concernednurse

From (0) being not an alcoholic to (10) being full blown, rock bottom, in the gutter, "saved by the grace of god" alcoholic (I realize this is generalizing), did you decide that a change was necessary? And/or, what prompted that change?

I know that people's personal stories are available to read and I have read quite a few, I am just looking for kind of a quick answer. I am in a place right now where my boyfriend wants to stop drinking because it has put our relationship in jeopardy (I don't want to marry an active alcoholic and he knows that and has made his decision to stop drinking- knowing that it is HIS choice and will always be, HIS choice). The thing is... he is still very "functional" as far as the stages progress... so I'm curious... if the will can be strong enough, at this point, to stop before the progression gets too far or does it really take hitting hard rock bottom before someone really gains that internal desire to stop. Opinions and your experiences please and thanks! And FYI- I am doing MY own work here as well, alongside him... I have chosen not to drink anymore in support, and I mainly intend to keep myself safe and protected from the effects of alcoholism... I am much less concerned about HIS "recovery" at this point, but I would like to be in support as much as possible as I would love to see him be able to LIVE life, and experience the happiness that I know so many of you have gained from sobriety.

concernednurse

I wanted to add, that this is both a promising and scary thing for me... Like I stated above, I would LOVE to see him live life in sobriety and not have to drink to deal with life, but at the same time, its scary to me because although he says he wants to stop... I know he hasn't seen the bottom, and truthfully, I am very afraid that the disease will have to progress further before he is successful.... maybe that clarifies things a little...

Dee74

You'll get a whole range of responses CN.

To me a bottom is that point when you decide you can;t live that alcoholic life anymore...for some that may be the gutter...for a lot of us it's nowhere near that.

I still had a roof over my head and I still paid my bills, I never had a DUI or a police record...I was never rowdy or obnoxious....but I nearly died from my drinking.

D

Happycamper1979

For me, it took hitting my rock bottom.

I got a DUI. I hit 3 cars (one of which had a 2 yr old girl in it). Thank GOD I didn't injure or kill anyone. I blew a 0.406!!! That is an outrageous number! If that isn't bad enough, I felt sorry for myself when I got out of jail and continued to drink on and off for a month. I was ending a week bender (ran out of vodka) and started to withdrawal worse then I ever had experienced before. I was covered in sweat, throwing up, dry heaving, spinning and couldn't even keep my balance to walk. I knew in my heart that I was going to die if I didn't stop. I heard my husband crying in the other room while I was experiencing this horrible withdrawal. I also knew in my heart that I couldn't keep hurting him...he was so afraid that I was going to die. I heard him praying to God to watch over me.

I am thankful for my rock bottom. It has given me 33 days of sobriety today!! WHOO HOO!!

Love & Peace,

HappyCamper

Soberween

On paper, I look like the picture of health regarding alcoholism.....no arrests i.e. dwi's, public intoxication, no family problems, no financial problems, never affected my job, physically fit, etc..... (YET, that is!). However, I was approaching a bottle and a half of wine a night and would wake up the next day suicidally depressed. I felt completely insecure about my drinking in that I felt I drank differently from others and I hated that. I remember walking into a party and this a-hole saw me and made some grand statement in front of everyone like "ooohhh, look whose here...ready to belly up to the bar." It pissed me off so much that part of my decision to finally quit drinking was that I didn't want to give a-holes like that the power to say such things about me. BTW, the guy who said it is probably a big ole alchy....I know he is the only one who can decide if he's an alcoholic, but he has several arrests each year that are all alcohol related.

So for me it was all of the above and basically the feeling that I was stagnant. I felt stuck and unmotivated to do anything at night other than sit on the couch and drink my wine.

Taking5

Concernednurse,

Here is a whole thread about functional alcoholism you should read:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...alcoholic.html

ZZworldontheweb

My wife's a nurse. Bless you guys for all you do.

I was very "high functioning", good job, house in the suburbs, etc, but I was drinking nearly a quart of bourbon a day. I was very skillful at living the knife's edge of consuming enough to suppress my withdrawal symptoms through another meeting. I needed a drink in he morning, 1 or 2 during the day and then one in the middle of the night. 24 hours a day, I was either a little drunk, a LOT drunk, or having withdrawal symptoms. It was a VERY fragile situation that would have taken only a bit more bad luck to land me in jail or jobless or divorced. Many people will tell you that when it goes bad, it can go bad very fast. It's not necessarily a slow progression.

So, there's not necessarily an accurate connection between how a person's life appears and how far down the scale he's gone.

CarolD

When my drinking turned me into a miserable depressed
woman I detested....I decided to quit.
I was shocked to find I could not quit on will alone.

External circumstances or people had nothing to do with it.


We have a Forum...Friends & Family of Alcoholics
I suggest you check it out for information on
how others deal with your situation.

Welcome to SR...

Justfor1

I consider my bottom was when i began switching to drinking rubbing alcohol, cooking sherry, vanilla extract ect... It was easier to steal. Of course I was living in an alley with rats the size of small cats too! On the whole alcoholism spectrum I have sank lower than 99.9% of people in recovery.

