lostinthetrees

Hi Everyone. I just want to introduce myself and make my first post so that I can begin to have a more interactive experience on SR...perhaps give something back. I've been reading daily (multiple times per day) since the middle of last month and the SR community has really helped in my quest to get sober. Thank you everyone. Today is day 25.

I started out to write something brief about my background and how I got here, but as I began to do that, I realized that this is something I haven't verbalized - ever. It felt good to write it down...to share. I don't blame you if you don't have the time, or patience, to read the many words below. Just writing them has helped me.

In order to explain myself fully, I have mentioned drinking and doing drugs explicitly below (but will not make a habit of it in future posts). If this is a trigger for you, please stop here.

About me:

I've struggled with addiction since I was about 10 or 12 years old. My earliest memory of using involves being introduced to inhalants by friends of an older sibling during a party that was thrown when our single mother was away. There were several bad actors there, and one thought it would be fun to show a child the joys of huffing gasoline. I proceeded to do it daily for years.

I worked my way through the next decade, or so, binging on whatever I could get my hands on. I smoked pot every day for over a decade. I did speed when I could get my hands on it. Throughout middle school and high school, I consumed hundreds of hits of acid. During high school and slightly thereafter, I went through a particularly dark time. A supervisor of mine at the fast food restaurant where I worked suffered a severe injury in a car accident, and proceeded to work-over doctors for the next few years in order to get excess opiates. She would give me more of these than I could use myself (and I used a lot). During the same time, I started abusing cough medication (a particularly powerful hallucinogen in large doses). Pot and booze were a constant throughout all of this.

While on the opiates and cough medication, I started a downward spiral that I could not stop. My health suffered. I was constantly at risk of being arrested for driving under the influence, driving without insurance, etc. Luckily I was not arrested for any of those things, but I did lose my job. A co-worker noticed my vulnerability and found it to be a great opportunity to set me up for stealing (she was the one stealing - I would never). At one point, my diet was so bad that I was eating a piece of sticky candy one day, and as I began to chew it a large piece of one of my rear molars broke right off.

It was shortly after the broken tooth and the lost job that I decided to turn my life around. I got off the hard stuff and was only smoking pot and drinking alcohol. I realized that, though it had only been a few months prior, there were entire months of my life that I simply did not remember. I got a good factory job and settled into working hard...and playing hard.

I believed that I had my life under control, pot and alcohol were nowhere near as bad as what I had been into, and I was doing well and gaining recognition at my job. But the drinking progressed.. After a year or two, I was blacking out regularly, showing up at work hungover/drunk, etc. Then I got arrested. I was still underage and had been drinking with a friend in the woods about 30 minutes outside of town. We ran out of alcohol and decided to go into town to get more. I was already blacked out. I don't remember driving into town, but ended up at a bar where pitchers of long island iced tea were served. I woke up in jail, bruised and battered from falling down, being dragged around by police, etc.

After that underage violation I decided to shape up even further, I quit drinking for about a month and then tried to moderate. I decided that I needed to go to college. I got my **** together and went. Throughout college, I smoked pot and drank alcohol daily, blacking out weekly. Dabbling in heroin and opiates once again. My ex-girlfriend and I enabled each other's poor behavior and allowed each other to get ever more out of control.

Somehow, through it all, I maintained a 4.0 GPA and graduated at the top of my class in an engineering program at a major university. My girlfriend and I broke up shortly before I earned my Bachelor's degree. I was in the dark depths of alcoholism for some time just after the breakup. I sat around my apartment drinking and not doing much else. I gained at least 50 lbs. I somehow realized that I did not want that and I began to exercise, quit smoking pot, cut back on drinking, and started losing weight. I was feeling pretty good, but not directly addressing my alcoholism. I was focused on weight loss and would often sacrifice food for booze. I also switched to drinking only liquor based on a calorie/unit alcohol rationalization (talk about a sure sign).

I began a PhD program and met a nice woman (my current girlfriend). She is balanced, no problems with addiction, no real exposure to addiction. Still, I carried this secret, this insatiable need to drink. I pulled the standard tricks, secretly ordering my drinks based on their strength, and nothing else. "Eleven percent alcohol beer...how 'crafty' and sophisticated," "Dry red wine...much better than the (weaker) white," oh and I "love the flavor of scotch" Soon, that wasn't good enough, I couldn't get drunk enough by openly drinking a few of the strongest drinks I could find. I elevated my dishonesty to the next level - drinking beer openly and hiding bottles of cheap whiskey, gulping from the vodka she kept in the house (like a normal person does in order to be able to entertain company, etc.). I would replace the bottles, but chances are she noticed the fluctuating levels.

In the last couple of months, I began just drinking from pints of cheap whiskey with her in the other room. I might open a beer in order have an excuse for the smell of my breath, but I would "secretly" be downing large amounts of whiskey just down the hall from her. I started blacking out on week nights, getting mean, hurting her (not physically, but emotionally), going to work (training academic colleagues) drunk and hung-over. It was one morning after one of these weeknight blackouts that I woke up terrified of what I had said or done, too anxious to bare. I got up at 5am before she woke up and left the house. I went to my office and started to search online for help. That is when I found SR.

I have not had a drink since. I have begun to work out again, daily. I'm losing weight, gaining muscle and feeling energized. I no longer have to deal with the guilt and shame of hiding my drinking from the person I love. But this is a long story...a long struggle.. and I know that there is every possibility that if I am not careful I could find myself adding to it in an "I'm back" post next year, or the year after...

One thing about my newfound sobriety that I am dissatisfied with is that I have not been able to bring myself to have an open discussion with her about all of this. I'm not exactly sure what is holding me back. She must have noticed the change, but hasn't brought it up herself either.

Right now I'm taking it one day at a time, but with no intention of drinking again. I cannot moderate. I am an alcoholic.

Thank you for reading this.