Fearlessat50

[QUOTE=Treebeard;6943875]I’m actually wondering if there’s anyone here like me. You see, I don’t drink that much. Very rarely is it more than a six pack in a day, and more usually four. The problem is, I can’t seem to follow my own self-imposed limits, like “only on the weekends

I am also 51. I gave up drinking several months before my 50th birthday. Prior to that time, I tried moderation with sometimes being successful but sometimes not, and I would always end up right back where I was. I could justify my drinking because 1. I was more than a functional alcoholic. I was so high functioning, I was considered a star employee in a tough occupation, and a star mom and I was running marathons. I’d drink a bottle of wine and do a 15 mile training run the next day. I started drinking in the morning to deal with all kinds of stress in my life and then would drive to a high powered client meeting and be given all kinds of praise afterwards. No one had any clue that I had 2-3 glasses of wine by 11 am! 2. I only drank wine and beer. Alcoholics, I thought, only drank hard stuff. 3. After a while, no matter how much I increased my intake, I could barely feel the effects of alcohol. So I must not be an alcoholic if I don’t really feel that drink right? But I would often ultimately black out despite not feeling the effects creeping up. I read in so,e book that alcoholism is progressive and it changes your brain. You need more and more to get the same effect you used to get off 1. The physiological mechanism behind this is that while alcohol floods the brain with dopamine, it also reduces dopamine receptors so that the dopamine has nothing to bind to. This explains the feeling of always chasing the high. Getting drunk is never as good as the first few times, but our brains beco,e wired to recall those positive memories without thinking about the negative effects and consequences. It was strange to me that despite not feeling the effects of large quantities of alcohol, I started suffering physical symptoms. I had nerve pain in my hands and feet -my doctor said that’s alcoholic neuropathy and I was also prediabetic then. I had withdrawal symptoms when trying to cut back. I had insomnia. My skin looked terrible. I felt depressed all the time, almost suicidal. So I quit. I am a completely different person. I am so glad I got off that merry go round. I have a few friends who continue to drink, and just like I saw with myself, their problem is progressively getting worse. I feel sad for them. You are asking all the right questions. Listen to your instincts. This **** is bad stuff. Keep coming to this forum. It is unbelievably helpful.