carly0009

I'm trying to conceive again after a miscarriage. I never got drunk but I had one drink several times a week and now I'm blaming myself and just angry with myself that I can't abstain.

History - I was a binge drinker growing up, if I started I didn't stop until I was asleep. I stopped that in my 30's only to start casually having wine which has now become almost a daily experiece. Had a lot of childhood trauma wa-wa-wa and find myself wanting to take myself down with the alcohol. Been in therapy for too long, been suggested I have disassociative disorder because of the trauma I still don't quite remember. Drinking gets us all to party together I guess because somehow it makes me feel more grounded if I'm alone.

I read a post on another site about what we're drinking for ie. if it's to relax then maybe we could have a hot bath instead. Clearly a woman who's never felt the need to drink so here I am trying to find someone that didn't get her information out of a book she's read. Still, the stupid lady made me think about why I drink. To relax - yes and no. It's not to be somebody else because I'm ashamed of myself if I've drank too much around other people. I drink to bury myself so I'm no longer awake. I guess it's the cowards way of killing themselves, slowly but with recognition. My suicide note is every bottle I drink. My suicide note is in the recycle bin everytime my husband takes it to the curb.

He's not so great himself, actually worse before I met him. Now I've made his drinking seem minute. He's commented, picked days of the week we have none because while he drinks regularily, he can moderate himself most of the time. I'm still the binge drinker I always was. I just went from only weekends to whenever now.

I've been drinking tonight as ovulation is approaching and I don't know what to do to replace this form of therapy for myself. I am unable to feel things properly without the alcohol. It frees me in a way I don't know how to find otherwise.

My abuse came under the disguise of religion and group things and I simply can not be involved in any therapy that feels like that no matter what you say. I'm OK a lot of days and carrying the child made me even better and I have a lot to be thankful for in my life now. I feel guilty that I self-indulge in my pain and drinking. I'm getting better with the therapy but I've never talked to anyone going through this. If I get pregnant again soon, I don't want to be feeling like I'm missing something if I don't have a drink.

I'm not entirely sure whether it's the drinking or inability to face my past that is the real problem. Anyone awake still? This is big for me to be reaching out and for the first time I'm thinking about some conforting words to put me to sleep instead of the end of that bottle of wine.

angie9

Hi carly firstly welcome here and Im a newie as well. Since Im new to the sober thing Ill leave the advice for the wiser ones here as there are some real helpful lovely people here. Some of the things you have said sound just like me. I am a binge drinker too ( would love to say was but it is still early for me) and I would drink till I either felt sick or fell asleep. I could and did put away two bottles of wine every second night and I dunno I spose the main reason was it took reality away for me, things that where stressing me out didnt seem so bad when I was pi**ed!! Just remember the old advice take one small step at a time dont give yourself unrealistic goals find you trigger points my ones are around 12pm to 5pm so I either lurk here or try and keep busy. I wish you all the best ( i was sober last year only coz Ive just had a baby (well shes 12 months now) but I know I can stop. All the best for trying for a bub.
Ang

mtnmagic

Hi carly009. I really hope that you come back here. Your post struck a cord with me. Would really like to be able to share it with you sometime.

carly0009

So I am still here.....

Because of the miscarriage I found myself joining a forum to be around other people going through the pain of that. I've know people before who've MC and felt bad for them but never really realized what it actually did to you. I know you can try again, but it's a sadness I didn't expect. I'm doing good with it though. Then it hit me, why haven't I ever tried to find help for myself with my self-destructive behaviour onine?

I wasn't drunk last night. I did have 3 glasses of wine all evening but previously I would have drunken myself to sleep. Because I may just be ovulating soon, I thought I'd enjoy some wine while I can. I give myself credit for really cutting back outside of getting into it New Year's weekend but still trying to make sure I didn't hit that point where the night becomes fuzzy. (I'm laughing rereading this because it sounds like denial)

I don't know what normal drinking is because it was socially acceptable where I came from to party in your youth. And I love wine now, like it was a good dessert and can't imagine abstaining as a part of treatment for me. One of my favourite things in the world is to have a nice dinner and glass of wine with my husband. It makes me feel like I'm spoiling myself.

What I need to do is find the trigger that goes when I decided I don't care and drink myself to sleep. I think it comes from the pain of always feeling like you're living with these dirty secrets. It's like when you're around other people, you're just this shadow of yourself, unable to really be you because you can't tell anyone the pain you are in. It makes me so angry because I really do have a nice life now, loving husband and all the opportunity in front of me and I hate feeling sorry for myself when there are so many people that have so much less than I do.

