LoonyBuns

Hi,I am new 24,girl here.

Hopefully,you people can help me because I think I can't quit binge drinking.
I am not an alcoholic per-say meaning that I do not drink every day,but when I drink - I drink a lot. I read that binge drinking is also a dangerous form of alcoholism and unfortunately I do show signs of addiction.

I manage to not drink for a couple of weeks and then I go out and have a beer,two three,eight,next day I feel like someone kicked me in the face.

Yesterday,2 of my friends came by with half a gallon of beer and half a gallon of hard liquor, us 3 drank it all. My sister said that after I escorted my friends out and came back,I started talking nonsense,it creeped her out, creeps me out as well since I can't remember that (I often have blackouts where I can't remember stuff that happened).

Needless to say,I woke up with maybe the worst headache I had this year,I had to take pain medication it was really that bad,like someone repeatedly hitting my frontal lobe with a hammer.

I don't know how many times I've said to myself "I will never drink again." the morning after, so many times it's worn out.

I don't drink when I am at home or alone but for some reason I do drink every opportunity I get. I also don't smoke unless I drink. It's some kind of combined habit.

I also had many terrible things happen to me while drunk.Once I woke up in a hospital. I was sexually abused multiple times when drunk. Also,lost of general embarrassment.

It's been like this since I was about 17 and I am worried that the more I wait the worse it will get.

I want to quit drinking forever...

Anna

If you can't stop drinking, then you are an alcoholic.

Many alcoholics do not drink every day.

I hope you decide to stop drinking and live a sober life, because as you said, it will get worse unless you stop.

There is lots of support here, so keep reading and posting.

theatredork

Only you can decide if you're an alcoholic. Keep reading these forums, maybe pick up a copy of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (can read online at Alcoholics Anonymous :) Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. and read the first 50 pages... it might speak to you. It is true, not all alcoholics drink every day. We're here for support.

FindingFaith

Welcome to SR!

I'm 24 also and 4 days into the road to recovery. I have found that waking up pain and guilt free is a much better feeling than the previous nights drinking so try and stick with it.

Good luck! The support you will recieve on here is awesome.

youngun

Hi, I am also new here :-)

My story is very similar to yours. I am a 22 year old female who is about 5ft 4, and I can (and do) drink fully grown men under the table regularly.

This is far from a proud boast though, it's something that genuinely scares me. I have been abusing drugs since I was around 14/15 years old. I have quit other substances (nothing too serious) but alcohol has always been a problem for me to stop (in others words, I can't seem to do it at all!).

I don't drink every day and I'm not physically alcohol dependant. I drink probably every weekend, although I have been cutting this down recently. The thing is that when I start drinking, I can't stop until I'm obliterated.

I have binges that last over 12 hours of solid drinking (always beer). I can never really remember the exact amount of drunk, but it's a LOT, probably around 15 pints or more. Considering I am a young girl, it scares me senseless that I can actually do this relatively regularly! I often blackout and have large periods of the evening that I don't remember at all, but have seemed apparently relatively normal to my friends! Even eating a meal out and talking to them (none of which I remember). I don't seem to have any illness' from it, but I'm not naive and I doubt I haven't done any damage.

I have never really had any major problems from these binges, other than embarrassment as you say! I've often said stupid things, or behaved in a way that I normally wouldn't dream of. I'm really sorry to hear about your experiences, that must have been awful.

I always feel so guilty afterwards and tell myself 'I will never drink again' and beat myself up about it. Then proceed to do it again the next weekend... this can't go on basically.

coffeespoons

Welcome LoonyBuns!

Your situation is VERY CLOSE to mine! I'm a 27 y/o female, and my alcoholism falls squarely in the binge drinking category, but I still definitely consider myself an alcoholic. It took some getting used to, but now it makes perfect sense. I'm curious - do you, like me, find that once you've passed a certain "point" during a night of drinking, that you can't stop drinking (that night)? That was one of the main signs to me that I was an alcoholic, even though I drank only occasionally. I would wake up with an unopened beer next to my bed that I had intended to drink but had apparently passed out.

Also I'm with you on the gibberish, blacking out, and smoking only while drunk.

You've found a good spot, good luck with staying sober! I think you'll find that it's actually pretty EASY most of the time, since you're not a daily drinkier. However, I've found that it makes those "drinking times" (weekends, parties, random happy hours) MUCH harder because you might feel like you've "beat it" or something, and you can just have a few. At least that's what's been happening to me.

Hang in there, and take it one day at a time

sugarbear1

I could drink a lot of alcohol, too, when I was younger. I drank too many sophisticated drinks...liquor...loved and drank so many long island iced teas, it wasn't funny! I could get drunk on 3 beers, once a week, too.

It was all binging. Drunkness depended on how much & what I had eaten. Point is, it all can change.

Fast forward another 25 years and you, too can continue to binge more than once a week. Maybe even daily.

Why did I drink? To change the way I felt.

I don't need to change that today. I surrendered. I didn't listen when I was 25, though. Maybe you'll lead a different one than you are leading now.....

least

Welcome to the family! I'm enjoying my life for the first time in a long while since I got sober. It'll be two years this winter and I'm loving it. I wake up feeling good and ready for the day.

I know you'll find a lot of support and useful information here - I sure have.

ReadyAndAble

Welcome to SR, LoonyBuns.

You too, youngun.

You'll find a lot of support here.

Dee74

Hi LoonyBuns

Like many have said - it's not how often you drink, or even how much, as it is what happens to you when you do.

If your drinking is causing you problems then it's a problem - and you'll find a lot of support and ideas here

Welcome!

