Concerned binge drinker seeks answers?
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Concerned binge drinker seeks answers?
Hello all....I'm new to this part of the forums, my BF is cross addicted to alcohol and cocaine so I've been hanging out in Al-anon/Nar-anon but I am slowly realizing that I need to look at my own behavior too. The more I learn about addiction, especially about the allergy/obsession theories you guys were talking about in Sadie's thread, the more I become concerned about my own drinking.
I've been lurking here reading mostly and seeing myself in a lot of the posts, yet seeing people very different from me in others. I don't drink daily, I never lost a job for being drunk (although I have called out sick, like I did this morning, from being too hung over to go to work on occasion), but when I do drink, it is off to the races. It's almost always a form of self-medication, like last night, because I just didn't want to deal with the pain I was in this weekend. But, even at a social event, I just can't seem to stop once I get going and start getting that lightheaded, buzzy feeling. Woo hoo, I say....another round of shots please, and need I say I'm one of those everyone's best friend types when I've had a few too many. Got a lap? I'll probably end up sitting in it at some point during the night.
The last time I drank before last night was exactly 60 days ago at my confirmation party. And yes, I got blasted. My friends were all there, so why not, right? Yee hah and all that.....Felt like poo the next day and vowed to stop. Didn't touch a drop til last night when the bottom fell out of my weekend and all I could think of was, "MUST-NOT-FEEL-PAIN" I even called my mother in law crying because I was so loaded and felt so stupid for getting that drunk but kept going because I wasn't numb enough. The trauma has been resolved today but that "damn am I an idiot" feeling is still there again, along with the normal hangover symptoms.
I ask you humbly, do I need to be here? I'm really confused because in one sense, I always felt I could "control" my drinking because I don't drink a 5th every day or whatever like some of your stories I've read, but on the other hand, when I do drink it's with a mission and the end result is always the same: either sloppy crying, angry raging or getting way too friendly with someone I shouldn't. When I was in my 20's I drank all the time but I did stop on my own.....or so I thought. Put it this way, I stopped the daily drinking but never stopped the "ism behavior" as someone put it in another thread. The drinking may have lessened in frequency but the mission is always there.
Thanks for letting me share.
I've been lurking here reading mostly and seeing myself in a lot of the posts, yet seeing people very different from me in others. I don't drink daily, I never lost a job for being drunk (although I have called out sick, like I did this morning, from being too hung over to go to work on occasion), but when I do drink, it is off to the races. It's almost always a form of self-medication, like last night, because I just didn't want to deal with the pain I was in this weekend. But, even at a social event, I just can't seem to stop once I get going and start getting that lightheaded, buzzy feeling. Woo hoo, I say....another round of shots please, and need I say I'm one of those everyone's best friend types when I've had a few too many. Got a lap? I'll probably end up sitting in it at some point during the night.
The last time I drank before last night was exactly 60 days ago at my confirmation party. And yes, I got blasted. My friends were all there, so why not, right? Yee hah and all that.....Felt like poo the next day and vowed to stop. Didn't touch a drop til last night when the bottom fell out of my weekend and all I could think of was, "MUST-NOT-FEEL-PAIN" I even called my mother in law crying because I was so loaded and felt so stupid for getting that drunk but kept going because I wasn't numb enough. The trauma has been resolved today but that "damn am I an idiot" feeling is still there again, along with the normal hangover symptoms.
I ask you humbly, do I need to be here? I'm really confused because in one sense, I always felt I could "control" my drinking because I don't drink a 5th every day or whatever like some of your stories I've read, but on the other hand, when I do drink it's with a mission and the end result is always the same: either sloppy crying, angry raging or getting way too friendly with someone I shouldn't. When I was in my 20's I drank all the time but I did stop on my own.....or so I thought. Put it this way, I stopped the daily drinking but never stopped the "ism behavior" as someone put it in another thread. The drinking may have lessened in frequency but the mission is always there.
Thanks for letting me share.
Forward we go...side by side-Rest In Peace
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Serene In Dixie
Posts: 36,740
Hi
AA is for anyine who has a desire to quit drinking. You do not have to drink daily or consume a certain amount or lose your job or ????
