Sara23

Day 3: So far so good! Like I said before I have never been an everyday drinker so this challenge for me isnt about not being able to drink everyday but being able to control my self when I do have a drink and eventually get to the point that I can turn drinking opportunities down. I would love to be that person that could have one glass of wine on a special occasion but I dont know yet if I will be able to do that. It might be that I have to quit all together....

So since I have vowed to be completely honest on here with everyone I feel I should share the event that eventually led me here... This past weekend one of my best friends got married and I was in her wedding. As many of you know weddings can be wonderful joyous events but they can also be stressfull as all hell! This wedding in particular was extremely stressfull and un-organized and the role of bridesmaid quickly turned into wedding planner/coordinator. Anyhoo the ceremony was wonderful and everything came together beautifully and naturally I was ready to drink at the reception. My boyfriend was the DJ at the wedding so in between my bridesmaids duties and mingeling with friends I would try to sneak away and steal a quick kiss and dance from him. As the night progressed so did our drinking and before we knew it the whole bridal party was wasted...except for my boyfriend. I proceeded to make a fool out of myself by stumbling around drunk, and getting mad at my boyfriend because he "wasnt paying attention to me"....when in reality he was simply working. I basically blacked out near the end of the night and dont remember much except that when I woke up I woke up to a not so happy boyfriend. Let me tell you the car ride home was not enjoyable. After hearing from him all the stupid drunk things I had done, he looked at me with the most serious look on his face and told me that he was worried about me. He was concerned that I couldnt control myself, that I couldnt just have a few, that I had to get wasted to the point of embarrassing myself. And that is what did it for me...that was my breaking point. Later that night once my hangover had kicked in full swing I had a huge anxiety attack and finally told myself enough was enough. Ironically I got online to look up ways to help end an anxiety attack (that always helps me) and it let me to a conversation on this website. I started snooping around and liked what I saw, a group of people just like me cheering eachother on and talking about their experiences. So here I am, taking it one day at a time, praying and hoping that I can make this positive change in mylife for the people I love, but most importantly for myself!

velmaT

I have SO been that embarrassing woman at the party / reception, with my husband looking at me disapprovingly, wishing I could just drink like a normal person.

Kudos to you for wanting to change and coming here for support! Everyone is different, but if you're anything like me, you might just find that you're not capable of having a few drinks, no matter how hard you try. I want to drink in moderation at social events soooo badly, and have tried time and time again to drink like a normal person.....but I can't seem to put on the brakes once I've had even just one or two drinks in me.

Welcome! I am new here too and have already found this message board to be so helpful. Good luck on your journey!

Itchy

Sara,
Welcome and to you too Velma!
I absolutely do not have any problems with drinking, just stopping. I can't taper off, and if I am stupid enough to have one drink deluding myself that I will keep it under control, I might make it back by Christmas, 2012.

My wife still drinks and smokes. I quit smoking and drinking a little over a year ago with a lot of help. I realize that smoking means different things so I mean tobacco not wacky tobaccy. I was smoking three packs a day as well as anywhere from 20-30 units of alcohol a day.

I had to quit for me. The last time I quit smoking for 18 months I blew it just wanting to see what it was like to get the tobacco high and the one smoke led me back to my then two pack a day habit. It took 18 years to work up the "will" power to quit again and only because I was killing myself with alcohol too. I detoxed in hospital remembering my experience with my smoking relapse and swore never again for either. Never.

You will read a lot here from folks who keep doing the same thing over and over that didn't work the last 50 times they tried it. As if this time they would get different results. If it didn't work before doing it again by itself probably won't work for long either.

For me I knew I wanted to get sober and off the smokes so I used everything at my disposal. An in hospital detox and the help of my Doc and family and friends as well as counseling and AA meetings twice a week for my additional face to face support.

I had a lot of withdrawal symptoms that stayed with me for months, and the long term combination of heavy smoking and drinking did some damage that will never heal, but can be lived with fine.

