beer, I was in it for the buzz. Hunting for the highest ABV for the best price was also a sign. I noticed my recycle bin was full of beer bottles every week and my garage was littered with bottle caps and bottles that didn't make it to the trash. A sign. Being wasted while I read the kids a bedtime story. A BIG sign. Basically signs were everywhere but I ignored them. I was in denial.

As I mentioned before I was forced into treatment as a teen and though that was a long time ago I still remember what I was taught and I knew, I knew for a while actually, that I was an alcoholic. I never really fully admitted it till recently but I always told myself that I wasn't as bad and I can control myself if I tried but I couldn't. Then the night of the Super Bowl, 2012. I had a six pack and a 4 pack of good beer and my plan was to drink only 3 or 4. I drank all 10 in 5 hours. High ABV ones too. I was hammered. I woke up so hungover I called into work and went back to sleep. Then I woke up and thought "this is it. I either keep up this game or I don't" So I called my wife and threw in the towel. That was 1 year ago. Since then I've bounced in and out of drinking only to end up in the same spot. So after a year of quitting and testing the waters over and over I threw in the towel again. This time feels different. We shall see.

So that's my story. I'm connecting my alcoholism to craft beer because I feel that the scene is still in it's infancy and like the wine craze I think this will show a lot of people the alcoholic in them they might never have thought was there. Not saying that craft beer will make you an alcoholic but I do think that the attitude is the same as wine. It's something that you appreciate not something you abuse. So you keep drinking thinking it's no big deal then one day your guzzling wine from the bottle and then it hits you, who cares about the nose or if it's "chewy" or not, you just want a buzz. I know a lot of people still in the game and I can tell things are not being appreciated. I think I was always destined to be an alcoholic and I think craft beer or no craft beer I would have still come to this day. I just think the higher ABV and the constant flow of new beer just sped up the process. Either way, glad to be here and I hope to contribute and get what I need form this place. Thanks for listening.