Being young...
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: New Orleans, LA/Charlotte, NC
Posts: 78
Being young...
I guess I just wanted to post for some support or advice or maybe just anyone who has been through the same thing and figured out how to make it better...
Today I was talking with a good friend and decided to "let her in" on my little "secret" (I say that because I - believe it or not - was VERY good at hiding my drinking because I always did it in private and only occasionally got out to actually see anyone, much less get drunk with them. I used school/being busy as an excuse to stay in every night and get wasted) about going to AA. It was a big step because only those closest to me really know much about any of this but I decided I needed to throw the shame I associate with alcoholism out the window and be brave and realize that I'm doing a good thing by getting help.
However...her response to me was something along the lines of: really? you're never going to drink again? ever? you're so young!
I was astonished. She backpedaled a bit after seeing my face saying that she supports whatever I decide to do. But you can't unring a bell. And, naturally, that set the wheels of thought in motion. I don't have a sponsor yet to call (guess that's on my agenda for my next meeting haha) so I thought I'd come here. Because the truth is, I AM young - 24. I was an alcoholic needing treatment BEFORE 21. And I guess it shows my disease when I think this way because never drinking again is PETRIFYING. I can't believe I feel this way...but I know the truth, just having a drink or 2 with friends is a virtual impossibility for me and so far, that hasn't changed and I don't expect that it will. So I need to accept that. I remember when I first started recognizing I had a problem: my priest, alcoholic (in recovery) himself, asked me "if you were told you could never drink your favorite soft drink again, would you be devastated?" and I was like, "well, I mean, it'd be a bummer but no, devastated isn't the word I'd use...I could do it" and he said "so, if I tell you you can never have vodka again, what's your reaction"
Panic. Hi, I'm an alcoholic.
I get the whole one day at a time thing, I really do because that's about all I can handle, but the honest truth is that the goal is forever. And it's nearly impossible to remove that totally from my mind.
Ok, I'm done. Thanks for reading!
Today I was talking with a good friend and decided to "let her in" on my little "secret" (I say that because I - believe it or not - was VERY good at hiding my drinking because I always did it in private and only occasionally got out to actually see anyone, much less get drunk with them. I used school/being busy as an excuse to stay in every night and get wasted) about going to AA. It was a big step because only those closest to me really know much about any of this but I decided I needed to throw the shame I associate with alcoholism out the window and be brave and realize that I'm doing a good thing by getting help.
However...her response to me was something along the lines of: really? you're never going to drink again? ever? you're so young!
I was astonished. She backpedaled a bit after seeing my face saying that she supports whatever I decide to do. But you can't unring a bell. And, naturally, that set the wheels of thought in motion. I don't have a sponsor yet to call (guess that's on my agenda for my next meeting haha) so I thought I'd come here. Because the truth is, I AM young - 24. I was an alcoholic needing treatment BEFORE 21. And I guess it shows my disease when I think this way because never drinking again is PETRIFYING. I can't believe I feel this way...but I know the truth, just having a drink or 2 with friends is a virtual impossibility for me and so far, that hasn't changed and I don't expect that it will. So I need to accept that. I remember when I first started recognizing I had a problem: my priest, alcoholic (in recovery) himself, asked me "if you were told you could never drink your favorite soft drink again, would you be devastated?" and I was like, "well, I mean, it'd be a bummer but no, devastated isn't the word I'd use...I could do it" and he said "so, if I tell you you can never have vodka again, what's your reaction"
Panic. Hi, I'm an alcoholic.
I get the whole one day at a time thing, I really do because that's about all I can handle, but the honest truth is that the goal is forever. And it's nearly impossible to remove that totally from my mind.
Ok, I'm done. Thanks for reading!
