foghead

Ive drank for roughly 10 years, mostly weekends but id say atleast 75% of the time ive blacked out. I dont drink as much now and when i do i just get ingulfed with anxiety that usually lasts a couple of days. Im almost sure this anxiety comes from all the blackouts, waking up worrying about what i did the night before and i do get flashbacks alot especially when im lying in bed at night. My last goal was to stay dry for 30 days which i did and im now going to try 3 months but im just wondering does anyway else experience this . Im actually too scared to even drink these days. Also when i was in my rut with drink i was doing 3-4 days benders in my room on my own just getting drunk which also led to mild depression and a **** load of guilt i still carry. Think that may be why i feel crap when i go out and drink as it reminds me of those dark lonely days. Think i crossed the line and spoilt it all for myself.

Dee74

I think anxiety is common for most of us, foghead. I found the longer I stayed sober the less I was affected by anxiety or memories/flashbacks of what I did drunk.

Congratulations on deciding to go 3 months

D

NEOMARXIST

Hi there. I relate to much of what you say there from where i was when I got sober. For me then I accepted I was an alcoholic and that any 'good-times' with alcohol were long since over. Just worse blackouts followed by worse guilt, anxiety, remorse, paranoia, shame etcetcetc.

I would also sit alone in my room for 3 days and just drink to oblivion and pass out and then start as soon as I woke up again.

I know for me that I had to commit 100% to recovery and truly accept my reality which is that I'm an alcoholic and 1 drink is too many and 100,000 never enough. It's the first drink that does all of the damage.

I take my recovery 'one day at a time' and made sure i didn't pick up that first drink 'just for today'. If you're an alcoholic then 3 months dry will make no differnce at all, you will just pick up from where you left off again and probably worse. I am 17+ months sober but still an alcoholic and will always be an alcoholic in that I would drink until I passed-out and then drink as soon as I woke up. I could be sober 30 years and this would still be the same for me. Once an alkie, always an alkie.

There is a solution though to a more rewarding, grateful and happy life. I use AA, SR and much wisdom from elsewhere.

All The Best

foghead

Thanks Dee..how long are you sober now?

foghead

Yea neo thats me in a nut shell...i first started to drink in the mornings out of curiosity and it made me feel pretty good ..almost euphoric ...then the drinks got harder and i went more into my own head . Worse thing is, you dont tell anyone and have to act like things are normal. I managed to stop drinking like that but did have a slip up two weeks ago which is why i decided to come back here. Its when your feeling good and think you can handle it that is the hardest part.

onlythetruth

Foghead: I was a blackout drinker too and I can relate to the fear and the flashbacks you talk about. Toward the end of my drinking I was blacking out nearly every time I drank. I tried to keep the really bad things from happening by staying home and drinking alone where I felt safer. But I still never knew what would happen--where I'd wake up (the basement? the bathroom?) or who I'd decide to drunk-dial at 3 am.

Like Dee, I found that the anxiety and the flashbacks got much better the longer I was sober. It was not, thank heavens, a permanent condition.

I think SR is a great place to come for support and am also impressed with SMART Recovery. I hope you stick around.

OTT

Dee74

I'm coming up on 4 years foghead

D

foghead

onlythetruth...i also started to drink alone for that reason too and would wake up in someone elses house because i phoned them...sometimes id fone them crying then wake up the next day and turn the fone off and no one would see me for days until my head was straight...at the time you think your the only sad person in the world doing it. I also would end up phoning a girl who i did not fancy and would end up sleeping with her, then wake up the next day nearly jumping out of the window just to get out..then id have to tell her it was a mistake and this went on for 6 months...i thought id become two people..really screwed my head up and nobody understood my behaviour because they did not know how much i was drinking because i couldnt tell them. Glad those days are over....pure hell

Dime

I also had control of my drinking to a point. I was able to moderate sometimes and I had periods of up to 6 months sober on my own. But alcohol always came back with a vengeance and my alcoholism progressed to the point where I was drinking 24/7. Total abstinence and a recovery program is what worked for me.

As my alcoholism progressed the euphoric benefits of drinking eventually completely vanished and it was continuous anxiety. Accepting help sooner would have been so much easier.

CarolD

Gee...you might want to stop drinking alcohol completely
Depression is why I decided to give up drinking.
My doctor diagnosed me with situational depression and
sugested AA recovery.

Off I went to discover a fantastic new lifestyle.

All my best....