McGowdog

I'll try to go easy here. But this was my exact situation with my first marriage. I was 26 or so when we were getting married, but had been dating/living in sin (God I love sin! ) for 4 years, and I'd met her at a bar when I was going to college. So we drank heavily from the get go and as the wedding approached, I decided to go "on the wagon." That worked pretty well for me, but when one of my favorite cousin's from New York came to spend time with us and attend the wedding, I felt it rude of me to not drink. So I also figured it would be stupid to wait till wedding day to toast with the bubbly vino. So, I decided to slowly break back in to drinking and the wedding went off without a hitch.

In fact, in the midst of the chaos of our pretty fun reception, we were dancing our erses off and I saw my FIL going up to the bar and I thought I'd join him and maybe have a couple shots of Cuervo with him. He ordered a sprite! I said, "Sprite? Sounds like a good idea", so I followed suit. The wedding ended fine, we went off on our honeymoon, and within about 3 days of drinking all the Coronas, Pina Coladas, and other free rum drinks down at the beach, I started to realize that my drinking was back to usual. At one point, I was arguing with her and I'd dropped my glass drink out by the pool... and as I watched that rum evaporate in the Carribean sun, "Here I go again." I realized I'd lost control again and there wasn't much I could do about it.

But, good luck to you. Some can control their drinking and some can't. If you're gonna attempt entire abstinence, that's your choice. The AA book talks about "no lurking notion". I see lurking notions all over this situation.

Does your wife-to-be know you might be potential alky and what are her thoughts about that?

My first wife met me as a drunk. When I sobered up, she left me. My 2nd wife met me sober and she likes me sober.

Just my experience.

claydoh86

My fiancee met me as a drinker but has seen my drinking in bad stages and would like for me to either get control of the quantity I take in during drinking or quit completely just like me.

Last night my fiancee and I went to a Coldplay concert and I had to stare down the barrel of temptation at every turn. Everyone had a beer or mixed drink in their hand besides me and my fiancee. I made it through the concert (not easily) completely sober and I had a great time. I don't consider myself to have won the war just because I made it through that but I feel like I won the first of many battles in the war.

joedris

Since getting control of your drinking isn't gonna happen, your only alternative is to stop completely. I'd recommend you sit in on a couple of AA meetings.

shaun00

hello and welcome to sr...and thanks for your post asking for opinions.

one sentence stuck out for me..."I am usually hammered or sober, no real in betweens for me"

i had times in my very early drinking career where i had an element of "choice".

or rather things that got in the way......work= money for booze....babys= used up money for booze.......etc.

my question would be....if you got fired..would you drink all week?...if you had more money would you drink more?

that moment in time where i still had a choice.......changed..

it changed ....to the only choice......for me alcoholism progressed into a monster to the point where it was all existed for.

look back.........can you remember a time when you didnt get smashed at weekends?.............can you see some progression?

if your worried and concerned......stop drinking....if you can.

in my experience.......normal social drinkers dont come to sites full of alcholics asking about there drinking...

Keep posting............trucker

sfields141

Clay dont think of long term sobriety ,think of one day at a time,even one hour at a time, Get a bi book ,a 12 step book go to aa meetings get a sponsor and let a hier power lead your life. What do you have to loose if you try?

2much

Alcoholism is hell. If you let it carry on it will get worse and when you dont think it can get any worse, youre wrong, it can.

If you are concerned about your drinking, do something about it now, because its only going to get more and more difficult and complicated.

claydoh86

I am seeing how well I can do on my own before I do the whole AA give it up for life completely. I want to see if I am capable of going without it completely for a while on my own. Then if I pass that test I want to see if I am capable of social drinking occasionally without getting hammered anymore. If I can't handle either one of those things AA will likely be the way I go.


Thanks again to everyone for all of your advice and concern. One week and I still haven' t had a drop. The concert was a temptation to drink but I made it through and I am happy I did.

bob_sapp

If you can stop on your own on the basis of self-knowledge, you may not be alcoholic. Even if you don't want to do meetings or are not an alcoholic and want to drink socially, the big book is nice to read and have on hand, because at least then you have some knowledge about what they consider to be an alcoholic, and a way out if you ever believe yourself to be one. Knowledge is power.

claydoh86

Bought the big book today and I am going to start reading it tonight.