Psalm 118:24
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: ILLINOIS
Posts: 15,203
It just means you're going to get a lot longer life filled without the pain many of us had to go through to get it at a later age
Go to enough AA meetings and watch the ones that never make it. The alcoholics that die in car wrecks, from liver failure or get sent to prison for manslaughter for killing an innocent person while driving. Some times, the people that live for years stuck inside a shot glass are just as bad
I've heard alcohol destroys us much sooner then it kills us. I do belive that to be a fact. We wreck everyone's lives that love us and care for us too.
I look at this as a second chance in life by the Grace of God I'm sober today. I was pretty much a wretched human being at the last of my drinking.
I've yet to hear Gates and Buffet brag how alcohol has made them the men they are today.
After you been sober for a few years you get an added reward of helping others stay sober that's a great pleasure right there.
Go to enough AA meetings and watch the ones that never make it. The alcoholics that die in car wrecks, from liver failure or get sent to prison for manslaughter for killing an innocent person while driving. Some times, the people that live for years stuck inside a shot glass are just as bad
I've heard alcohol destroys us much sooner then it kills us. I do belive that to be a fact. We wreck everyone's lives that love us and care for us too.
I look at this as a second chance in life by the Grace of God I'm sober today. I was pretty much a wretched human being at the last of my drinking.
I've yet to hear Gates and Buffet brag how alcohol has made them the men they are today.
After you been sober for a few years you get an added reward of helping others stay sober that's a great pleasure right there.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 638
I'm 26yrs old so I know exactly where you are coming from. My whole lifestyle has changed since most of the people my age do go out drinking. Of course I would wake up and continue drinking unlike them and just let things get really of hand all the time. Captainzing2000 is right, had I stopped two years ago at the age of 24 it would have saved me a whole lot troubles.
Forward we go...side by side-Rest In Peace
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Serene In Dixie
Posts: 36,740
Regardless of age....recovery is going to improve
your life tremendously. And you will have more years
to enjoy life.
Trying to discuss this alcoholism/recovery with non alcoholics
simply never worked for me.
I'm always so glad to see young adults join my AA group.
Your generation is so much wiser than we elders.
Congratulations!
your life tremendously. And you will have more years
to enjoy life.
Trying to discuss this alcoholism/recovery with non alcoholics
simply never worked for me.
I'm always so glad to see young adults join my AA group.
Your generation is so much wiser than we elders. Congratulations!
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Toronto, ON
Posts: 1,591
Unholy, I've always felt older than I am by about 10 or 15 years mentally (doesn't mean smarter, but others have said that to me too); and alcohol added to that, eventually, both mentally and physically. The scared part is something that makes a lot of people like us very similar in emotional age. There is a song by Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor (Johnny Cash covered it before he died), and the end of it goes "If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way." That's the young person "left" REGARDLESS of the age. I think it can be more of a fight with the self when the person is literally younger because time is larger then (compare a summer today with one ten years ago); but it is really hard to describe what a PLUS it is for someone to stop when they are younger. It just makes logical sense to want that for someone period, so the "sooner the better" idea will come to mind for the people older than you. The ones who don't really recognize a problem (or who do not have one) will go with the "you have your whole life ahead of you." Yes, and it can be spent through addiction or not. Addiction and life are like a paradox.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: New Orleans, LA/Charlotte, NC
Posts: 78
Toronto, thanks so much for bringing up that song! Hurt is one of my favorites!!
Thanks everyone! You are all so very right...I'm SO grateful I have enough support and people who care about me that I was able to recognize my problem and get some help early. Though, I think it was ultimately a life or death choice for me, in the end. So, I guess if I kept drinking like that, I wouldn't have my whole life ahead of me anyway
Either way, I'm sober and I'm grateful for that and all of you!!
Thanks everyone! You are all so very right...I'm SO grateful I have enough support and people who care about me that I was able to recognize my problem and get some help early. Though, I think it was ultimately a life or death choice for me, in the end. So, I guess if I kept drinking like that, I wouldn't have my whole life ahead of me anyway
Either way, I'm sober and I'm grateful for that and all of you!!
