PrimalScream

Hi all, I just found this forum yesterday. For whatever reason I just never thought of googling something like "am I an alcoholic?" I think that's what I googled yesterday when I stumbled (no, I don't mean literally ) across this forum. I have been reading it at work for the last day and a half (should be working but I have been so fascinated and drawn to many of the stories of recovery here that I have had a real hard time tearing myself away).
So here is my story, it really will not seem as tragic or serious as many on here so I wasn't really sure if I should post or not, but I really want to, as I do have a strong desire to live a completely sober life.

I'm 41 and I'm pretty sure I'm an alcoholic. I will say that so far Alcohol (and pot) has not really interfered in my professional or personal life, yet.

I first smoked pot at age 12...my older brother got me high and I have smoked on and off ever since...mostly only when I drink. I first tried alcohol shortly after when I drank a shot of my dad’s whiskey one time just to see what it would be like. I still remember the disgusting, burning feeling of it going down...and then about a minute later the incredible warm and fuzzy feeling it gave me, ever since then I drank for the buzz not the taste or any other reason people give for drinking socially. I always drank to get buzzed or drunk through high school/university...well right up until present time. I always only drink on weekends and I quit for months at a time a lot. The last 6-8 months I really haven't drank much or smoked much pot. Quite a few times in the last 6-8 months I have gone out with my GF and had one beer at dinner. I should point out that when I quit smoking I really don't drink much and I quit smoking for months at a time very often as well. On a recent vacation to Mexico I broke down and starting smoking so of course I had to get drunk as well. Pretty typical behavior on our vacations. So since we have gotten back from the vacation I have been drinking on Friday and sometimes Saturday’s...I only smoke when I drink as well. and I stop cold turkey Sunday morning. I do hate the hangovers though. That is the main reason I want to quit drinking. I hate to feel like crap on Sunday.

Sorry, I'm not sure if I am wasting your time...do you think I am an alcoholic? I guess it only matters if I do right? I have thought about it often. I'm not really a social drinker as I really would rather just get good and buzzed. When I was single I would often get drunk and high by myself until I passed out. I actually used to be much worse than I am now. For a few years in my early 30's I added cocaine to the mix as well. But it was still always contained to the weekend. I would get really messed up Friday + Saturday...hurt on Sunday...repeat the following Friday. I mean I didn’t (and still don’t) even smoke cigarettes during the week, I quit everything every Sunday. I guess because I have had this degree of control I have never really considered myself an alcoholic. But lately I have been thinking more that I am just a different kind of alcoholic than the kind that drinks everyday.

Anyway, I would really like to not even want to get really messed up on the weekends so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hangovers. And the thing is I have done this for months at a time, many, many times. I just have never been able to do it permanently. That is my ultimate goal.
OK…I better end this…sorry for posting such a long winded post. I would just like to say I really am glad I found this site and will visit it often in my quest to become permanently sober. Thanks for reading.

parentrecovers

nice to meet you, ps, and thanks for sharing! keep coming back. hugs, k

Anna

Hi and Welcome,

Only you can decide if you're an acoholic or not.

If you're not sure, try stopping drinking for a fixed period of, say a month and see what happens. You should get your answer.

We are here to offer lots of support and information, so I hope you keep posting and reading.

best

Welcome to SR.

Alcoholic or not... if you have a desire to stop drinking, there are answers and solutions all around.

As for alcohol not getting in the way of work or life...
Think of how much better your mondays at work could be if the weekend didn't take you apart inside from the drinking. How many Sundays could you have used to do other things besides nursing a hangover?

As you look about, read the posts at the top of the forums that say "sticky" beside them. I am sure you will find a lot of info in them.

Again, welcome to SR

suki44883

I've heard it said many times that if one questions whether or not they have a drinking problem, then they probably do. Anyway, like best said...you only need the desire to stop drinking to belong here, or at AA, for that matter.

Welcome to SR!

PrimalScream

Thanks for the quick responses and nice welcomes!

51anna in response to your suggestion of "try quiting for a month and see what happens"...In my post I have said I have quit many, many times for months on end...so I have tried that route...but for whatever reason so far I have always ended up drinking again...still working on the answer to that one. But thanks for the suggestion.

Best...I hear you about how much better sundays and mondays would feel If I hadn't gotten drunk on friday or saturday...that is the goal.

I would really like to hear from someone who has a similiar pattarn to mine...of getting messed up on weekends and straight as an arrow during the week, I think that would really help.

Thanks again for the welcome!

