sammysmith

I'm drinking more than ever. About 4 glasses of wine a night. I can feel my body becoming dependant. What the actual? It has to stop. I'm sick to the back teeth with myself. It'll start causing me problems if I don't with my health, career and family.

I watched a reality TV programme where one poor chap died half way through filming. He was an alcoholic.

I'm not labling myself at this stage. Whether I need to cut back or go teetotal I have no idea.

Should I tell my doctor? I dread having it on my medical records. Help guys!

Gottalife

Perhaps you could just stop drinking for three months and see how you feel.

Dee74

I think if you could cut back you would have already, sammy?

D

sammysmith

I really hate the withdrawals I get and the cravings are awful. Maybe a GP would help. I don't know. I just know all this AA milarkay isn't for me. I'm an atheist. So I was hoping the GP might know of an alternative. But to be honest I'm slightly scared to speak to them :S

sammysmith

Any tips Dee?

Dee74

Only as far as abstinence goes - I never mastered the cut back thing

If AA's not your thing but you feel like you need meeting based support, you could try secular based approaches like SMART or LifeRing - they're not everywhere like AA but they do have online meetings.

Rational Recovery has no meetings at all - just books - but it's also very secular in nature.

I think if you're worried about withdrawal, seeing a Dr is probably a necessity. Not sure where you are but most countries treat medical records as confidential.

as far as making a recovery plan, this is a great link:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ery-plans.html

Feel; free to check out the Class of April support thread too - lots of support there - all you need to do is jump right in and post

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...rt-3-a-10.html

D

Gottalife

Well you wouldn't be the first to feel like that lol. The AA book has quite a few stories by people who felt as you did, and were still able to recover.

It also says to encourage you to follow your conscience and try whatever you think will work. But I'm fairly sure whatever it is will involve stopping drinking which may or may not involve those withdrawals you want to avoid. If your GP is honest, he will tell you there is still no medical cure for alcoholism, but he will be able to prescribe some pills to relieve some of the symptoms, and even a pill that will make you sick if you drink. But isn't that what alcohol does? Relieve symptoms and make you sick?

ScottFromWI

How about talking with a drug/alcohol counselor?

There's also plenty of secular recovery methods, some meeting based an others self paced,

Bottom line though you have to want to quit and accept the problem before any method will work. Are you ready to do that?

fantail

The thing with withdrawal is that once you've reached the point where you get it, the bar keeps raising for how much you need to drink (and how often) to prevent them. At least for me, the progression from where you are right now to full on disaster was much, much quicker than the progression up to that point. I never thought I'd be the girl who had to take a shot of vodka before an important meeting because otherwise my hands would shake, but I became her.

AA's just one way to get sober. You can find a way that works for you. It's so much better to stop before it really goes off the rails. And as they mention above, it doesn't have to be forever. You can try it out first.

sammysmith

Yes I've done that. Hence asking. So now forward

ScottFromWI

Sounds like you are doing a lot of positive things, that's great to hear. Don't forget SR is always here if you need extra support.

MissPerfumado

You're right. It will cause problems with your health, career and family if you don't stop.

It may help to see the GP as someone who is on your side, who will help you face the problem and solve it. My GP treated me with respect and understanding. Like you, I knew I was getting to the point where everything I had lived for and worked for was going to be destroyed. It was just a matter of time.

It was hard - I won't lie - but necessary for me. From then on, I could no longer hide from the extent of my problem. I had shared it out loud in a professional setting and it was real.

I understand you're worried about having it on your medical records but they are confidential. The other thing to consider about the confidentiality aspect is that, if the problem gets worse (as an alcohol problem tends to do), it will be out there eventually. You have the power to do something about it now - there's is a lot more to lose if you don't.