Member
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: north carolina
Posts: 74
Charlie Munger, vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett’s company) and highly respected source (by me and other investing geeks) for worldly wisdom, gave a commencement speech several years ago. The inspiration for his speech was a speech given by Johnny Carson at the same school years before.
“What Carson said was that he couldn’t tell the graduating class how to be happy but he could tell them from personal experience how to guarantee misery... It is easy to understand Carson’s first prescription for misery – ingesting chemicals. I add my voice. The four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous types, favored in person and background. Two are long dead, with alcohol a contributing factor… While susceptibility varies, addiction can happen to any of us, through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. And I have yet to meet anyone, in over six decades of life, whose life was worsened by overfear and overavoidance of such a deceptive pathway to destruction.”*
These are the words I often remember when I think about drinking again. The stakes are simply too high, and there is so little benefit to drinking, why take a chance? It’s the craziest thing you could do.
*For those interested, the other guaranteed prescriptions for guaranteed misery are as follows:
2) Be envious of others, ensuring that no matter how well you do, it will not be enough
3) Harbor resentment
4) Be unreliable, thus alientating those in your life
5) Avoid learning lessons through the experiences of others, and learn the hard lessons yourself through personal experience
6) After getting knocked down by significant defeats in the battle of life, stay down.
The point is that by simply AVOIDING common pitfalls, you significantly increase your chances of a happy, rich and rewarding life.
“What Carson said was that he couldn’t tell the graduating class how to be happy but he could tell them from personal experience how to guarantee misery... It is easy to understand Carson’s first prescription for misery – ingesting chemicals. I add my voice. The four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous types, favored in person and background. Two are long dead, with alcohol a contributing factor… While susceptibility varies, addiction can happen to any of us, through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. And I have yet to meet anyone, in over six decades of life, whose life was worsened by overfear and overavoidance of such a deceptive pathway to destruction.”*
These are the words I often remember when I think about drinking again. The stakes are simply too high, and there is so little benefit to drinking, why take a chance? It’s the craziest thing you could do.
*For those interested, the other guaranteed prescriptions for guaranteed misery are as follows:
2) Be envious of others, ensuring that no matter how well you do, it will not be enough
3) Harbor resentment
4) Be unreliable, thus alientating those in your life
5) Avoid learning lessons through the experiences of others, and learn the hard lessons yourself through personal experience
6) After getting knocked down by significant defeats in the battle of life, stay down.
The point is that by simply AVOIDING common pitfalls, you significantly increase your chances of a happy, rich and rewarding life.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: maitland Florida
Posts: 26
i felt the same way especially when i was first getting sober (i was 21). I would go around at meetings complaining how i would never again get to be drunk and im so young etc etc.... I wasnt listening to myself at all "never again get to be drunk" that is exactly what was killing me and causing my horrible depression. Our disease tricks us into thinking we want the alcohol but to us alcohol is poison and one drink will end when the bottles gone at least in my case.
I implore you to not look at this as i never get to drink again and im young but instead look at it as im young, i discovered this early and did something about it i now actually get to live and not rot away in self pitty (in my case). Ask any person in a meeting that got sober later on in life if they wish they had done it sooner or are glad they drank so long......
There is a reason they say "one day at a time" small chunks are much easier to deal with. Good luck in your recovery God bless
I implore you to not look at this as i never get to drink again and im young but instead look at it as im young, i discovered this early and did something about it i now actually get to live and not rot away in self pitty (in my case). Ask any person in a meeting that got sober later on in life if they wish they had done it sooner or are glad they drank so long......
There is a reason they say "one day at a time" small chunks are much easier to deal with. Good luck in your recovery God bless
SR Fan
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 7,910
Hi unholy mess - you're a giant step ahead of alot of people your age, think of it that way. Your friend may never understand and may never be in our shoes, but believe me, you will find that many others do become alcoholics and they will only lose many more years of sanity. You can carry a beacon of hope for them.
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