And then the drinking becomes another dirty little secret that just adds to the shame and I think to myself, why I am like this? I'm smart, I've got things going on and if I had to chose between alcohol and having everything else I wanted in life, I'd still find it hard to chose because, it sounds weird to say, but I don't trust myself without the alcohol to calm me. I have no idea how else to get that feeling, even the hangover gives me a calm I don't normally have because it's the only time I feel connected with myself and not in some form of denial about what actually happened to me. Sober, I don't feel sorry for myself, but I push away what I remember and live in the isolated state of anxiety. That's why it feels sooooooooo good being anomous here and just saying what's really on my mind.

I don't know anything about AA really but what is normal drinking and if I resolve my issues, can I still drink wine? Is is OK to drink a bottle on those nights you're having fun with friends. If I become pregnant again, I don't want to always be thinking about how I can't have a drink. I don't want to have a glass of wine always feeling like I want another one. I just want to be a normal person that can enjoy the experience without sometimes feeling like I need to drown myself in it.

carly0009

Mtnmagic - I would love to share.

carly0009

Angie9 - Thanks for you reply. What causes that need to drink till you drop? I don't understand why when there are so many people that can have a drink and control themselves. Congratulations on your baby!!! If you can stop then, you can stop now. The hangover alone while having to run after a little one is unimaginable to me.

Anna

Carly, for me what caused the need to drink till I dropped was the enormous dislike I had for myself. There was nothing about me that I liked or believed was good enough. And, yes, I had to go back over past issues to begin to realize that I was human, just like everyone else, imperfect, but nevertheless a good person. I had to start from scratch finding things about myself that I could like and finding things that gave me some sense of fulfillment. It's been a very long journey and it's not always easy, but it's the best. You can do this and you will be able to find a way in life without alcohol.

subliminalurge

Carly, I'm so glad you're here.

That need to keep drinking once you've started has an actual physical cause. It's not lack of willpower, it's not depression or sadness, it's not weakness.

When an alcoholic puts alcohol into their body, it gets processed very differently than when a non-alcoholic drinks. Without going into all the boring details, the alcohol gets broken down into other substances, and an alcoholic lacks sufficient quantities of the enzyme that's necessary to break down one of these other substances. The result is that this chemical, which is broken down very quickly in a normal drinker, builds up to high levels in the body of an alcoholic. One of the things that this chemical produces is an intense physical craving for more of the same. It's a craving that is every bit as powerful as our need to eat, or to breath. It's an actual physical sensation, like hunger.

There is no known cure for this enzyme defficiency. The only way to avoid this chain of events is total abstinence from alcohol. (Which is where the second part of alcoholism, the mental obsession, becomes a problem.)

carly0009

That's what I'm so afraid of is the mental obsession. I feel I'm better to always tell myself I can have a drink if I want but keep it under control because, even with food or dieting, if I tell myself I can't have something, then that's when I'm binging. I don't know how I'd ever abstain completely. I don't feel like I want to because I enjoy a good glass of wine and it's my lifestyle with all my family and friends.

I am so rebelious with myself and I recognized quite awhile ago that there would be no healing for me until I can admit my pain. I have gotten so much better since meeting a man, while he drinks for casually but daily, that my previous lifestyle of parties and binging was making myself less of who I am. In early dating he actually confronted me saying no one drank like I did if they weren't running from something. One of the many reasons I fell in love with him. I didn't know there was more to life until my previous relationship ended and I met him. I thought everyone got drunk and partied and I couldn't stand to be around anyone in my life then without being drunk myself. In fact, my previous boyfriend left me for another alcoholic when I finally pulled my life together, got a great career and wasn't his drinking buddy at the bars every night. I met my current husband at my new job and it was a breathe of fresh air to spend time with someone that didn't need all the guys around deciding where they were getting drunk today.

I drank so much in that previous relationship because I thought I was the cool party girl with all the energy and it made them tolerable. But since the resurfacing of some pretty awful memories, I started using alcohol differently. I guess I'm just really hoping that if I face my issues properly that alcohol will become the things that I can enjoy again with getting out of control. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone who enjoys some wine a few days a week. I just realized that I was going beyond that.

carly0009

That's what I'm so afraid of is the mental obsession. I feel I'm better to always tell myself I can have a drink if I want but keep it under control because, even with food or dieting, if I tell myself I can't have something, then that's when I'm binging. I don't know how I'd ever abstain completely. I don't feel like I want to because I enjoy a good glass of wine and it's my lifestyle with all my family and friends.

