I'm 33 here and I had all of the symptoms that you mentioned at 27. The one that jumped out at me especially was feeling like you're outside of your body or watching yourself from somebody else's perspective. That is really interesting and I definitely have that daily for maybe five years. I did not stop drinking until I was 32. But 27 years old was around when I became aware that I was not just a heavy drinker and actually an alcoholic. I don't use that term casually in conversation I just use the term nondrinker. But alcoholic? Oh yes. I fit every single criteria and I score very high on those alcoholic tests.
My gut is telling me that you will not be able to return to casual drinking without the problems you mentioned above continuing. You could do it I did and drink for five more years. My minor twitches went to some pretty serious shaking in the mornings. The feelings of depersonalization went from fogginess to feeling like I was going to have a nervous break down at work. Pretty much every day. I developed a very bad acid reflux and had daily bad digestion.
I did a lot of damage in the five years I kept drinking after I realize that I was an alcoholic.
Yeah it's up to you whether you want to stop or not. But I can almost guarantee that all of the negative consequences you've had so far are attributed to drinking. You were alread yeah it's up to you whether you want to stop or not. But I can almost guarantee that all of the negative consequences you've had so far will continue with continued drinking.
Like somebody said above, I was very angry when I was unable to keep drinking past the age of 32. What the heck? What about all those people in their 50s who drink for 30 years? Boy I was angry. But like somebody else said I had just used up our lifetimes allotment of alcohol in about 10 years. I guess that's what you get for drinking the equivalent of about 12 drinks a night.