michaelj

Wordtank,
In reading your posts today and in the past I am struck by your attempts to control your drinking. I tried that for years and always failed, I imagine may of the contributors to this site could tell a similar story. My attemts to control my intake were always doomed by my ability to rationalise my way around another drink, I need another to get to sleep, to enjoy the company, I have a day off tomorrow, football is on the tv. Anything would suffice to allow the addicted me to get what my body desired.
The only cure for this is sobriety, control of consumption for an addict is a bit like a mirage, you can see it on the horizon and it sure looks like the real thing but you can never reach it.
Michael

Dan

That needed to be framed.
I can sure relate to those words, Michael.

wordtank

Do I still enjoy the buzz? Actually, yes. In the past few months I've gone from hangovers almost every day to hangovers about once every 2 weeks. Does it take me more to get to the buzz? No. I certainly CAN drink a lot more without passing out than "years" ago, but that only seems to occur sometimes - usually (not always) on those nights when the next day I have NOTHING planned, so I don't mind the idea of sleeping it off all day.

I've brought my level down - it was way down for a while, then it went back up a bit, but not to where it was a year ago. And I don't see it going up there again. I have more responsibilities now, and I am thinking about my future and trying to build a better life, so that has pushed the level down. Also, reading this board almost every day has helped me stay focused. I'm not sure if this pattern means I'm going to make it or going to fail. But it seems like progress to me. Is it a mirage?

-tank

CarolD

Hi Tank....
I have always resented sleep.
But...
See if this helps you...

http://www.well.com/user/mick/insomnia/

See you....

Peter

There were at least a hundred times over the twenty years of my drinking carreer when I was certain I was making "progress" in the control department.

I was down to drinking once or twice a week. I was drinking only beer. I was having only two or three.

The motivation to get up and leave the bar was fuelled only by raw determination and to a lesser extent by the distraction of my latest hobby waiting for me at home.

Invariably however some disappointment in life would occur and once again I went running back to alcohol to ease my pain.

Control drinking simply could not work for me because just one drink was all it took to trigger my desire for more and more.......

chip

Hey Tank,
I like the word you use, "mirage". As I read your last post, I remembered times in my own "controlled drinking era" when I felt optimistic. One time, right before I went on my last binge, I really felt like I was "focused". Needless to say, I fell.

You may very well be different, but some of the things you've been saying are very familiar to me. In fact, I read your words, and feel like it could have been me who wrote them. I'm an alcoholic. The bottom line for me is that I cannot drink at all. When I read all this stuff about controled drinking, I think "been there, done that, thank God I quit".

I hope if you need to quit, you will quit. Perhaps you want to test yourself?? Try going for 30 days without a drink, then have 1 drink and see how you feel. Do you want another?
chip

AndrewBeen

Here is my honest take, Tank:

The social environment you are in sounds like bad news. Japan seems to have widespread and accepted institutionalized alcohol abuse among salarymen. I know its all part of the post-war economic miracle, but it sounds f'ed up.

Don't get cues from the people around you. It's toxic.