feeling-good

Thanks everyone for sharing these - it helps me stay sober. I'm sorry for all of your losses and pain.

TiredWolf

A good friend and co-worker, Frank. Ran into him at an AA meeting and he helped me get my last job when it was hard for me to find work. Frank was in the same profession as me and was absolutely brilliant...easily the most intelligent and talented person I've known in our line of work.

Shot himself in the head with a handgun after losing three jobs, suffering crushing depression and failing at several attempts to stay sober. Left behind a precious 6yr old daughter and wife.

RIP my friend.

resolute50

Jimmy-(51 yo.)Neighbor, drank so much he died of liver failure. Left behind a wife and two young boys. Used to see the ambulance over there all the time.Never knew why.

Ritchie-(45 yo.) Friend at my local bar
His mother went into a nursing home and he sold the house. Only child and received all the inheritance.
Very dangerous having that much money for Ritchie as he was a alcoholic. He only had one kidney, he had one removed as a child. Literally drank himself to death in less than a year. Massive organ failure from alcohol abuse.

Larry-(55 yo.)Friend at a local bar

Larry was told he had cirrhosis years ago and told to quit. I lost track of him over the years and wondered what had happened to him. Turns out he never stopped drinking. His GF told me he got into an accident and died. But,she said not from drinking that night. He had a massive heart attack from an enlarged heart from alcohol abuse.

Dave-(50 yo.)Old High school friend and bar buddy.
Committed suicide about 5 months ago. He was a regular at the club and always seemed depressed. I'm sure alcohol had something to do with this depression.

There's more,but although I know they drank heavy,not sure if alcohol was a direct cause.

Renarde

My grandmother was a terrible alcoholic and committed suicide when she was drunk.

My friend who got very drunk one night and decided to drive to another town to meet up with someone. The road curved and she didn't realize it and hit a tree and died of internal bleeding. She was 20 years old. I'll never forget my husband's (then boyfriend) gasp when I called him and told him.

My friend who got drunk at a party and passed out. Later he called his dad and his dad offered to pick him up. He said no, and decided to drive home. He hit a tree and it killed him. He was 24.

terall

I thought I would bump this, as in my drinking days, I read a LOT of recovery stories. Although they were good and comforting to read, I also got it into my mind that, because all of the horror they had been through and made it out the other side, that, that would just "happen" to me too. "One day" I would "just" recover and stop drinking.
It was the realisation, that you had to do something, to stop drinking, it wouldn't just happen "one day" and that a lot of people who didn't do something came to a very nasty end, that spurred me into action

Nuke

While I have many of my own horror stories, nothing is quite as sobering as being an EMT on a fire crew...

I struggled for a long time with my sobriety, trying to figure out exactly how to live my life without the crutch that I had used for so long. I finally stumbled upon our local FD and decided to give it a shot.

While I knew that all of the recruiting posters for firefighters were not accurate (a LOT more medical than fire is how it actually is), I was not quite prepared for the scenes that I would arrive on. We have our falls, wrecks, and general sicknesses, but by far the most calls I go on are in some way related to alcohol or drug use/abuse.

While not all of those calls are enough to reinforce my sobriety, well over half of them help remind me why I do not ever want to drink again. From fatality car crashes, to spousal/child abuse, to traumatic injury from stupidity...I have seen some horrible things caused by alcohol and drugs.

Doug39

I didn't read any of these "drinking horror stories". I have plenty of my own and I feel it is better to forget about them.

It's better to move forward and dwell on positive things.

Ionray

After many years of active (and hidden) alcoholism, I had a massive withdrawal seizure at a camping/music festival, right in front of my wife and kids. I don't remember anything about it other than feeling shaky and confused right before; one minute I was going to get some water and the next thing I knew I woke up in the ER. My wife told me later it took six people to hold me down. She thought I was dying. I reflected on the fact that I could have actually died, and pictured my sweet wife and daughters crying over my casket. It was a wake up call, or at least it should have been.

I ignored that call and continued to drink, still thought I could manage it by "cutting back". A couple of months later I had similar feelings of withdrawal on another camping trip and feared another seizure but had my doc call in a script for some meds. That was the last straw for me and I got into recovery the day I got back.

I am very lucky, as we have all seed from this thread, not everyone makes it out.