My behavior drunk was not a pretty sight!
Keep in touch..
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Thanks Carol.....mine isn't either! 
This has been such a difficult day or two....I really think I've been turning a blind eye to this for years, but I started a new job a few months ago, ironically enough, working in a rehab. I am a therapist who is working on my MS degree in Counseling and I ended up interning at a D&A facility and they offered me a permanent position. As I said to a good friend last night, it's hard to deny who you really are when you're sitting in a room with 10 other people who are saying the same things you say, have some of the same reasons for drinking/getting high that you do, and are expressing a lot of the same emotions you're trying to bury as well. I never thought I would want to work in addictions but perhaps this is a sign of my HP at work......
Shock and awe aren't just for the military anymore.
This has been such a difficult day or two....I really think I've been turning a blind eye to this for years, but I started a new job a few months ago, ironically enough, working in a rehab. I am a therapist who is working on my MS degree in Counseling and I ended up interning at a D&A facility and they offered me a permanent position. As I said to a good friend last night, it's hard to deny who you really are when you're sitting in a room with 10 other people who are saying the same things you say, have some of the same reasons for drinking/getting high that you do, and are expressing a lot of the same emotions you're trying to bury as well. I never thought I would want to work in addictions but perhaps this is a sign of my HP at work......
Shock and awe aren't just for the military anymore.
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: El Paso, Tx
Posts: 5,862
Originally Posted by jpeace
. As I said to a good friend last night, it's hard to deny who you really are when you're sitting in a room with 10 other people who are saying the same things you say, have some of the same reasons for drinking/getting high that you do, and are expressing a lot of the same emotions you're trying to bury as well.
Belated welcome jpeace, we're glad your here, and my sobriety led me to do the exact same thing your doing, funny how that works huh? Keep coming back!
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: The burbs, Maryland
Posts: 130
I'm on day 3. I also started posting at F&F. My on again off again abf is a straight vodka drinker. He has literally lost it all: jobs, homes, in and out of jail. I on the other hand used to do the weekly happy hour thing, but like you once I started couldn't stop ( beer was my poison) so I just said I'll only do weekends - only Fridays. Now it's gotten to all weekend. I intend to just party at the bar, but then it's the party after the bar and then next day ( or sometimes morning) cuz I'm still half buzzed/no sleep. I used to say well I never got fired - but if not for the type of job I have no doubt would have all the times calling in "sick" or coming in "sick" and I compared myself to my xabf - I didn't drink liquor, I didn't lose my home, no extended time in jail etc. Yet is the key word for me, but I did lose myself. I have no hobbies, no non-drinking friends and really don't know what the sober me is like - but I'm going to find out. So I've decided to quit myself and hopefully gain some of the benefits the sober members talk about.
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Thanks Chy....funny indeed. I bought the Big Book at a Naranon meeting last night and was reading it a little at lunch....found a story that was very close to my own. The woman was saying a lot of the same things I've been saying for years: I never lost a job, never went to rehab, (or thankfully jail, despite the amount of times I've driven when I shouldn't have), I pay my bills on time, etc...but what really touched me about her story was the part where she said "when I control my drinking, I don't enjoy it, when I enjoy my drinking, I can't control it."
Ouch. I know someone like that too.
Brdlvr, your piggie is so cute! I hear you on the losing myself thing. It's day 2 for me and the anxiety is growing and so is my desire to drink. I don't understand this, I can go for weeks between binges/crises and not even really care about drinking til something happens I don't want to deal with, but I have this gnawing dread in my stomach today and I almost feel more like drinking than I did on Sunday in mid-crisis. Is this normal?
Ouch. I know someone like that too.
Brdlvr, your piggie is so cute! I hear you on the losing myself thing. It's day 2 for me and the anxiety is growing and so is my desire to drink. I don't understand this, I can go for weeks between binges/crises and not even really care about drinking til something happens I don't want to deal with, but I have this gnawing dread in my stomach today and I almost feel more like drinking than I did on Sunday in mid-crisis. Is this normal?
