2 days sober
Hi everyone, I hope you're all doing great today.
I just came out of a two day assisted withdrawal at hospital, today actually. This afternoon. It was a horrible yet worthwhile experience and i met many people there who were very supportive, non-judgemental and people who I now don't want to let down. I want to start off on the right foot and whilst I will be exploring other avenues of support I have been sitting this afternoon reading as much as I can and stumbled across this forum.
To be honest I joined up and am writing this to you now more to get it down on paper and have people who know what it feels like read it.
I am 31 and have been drinking since i was 14. I do not drink every day but when I do I just cannot stop. I will drink as much as i can as quickly as I can for as long as I can and without eating until I just pass out. I will continue this process for days/weeks until my body physically starts rejecting alcohol. When I am binging it is the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before I go to sleep. I will vomit many times, I will drink alone if no-one wants to join me(or if I have to leave work for a straightener), I will spend hours in the pub by myself with my headphones in just drinking. I will gamble to ridiculous excess, just because I know I can sit there by myself until 7am with a beer, whisky, vodka, whatever and it is not that out of place looking. I've wet the bed many times, I shake like no-one's business. I even shat myself last year... at my parent's house... on their couch.
I was on a ten day binge which had ended for about 7 hours when I admitted myself to A&E two days ago. I was trying to drink water but it was coming straight back up. I was vomiting blood, shaking far more than usual on a withdrawal and had missed work for the previous 3 days.
The problem is I KNOW, just KNOW, that in a few days I'll be feeling fine again and I'll think to myself, ach it's fine to meet the lads in the pub for a few beers, it'll be fine. Then I'll find myself in this position again if not in a few weeks then in a few months.
I just hate that drinking is so ingrained into the culture here(Scotland) that all my friends, colleagues, family etc if I am meeting them there will be alcohol available and being consumed in some capacity, be that with a meal, pub, cinema, friend's house, hell there's even 4pm Friday drinks in my work's kitchen as a team building exercise.
Sometimes, all the time really, I feel it's just easier to accept that I am an alcoholic binge drinker and that will lead to the occassional screw up at work, the occassional injury, the financial troubles, the letting people down or whatever because everything around me involves alcohol in some capacity. Hell you get heckled somewhat here if you decline a drink.
I honestly just don't know what my next steps should be. I've been here before many times and always i go back to it and a lot of times it will be ok, the binge will coincidentally end on a Saturday or a Sunday and I'll make it to work on the Monday, or I'll make it to work still but I'll go for a few during the day, then a few at night and fall asleep and wake up ok for work.
I just don't know. I can feel myself worried about it being the weekend as I sit here, at my parent's house(who are on holiday), knowing that I have to replace 12 bottles of cider, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin for them before they come back tomorrow and then I know I have to go back to my flat which is a mess, covered in empty booze bottles and all the crap that goes with it. I don't want to be marginalised but I also can't go on like this. If I could re-learn my relationship with alcohol I'd just love to, and have been trying to for so long, but it looks like I'm failing, and both of the options scare me at present.
Anyway if you've read this far thank you, if nothing else it was good for me to write this down as I never have before. Thanks again.