I think this is a good takeaway. Drinking enough, often enough, to experience significant withdrawals (major shakes and sweats, can't sleep, balance is off, feel sick, etc.) indicates a problem, one that you now have an opportunity to do something about before it gets worse and you start racking up significant negative consequences.

Whether or not this means you're an "alcoholic" depends how you define the word, but one way might be, if you now realize you have a problem, and you choose to do nothing about it and rationalize it away as "not a big deal after all", and it continues and gets worse, welcome to our world. ;) So you might make a sticky note to look back at this thread in a few months, and see where you are then compared to now.

Thanks. The withdrawals really scared me though. Didn't think I would make it through to be honest. It's a major deterrent for me because I'm petrified of it happening again and being worse next time. If they wouldn't have happened, I don't think I would have stopped.

Yeah, true. Mine was more like a bottle with dinner too haha. If only I had left it to that much alcohol a day, and not gone so overboard over that bad month, I may not have given myself withdrawals :( a bottle would hardly get me past tipsy really, but enough to feel pretty alright! And true about the drunk thing. I do like the taste of wine and all, but I guess do drink more for the feeling it gives me. I sure will miss it if this is my new life now :(

Appreciate everyone's comments, and it helps me reflect on things a bit more.

Yeah, guess I never saw it as not having control in myself, but just the fact that I enjoyed getting a bit buzzed. But it is easy to lose control once you get to a certain level of drunkness I find, because you want to keep going to black out. That's the issue I had over that bad period I guess. Getting used to taking it to extremes, and wanting to do it more and more often.

after the month of straight drinking, I woke up one morning shaking. Didn't think too much of it, but it got gradually worse and worse until I was going through a pretty severe bout of withdrawals. Shaking, could barely use my hands to grip anything, waking up with saturated sheets, really high blood pressure and pulse, among other things. I thought I was going to die..[/QUOTE]

To go back to my last point. At first, with the shaking, you "didn't think too much of it". That shows a real denial going on that a problem exists. People who wake up shaking generally would be very concerned by such a fact. You weren't. It makes me think your drinking issue is worse that you realize. Denial is a very real thing.

[/QUOTE]just want to go back to being normal before all this started. Is it possible? [/QUOTE]

I don't want to bum you out, but I doubt you've been drinking like a "normal" person for a very long time. Also, think of it this way: "Before all this started" would actually be BEFORE you ever picked up an alcoholic beverage. THAT actually is a "normal" state. I see why you want to "go back to being normal", but maybe try to reframe in your mind what is actually "normal"?

[/QUOTE]Because I would miss having wine with dinner or getting drunk in social situations, since I'm still relatively young, and would prefer to not go through a life of not drinking at all if possible. Thanks for your advice.[/QUOTE]

I 100% understand why you'd miss wine with dinner or in social situations. But, as you explained, you are relatively young. From your description, I just don't think you were born to drink (and, from my research, 1/8 people weren't...so you're not alone). I am 42. I lost a good 20 years of my life to this. I just really don't want the same for you. Rather than thinking of it as being stuck with a lifetime ban on drinking, maybe try to think of it as being gifted with a lifetime of freedom. I assure you, you get to the point where you miss it less and less and less.

I know you won't love my advice. Obviously feel free to ignore it. But since you asked for advice, I wanted to be honest with you about what I see in your words. I hope this helps.[/QUOTE]

Thanks! Appreciate all your advice. You've given me a lot to think about :)

I never thought a bottle of wine with dinner was "getting drunk." At least not at the time.

I could be "just fine" drinking 5 glasses of wine over the course of 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Once it got to 1 1/2...ohh boy.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease. In my 20's I was a binge drinker but it escalated to drinking a magnum of wine per day in my 30's. That's two bottles each day which I believed I had to consume. First time someone said "you don't have to drink today" I was astonished, it never occurred to me. I'm sober 26 years, which to me is a miracle. It's just one day at a time.

I think of it this way. The fact youve posted this question on here clearly demonstrates there is a problem. My "normal drinking" sister would never dream of looking for this type of site never mind posting on it!

Moderation.
As lessgravity said:
Recent conversation with a friend struggling with booze and some posts here on SR had me really thinking about moderation again. Wanted to post these thoughts in a separate thread, that I posted on another thread, to remind myself when my Beast starts trying to convince me again that moderation is a good idea:

1. NORMAL drinkers don't even know what the concept is! Think about it. Only addicts need to "moderate". My wife leaves a half glass of wine on the restaurant table all the time - to her the idea of moderating maybe means not having a few scoops of ice cream here and there. Moderating your alcohol intake? Pure addict thinking.

