Don't Really Want To Stop
 

I know that post title might sound terrible but it's the awful truth. This is my first every attempt at reaching out to any one, or something about my drinking. I have always liked to drink beer and have enjoyed the taste thoroughly. Well as we all might know beer will make the midsection soggy and so I decided to cut it out.

With all that being said I have recently started drinking liquor with diet soda to help with the carbs/calories. I have dropped 15 pounds and feel a lot better about myself.

This brings me to my point and probably my problem. I have drank liquor to the point where I am drinking 8-12 shots a night. If I try and stop and not do it just one night I FEEL odd. Almost like I am missing something. I know this is not normal. I quit chewing tobbaco years ago and had that same feeling about missing something.

Now, I have a pretty important job and the 12 hours I am at work have ZERO alcohol cravings. As soon as I punch the clock at 6pm I am ready to start hammering. I drink seven days a week and know that if I keep it up it will negatively impact my health, family and general well being.

In closing I CAN NOT imagine my life without alcohol. The way I feel now i'm not sure I can get past that.

If anyone has felt this way please let me know. Maybe I am the weird one.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Alcoholics REALLY like alcohol, I understand what you're saying.

If you don't have a reason to stop, then it'll be difficult to stop for fear of what might happen at some distant future point. The catch is if you do have an alcohol problem eventually you'll have some great reasons to stop, but if you're like most you may then find yourself unable to stay stopped for long.

Funny that when we can stop we don't want to and when we'd give anything to stay stopped it's iffy that we can longterm.

TheNM11: if you are Alcoholic your drinking will get worse and Worse that is a fact. i started out drinking beer and then jumped to the hard stuff because of how fat i had gotten. it was not too long and i was drinking enough hard Liquor to kill a Horse! no joke. acceptance of the fact that i would in fact die if i did not stop was what got me started in sobriety (Again) best of luck to you.. AND Welcome to SR!

Welcome TheNM11

I think most of us have trouble imagining our life without alcohol - I certainly did - I ended up an all day everyday drinker, although I was the no cravings all day then after work drinker too for many of those years.

You better believe drinking was a major part of my life. My drinking defined me for 20 years,

In a couple of months I'll have five years in recovery.

Expect to feel odd for a while - something that was a huge part of my life went missing - but things moved on, and I adapted.

I've never regretted my decision. I got my life back :)

You'll find a lot of support here if you want to quit :)

D

I can absolutely relate to everything you said. I was an everyday liquor drinker too and could not imagine my life without it. I have a very stressful job and I told myself that it was the only way I could turn my brain off at the end of the day. I also was a beer drinker that made the switch to liquor and diet soda for health reasons and I was drinking about a 10-12 shots a day everyday.

When I finally went into treatment, I was drinking about 25-30 shots a day (sometimes more) and was at a point where I could not imagine living with alcohol or without alcohol anymore. It sounds like your in a place where you want to want to stop. I can relate to that too. I spent many years in that place with alcohol right up to the day I went into treatment.

The only thing I regret about going in to treatment was not doing it sooner. It is scary as hell, but it was the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me. You may want to consider going in as well. I promise you by the time you leave you will be thinking so clear and feeling so good you will be mystified that you ever had a problem wanting to quit.

@ Strangedays: Sounds like we had a very similar situation. I can't say its that I don't want to stop, because I know I SHOULD but going home and NOT drinking is unthinkable. I guess my question would be how long did it take you to get over the fact that you COULDN'T do it? I just feel like that would be impossible at this point. And what I am about to say sounds completely awful but I feel like my life would be boring without it. :gaah

Id like to think I can ween myself off of it like a smoker but that is just silly talk in my head right now.

ps: the more I talk the more I sound like I truly have a problem.

HUGE thanks to everyone who has replied so quickly.

Can you share about how alcohol has impacted your life in a negative way & what brought you to this site?

I find being brutally honest about all of the negative consequences that alcohol has caused is very helpful later in your journey when you think you can have a drink (going back & looking at older posts).

All of the best in your recovery.

Sincerely ~ NB

"how long did it take you to get over the fact that you COULDN'T do it?"

The first time? About 4 months in all, but with each passing day it gets easier.