PrimalScream

I believe you are probably right suki. Thanks for the welcome!

best

You already did.

The next step in the progression would take you closer to the point where I realized the drinking was crazy to continue. Friday and Saturday became..Thursday (payday), Friday, and Saturday. Progressed from there as well into 6 of the 7 days. Would have been 7 of 7 but the money didn't last long enough each week.

What we drink, how much we drink, how much our life becomes messed up isn't the yardstick that says if we are alcoholic or not.
How alcohol affects us is what would say if we are or not. Some people can be addicted (physical need each day) and some (like me) add alcohol and I lose control of my ability to say no more. I will drink till it is gone or drink till I pass out for the night. Only way I have found to stop the crazyness... don't pick up that first drink. One is to many and 100 is not enough.

tennis71

Welcome!

Actually you are hearing from people who had the same pattern that you currently do. It progressed, thus we are here.

If you want some more insight on Alcoholism and Progression of Alcoholism then read the 1st 164 pages of the AA Big Book (offered for free at the Alcoholics Anonymous website). If you are not an alcoholic, it is still interesting reading plus many of the tools and ideas translate well into anyones life. If you are alcoholic then it actually provides some insight, guidance and tools to stay sober.

Either way, good luck in staying sober and keep coming back, you are always welcome here.

PrimalScream

Ahh, Very similiar Best. Thanks for sharing. I'm really going to try and get through this coming weekend without drinking. Even though it's a long weekend and we are going away...pretty sure I can do it.
I find my biggest trigger is friday afternoon driving home from work...that little voice somewhere in me says "stop at the beer store and get a case and a pack of smokes...you deserve it...it's friday afternoon, you have the whole weekend in front of you, come on!"
If I can get home and actually eat dinner without having a drink I am golden...if I stop and get beer...I'll probably be running out to find some pot in a couple of hours.

BUTTERFLY-7

and

PrimalScream

Awesome! thanks for the tip Tennis...I will read the 1st 164 pages...I am all about learning about my addiction(s). I am really into personal development and discovering who I am. I guess I have just been afraid to really look into the reasons why I drink so much etc because I was afraid of never being able to drink again...I'm not so afraid of that anymore.

This is really cool. This is really the first time in my life I have ever openly talked about haviing a drinking problem. Very cool.

best

If can be a big word when the little voices start telling us what to do.

You can say no for a moment. Make that moment be your ride home.
Once home, if the desire comes about...just for the moment, say no.
Continue that practice for as many times at it takes and before you know it, your day is through. One day at a time is how we all deal with things. Just for today, I will not pick up that first beer.

Anna

Changing routines and changing daily patterns during those 'tricky' times can really help. Try driving home a different way, or going for a long walk after work, or anything at all that shifts things for you.

Keep reading and posting and we'll be with you this weekend.

PrimalScream

Thanks again for the welcomes and advice everyone. I hear you about the "patterns and routines", associations and certain situations are big triggers with me. As mentioned Friday afternoons driving home is a big one...especially if it is sunny and warm...I picture myself home on the deck with a cold one and a smoke in my hand...that is a tough picture to get rid of on a beautiful hot sunny Friday afternoon. I have to associate cool things with not drinking. Actually last Friday driving home I did try to tell myself you don't need to smoke and drink right now...but I still stopped and got beer and smokes. I also have a really nice father in law who smokes and drinks and drives motorcycles...last Saturday we hung out at his place all day Friday tuning up our bikes and drinking and smoking (we went through two cases)...it was a really fun day...but of course it led to a real hurtin Sunday morning. It was the second one in a row...I guess since this Sunday I have really been thinking about quitting drinking. As much fun as I have doing it I absolutely hate hangovers and feeling like crap. I know I can do it. I just have get over the hump. I think this weekend since we are getting up early Saturday and heading out of town I will not want to drink Friday night (although that hasn't stopped me in the past), and we are actually going to visit my girlfriends brother who doesn't drink (he quit a few years ago, he is my age), I am going to ask him alot about how he stopped. I'm pretty sure I will be OK this weekend.

Honu

You said this is the first time you have talked openly about having a drinking problem. This forum was my first time, too. It was very scary, I freaked out after submitting it, but, I'm glad I did.

Welcome!

Honu

CarolD

Welcome!


Gosh...I knew what to do for hangovers when I was a drinker.
Hangovers ...Blacouts....Remorse....and still I drank.

The key for me was I had to want to be sober
more than I wanted to drink.