TwelveSteps

Yeah... sounds like that's the problem. That's not a question to which there is a "quick answer."

GG

dairo

You have the right attitude, it is HIS choice and nothing else, even loving you won't stop him from drinking, (well it didn't for me) if he's far enough along. It's funny because I have always believed that a person really has to hit rock bottom for them to change, but reading this website... that's not always the case. He just has to be ready in his heart.

concernednurse

Let me clarify...
I have visited the F&F section, and though some people's advice on " getting help for myself" was very helpful (and I do attend alanon), I got a lot of "get out while you can." I'm simply not ready to give up on my relationship, and like someone responded to me once, at least I am continuing my relationship with EYES WIDE OPEN.

I am not looking for a quick answer meaning a solution to alcoholism, I know its likely going to take years to sort out the 16 years it took to get to this point, for him and myself. Unlearning 16 years of behavior takes time, a long time and ones life can unravel at any point in the "work"... what I meant was I wanted people's experiences in short form, rather than reading through 15 minute posts at a time.

I know everyone's experiences are different... I guess, I'm just trying to find some shred of hope, for myself, in a potential hopeless situation, because as I've told my boyfriend, I love him without the alcohol, and I really think he heard me. I just know the reality of the situation too.

LexieCat

I still "had it all" at least on the outside, but on the inside I was a complete mess and barely hanging on.

I think for someone to succeed at sobriety, whereever they are on the alcoholic spectrum, they first have to want to be sober more than they want to drink. Not that that's enough in itself, but I think it IS a preliminary requirement. I also think they have to want it internally. If they want to quit just to hold onto a relationship, or a job, or to get their driver's license back, when conditions change just a little (partner out of town, laid off from job, don't have to drive when a drinking opportunity presents itself), the temptation/obsession to drink is likely to drag them right back into it.

Now, some folks who desperately WANT to stay sober still find that they can't. That's where a program like AA comes in.

Bottom line is, if the willingness isn't there, the deep-down desire, no program is going to keep someone from drinking if they want to drink.

LaFemme

I put myself at a 7 on your scale...but looking over the edge at a real fast slide to 10....I consider 10 to be some one near death.

Good luck....I wish the best for you both!

artsoul

Hi CN - It's obviously hard to predict when an individual will get sober, but if he says he wants to stop, there's every reason to be hopeful IMO.

I decided I really didn't want to experience a rock bottom. It helped me to read about everyone's experiences here (and at AA) and get honest with myself about what was ahead if I kept drinking.

You're wise to set a boundary for the relationship and I think a positive sign would be that he seeks out help in some form if he finds he can't stop. I hope things work out for you both.......

UniqueNewYork

Some of the people on here are much stronger than me. I could not quit drinking for real until I had lost so many friends, so many jobs, so much self respect that I could not deny the connection. I would have liked to have learned right away from the first problems I had but I really wrote my problems off as being from something else. Anything but me and my drinking.

I started to type a long paragraph about how I would go about stopping drinking again. I accidentally closed the browser. Getting to the point.

I drank for all the reasons under the sun (happy, sad, bored etc) but I found I especially would drink to feel ok in my own skin. I now lift weights and use self help books to avoid this low self esteem underconfident feeling. The other reason I drank was I was very guilt ridden over someone I was dating OD'ing. I could not stop drinking even after numerous bouts of throwing up and drinking to black out. I was only able to stop when I asked my higher power for forgiveness, asked the person and finally forgave myself.

As far as how to not take a drink in the beginning, for me it was much easier being addicted to other things. I am prone to really get into video games or working out. Once I put those in my head and thought about them all day then went home and did them, it seemed to help me not need a drink. It also helped that I became close friends with some people in the AA program. One of my friends particular I can't really find the words to express how I feel about him but I would stand between him and anything bad in this world that I can.

MsCooterBrown

Who would want to say they were a 10 on the scale..Hard to say where I was. Daily drinker..still held down a job..no DUI (ALOT of people I drank with were getting them) no arrests..but I was in utter chaos! If I wasn't drunk..I was hungover. Anxiety out the roof..Hard to concentrate until at least noon every day. Started getting bad aftershocks..dry heaving. Splotch face..shakes..2 people near and dear to me died to alcohol related cr@p. I tossed in the towel. I started feeling doom..if all this happened to people I was drinking with ..to me ..it seemed as if it were a matter of time before something bad happened to me! I think that by the time people wonder if they may be alcoholic they already are. It goes from bad to worse in a heartbeat that is for sure.
Everybodys rock is different..It is such a personal issue and hard to explain. I don't even know when I went to daily drinking..I just know it wasn't always that way. I spose your boyfriend will have to decide he doesn't want to drink more than he wants to drink! I wish you both the best!!

Supercrew

I was probably considered a pretty functional 7-8. I was up to 8-18 beers a day and half of a bottle of Vodka a night, 5 days a week, I left 2 days alone to work and withdrawal. For about 2.5 years led a normal life though, paid the bills, coached youth sports, led my company in sales. I quit when I realized it was more work trying to stay drunk all the time, buying the booze hiding the bottles and cans, buying the visine and mouthwash, and timing my withdrawals than it was to be sober. I basically realized I had become an alcoholic. The hard part came when I realized I was really addicted to the booze mentally and physically and couldn't stop. It probably took me a year once I diagnosed myself until my last drink.

joedris

Everyone's bottom is different. There are low bottom drunks and high bottom drunks I'm sure many people fall in the middle. But where your boyfriend is one the scale is irrelevant. What matters is that he have a sincere desire to stop drinking and takes steps to actually do that. Wanting it and doing it are two different things.