"but I feel like my life would be boring without it. "

That is exactly how I felt when I quit the first time too. That my life would be sooooooo boring without it. Like all the color would be sucked out of life and it first it DOES feel that way. I can absolutely promise you however, that you WILL get on the other side of that feeling and when you do, a whole new world will open up to you and it is ABSOLUTELY worth it.

For me, I just resigned myself to a couple of months of being uncomfortable. That's why treatment is easier because you don't have to deal with your life while you are going through it.

Is there anything else you enjoy doing? Try to give yourself anything and everything, but don't drink. Maybe take some vacation time, or you can try throwing yourself into work. If you don't want to go into treatment, try finding an addiction counselor and start going, and start going to AA meetings (they do help).

In all honesty, I have never missed work because of it, I dont get mean, I just feel like I can't get away from it. I really get tired of waking up foggy headed and hung over some days. I have enough medical knowledge to get me in trouble and I realize that is is affecting my health. I have TERRIBLE indigestion and heartburn and tend to make uniformed decisions when drinking. I think the biggest thing is I watched alcohol ruin my parents life for a very long time. Both my dad and my grandfather had alcohol issues. I would just like to think I can do it on my own but at this point I am not sure.

Yeah TheNM11, having your father & grandfather have alcohol issues is scary. I found that I eventually got sick & tired of being sick & tired... and very happy that I did :c031:

I recently read an article on kindling & the effects that drinking has on your brain, alarming to say the least. Basically, it will only get worse as time progresses. Here is link: http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicatio...22-1/25-34.pdf

All of the best :ring

Alcohol is an addictive substance. Do not underestimate this fact in your reasoning. It is the discomfort of withdrawal, and the biological drives of addiction that increase "the desire" that leads to further use. Over time we need more to get the effect we seek.

The fact that you can work all day and not need a drink in the morning is normal in the early stages of addiction. The development of cravings and the increasing awareness of them I took as being signs that my addiction was progressing. Over time I knew it would continue to progress and I began to join the dots.

It was not until I fried to stop that I realised how deep in I was. It has been about an 8 year journey to work through denial and ambivalence for me to now have 8 months sober. The fear of sobriety, which was at the level of Dread I have now come to see as a part of the addiction. We live our lives today not in the future, and all we ever do is day to day. The "stories" our addiction tells us have a pattern as well (see AVRT).

If you check out SMART recovery and their tools you can find (I think it is called) a Cost Benefit Analysis. In essence it is the pros and cons of drinking as lists. You can also have pros and cons of moderation, and abstinence. In truth I had very little experience with either so those lists were fed by my fear.

The best thing for me about living sober is freedom from the torment and anguish of the struggle. I thought my life was over and I was waiting for a catastrophe that seemed to be circling. Now I am living again and my work performance has increased dramatically.

I felt the exact same way....Now I can't imagine what took me so long and how much living I missed out on...Welcome and find some kind of program to throw yourself into...It's better than doing it alone.

Though my DOC (drug of choice) was crack, I totally understand how you feel. I didn't want to quit, despite having some really serious consequences from my using.

My HP is God, but others have their own. What I had to do, in the beginning was pray (read BEG!) "please help me to be willing to be willing to quit this stuff". Oh, I knew, without one shred of a doubt that had I continued, my consequences were going to get worse, but I still didn't want to quit..at least not for good.

In time (during which I spent a lot of time here), I realized that one of the "willings" had dropped off. I still wasn't ready to give up that last one.

Early recovery was tough, but I just planned on getting through one day (sometimes broken down into minutes) and not pick up.

I honestly don't know when the last "willing" dropped off, but like ((Dee)), I'm coming up on 5 years, and "working my recovery" is so ingrained in the way I live, it's not even a conscious thought. I've been through some pretty rough things the past 5 years, but I've also found myself laughing, smiling, and being grateful for stuff "normal" people would probably think I'm crazy...oooh, flowers!! OMG, look at those adorable baby goats in the field!!!"

The bad stuff? Getting robbed at work twice, guns pointed in my face (or smacked upside my head), facing court to pay for fines I'd gotten back in the day, family deaths, etc.? I came straight to SR, didn't even think about using, but got tons of support.