Funny you should mention DJ as we did that professionally on weekends for about 20 years! I would never get obviously drunk and always hired an assistant that was not allowed alcohol who helped me carry set up and break down and drove home. My wife would be there too and help as well but she could drink her few drinks. I was very high functioning and well paid from that and my day career.

I do hope my wife quits before she gets progressively worse as it seems she will too. But nothing she could say or do could help me quit before I decided it was to be for me. So I am not going to preach to her, as her drinking and smoking have nothing to do with me or my quitting.

I have seen that excuse that since their significant other or friends still drink that they gave in or it is hard. I look at that this way. If the fact that another or others still drink makes it impossible for me to quit because I feel deprived, then as long as one person in the world still drank, I could point to that person and say that I had a relapse because the temptation and envy was too much for me, and I had to join in.

There is alcohol, a half-gallon of scotch, and a carton of smokes too. She is at work right now and I am home alone with it. It isn't calling to me. I am not aware of it being there, and will not ever drink or smoke any of it. That is another I see here a lot too. I can't have it near me or I will give in. Hey I am, all for what works for each, and am only saying that for me, I don't see any difference between it being in the next room or in the Liquor store or grocery store 5 minutes from my house and available via my car in five minutes.

You see I have plans and one drink will have me a slave again in 24-36 hours. I know this. Yes I would love to have a snifter with two fingers of B&B lasting an hour or more. I do miss the relaxation and camaraderie of hoisting a few with friends. But those days are gone for me completely even if I drink because I no longer can control it.

I am not deprived, I simply survived.

You folks came to the right place. Now you need to decide what you are going to do differently for yourself. Not my plan but your plan. I assure you that if you always do things, the way you always did them, you will always get the same results.

Sara23

Thanks Itchy for your post! Its true not everyone is the same and handels their sobriety differently. Truth is I am my own worst enemy, no one else. No one physically makes me drink as much as I do. It is a choice I make and it that choice that I have to work on.I too would smoke when I drank and then hated myself the next day because I would smell like a dirty bar and my chest would hurt. I hope your recovery continues on the path it is on and Im glad to hear that you quit smoking too!

Fenris

I never knew exactly what was going to happen when I drank. It could be that I'd have two or three good-sized drinks, eat dinner and go to bed. Or it could be that those two or three good-sized drinks flipped that switch inside me and meant that I'd wake up two days later in a different part of the country in a bed I had no business being in with no memory of how I got there. It could mean waking up in jail. It could mean a miserable night of yelling and cussing at anyone who came near. All of those things happened a time or two, and I never knew which one it would be when I drank. It was a roll of the dice that I had no control over, but it never stopped me from picking up that first drink. I was best man at my friend's wedding and my behavior that night destroyed that friendship. So I can relate to that -- I made a complete fool out of myself during that wedding (and I do mean during the ceremony itself; they wouldn't let me go to the reception after). I still don't know how I'm going to make that right, but luckily I have a few more steps to work before I have to worry about that.

This disease does everything it can to try and take away anything you value. Sobriety isn't always "better" -- some of the time, being sober sucks. But at least I have control over my actions.

--Fenris.

Dee74

Hi Sara

I tried for 20 years to be able to control my self when drinking...it never happened for me.
Just don't spent 20 years trying if it doesn't work for you, ok?

D

TheOjibway84

Great to hear your doing something about staying sober and wanting to I tried the whole moderate my drinking but I back to full swing in 2 weeks time. Even though I pretended that I was fine and continued drinking I spent a 4 day bender and ended up puking the whole day and it was scary as heck because I couldn't hold anything down especially water! I hope you make the right choices for yourself but just think if you can't just have 1. 1 is all it takes to go back to square one and things get worse trust me. If you want to stay sober to pick up again means you have to start over with your sober date and drove me nuts when I had to admit I drank again several times. Im 2 months sober tomorrow and things are great and I dare not pick 1 drink up because I know what will happen, Even if I have just 1 and no more then that my mind will switch back to wanting and compulsion to drink no matter what my loyal intentions are of not wanting to drink again. good luck