Hey Stacey it's me again. It's funny what you said about my name. I take it you had a really bad experience with the captain or something. I call myself that because it was the drink that initially really hooked me in. In fact, it was my nickname at a previously college I attended, haha. Eventually because of the amounts I was drinking it became too expensive, so I kept cutting back to cheaper and cheaper rums and vodka's. To this day it's still my favorite though, something for a special occasion...at least it would be if I didn't have to quit drinking.
Anyway the first time I was confronted about my drinking problem, I couldn't believe people were telling me I needed to stop. To me drinking had become the only thing in life I even remotely enjoyed. It was like telling most people they have to stop having sex or they have to stop eating or breathing. Cut back, that I could handle, or at least I thought I could. I'm able to do that for a while but it's just a matter of time before I'm drinking out of control again. It's so damn frustrating because just like any other alcoholic I would just like to enjoy a couple of drinks. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for me.
I see in your posts you have other friends who drink as much or more than you do. I've never had any alcoholic friends, just alcohol abusers, you know the ones who get trashed on the weekends or just a few days a week whenever they feel like it. I do know there was no way I could go out with them and just watch them drink. That was one of the biggest things we had in common, just going out to clubs and getting trashed together. I tried to cut back to just going out and having a couple with them, and I was successful...for a while. Like I read in another post here it's not really any fun being sober around a bunch of drunks. So I never really tried to completely quit drinking before for any length of time, but it's got to be extremely difficult to quit when you have other friends who like to drink as much as you do. It's definitely going to take some support from people who don't drink now or people who never did. I wish I could tell you my success story of how I've experienced a great life after alcohol, but I'm just now trying to give it up myself. I can tell you I relate to how difficult it is trying to quit. It was difficult cutting back let alone stopping all together. Good luck.