Katzen

I am addicted to vodka, I need to drink about 375 ml a day and cannot seem to have any less because I need it every few hours to stop the shakes. I'm frightened to go cold turkey because of reading about people having terrible hallucinations.

I think one reason I feel the need to drink is we recently moved into our dream home but we're in a very rural area, and I'm home alone about 14 hours a day while my husband's at work 4 days a week. I'm not used to living in such a quiet, secluded area, and feel as if someone was to break in nobody would hear me scream.

We also have spiders and they terrify me, on at least 5 occasions I've encountered them. Once a very large tarantula scurried over my foot while I was wearing flip flops in the front yard. Others were smaller but possibly small tarantulas in the house, twice in the bathroom while I was using it, so it makes me nervous to even go in the bathroom.

It's a horrible excuse but I think the alcohol makes me less nervous. I should probably see a doctor and get some prescription for anxiety but I was prescribed Valium in the past to help me sleep and I felt terribly impaired on it, I don't ever feel impaired on alcohol, just relaxed a bit.

But I realize using alcohol so much is going to do damage to my body, plus it's taking over my life because I have to time when I can drive to the store, I have a small swig to stop the shakes, then wait about 3-4 hours to drive to the store, then come back and have another swig.

I want to get back to doing something with my life, like volunteer at the local animal shelter, but need to get away from my alcohol addiction before doing so. Joining this forum and reading other people's success stories is very inspiring to me and makes me hopeful I can get sober, but again, I'm so frightened if I cut back more I'll have hallucinations and other bad side effects that people talk about.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story, I feel good reading other people's stories as if I have friends who have gone through the same thing. I haven't made any friends here yet, my kids and grandkids live hundreds of miles away, so I also feel very alone while my husband's at work. He knows I drink, we both have a couple mixed drinks together on weekends, but I'm ashamed to let him know how addicted I am. He's a very kind man who seems to cherish me, and I know he'd be understanding and supportive, but I guess I don't want him to think I'm not this perfect person whose only flaw seems to be my insane fear of spiders.

P.S. Someone sent me a wonderful welcoming pm and asked me to pm back, but I can't send a pm until I've made at least 5 posts.