2. There is No Such Thing as Moderation. It’s as simple as that. It’s our Santa Claus. It’s trying to still wear that vintage t-shirt from high school you looked so good in – it doesn’t fit anymore homie.

It’s perpetual dissatisfaction (as if it works!).

It’s like trying to eat cake through a straw. It’s a lie our beasts insist on perpetuating – the tiniest glimmer of hope that, yes, we can drink again someday! Like the rest of them!

Deeply understanding and accepting that moderation is a fool’s errand, a myth, an addict’s falsest hope – seems to me to be one of the most crucial pieces of this sober puzzle.

Moderation is about as attainable as a pet unicorn.

All the best.

Ive put the piece:c011: about my pet unicorn on another thread.
Seriously Soberista - nice piece of writing.
Dave 🤠

Ahhh Dave the credit must go to lessgravity.

Then youve done that although I cant find gravity's input into this one on my phone - no worries
Dave 🤠

unThis thread reminded me of something I said jokingly for years, looking back its not such a joke anymore..

My catch phrase was always this.. " I don't have a drinking problem, it's more like a stopping problem. "

It really made so sense at all, I have been a daily drinker for almost 22 years. The symptoms described in the original post are something I didn't start to experience until the last 8 months or sother, we'll the shakes anyway. The terrible hangovers and anxiety have been around for some time now.

In short, it was the shakes that forced me to climb up on the wagon, just hope I can hold onto my seat!

Thanks. Guess I just didn't expect to get such bad withdrawals after only a month of extreme drinking. Maybe my body is more sensitive or something. Getting drunk in 20s and 30s over the weekend is pretty normal in the Australian culture so it's a bit hard to distinguish between normal and problem drinking here. But yeah, getting blind drunk every day over a month was admittedly a problem. I did just see it as a phase that would come to an end. But I guess the withdrawals are what stopped me so I may have continued down the slippery slope. I definitely wouldn't have posted here or even considered it to be an issue if the withdrawals wouldn't have happened. If I'm honest, it makes me feel a bit envious of people like my partner though who spent so much of their lives drunk and never suffered withdrawals. Still having a hard time imagining not getting drunk anymore. The shakes aren't still 100% resolved for me either, but still not quite 2 weeks since last drink, so hoping it will clear up completely soon.

I'm an Aussie too.

If you're like me you surrounded yourself, consciously or not, with people who drank like you did.

When I quit I was amazed at the people who nursed one drink all night or don't drink at all.

D

Yeah, maybe! My partner was pretty extreme. Like spent majority of 10 years drunk and high on multiple drugs. Even now, he gets drunk any time there's some kind of issue in his life, so think he drinks to self medicate rather than just socially. Think he's much worse than me to be honest, but he got off with no withdrawals somehow! Haha

17 days sober after drinking 2 bottles of wine every night and more at weekends.
tried to stop 3 times before and lasted a month or 2.
One thing for certain is that the addiction has continued to worsen slowly but surely .
This time I am certain is my last chance before bringing trouble on myself and my family.

Hope you can make it through this time, Matt.

If you think that you are going to be deprived if you never drink you will probably find it difficult to find permanent abstinence. Perhaps read Allen Carr’s book about alcohol and see if it changes your mind about what alcohol really is. I don’t feel deprived at all. I’m thrilled I never have to drink that muck again!

I know that I can't. Many attempts at exactly that, have proven to me that even if I can successfully moderate for a while, the inevitable result is that at some point, I will wind up back in withdrawal hell and with a feeling of pitiful comprehensible demoralization.

Hi NA - welcome to SR and thanks for posting.

I hope that you don't mind me giving you my personal opinion - quite a few of your posts have most definitely rung alarm bells very loudly for me. The good people here have covered 99% of the clanging but the one that really jumped out for me;


I've had a chronic illness last few years which has kinda kept me from drinking at all. And when I think about it, shortly before starting again once I got better, I ended up here rather quickly. Just a taste for getting drunk again I guess made me do it more often

To me, this implies that you hit the drink again heavily as soon as you felt safe to do so. Then hammered it to the point of shaking, sweats and high blood pressure/heart rate. This worries me greatly because that's exactly what I would have done and I am a recovering alcoholic.

You may decide that you wish to take up "normal" drinking again. But before you do I would advise that you have a good long think before you poke that hornets nest as the fact that you approached SR also suggests to me that you already have your answer - you're just not very comfortable with it.

Take care and I wish you health and happiness. Yix