lfh

....it might help me, it might not. It might help others to recognise symptoms that they cannot understand.....but anyway....

I have a drink problem. I know that. I drink too much.

I've been drinking since the age of 17. It was the done thing in my home town, a place of hard work and hard play (a traditional mining community).

It used to be to me a manly thing, to be able to consume a lot of alcohol and remain in control. I was a gold medallist. Big sportsman (no really, playing rugby and stuff). And I could sup and stay in control.

However, I went on to have a great working career, getting an apprenticeship and going on into senior management...travelled the world, got paid lots....amongst company who also liked a drink....it was the culture then.

And here I am now. 4 kids, a wife who has suffered me for far too long, a drink problem that is getting worse now I have taken redundancy brought through depression (alcohol/depression - Chicken/egg), and some regret. And although I have been through counselling, help groups and all I still can't control it. Oh, I can do a week or three dry, but the comfortable feeling of having a drink inside me inevitably beckons, and I submit.

So as I type this (with some beer inside me - don't do spirits) I am aware that I am on my final warning, my missus has rightly warned me that it's sobriety or the door......I cannot but help but feel a sense of self pity, shame, frustration and hopelessness......but also hope from reading the posts on here.

I feel as I sit here that I will never beat the problem, I have tried unsuccessfully to manage it......so I have a new future to look forward to......one where I do not live with my kids, but maybe for the better, because I do not want them to have my behaviour burned into their memories as 'normal grown up behaviour'.

So, I end this tale, not as a bitter moan about my own failings, but to hopefully lend my experience to those not so far down the slope as me - and maybe help them to kick themselves up the ass and get straight.

JK130

You are NOT "too far down the slope"! It sounds like your have education, experience and skills. You also have a wife who has stuck by you and four young children who love you and look up to you! You have much to look forward to indeed, as you decide to give up alcohol! Is it hard? Yes...BUT. You can do it! Welcome to SR!

D122y

I am not yet in your boat sir. I'm hurting though.

If you really want to quit, be ready for some pain.

If you can't quit, I am sorry for you.

If it is any help, I am 50 and drank like a fish off and on since 6 years old. So, I probably am hurting worse than you will be if you quit.

My recovery, thus far has been tough. Basically, I wheened of, then quit. This site explained all my feelings to me. I thought I was dying. Nope, stil here.

97 days. Stronger than before.

Dee74

Alcoholism is really insidious - it'll make you feel like the ones who love you the most will be better off without you.

It's nonsense lfh. Complete crap.

The best thing for your kids, your wife and for you is to be there, with them, sober.

Stopping drinking is not impossible - not for anyone.

Like the 'my kids will be better off' BS, 'I can't stop' is a lie our addictive self tells us, in order to keep us drinking.

Quitting needs dedication and effort - and a little support, but it's far from impossible

What have you tried in the past to help you quit lfh?

D

chicory

People do recover. People who thought there wasn't a chance of staying sober are doing better and are happier than they ever thought possible.

so can you.

lfh

Well, I am currently undergoing counselling and group therapy for alcohol abuse......have been for a couple of months after asking my doctor for help....so I know all the facts, the logic, the solutions etc....more so than the others in the group I feel.... the rest of the group seem to be in a worse boat than me regards levels of consumption too - they are waiting for detox in hospital, whereas I have no physical effects if I leave off it for a couple of days/weeks.....nevertheless we are all battling the same problem.


It's just my willpower and force of habit that I need to manage.

Dee74

I dunno about you, but my willpower wasn't much good because a part of my will really wanted to find a way to drink without consequences.

what worked better for me was the acceptance that there was no way for me to drink and not have those bad consequences occurring...

I could drink, or be the person I wanted to be - but not both,
I had to choose.

D

Mountainmanbob

Your story reminds me of me.
I was put on notice regarding my drinking.
I didn't stop and she left.
Long gone.
Oh, then I cried in my beer.
Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.
Drunks make terrible decisions.
Please seek help.
Before your family is gone.

Note
Many of us in recovery were very successful.
Believe me in the end it will not mean much.
If we don't finish sober.

Mountainman

Hawkeye13

What Dee said--you can't moderate but you can find both relief and peace in quitting.

I never thought I'd be able to enjoy life without alcohol, so spent many fruitless years trying to "moderate" as well.

Finally quitting for good has been so much more fulfilling in terms of relationships and quality of life.

I quit for a year to "see" because I didn't think I had a bad enough problem / wasn't ready to give up booze totally,
but now I have nearly four years of sober time (with a couple of relapses when I foolishly thought I was ready to moderate)
and at this point you couldn't pay me to drink.

You can do it, and it sounds like you have many good reasons to do so.

FeelingGreat

Willpower a.k.a. white-knuckling only goes so far. You might be able to resist for a while, but eventually the dam bursts and the problem becomes worse.
The answer for me was convincing myself that I really needed to quit drinking for good. That's hard to get your head around if you're an alcoholic so I understand if you're resisting it in your mind.
I had to work at motivation. I did research and read up on the stages of alcoholism, and end-stage alcoholism. The increased incidence of cancer of the mouth and digestive tract, as well as other cancers. The effects on intelligence, memory and mental health. The extra weight and changes to your looks. Throwing away family and career.
All this work on motivating myself convinced me that I didn't want my life to go that way and I made my choice. It was my choice, not someone forcing me to stop drinking. That made a big difference.
If you feel motivated enough to get serious about sobriety, check out all the tips and tricks to get you through the early stages when cravings are strong.

Mags1

Hi ifh, this demon drink, my mum called it. You can see why, really, can't you?

Can you imagine life without your wife and children? If not, have a go.