You may not be to that point ...I dunno.

Daddio

Hey PrimalScream. I too have just recently found this site and am very quickly finding the responses very informative. Bear with me while I add my two cents worth.

I had my rules about drinking as well. Never during work hours. Always after 5:00pm and stop before 10:00pm. That was Monday thru Thursday - period no questions asked. Fri/Sat/Sun was a different story! Friday at 5:00pm I would start and go until whenever (2 or 3 am) then come to later in the morning and chug a screwdriver. That would continue until Sunday night the the cycle would repeat itself beginning on Monday at 5:00pm.

But with all of that "control" I was drinking four to five handles of vodka a week. That doesn't include the beer and wine at any restaurants. Or any escapes to the lake house mid-week. It's just that it was game. I knew that it was killing me but I continued. My brain was so saturated that the synapses were misfiring. Like an electrical cord in a puddle of water. I would absolutely freak out while driving through downtown Dallas. Driving over bridges became my downfall. I learned how to drive all over Dallas County and never get on an interstate or drive on an elevated roadway.

But I certainly made it home to have that next one!

Alcoholism is hard to define. You can take the tests and read the books and they will give you great guidance. I had a shrink tell me once that I was psychologically dependent on booze. Or you can ask yourself if it is all worth it. Just remember that the little person that telling you to pull into the beer barn is not some fictional character. That little voice is you. You are the one that must put that little creep back into his box and begin telling yourself that the new vision of the weekend is a glass of ice cold lemongrass tea with a big a-- ribeye sizzling on the grill. Uh-oh. I hope you're not a Veegan. But you get what I mean. It's partly a matter of restrapping your brain to get it to do what you want it do. You have to teach it to do something else. Like the little old lady down here in South that caught the boy breaking into her house. She told him you figured out how to break in now you can figure out how to break out!

I came to one Sunday morning and made up my mind that I was tired of the cycle. I put the little geek in his box and am now in week 82 of total sobriety. Don't even drink wine during Mass. Well, I'm also including the three months it took me to detox. But it was just me and some serious knee time. And an older Brother that seriously loves his baby Brother.

So hang tough, Sounds as though you have made the critical first step.

Daddio

Tazman53

Welcome to SR primalscream first.

Here is a quiz to take that AA provides as a guide for those wondering whether they may be an alcoholic or not.

One very important fact to be aware of, alcoholism is a progressive disease, the disease progresses with every drink, it never get better no matter how long an alcoholic goes without a drink.

When I started drinking at about 12 or 12 it was cool to do and "I liked it". The quiz I provided the link to by the time I was 19 or 20 I would have answered yes to at least 4 questions, by the time I was 52 when alcohol owned me I would have answered yes to every question but one and even that one question was not true 100% of the time.

It is not how much or how often one drinks that determines whether one is really an alcoholic or not, it is what happens to us when we drink!

PrimalScream

Great advice from all of you! Thank you very much. Daddio, I can relate to your storry quite a bit...especially the part of being tired of the cycle...although I am not nearly as advanced as you describe I have my own cycle...I know if I am going to drink and smoke and probably toke (I put smoking right up there with drinking because they always have gone hand in hand with me, when I don't drink I don't smoke, sometimes I think if I just quit smoking for good I wouldn't have a drinking problem, I actually have quit smoking for a few months, many times, and continued to drink and found I would usually stop after 4 beers or so because without the nicotine I would get tired..hmmm. The only problem is I would eventually break down and have a smoke and then I would proceed to have about 15 beers) friday night I will be paying for it sunday and even into the following week, and it makes me crazy that I do it again and again. I have quit (stopped) enough times that I know I love the feeling of waking up sober on saturday and sunday...I just need to committ to it full time. I always end up eventually sliding back, saying to myself "you can have just a few drinks...you've been so good, you deserve it" and I might have a few drinks the first time but within a few days I am getting loaded again. Damn addictive personality! I guess like everyone else here I am all or nothing...to me social drinking is boring...if I am going to drink I like to get hammered. Part of me loves getting hammered...I feel guilty saying it but it's true...to demonstrate, You know those day dreams you have about if you were a superhero and could choose 3 super powers...my first super power is always to not suffer hangovers, so I could party all night long and get completely wasted, everynight, and as long as I get about 4 hours sleep I would wake up feeling 100% and ready to go. That's wack!!

Anyway, I haven't drank since saturday and I don't plan to drink this weekend...actually looking forward to it.
Thanks again for all the great responses and advice. This place is awesome!!