Just because you haven't gotten so far that you've messed up your job, lost your family, etc. doesn't mean you won't GET there. Whether you're an alcoholic or not is your call. I can just tell you that once you cross that line into alcoholism, you can't get back to the other side.

I truly wish I'd paid attention to the warnings of others, I might have spared the nursing career I lost, the times I spent in jail, and the financial ruin I got myself into. Not to mention what I put my loved ones through.

I clung to the "I'm not THAT bad" for so long, I ended up BEING that bad:(

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

Holy cow can anyone relate? I think you got your answer on that one. I was and am in the same boat, I drank beer every evening was productive at work and just looked at it as a relaxer after work. I didn't get in trouble or miss work I did well in fact, but I always had a beer in the afternoon. rinse wash repeat for five years and I just consider being a drinker a part of who I am it is something i did I am known for I was a good drunk not angry or anything like that. But then I tried to quit just because I knew I should and it was starting to cause problems with a new job holy hell did it go wrong. I am still working on it after more than two months, I am hoping you are not as far along as I am. Trust me it was when I tried to quit that I realized my problem. I even think I wrote a post about how I liked alcohol and didn't really want to give it up. But I need to and you may as well.

INH

You are not alone feeling that way. I felt the same way! Heck I still do and I'm 27 days sober and I drank nightly about 12 shots of rum with diet soda in a 3 to 3 1/2 hour span in the evenings for years. You just gotta stop because it IS going to affect your health. Mine was a lab report from the doctors not good at all, that was in October it still took me til Jan. to want to quit. I miss drinking to be honest... but I don't miss waking up scared and a shame, hung over,swearing I'm gonna quit...etc. Its the way I have lived my life for the last 15(+)years its how I dealt with life.. good or bad. Now I have to learn to live it sober, its not easy my mind is constantly thinking about this or that, figuring out the way I feel. But I want to live a longer healthier/happy life...... So know your not the weird one, alot of us have felt this way. You will feel like your missing something cause, its something you have done 7 days a week for how many years? It's understandable to feel that way....SR board is great, keep coming back for support:)

I feel comfortable in saying that most of us didn't want to stop, that's why it took us so long to finally do it. We just wanted to drink like non-alcoholics, so we tried everything under the sun to prove that we could. It just never seemed to work out that way though. Some of us lost a great deal before we were finally convinced that we just should not drink at all. Even then, some of us kept trying.

When you are finally sick and tired of the whole shebang, you'll be ready to put it down for good. It won't be easy, but it can be done. There are a lot of us here who have managed to do it and you can, too.

Good! I felt that way too but on the flip side, I couldn't imagine taking one more drink. I was screwed either way....with or without. When you reach that point, you'll have to decide. I just hope you haven't lost everything by then.

NM11 - I was the same way..... didn't want to quit.

About the best I could muster was I wanted to want to quit.

Luckily (divine intervention perhaps) I found myself in 12-Step recovery. In that world, you don't have to necessarily WANT it to work for it to work - but you do have to take the medicine (ie work the steps). Before long, my thinking changed completely.

Now, I have a pretty important job and the 12 hours I am at work have ZERO alcohol cravings. As soon as I punch the clock at 6pm I am ready to start hammering. I drink seven days a week and know that if I keep it up it will negatively impact my health, family and general well being.

I can relate. Alcohol became my reinforcement and stress reduction tool after working really hard all day. The problem is, is that alcoholism is progressive and your body is eventually going to break down doing 8 - 12 shots a day.

I didn't drink anywhere near that much, but I pretty much drank every day. I was very successful at work and some booze at night to wind down became a nasty habit. Eventually I reached a point where I started to need a pick me up drink in the morning to help with the hangover from the night before. Since I was successful at work no one (including me, I had major denial) realized that I had a drinking problem. Eventually I crashed and burned, fortunately I was on vacation at the time so work never knew.

My point is, there was no way I could keep up the balancing act forever, it was getting harder and harder. I suspect you might run into the same problem.

I am amazed at the support coming from people I have never even met. I would like to say a huge thanks. I will definitely hang around as I battle the one true addiction I have ever faced.

Last night was tough. I came home with the will NOT to drink and what happens? I am an irritable jerk with a little something missing. So I run slam 6-8 shots within an hour and I'm like a completely different person that scared me. Anyone ever had that?