Lawman

So knowing I was going through bad withdrawals last night, I finished my shift and had an offer from 2 girls I know for free drinks. I finally received advice from an ex girlfriend (may be biased advice, lol) to not drink ... So I didn't.

My shift ended at about 1:30am and I was home by 2:00am. A friend of mine called me at 2:30 screaming about things I will not disclose that happened between him and this girl he is talking to. I agreed to talk to him until 3:30. So he got over, and we went to the Casino (BAD combination for my personality.) I had $100 on me, and knowingly yet unwillingly blew $60 of it. In the process I drank 2 crown royal and cokes.

I got back to my apartment, and had 3 beers with said friend before finally kicking him out. May not seem bad, what with it only being 5 drinks; however, I kept craving. So I drank 2 more before bed. I woke up today at around 3:30p to a beer. Went to collect my paycheck, came home and hadn't drank since now. I just had a beer while smoking a cigarette.

All of the girls in my life (including ex's) are surprisingly supportive, and want me to quit. They are doing everything to take my mind off of this (why didn't I think of quitting sooner?! lol), but I still can't shake it.

Is quitting cold turkey the right way to go, or is 2-4 beers a night for a while better? A friend of mine went through it and said he limited himself to 3 beers a night before finally quitting those cold turkey.

Advice please, I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Thanks to all in advance.

P.S. I'm NEVER getting **** drunk like I did Monday night again (hopefully).

Limbo75

Lawman, all of us here know how you feel and have been where you are. I might not be the best person to give advice, have only been sober for 16 days now but man how good it feels, it has been though, I will admit that and there are ups and downs every hour, right now is an up and the feeling is amazing. As hard as it can be, there is only one way about it, to admit that we have no power over alcohol and that the only thing we can do is to stop consuming it. That is it, it is not a question of managing it, not a question of having a white period, the only thing we can do is to stop. For good, for ever. So the 5 or 7 drinks, the just a beer, it does not work for people like us. We cant drink like normal people and once we free ourselves of our slavery to the bottle a new life begins where we can be proud of ourselves and never feel the shame of being out of control again.

You can do it Lawman, you can, if I can and all the people here can then you can. The more times you say no the stronger you will become, and after feeling **** for a while you will start to feel better and then the work starts. A good friend of mine once said: drinking itself is not the problem, it is why we drink that is the problem and that is what we have to work on. Why do we use it as an excuse for everything?

Lawman, I wish you the best of luck, there is no time like the present to start and I promise, you will feel better in time, a high that only a sober alcoholic can feel. The high of living without shame and being proud of yourself. Do it for yourself.

CarolD

Limbo....
Good to see you here with us in our Alcoholism Forum

Well done on your early sober time...you are
doing very well.....

pinetree

Hi Lawman
I would be hard for me to remain sober if I had all the influences you have around me, i.e., the partying friends. I could not remaine in that situation. That being said, I know it is not easy to up and change our circumstances.
It is great this forum for help, but it may not be a substitute for f2f help. WHy no try and find another AA meeting? pinetree

CarolD

Lawman....
I think it is important that you noticed the cravings
were set off again when you drank.
The same thing will happen if you don't quit cold turkey.

The de tox takes around 4 days
To continue to drink is not going to work IMO

Hope you will decide to stop now
before more bad things happen to you...

Lawman

I know my problems. I know I shouldn;'t drink. But I do anyway. I don't know why, I just know I do. After going through withdrawals for 4 days, I couldn't take it anymore.

I need to stop, but I don't feel I can. I have so much support from the women in my life, but so many bad influences from my friends. Everyone wants to go clubbing / bar hopping. I unfortunately have done that already tonight (8:47 pm central time as of this posting), and am debating doing it again tonight.

I know I can, but I don;t know if I can ... If that makes sense.

humblestudent

It completely makes sense...I think you're in the wanting to eat your cake and have it too stage. When I realized I had a problem with drinking, I wanted to figure out a way to drink like a normal person, and I spent years trying to have my cake and eat it too. It never worked. All my 'tricks' for controlling my drinking never ever worked in the end.

You said upthread that you will never get drunk like you did Monday night - hopefully. I'm not trying to scare you, but I will tell you that we ALL said that to ourselves, many many times over. If you continue to drink you will get drunk and have another night like you had Monday, and you will do it over and over.

If you really truly want to stop, you have to be ready to stop. Those are two different things. Wanting it is one thing. Taking steps to actively work a program is another thing. You have to completely embrace the fact that drinking doesn't work for you, period...not even in small doses.

You are so young, and have such a great opportunity to turn this around before you do more serioius damage to yourself and your loved ones. You have to want to be sober more than you want the pain of drinking.

I hope you get to that place and keep trying. I know you will make it!!!!!!

Lawman

My relapse has been bad. Every single day I drink, just not as much. One of my ex's has laid out a plan for me. Every day we go to lunch and dinner, so that I do not drink. Every day we go to the gym. Every day we study (I'm a sociology major, and I'm still studying laws and statutes for my department). Every day she makes sure I stay to my diet. Even then, I find a reason to have "a few beers" or "a few whiskey cokes".

She helps, but its me. No one else. I've cut off contact with some friends on some days ... But free alcohol wins me over most of the time.

