Maybe I like to drink?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: RI
Posts: 31
Maybe I like to drink?
Been a while since I checked here in and yah know I will buy a jug of burgunday, and if I get three nights out of a jug then I think I'm OK. I do feel like $hit the mornings after, and I do think about drinking all of the time, and it does affect the schedule of my life.
Hey I just turned sixty and have been a hard drinker for more than forty years. I've been to AA, even quit drinking for ten years once but I still love drinking red wine. My life is pretty solid with a 35 year marriage and good job, but still I wish I never drank a drop of alcohol ever. When I go a few days I feel so strong then I get stupid drunk at home, go to bed, and get up all frazzled. That sucks, but then I think about sitting out back on the deck, or at some Newport restaurant sipping (haha) some wine and I just can't let it go. Sometimes I convince myself that I am a social drinker, a functioning alcoholic, or whatever, but this $hit is really wearing me down. Then again, my stupid little mind says, hey you made it this far, you can be a pretty successful drunk forever. Well, that's a lot to think about, and it's so much easier to just drink.
I will try to stay more in touch with this group because it seems to do me some good when I spill my guts here. The winter has been long, hard , dark and ugly out here but spring is upon us. Problem is I will celebrate spring by juicing it up with some burgunday out on the deck. Why can't I just have a glass or two and leave it at that? Been trying to get that right for forty years and still can't.
God bless you all and don't allow yourself to suffer. We are just here.
John
Hey I just turned sixty and have been a hard drinker for more than forty years. I've been to AA, even quit drinking for ten years once but I still love drinking red wine. My life is pretty solid with a 35 year marriage and good job, but still I wish I never drank a drop of alcohol ever. When I go a few days I feel so strong then I get stupid drunk at home, go to bed, and get up all frazzled. That sucks, but then I think about sitting out back on the deck, or at some Newport restaurant sipping (haha) some wine and I just can't let it go. Sometimes I convince myself that I am a social drinker, a functioning alcoholic, or whatever, but this $hit is really wearing me down. Then again, my stupid little mind says, hey you made it this far, you can be a pretty successful drunk forever. Well, that's a lot to think about, and it's so much easier to just drink.
I will try to stay more in touch with this group because it seems to do me some good when I spill my guts here. The winter has been long, hard , dark and ugly out here but spring is upon us. Problem is I will celebrate spring by juicing it up with some burgunday out on the deck. Why can't I just have a glass or two and leave it at that? Been trying to get that right for forty years and still can't.
God bless you all and don't allow yourself to suffer. We are just here.
John
Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: uk
Posts: 2,548
hi john........thankyou for your post.
Your post says alot to me........cant live with...or without it.
I feel for you...to be trapped in that space....ive been there.
You were ten years sober?...what happened?....apart from drinking.
The thought of living without booze terrified me....and i didnt even think it was possible.
Do you wanna get sober again?....what will you do to stay sober this time?
Id be interested to hear more...........look foward to hearing from you again.
trucker
Your post says alot to me........cant live with...or without it.
I feel for you...to be trapped in that space....ive been there.
You were ten years sober?...what happened?....apart from drinking.
The thought of living without booze terrified me....and i didnt even think it was possible.
Do you wanna get sober again?....what will you do to stay sober this time?
Id be interested to hear more...........look foward to hearing from you again.
trucker
Member
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: CA desert
Posts: 1,599
Hey John,
I'm feel like I'm right behind you age wise, I'm 50, and have been semi-retired for four years now, so I know the drill. When I first retired, due to my second heart attack and triple-bypass surgery, I found myself hanging at a local bar often, sometimes all day, with a couple of other retirees. For a few months, I thought , "Hey, this is the life, I've worked hard and I deserve my leisure now, before I punch my ticket for the last time." We would sit at the bar, talk about whatever and just plain get plastered all day. It really started to bother me when I began to not remember how or when I came home. Another thing that got to me was that my so-called drinking friends were often hitting me up for a few dollars, which never were repaid. I shrugged it off and kept going to the bar, becasue eventually I found I had no other place to go, for I had let all my other contacts slip away. I became desperately depressed. I'd walk into the bar, and the same old guys, who called me "Kid" because I was the youngest, would be sitting at the same spot they always sat in. Eventually I realized that living the way I was living would kill me, or worse yet, I'd kill someone while driving drunk, which I did many times. But the real problem was that I saw myself slipping away, drifting into some form of living that more closely resembled a cow, pulling up to the feed troth everday to suck down enough booze to "get right," then wander off to waste another day. One day, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a face that was wrinkled, haggard, and bags under my eyes from lack of restful sleep, and I was shocked. How did this happen? So, I decided I needed to get back to work, and since I was a carpenter/cabinet maker, and the bar needed lots of work, I decided to trade my labor for a tab at the bar, thinking the work would really do me some good, which it did for a few weeks. The bar started looking much better, I was receiving compliments all the time for the work, and I could drink as much as I wanted. Wow, I thought, I really have it made. What I didn't realize, till another drunk pointed it out to me was that I was at that bar everyday. Everyday. Whew. What I thought would never happen to me had happened, I became a daily drunk.