D

Hevyn

Hi loony & youngun. It's wonderful you found us. This is a great place to ask questions and get honest answers from people who have been where you are. It's hard to find people you can discuss this with.

I was going to say what Dee did - it isn't how often you drink, but what it does to you. Alcoholism is a progressive disease - and what is binging now could turn into something different years down the road. I was a weekend drinker, but in the end I drank all day & night. No one could've convinced me I'd ever get that dependent on it, but over time my tolerance became huge.

I hope you'll both keep reading & posting here - glad you've reached out for help.

Dee74

Welcome to you too Youngun

D

eJoshua

Welcome to SR!

I was not a binge drinker myself, but binge drinking is every bit as dangerous as everyday drinking and can be just as debilitating.

Best of luck in your efforts to live sober!

OceanSize

binge drinker checking in to say hello! I am 9 days sober because of my very last binge. i'm 38 but i knew there was a problem back when i was 24....the same problem that got me here 9 days ago - and it never changed. I never thought of myself as an alcoholic, either.

but i am.

I am an alcoholic and as long as I drink I will binge drink, because that's the kind of alcoholic i am. I will drink to blackout and have days of shame after, sometimes even suicidal feelings after the binges. I Therefore, I cannot drink, and I am an alcoholic. I just can't. I will not drink today. I will not drink right now. I am an alcoholic so I cannot drink.

The last few days I've been writing a lot about dealing with binges and blackouts - because that's exactly the kind of alcoholic I am. my posts are lingering around and might interest you.

Stang

I never saw the point in anything BUT binge drinking.

DayTrader

Loony

My AA sponsor is a full blown alcoholic....but he was "just" a binge drinker. He drank for his last handful of years, maybe, 5 - 8 times per year. I, on the other hand, drank 3-7x per week. He's JUST as "alcoholic" as I am....even though I drank more and drank more often.

Whether one is an alcoholic or not has nothing to do with frequency of drinking. It has to do with these things:
1. When you drink, can you always control the amount you drink?
2. When you decide to NOT drink, can you stick to your guns?

If you can't do those two......all the time, you're probably an alcoholic.

Then there's the question of acute vs chronic alcoholism which I won't go into at this point.......but it basically has to do with "choice" and how one feels during the times they're not drinking. Can you choose to "just not drink" and make that work or not? -and- when you're not drinking......does life start to straighten out and does your head start to "heal" vs. do both of those things tend to get more chaotic.

Anyway.....you're not crazy. I felt and experienced all those things too. I'm an alcoholic......per-say! ......but I'm a recovered alcoholic......and I don't feel that way anymore.

1undone

I started out like you in my 20s, heck 16yrs old. It progressed though. Yes I binged all the way into my late 30s but it went to a whole new level in the past few years. I was at the point where I was drinking EVERY night. I never started off being a Alcoholic/binge drinker but in College it was encouraged. I just wish I'd known and gotten support to quit when I was younger. I'm okay but I would have enjoyed life a lot more had I dealt with this earlier.

I try not to regret the past so I keep moving forward. I just wanted to tell you I understand the questioning of your drinking and just all the awful things that happen when you black out. It's not a good feeling waking and wondering what the heck happened and then finding out something horrible happened. Please continue to take a look at this and go to a professional if you need some guidance. You are young and can really avoid more heart ache.

CaliBohemian

Hi there! I'm new here, too, and I can definitely relate with a lot of what you've written. I've read long, ridiculous strings of text messages that I didn't remember sending (obviously I sent them because they were saved in the phone,) and I've heard stories about crazy, nonsensical stuff I said while I was wasted. I was never sexually abused. I don't know what it feels like to be violated like that, but it had to have felt out-of-this-world horrifying. I know my words fall pathetically short in this instance, but I'm so sorry you had to endure that.

I think it's a good sign that you want to stop at a young age. When people told me to stop when I was 24, I told them to go to hell. At that age, it was still a party, and I was still having fun. I didn't have a reason to quit at the time. It wasn't until I was 28 that it started to become nightmarish, and that was 5 years ago. I'll spare you the ridiculous details, but by then, the party was long over. I hope you're able to get and stay sober, and I hope you won't let boredom or monotony drag you back in, like I did. Many other people quit and stayed quit, so it can be done. You definitely deserve happiness and a life away from the bottle.

HuskyPup

I had a very similar pattern. What is funny, is that I am 43, but did not drink till my late 20s, and this binge pattern became an issue in my mid 30s....so I was a late bloomer. I always stayed away from alcohol when I was younger, because all my cousins (almost) had been in rehab, so I figured there was a genetic predisposition. My folks seldom drank, but my grandparents had some heavy drinking going on.

Well, I have been sober about 36 days here, and feel a lot better...no more bumops and bruises, and nights I can not remember, that is a good feeling.

Hope you nose around and find the help/support you need here. There are so many different ways you can stop drinking, and also, I have found that combining a number of different methods has worked best in my case, but this varies person to person.

Good luck, and glad you made the decision to come here,

H. Pup

Jil

Hi LoonyBuns! I am a 21 year old female, who is also a binge drinker. On Sunday, I will be 6 months sober. I can't tell you that the process has been easy, but I assure you that it's better than the life I was living before. All my decisions and actions are mine that I consciously make. No more random hook-ups with lots of guys, no more apologizing and no more embarrassment (among other things.) I couldn't control myself, even if I tried to- 1/10 times I went out I socially drank. The rest I woke up not knowing what I had done. Once I admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic, regardless of the frequency of usage (once every weekend), I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted. Life will get better and you CAN quit forever. Good luck with your journey.