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: The burbs, Maryland
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I can relate to that story in the BB too. That is so me. I know whenever I've said I quit drinking - then it seems I crave it more and usually not too long after I've decided I need to cut down or whatever. A mind thing I guess. And last night I had an issue and my first thought was to go and have some drinks to calm down. Luckly, I did not do that and am glad I didn't. Situation wouldn't have changed if I drank and I only would have hurt myself. This is tough and confusing for sure.
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Originally Posted by brdlvr2
And last night I had an issue and my first thought was to go and have some drinks to calm down. Luckly, I did not do that and am glad I didn't. Situation wouldn't have changed if I drank and I only would have hurt myself. This is tough and confusing for sure.
It Is What It Is
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Peculiar, MO
Posts: 292
Hey Jpeace... I spent four years, off and on, in Alanon, blaming the SO's in my life for all my problems...of course, for the majority of those four years, I really didn't have a SO I kept around for very long and I drank/used right along with them...and continued to use, even got worse, when I was alone. That story was an eye-opener for me as well, but the thing that really GOT me thinking was this paragraph from the Big Book, More About Alchoholism:
"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop. We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere. But try and get them to see it!"
That, and a very powerful speaker I listened to at the Springtime in the Ozarks AA convention this last April, led me to understand, and ACCEPT, what I knew to be true...my name is Mischele, and I am an alcoholic/addict.
"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop. We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere. But try and get them to see it!"
That, and a very powerful speaker I listened to at the Springtime in the Ozarks AA convention this last April, led me to understand, and ACCEPT, what I knew to be true...my name is Mischele, and I am an alcoholic/addict.
JUST DO IT!!
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Here Or There
Posts: 7,612
Hey my name is Vic and I was always racing one fifth after another especially toward the end, or atleast the end this last time. We also realize that if we don't do certain things that there is another end waiting for us. In the big book Alcoholism it talks about that in the first paragraph of Chapter 4 we agnostics. I know that for me today, if I take just one drink I am *****ed. and I mean I am literally screwed. So just don't take that first one no matter what.
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Wow, Mishelly....that sounds like me too. I was sharing at a Naranon meeting last week and it hit me in mid-share that I have been doing this dance for 21 years....that EVERY relationship I have been in since I was 19 was with an alcoholic or addict (the current one is both but he's "only" drinking right now). Granted, one was 7 years, one was 10 so it isn't like there's been a ton of guys, but even the short termers in between were alkies. Only ONE was in recovery, 20 years this year too. When that hit me I was really freaked out, because like you, I blamed them for a lot of my problems, even tried Al-Anon at age 23 but "couldn't relate." When I examined my two longest relationships, I realized that we met because of the drinking (party buddies) we continued drinking and got along fine, and that it was during those periods where I chose to sober up and try to be responsible that we didn't get along and I was convinced "he" was the problem. In both cases.
Yeesh.
Yeesh.
That's exactly how it was for me as well!
Still struggling with the weight of this all coming to light, but still sober. Today is day four for me.
It Is What It Is
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Peculiar, MO
Posts: 292
Yes, that's the way it is, at least in my experience. Four days is wonderful! Just take baby steps and remember, ONE DAY AT A TIME.
Are you going or have you considered going to AA meetings????
Are you going or have you considered going to AA meetings????
Stronger every day!
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: PA
Posts: 191
Yep, one day at a time. Tough going for a Type A who's always got one eye on the big picture, but I'm working on that. I have thought about going, in fact I showed up here last night thinking to come to the 10PM meeting but apparently didn't read the rest of the post where they don't start for two weeks 
I did get to talk to someone and that was very helpful. I pulled the list of local meetings and am looking for one for tomorrow night. Very scary thought, having to admit this in public, but I know I need to do it.
Sorry about the name switcheroo, I tried to change my email addie from when I first signed up and somehow locked myself out of my profile and had to re-register. I may be sober but I'm still a blonde....
I did get to talk to someone and that was very helpful. I pulled the list of local meetings and am looking for one for tomorrow night. Very scary thought, having to admit this in public, but I know I need to do it. Sorry about the name switcheroo, I tried to change my email addie from when I first signed up and somehow locked myself out of my profile and had to re-register. I may be sober but I'm still a blonde....
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