Well, after determining that I was drinking to much daily, I decided to back off abit. That's when I discovered that I couldn't stop. That discovery led me here. Now, I have almost two weeks without a drink and am telling you all this to let you know how retirement turned out for me.
I'm glad I'm here and hope that there is something in this story that may be of some help to you. If not, thanks for letting me get all of this out, because getting it out helps me the same way it helps you.
By the way, I feel like a new man today, and don't miss the hangovers at all. The choice is yours.
I'm feel like I'm right behind you age wise, I'm 50, and have been semi-retired for four years now, so I know the drill. When I first retired, due to my second heart attack and triple-bypass surgery, I found myself hanging at a local bar often, sometimes all day, with a couple of other retirees. For a few months, I thought , "Hey, this is the life, I've worked hard and I deserve my leisure now, before I punch my ticket for the last time." We would sit at the bar, talk about whatever and just plain get plastered all day. It really started to bother me when I began to not remember how or when I came home. Another thing that got to me was that my so-called drinking friends were often hitting me up for a few dollars, which never were repaid. I shrugged it off and kept going to the bar, becasue eventually I found I had no other place to go, for I had let all my other contacts slip away. I became desperately depressed. I'd walk into the bar, and the same old guys, who called me "Kid" because I was the youngest, would be sitting at the same spot they always sat in. Eventually I realized that living the way I was living would kill me, or worse yet, I'd kill someone while driving drunk, which I did many times. But the real problem was that I saw myself slipping away, drifting into some form of living that more closely resembled a cow, pulling up to the feed troth everday to suck down enough booze to "get right," then wander off to waste another day. One day, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a face that was wrinkled, haggard, and bags under my eyes from lack of restful sleep, and I was shocked. How did this happen? So, I decided I needed to get back to work, and since I was a carpenter/cabinet maker, and the bar needed lots of work, I decided to trade my labor for a tab at the bar, thinking the work would really do me some good, which it did for a few weeks. The bar started looking much better, I was receiving compliments all the time for the work, and I could drink as much as I wanted. Wow, I thought, I really have it made. What I didn't realize, till another drunk pointed it out to me was that I was at that bar everyday. Everyday. Whew. What I thought would never happen to me had happened, I became a daily drunk.
Well, after determining that I was drinking to much daily, I decided to back off abit. That's when I discovered that I couldn't stop. That discovery led me here. Now, I have almost two weeks without a drink and am telling you all this to let you know how retirement turned out for me.
I'm glad I'm here and hope that there is something in this story that may be of some help to you. If not, thanks for letting me get all of this out, because getting it out helps me the same way it helps you.
By the way, I feel like a new man today, and don't miss the hangovers at all. The choice is yours.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 4,682
Hi John
Man im 37 and am in very early stages of recovery, reading your post sent shivers down my spine and scared the s*** out of me. I hope you find happiness and some sort of resolve with your drinking and thanks for sharing, I know it must be of little consolation but hearing your struggle really make my resolve even stronger. F*** that!
Best wishes and hope to see you posting more!
Man im 37 and am in very early stages of recovery, reading your post sent shivers down my spine and scared the s*** out of me. I hope you find happiness and some sort of resolve with your drinking and thanks for sharing, I know it must be of little consolation but hearing your struggle really make my resolve even stronger. F*** that!
Best wishes and hope to see you posting more!
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
