shalpin

Hello everyone, I've posted here a few times in the past and been struggling with alcohol for a while now. My drinking has gotten better but still left me in a pretty broken state currently and I just wanted to share a brief story about my drinking and hopefully it may convince others to stop drinking who think they may be developing a problem.

I am currently 25 and began drinking in highschool on the weekends with a group of friends probably late junior year. every one or two weeks we would just get hammered and wander around the neighborhood .... just having 'fun.'

By freshmen year of college It was up to every Friday and sometimes Saturday nights getting drunk. I wen't through that whole year thinking that was pretty normal.... It's not so if you find yourself doing this, please try to cut back while you still can.

My drinking progressed to a point where I was drinking 2 to 4 maybe even 5 nights a week by my senior year. The whole time I would just keep telling myself, I will just stop drinking when I graduate; or I will stop drinking when I develop some kind of symptom that is a warning to some kind of medical problem... after all it's only a symptom right?

After I graduated It slowly progressed into drinking every night and was that way with a few days off here and there for the better part of a year and a half, all the while those symptoms started appearing. Slowly noticed discolorment and half circles coming in under my eyes... "lets blame it on a lack of sleep..." "they will go away after I quit drinking soon!"...

after that year and a half I managed to quit for 40 days or so and then was right back at it for around 6 months.

Now most recently stopped drinking for 60 days, went back for 30 days, stopped for 55, and went one week of drinking then one week off, for a few months after that. I then had 14 days, drank 1 day, now I have 8 days again.

Let me tell you... I wish I could even go back to the 'when I started noticing half circles' developing under my eyes so I could seriously quit then, yes I wish I could go back and NEVER have touched the stuff but I have recently gone to the dr for back/abdominal pain and had an ultrasound done and I got a glimpse of the pictures. I saw a almost golf ball size black circle on one of my organs (I don't know which one) so I am scared out of my mind currently while I await my follow up this coming week. I am just hoping it's something like a cyst and can be taken care of and I can continue living my life without alcohol and enjoy it as best I can. I notice my knuckles are pale when I make a fist so I don't know if I have mild jaundice or what, or if that is normal (sometimes I think I see yellow in my eyes, but other times I don't).

I am young, and I have told myself... oh don't worry I'm young my body can handle it; reality for people who are in positions where I was in the past is that is not the case. Alcohol will slowly kill you no matter how old you are.

If any part of that history currently sounds like you, PLEASE stop drinking immediately; I remember coming on these forums years ago and reading similar threads to this one I am writing, and just ignoring it... big mistake.

I'm not going to lie though, I have a blast when I drink (I'm not one to get blackout drunk and throwup but I do drink for many hours and when I do drink)... for whatever that's worth. So if my health turns out to be really bad and I end up dyin, atleast i had fun ... I've done this to myself and have accepted it but it SUCKS.

Anyway here's to hoping whatever is wrong with me can be treated

edt: it felt good to get that off my chest.

Dee74

try not to worry about it too much - if it was serious they'd probably have followed up with you and be getting you in there more quickly than next week

D

shalpin

thanks D. Yeah I have been telling myself that exact thing but the Dr I went to was kind of , I don't know, not very friendly and the office was really small. If it turns out to be something serious I will be pretty pissed that they waited a week and a half to tell me.

Sapling

I was thinking the same thing Dee...I think if it was life threatening you wouldn't be sitting at home typing this. It's quite a story..All too familiar. What stands out to me is how many stop-starts you got going on....You have 8 days now....Are you going to do anything different this time? Try and make it stick this time?
And as far as having fun with drinking...I think we all did to begin with....But you get to a point where it isn't fun anymore...Crossed that line....Stops working for you...And you're in some serious trouble. I know I was. Best of luck to you. I hope you get it this time.

betterlate

Good for you for the eight days and for "getting that off your chest". You may find it useful to print your post out and have a look at it when you feel like drinking again. That kind of strategy did well for me at one point. Good luck!

shalpin

So I got some results back and I'm pretty shocked. My liver, pancreas, gall bladder, all looked normal in the ultrasound except for a 'slight obscurity in the pancreas but appears normal' and also one of my kidneys has extra tissue built up in one spot... no ascites etc. Good news yes! I am happy and confused at the same time though I mean when I described my drinking in my post, I don't mean I had a few drinks each time I drank.. it was a minimum of 8 drinks and a max probably of 16 over periods of 3 to 6 hours. I still am going to get some blood tests done so not out of the woods yet.

langkah

'I notice my knuckles are pale when I make a fist so I don't know if I have mild jaundice or what, or if that is normal'

I'd not suspect jaundice. It's more likely caused by a completely different and fairly common condition, and it rarely lasts for too very long.

Well done on your 8 days.