I am so rebelious with myself and I recognized quite awhile ago that there would be no healing for me until I can admit my pain. I have gotten so much better since meeting a man, while he drinks casually but daily and sometimes too much, that my previous lifestyle of parties and binging was making myself less of who I am. In early dating he actually confronted me saying no one drank like I did if they weren't running from something. One of the many reasons I fell in love with him. I didn't know there was more to life until my previous relationship ended and I met him. I thought everyone got drunk and partied and I couldn't stand to be around anyone in my life then without being drunk myself. In fact, my previous boyfriend left me for another alcoholic when I finally pulled my life together, got a great career and wasn't his drinking buddy at the bars every night. I met my current husband at my new job and it was a breath of fresh air to spend time with someone that didn't need all the guys around deciding where they were getting drunk today.

I drank so much in that previous relationship because I thought I was the cool party girl with all the energy and it made them tolerable. But since the resurfacing of some pretty awful memories, I started using alcohol differently. I guess I'm just really hoping that if I face my issues properly that alcohol will become the thing that I can enjoy again with getting out of control. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone who enjoys some wine a few days a week. I just realized that I was going beyond that.

What do you call the person that doesn't feel the urge to drink all the time, but casually drinks almost daily as some kind of treat but only occasionally gets drunk? Is that an alcoholic too? I don't know how you draw the lines on this.

carly0009

Sorry it asked me to log in again and I thought it didn't post the first time.

BrandiK

I would say an alcoholic is someone who can not control their drinking...who doesn't live to live, but lives to drink. Be it moderate, severe...whatever.

Some drink all day every day, some have a more controlled drinking, some binge, some sip all day....some are functionable, some are not. When you start basing your life around the alcohol though, that's a problem.

You sound just like me on so many levels. My husband drank, but I was the binge drinker most time. I drank for my own reasons as well, that deep pain. Probably other reasons too, but I have yet to scratch the surface. Go to bed with out my wine with dinner? Not! Eventually though, that wine wasn't enough and I only drank it at social gatherings or to feel special at dinner. Nope, needed something strong, because wine wasnt enough to fill that void inside me after a while. After a while, those things came up anyway...and I'd need more to keep them down and keep me numb. But it started with wine at dinner, stayed that way for a long time.

Those issues I drank to cover up, I see now they never really were covered up. They burbled out of me emotionally even when I was drinking. In the end, I was mean. I fought with my husband, I said mean things, acted mean, am sure I did not do the best job as a momm, I raged and sobbed and blamed...those nasty secrets continued to eat through me, destroy me. I still have to face them all the same, but facing them sober is much less daunting them letting them wreck me while drunk.

I am not going to offer any advise, as I am having a hard time just being as I am. I do say, though, that perhaps it is something that so many people see themselves in your own story.

I am sorry for what you have been through, and what you are going through. But I am proud of you for taking that first step into recovery (be it from drinking or emotional, or both). Stick around.

Oh, and if you concieve and make it through sober...that's great. But don't think it means you've won. I've had 2 children in my recent drinking career. Didn't drink while I was carring them. Was pretty darned good while nursing too...but as soon as I could drink...I did. And I never won.

BigSis

Hi Carly,

Alcohol was not the problem for me... it was the SOLUTION! Yee Haw and Howdy Doody... the first summer I drank, I found myself suddenly "part of" the crowd. One of an "in-group" and it felt good. Alcohol gave me that.

But I kept drinking, even after the negative consequences, because I am an alcoholic and I can talk it up every way and sideways and it doesn't change the fact that I drank because I am an alcoholic. Nothing else matters.

Other folks have problems like mine. Other folks come from abusive homes. Other folks have major problems. And other folks don't drink ... at least, not all of them. I drank because I have no "off" button when it comes to alcohol. I am one of those who tried for ten years to be a "social drinker". I cannot be one because I am an alcoholic.

I quit drinking when I got married only (I believe) because it was early enough in the progression of my drinking and because our agreement took us entirely AWAY from every place and person involved with alcohol.

Today, I attend 12-step meetings because I found myself obsessing about my own kids' addictions... but I know, in my heart, that I got out of active drinking by the skin of my teeth.

