Beer in the Garage
 

Just sitting here on a lonely but calm Sat, the eve before my 1st week sober, reading the posts from my new friends on SR. I wanted to share a ridiculus habit I used to have.

When I am not working on the road, I am at home and "on vacation", therefore, I got to drink everyday.

Edit - When I am not at home, I would drink then as well, but becasue I was lonely, or had job stress, or a sore back, or it was a business function, or it was hump day, etc, etc..

I used to have my inside beer and my outside beer. The difference? The inside one I would sip slowly and make last maybe 30 - 45 mins. I would have about 3 - 4 of the inside beers a day. Every 30 - 45 mins I would also head out to the garrage for a cigarette. I'd leave my inside beer beside my inside chair and sit down in the smoking chair, light up and have about half my cig. As is customary, cigarettes cause me to thirst, so I'd grab a beer from the small fridge I have out there and chug it. I could have an entire bottle done in about 3 long swallows, roughly 20 seconds. I'd then hide the bottle in one of the always partially full cases I keep to ensure a consistant count cannot be made. On average, I'd likely have 8-9 beers a day, plus a strong rum and coke, maybe half bottle of cabernet as well.

I can't believe that I could tell myself that was an acceptable ammount to drink, that I was just like everyone else.

ALmost day 7, feeling great. Day 7 will also be 3 weeks without cigarettes, which is equally as awesome. Plus I started working out again, I am huge.

Traid.

One more edit...out of curiosity, did anyone else ever get to a point that no matter how much they drank, there would be no hangover? AT least not like the first days of drinking, just a crappy feeling, but no headache, sickness, etc?

Yes--toward the end of my drinking days..it was like that>I do remember. It also scared me cause I somehow knew that wasn't "nomal"> I knew my alcoholism was progressing.

Congrats on your sober time. I too kept my beer in the garage but I had a keg. There was no way to count so I could conceal my drinking. A keg would last 2 weeks at the most and I could smuggle a new one into the house undetected. Therefore nobody could count my drinks. Add to that my "Travel Drinks" which includes 6-packs, 12 packs and something to put in the Big Gulps I bought at 7-11
I never got hangovers either. Maybe I just got used to them.
Either way it crossed the social drinking line long before that.
I think drinking in solitude may in some ways make it easier to quit. I drank alone therefore when I gave it up I didn't have to give up my socializing at the same time. Of course on the other hand every aspect of my life was a "Drinking Event" Whether it be mowing the lawn or going to get the mail. Alcohol was involved. Therefore I had to learn to live my entire life without Alcohol.
Either way I have no regrets about my decision to sober up.

Thanks for the congrats, cuda. It's funny how any manual labor around the house qualified for a beer break, eh?

Traid.

I didn't notice you were from Canada until I saw the "Eh".
Bob and Doug Mckenzie were a great inspiration to me back in the day.

Welll done on bing a double winner
no cigarettes ....no alcohol!
:funjump:

I figured the reason I had no hangovers
was because I kept my self saturated
I would wake feeling crappy...
have a drink ... throw up
have another and keep it down.
I also took a Librium going out the
dorr for work.
I did that for about 5 years
towards the end of my drinking.

Do not miss those mornings at all!
:eek:

When I was young it was ok to smoke in the house. That's the way it was when I grew up. When people started smoking outside....... the idea was perfect for me. That's when the "inside beer" idea was born. Outside or in the garage is where I kept my Bacardi. It made hiding the amount I was drinking so much easier I was able to get insanely drunk off "just a few beers". It didn't fool anyone but it worked in warped way for me for years.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I stopped drinking and smoking 8 months ago and my garage has gone to h e ll. I hardly ever go out there anymore. It' funny in a sad way but the main purpose of my garage in recent years was to get drunk and smoke in. I guess I don't need a garage anymore. What DO normal people use them for anyways? I would park my car in it but I don't have a license anymore.

You know traid77 I hadn't given this any thought at all until now. Getting drunk is not what garages where made for. So what are you planning on doing with yours?

Yes. That is where my hangovers stopped and DT's replaced them:

Shaky hands
Anxiety attacks
Confused (lost) thinking
Memory gaps
Cold sweats
Hallucinations
Seizures

Even in my early drinking days hangovers were a rarity. :dunno: The lack of hangovers made it easier for me to drink a lot.

7 days ------- cool

In the early days no problem. Eventually it turned into daily morning withdrawals. I took care of the symptoms with the usual treatment and day by day drank earlier and earlier.

Thanks for the garage story. I really needed that

Ed

I can only say that the more I drank, the worse I felt, and I also started drinking in the morning to quell the shakes I would wake up with. Can also say I don't miss those days at all. I always felt crappy when I woke up.:skillet If I was lucky the feeling crappy would only waste half the day, and could start drinking again mid-afternoon.

I don't miss the daily withdrawals at all. It's one of the many reasons I have for not drinking.

Yay on one week sober. Keep working out, it will definitely make you feel better.

I didn't always have a hangover. But my alcoholism had progressed to the point that 10-12 beers just didn't do much, anymore....or so I thought.

Dean, I don't know either. I'd like to say I'll likely turn some wrenches on a new and exciting project, but that will be a long time off, as just the act of firing up the welder used to deserve a smoke at the very least. Thanks for everyone's comments...keep on keepin' on...

Traid