You can drink your self silly to comatose do with no disapproving looks! Wake up in the morning, goodness willing, and start again, it's a cycle difficult to get off.

But as Dee says, acceptance.

If you drink you want another and another etc. my dad was a miner, worked hard drank hard. It was hard for us, his family. Yes,me wanted to leave him tons of times, but when sober he was the best.

Don't push your fabulous family away, you're pushing in the wrong direction. Push the booze away, control it. Not easy, we're addicts but it can be done. Myself and many others here are a testament of that.

mpr

I agree with dee,. Throwing in the towel, accepting and continuing to be a user by saying your kids are better off is nonsense. Your kids would not be better off and to be frank you yourself would not be better off accepting such a fare.

You have control here. You and your family can be better off together, without drunk drink. Forget drinking, moderating, any in-between type scenario. Try for abstinence and keep trying if you fail. Better to try and fail than to give up and submit.

Keep trying, keep fighting...

MIRecovery

There are a lot of people who were in much worse shape than you and today have years of abstinence and a wonderful sober life.

Your fatalistic attitude is inspired by your addiction that will do everything in it's power to keep you drunk.

It is never too late to quit drinking today

PasserbyDave

lfh - Yeah, I understand exactly where you are. Again and again, I swore to myself I was quitting for good. I could go for a few days, or a few weeks or months; one even for just over a year, but I always started drinking again. My wife told me I had to decide - drinking or her, and I would stop because I saw that my drinking was destroying her. And then I turned around and picked up another drink. Part of me desperately wanted to stop drinking, but there was another part of me that definitely did not. Different things work for different people, but it was the realization that there was a SEPARATE PART of me that WANTED to keep drinking that began to pave the way for change. After more than three decades of hard, hard drinking that had become a deeply ingrained part of me, I have now been sober for 2 1/2 years. I did it - so far. So can you.

endlesspatience

Well, I am currently undergoing counselling and group therapy for alcohol abuse......have been for a couple of months after asking my doctor for help....so I know all the facts, the logic, the solutions etc....more so than the others in the group I feel.... the rest of the group seem to be in a worse boat than me regards levels of consumption too - they are waiting for detox in hospital, whereas I have no physical effects if I leave off it for a couple of days/weeks.....nevertheless we are all battling the same problem.

Good for you asking for help from your doctor and arranging some counselling. Basically, this community will be a way of complementing the help you receive there. At the moment, you don't think you are as bad as the other people in your group. But the consequences of drinking for you have been that you are depressed, you have been dismissed from your job under the cover of redundancy and now you face divorce and separation from your children. In AA circles, this kind of scenario is common and we are encouraged to see in it a pattern of powerlessness when it comes to alcohol.

Is there a system you can put in place to make sure you get to those individual and group counselling sessions regularly? Can you find a recovery partner to hold you accountable to getting there? When you worked in management, what did you do when you needed to ensure that you were supported through a challenging project? You can employ the same technique here.

Also, what about the little practical steps that help us out of the alcoholic trap? Eating three proper meals a day, doing physical exercise every day, going to be bed at a sensible time and waking up early? And also finding time to socialise without alcohol with your kids and friends.

There's a lot you can do to change things. We know because we are doing this too.

Mountainmanbob

Even thought running with the liquid devil cost me and the ones around me much over the many years of drinking, I also thought that I would never in my life wish to stop drinking.

Thank God, that sad thought carried for so long turned out to not be true.

MM

fini

lfh,
trying to "beat it", manage it, control it or myself with it....i believed all those things should be possible for me and valiantly kept pursuing that for decades.

i couldn't do it.

and so, every time, i decided i just didn't try hard enough. didn't try smart enough. didn't try strong enough. that i was weak. weak-willed.

turned out to be all bs which kept me in the cycle .

accepting that i couldn't control, manage or win was what got me to freedom.

self pity, shame and hopelessness just feed on each other into paralysis and giving up.

this is doable, and doable by you.

look around, see what people are doing/have done who are comfortably sober, and start there. coming here is a great first step.

Soberwolf

Hi lfh i remember you from a while back here youl find so much support start logging in daily take alcohol off the menu no matter what dont drink it solves nothing

Think about mtns think about writing up a plan tonight for you

really good to have you back lfh

lfh

Thank you all for your constructive and positive comments, it does mean a lot and does help.

The bit I am battling internally at the moment is that I understand everything that you have all said. I get the logic. I understand what happens when you quit, how your thinking changes over time, how habits dissolve eventually. What I'm struggling with is why - if I know all this - can I not kick myself up my own ass and get on with it?

(When I commented earlier about others in my group who are worse off than me, I wasn't trying to convince myself that I have less of a problem - it's mainly that the sessions help me to understand where I could end up. The bulk of people in my group look really ill, they stutter and stammer, turn up drunk, and I wouldn't dare criticise them for it - I feel for them but that's their problem in their own world. I had a comment 'you don't seem like an alcoholic to us' in the group once, which made me understand that it's the level of consumption against your personal lifestyle that makes it a problem or not.....I drink a lot less than these other guys, however the effect on my personal life is bigger compared to theirs?)

PS - it's good to be back Thank you all.

LexieCat

If "self knowledge" were the key, quitting would be easy. It isn't.

In my experience (seven years sober and being around AA since first husband got sober 35 years ago), real recovery--in the sense of not needing/wanting to drink--requires a whole change in one's outlook and way of life. It's a massive undertaking, but it doesn't take that long to make progress and start feeling better.

Have you been to AA? I think it's terrific you're working with professionals on this, but sometimes just working with someone who has done exactly what you are trying to do makes all the difference.