Have you considered AA meetings or SMART as a way to stop drinking? If nothing else works, that is... just another option to consider.

carly0009

That's why I'm here Brandi, trying to catch myself before I really fall and trying to figure out far I am up the cliff. Right or wrong, and what you likely call the denial phase, I am trying to understand drinking from the standpoint of where I have to draw the line. Nothing in me feels like a drink today because I've been emotionally connected by having great people like you to actually admit my problem to. I actually laughed when I read the quote above because I like your style..... say it without saying it. I'm just in that part of denial that hopes if you can control what triggers those episodes, then I could have a glass of wine when I'm not trying to medicate myself.

My heart sank when you mentioned going right back to drinking after a sober pregnancy. That's hard. That's the biggest reason I'm here. How frightening it would be when you want to change something you can't get yourself to do. Was it possible the nine months because you knew you could have a drink after you made it through? Was it the motivation of having to put the baby first for fear of physically hurting or losing the baby? How does that differ now that you've had children? If I really get into it, I can blackout or be unwakable at night and that scares me to think of if I have a little one to take care of. Your battle may not be over but you won twice while carrying your children. That's something to be proud of.

subliminalurge

Denial == Lying to yourself, and believing it.

Anna

Carly, for me, the controlled drinking became a mental obsession. All I could think about was when I would next drink and how much. I tried SO hard to control my drinking. When I actually stopped, the obsession stopped and my mind became free to 'live' again. It was great.

BrandiK

"My heart sank when you mentioned going right back to drinking after a sober pregnancy. That's hard. That's the biggest reason I'm here. How frightening it would be when you want to change something you can't get yourself to do. Was it possible the nine months because you knew you could have a drink after you made it through? Was it the motivation of having to put the baby first for fear of physically hurting or losing the baby? How does that differ now that you've had children? If I really get into it, I can blackout or be unwakable at night and that scares me to think of if I have a little one to take care of. Your battle may not be over but you won twice while carrying your children. That's something to be proud of."

"Was it possible the nine months because you knew you could have a drink after you made it through? Was it the motivation of having to put the baby first for fear of physically hurting or losing the baby?"

I dont consider it a battle won. It was a gift from my God that may have saved my children, though I surely suffered. I have a thing called hyperemesis when I am pregnant. Means I am very, very, very sick, vomit uncomtrolably, and basiclly get nutrents through an IV. I lost 30 pounds in the first tri. of my last pg. Want to know the baffling power of this disease? I went through that pregnancy, sicker then I had ever been in my life (been through 3 of those pregnancies...this one was the worst) I was sick every day, right up through delivery. Had my baby, and relished in the slow return of my heath. But, my body was too depleted, and could not produce milk to feed my baby. First of 3 I did not nurse. Well...that has a whole story in an dof itself that eats away at me...long story short...I was told to stop nursin on mothers day. My baby girl was 'colicy' right up until that day...the day she started formula. Then she got better, she started to grow, etc. What did I do that heart breaking yet joyous day? Yup. I drank. 3 shots in a row was my start back, the first night my baby didn't scream any more, the first night she started to grow again.
I started off so slow and controlled, promising myself and my husband I would not get like I was before we concieved with her (and drinking and concieving a baby...whole other story there if your every interested). I prob. only had 5 shots that night.
Well, but the end of may, I was back to a bottle of tequila a day. And often sending someone out for more. And guess what I did every morning? Yup. Puked. Puked my guts up. Puked just like I did when I was pg and thought I was dying. Puked up everything in my, and pretty much could have gone strait back to ivs. I amnot stupid, I know the signs of dehydration. Every hyperemesis mom knows when anIV in necessary. I never went and got one, but I bet if I would have tried I'd have gotten many bags of fluid.
I also know how bad that was for my kidneys. But i did it anyway, didn't I?

"How does that differ now that you've had children? If I really get into it, I can blackout or be unwakable at night and that scares me to think of if I have a little one to take care of."

Once I wasnt sick, as I said, I went back to drinking. Only it was worse then before. And I learned new tricks. Antidepresants bring onthe drunk faster. I learned to drink with out food. I learned to hide how much by little tricks here and there (as if no one knew how drunk I was! ha!)
And yes, I did black out. More then once. I have a hard time accepting that, but it is one of the many things that happened. Judgement is very off while oneis drinking....I turned out pretty lucky. My kids are ok physically, emotionally...well, I guess I'll find that out as they get older.

"Your battle may not be over but you won twice while carrying your children. That's something to be proud of"

No nada nope, I did not win twice. I just was too sick to drink, it never would have stayed down had I tried. That was nothing like doing it alone. Nope, what I am proud of is doing now. May be late, but right now, in this moment, I am doing the best I can fo rmy kids and myself.