I've gone from over $10,000 in my housing fund, to $-1400 when I was BAD into drinking, to $1600 now ... So I'm clearly doing better ... But not good enough. I'm still with my roommate that drinks entirely too much, and he still invites over all of my drinking buddies. I've tried to schedule shifts around when they are awake (AKA working 8pm-8am) but it hasn't helped. We're on a mandatory 40hr week schedule.

I have faith in myself, and so do so many people in my life ... But I still fail.

I've decided I'm going to AA next week with my ex-girlfriend and an alcoholic buddy ... Even though I'm only 21. I'll feel out of place, but I know I need to do something more proactive.

And yes, as I type this I have cleared half of a fifth of Jack Daniels.

Not good.

You all may think I am not serious about this, and I would understand ... Either way, thanks for being supportive. I'm going through so much in my life, and I appreciate it. Even when I'm not responding on the forum, I'm reading it at every chance I get. Reading others' stories. Reading others' experiences. Reading anything I can to help me.

I appreciate you all, already.

WasteOFtime

"My roommate wasn't nearly as supportive last night as he should have been. He found out I was quitting the sauce, and tried to force a drink upon me. Then told some of my other friends, and they all came over and drank. So I locked my room, and cruised this site all night.

I will not fail."

Not being harsh but if you have someone around you pushing you to drink then you are setting yourself up for failure. I understand that money may be an issue in getting away from that driving force but you really need to dig deep and think about that.

When I stopped drinking my drinking buddy for 10 years gave me the same crap, "aw come on man AA is for quitters, just have one with me blah blah blah" I told him yep it is for quitters that is why I am there believe it or not after staying off the booze for about a month, he saw how I was doing, and called me after a night of getting hammered, and said "whats this AA thing all about?" I simply told him a new life!!.. Today we both enjoy 7 years off the sauce, he is currently a LEO and trying to get a job as a FED!! Crazy to think about where we were then, and where we are both now in life.

Don't give up, lead by example, and your true friends will follow.... The rest of your so called friends will soon be a distance memory. Its hard right now to see who your true friends are but soon they will all emerge.

Just remember one day at a time, don't worry about yesterday and forget tomorrow just live your life today and you will get the help you need.

But first you must truly want it!!
Good luck, drink lots of water and gatoraid, and keep some candy handy so if you feel the need to drink you can pop some candy, the sugar helped me a lot. Fireballs work the best they burn the hell out of your mouth kinda a little reminder as to why you are eating them..

And I can relate to feeling out of place going to your first meeting, I entered the rooms at 24 (not to far off of your age) and the first meeting I was shaking, sweating, spinning, scared, emotionally drained, and LOST!! I drove around the building for 20 or 25 min battling in my head if I wanted to go to the bar or go check out this meeting... I said what the hell its only a hour long, I walked up to the door not knowing what was going, and asked 2 guys at the front door "am I at the right place?" and they took one look at me and said YEP welcome.

tellus

Lawman, you sound so much like me. I started drinking a little later than you did, at 19, but female alcoholics tend to go downhill faster and within a year I was on "open-ended medical leave." (I wasn't kicked out of school, per se, but the medical leave was strongly suggested and when I tried to re-enter I was refused.) Like you, I was a daily drinker -- I was never a casual drinker, I drank alcoholically from the get-go. I screwed up the one potentially good relationship I was in, and fell into one that was, in retrospect, abusive. I'm fairly confident that if I'd stayed on the path I was on I would have lost my job and ended up on the street.

The idea of getting help or going to meetings was repugnant to me, but that's what finally had to happen. I no longer attend meetings, but in the first few months of my sobriety they were a lifeline. You might check with your local VA to see if there are meetings you could attend with other military-type guys -- in my case, I sought out women's and young people's meetings (you'd be surprised, there are a lot of young'uns in the program). I strongly suggest working with a doctor when you detox, but at the very least make sure someone knows what you're doing and checks up on you regularly. (My detox was uneventful, but the process can be dangerous. I detoxed in a hospital to be safe.)

There is light at the end of the tunnel, if you're willing to work for it. I'm 24 now, and this past January I celebrated two years sober. I'm back in school getting a 3.8GPA, planning to transfer to the University of Wisconsin to finish my degree. I'm comfortable in my own skin again. I'm happy again, and I've re-established a good relationship with my family. I've started reading for pleasure again, something I hadn't done in ages.

Many older alcoholics will tell you that they wish they'd gotten sober in their 20s, instead of their 30s/40s/50s/etc. It is so much easier (and safer) at our age than after decades of drinking. I wish you the best -- it is so worth it, this sobriety thing.

CarolD

I started AA at 48 and thought I was too darn old to
learn how to live without alcohol. After all...I had only
been drinking alcoholically for about 5 years....before then
I had no real conseqences from my drinking.

AA was never anything I expected to explore.
How utterly screwed up my thinking was....

good to see you here again Lawman....
I wish you well on your journey.

Kjell

Lawman-

Keep us posted. Hopefully we can help.

...and good luck. I hope you make it.

Kjell

wicked

The VA Hospital will definitely have meetings for you Lawman. I went to weekly meetings and they were great. Some refuse to get it, and are forced to go, but if you go with an open mind and willing to change, you will get something out of it.
I was the only female in my group. <shrug> I got over it. Everyone there got me, because everyone there had the same problem.
Tellus has the ticket here too, there are young peoples groups you can attend. There were be plenty of people your age that have the same problem.
What have you got to lose?
A problem!

beth