Is he in AA or any other recovery program? He should be as his chances of success in quitting on his own are slim, no matter how badly he wants to. I'd suggest he try AA if he hasn't already or isn't in some other program. It saved my life and millions of others. If he tries it and finds it isn't for him, there's no harm done. There are other options available.

But the important thing is that he sincerely wants sobriety and is willing to go to any length to get it. Where he is on somebody's scale is irrelevant. You don't have to be living in the gutter to finally see the light.

By the way, I was a "high functioning" alcoholic, successful in my career, family, house with 2 cars and all that. What led me quit was I simply decided enough was enough. Nothing earth shattering, no DUIs, nothing like that. But i could look into the future and didn't like what I saw. The rest is history.

crown86

CN

You sound like my fiance. She lived hell with my drinking. I am 43 and she she is 41 so we are both supposedly old enough to know what we want out of life. For me for quite a while it was the bottle. She KNEW she did not want a drunk for partner. I never lost a thing, work wise or financially, I lost myself and sunk into a huge depression to the point of not caring about anyone or anything.

When we met 5 years ago I was always a big drinker and I point blank told her after a few dates half joking half serious " Im a high functioning alcoholic and never question my drinking" she laughed and that was that. LOL least I was honest. I told any girl I dated that. But then a few life events hit all back to back and off the rails I went, hard. I was never physically abusive but I became a verbally abusive monster, no of which i ever remembered because I was in a black-out just about everytime I drank. She was sorta ok with the booze till the verbal abuse came. She cleaned me up when I puked all over the bathroom in the middle of the night, cleaned the **** in my closet because I was in a black out and had no Idea what I was doing. She called the ambulance when I nearly killed myself by drinking an entire half gallon in an evening and picked me up the next day and said nothing when I came home and started drinking that night.

The verbal abuse was the straw that broke the camels back. My drinking became even worse if you can imagine. Me I have always been a my way or the highway kind of person. I don't want to sound like an ******* because in the reverse I beleive it also, her way or the highway. My theory is our highways have to be the same. I was half sober when she said "I can't do it anymore unless you quit" At the time I was not even remotely close to quitting so I said I won't quit. It was not that I did not love her. I love this woman with my heart and soul. But I was hooked on the bottle hard and simply did not want to quit. Sure I wanted my cake and eat it too, but I knew her highway was dry and mine was a flood of whiskey. It hurt like HELL when she moved out, but I understood. She called quite a few times to check on me etc, but I almost never returned the call, not because I din't want to speak to her, but I was not the guy she wanted I was a drunk plain and simple.

I got to the point of where I am now of abstienence by what a lot consider unconventional methods. I used TSM to get me here which in a nut shell you take a pill and drink. I was not drunk 12 months. She called me around 7 months of this and I told her I was doing this, the depression was gone etc. Around month 8 we had dinner and have been back together ever since. I got WASTED on xmas hard because we went out of town and forgot my pills and drank anyways. Prior to I barely drank and the very rare ocassion I did I always took my pill and never had more than 3 drinks and no buzz, that scared the crap out of her. Xmas REALLY SCARED HER. But I was the nice drunk again, the laughinh joking slightly obnoxious guy. It scared me to becasue I knew, even after a year of not being drunk, it was still in me to head right back to hell.

After my xmas drunken good time I decided I'm done. The pill was working just fine and really did what it was suppose to do - help me quit all together. When I drank with the pill it took all the "zing, fun whatever us drunks love booze for" away so it got me to the point of there is no point to this anymore.

I did not quit for her, I did not start taking naltrexone for her ( at the time she was gone gone gone). I sought help for myself because I simply could not take the mental agaony of living in a bottle any longer. To me it was life or death and I somehow chose life. I even exiled my family and would not speak to them, meaning I quit for one simple reason - I wanted to change.

My girl is estatic to say the least I quit drinking but at the same time she is scared and I can't blame her. Really, who wants to spend their life with a drunk? Another drunk I suppose..lol double standard time..I strongly dislike a drunk for a partner. She asks me will this last forever? I tell her I don't know only God know, BUT it will last for today...lol I don't go to AA but I do like a lot of the saying etc...I take what I like leave the rest. That scares her, But I am being totally honest. I don't know if a year from now a day from now whenever, I will be a drunken sucidal monster..no clue. I know 2 things - I have the abilty to do that and a very strong desire at this point NEVER to back there again so who knows.

As far your guy quitting...you don't know. No one here could answer that. Only he could. Could he have quit because he loved you so much he didn't want to lose you ABSOLUTELY...that could have been his wake up call or bottom. Bottoms wake up calls come to jesus whatever you want to call it is different for everyone.

I hope you guys figure it out with a good outcome for the both of you.