Ionray

I get where you're coming from but respectfully disagree. While it is indeed good to focus on positive things, I believe there is value in not forgetting our troubles and even sharing them so that others may benefit from our collective experience, strength and hope.

For this alcoholic, compartmentalizing my emotions and trying to forget about and avoid negative feelings was (and is) a big part of my problem.

SoberLifeForMe

Thank you for bumping this thread, terall. I've been struggling with relapse after relapse for almost a year now, since I came clean to my doctor in January.

I really needed to read this today, to reinforce that this will kill me and leave my wife and children without a husband and father. I need to admit that I'm powerless over alcohol and stop trying to moderate. It's just not going to work for me.

Findingtheway

Remember buying a bottle of whiskey and going back to my office after hours to drink. Empty office, no one around, no one would know right?

Remember leaving the office...trying to walk to the subway and BLACKOUT. Next memory is coming to in the hospital with a nurse yelling at me to STAY down. Luckily i wasn't hurt and i didn't hurt anyone but i passed out on a subway platform and 911 was called.

Remember somehow getting a hold of a phone and calling my sister..And incoherently trying to tell her where i was.

I remember crying and telling her how much i loved her and how sorry i was...And she kept saying Ok, OK, i love you too...Where are you right now? (Eventually i told them where i was...Or someone did.)

Remember waking up in my parents bed, thinking it was a nightmare or something...Then saw the hospital band still on my wrist.

Shame, Horror, Guilt. I went back to AA The next day. And stayed sober for 87 days. Until New Years of 2014.

Thought ONE drink might be ok. One turned into 6 straight BLACKOUT drinking days. Called an AA friend, said need help.

Haven't touched a drink since.

Scary. SCARY. Stay safe and sober everyone.

gaffo

I guess it's the AV or maybe all the people at the party but it's easy to forget or ignore how dangerous and unpleasant alcoholism is. It's not a laughing matter!

thomas11

This thread is powerful. Some people have really seen first hand the destruction of alcohol and drugs.

terall

I have some really bad things happen to me drunk, but you know what? Just remembered some of them reading Findingtheway post!

When I used to drink, it was always to the blackout, would drink to the blackout withing maybe 30 minutes of starting at the end! Could drink 10 units of vodka in 30 minutes and straight into blackout!

Once, left my house after taking massive gluggs of vodka, next thing, lying in the woods (how? do no know) with ambulance crew. They put me in ambulance, black again, woke up in hospital room alone with moniter on me, no one around. I got up, got dressed, went home and drank some more.

Once shopping in centre of town, whilst drinking. One minute looking in shop window, next, in hospital bed, must have collapsed in the street.

Once, got the bus a few miles from home to local beauty spot, next thing I remember 10 hours later, police are bringing me back home in police car.

I have come out of blackout 5 times finding myself in hospital and not knowing why or how.
I have come out of blackout 2 times in police cell not knowing why or how.

Lots of other occasions nasty things happened, but these are the blackout in public ones I remember most.
And yet..I never thought about them after they happened, just moved on as if nothing has happened and a part of normal life!
I have not drank for over 5 years now (nearly 6) with AVRT...but it was nothing that especially bad happened that made me stop, I just found the means to.
Everything bad that happened just became "normal" to me, and the things were getting worse and worse so I could well have seen myself drinking into death, and still fooling myself that "I wasn't that bad"

Splash29

My grandfather died in his 50s of alcoholism. Never met him. In fact, no one ever brings him up in our family that I sometimes forget he existed.

PhoenixJ

PhoenixJ- my story, such as it is...Dee put it in the Newcomer's thread fyi.

terall

Thats really sad!

esoxlucius

Similar in my family except it was my Grandmother on my Mother's side - have heard that she was screaming by the end and made everyone's life a misery, especially my Mothers. Took my Mother over 50 years before she told me what her childhood with an alcoholic Mother was like.

Bunny211

Two young women died this past month....both age 35. One from a mix of booze and Xanax on Thanksgiving (her parents found her) and the other of acute alcohol poisoning.

My sponsors friend has been in a nursing home for about 10 years with severe wet brain. She is no longer able to care for herself.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. Alcoholism kills.

BrendaChenowyth

Has anyone else noticed the number of views on this thread? Over 11,000