pauladmits

Arghhhhhhhhhh.......... so I woke up feeling so good to start my new life. It was so sunny and such a good day. I went to my friends house where they were drinking beer and bbq'ing. I decided to skip eating and just drink. At the bbq I had a 16 oz Alaskan Amber and a 2 50ml shots of Jim Beam. I felt fine. I live in Alaska so we do not get very many good days. On the way home to watch the NBA Finals I picked up a 200ml bottle of Vodka and 3 50ml shooters of Jim Beam.

I drank that before my buddy and dad came over to watch it. It's so bad off that I was able to go to the park afterward and play an hour of basketball. I felt euphoric and I had so much energy for some reason. It was such a beautiful day. Afterward I came home took a shower, and laid in my bed. My girlfriend and I talked on FaceTalk while she was at her school studying. She saw my wet hair and I put on a smile and she had absolutely no clue I drank a single thing the entire day.

As I laid in my bed I drank my 3 shooters of Jim Beam. Then I came downstairs and there was about 3/4ths of a cup left of chardonnay my dad had been drinking for the game. I ended up drinking that too. I have this idea in my head that tomorrow is the day. But I'm slowly convincing myself that I will die if I completely cut off alcohol, even though I've done it before with no problems. I'm completely lost, this is the cycle that happens every day. Tomorrow morning I will wake up, feel bad, eat, go get some Starbucks, then get to work. I will feel bad most of the day and not be able to concentrate. I will end up convincing myself that I need alcohol to concentrate and I will go to the liquor store to get a 200ml bottle of vodka.

I will say that's all I'm drinking but I know it won't be. I will end up getting two bottles of wine, one for me and one for my dad... and hide two or three shooters of jim beam in my pocket.

I don't know how to do this. Every night I'm in pain and just want to start a new life because I know this is not what I should be doing. I know that tomorrow I will feel like **** and convince myself that I need more to make the pain go away. Even after admitting my problem I still have no control. I just hope these words make my sober self understand how much damage I am doing. I will wake up tomorrow and not have a clue how bad I am feeling right now or what I am doing to my body and life.

Day number one was a complete failure.

NewBeginning010

I have been on that merry go round of hell... I hope you can get off of it soon. You can do this but it takes a lot of work & commitment. It is actually quite simple in regards to just not picking up that first drink. That being said most of us need help with learning coping techniques along with changing our lives. Have you looked into any programs to help you with this? (AA, Smart, AVRT Etc.)

All of the best with your recovery, you can do this if you work it & your life will be better.

Take care & keep posting. Cheers ~NB

Dee74

Hi Paul

Lots of us falter when trying to do this...lots of us think about the idea and get scared...many many times I scuttled back to what I knew.

But being part of a community like this does make a difference - it can really give you strength and hope to make day one, then two, then three....

Read around, look at those links I gave you yesterday...think about the way you might go to move forward.

You can do this - you might feel like you'd die without alcohol but I think you'll find you'll live...better than you imagined you could

D

jstar

you haven't failed until you've stopped trying!

Jitterbugg

Hi Paul,
I was stuck in the the same vicious cycle you are in. For years I lamented by inability to break the cycle and the problems associated with my drinking began piling up. Eventually, I entered a 35 day inpatient rehab program. I needed to be removed from my everyday life and get professional help. Being sober felt so good; better than any temporary high from alcohol. Have you considered rehab?

pauladmits

So what should my goal be tomorrow?? What is there to aim for? Should I say I'm not drinking a single thing tomorrow and suffer through the first day? Should I say no drinking til after 5 and only 1 200ml bottle of vodka?

I have no clue. I know I'm not ready to go to the doc or to go to rehab. I need to be able to do this on my own. I'm able to get my work done, and live a life that seems semi-normal. All I need to do is cut the alcohol out some hwo.

instant

Just keep giving it a go. Try a new approach. I tried for years to get a foothold. Now I am 13 months sober.

Dee74

Tapering never worked for me - how do you control the thing you can;t obviously control? I couldn't.

I don't recommend cold turkey.
I had a really bad last home alone detox.

I can't recommend anything beyond seeing a Dr.

I know it's scary, I know it's not what you want to hear...but I think it's the responsible thing to do - especially now you've told us of some of the health scares you've had recently.

Sometimes I think we have to bite the bullet, Paul.

D

hypochondriac

The only way you can do this on your own is to go to the doctor. You need someone to check that you are medically fit to do so.

I did that dance you are doing for a long time before actually quitting. For 3 years I never made it past day 1. Really I don't think I had actually made the decision to quit, I kind of just wanted to wake up and have no desire to drink. That won't happen unfortunately. You are going to have a period of time when you have quit drinking where you will want to drink but you won't because you know where that drink will lead you. That will mean it would be a good idea to avoid places and situations where you would normally drink. I think very few of us have been able to carry on as normal and just not drink. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Posting on here helped keep me accountable to myself. But I also had to tell a real live person. It made it more real. But then I wasn't ready to tell my family and I don't think they would have been much use helping me detox. So I told my doctor. I'd told plenty of doctors that I had a drink problem. But telling someone that you have/intend to quit and meaning it is another story.

All the best Paul x

LoftyIdeals

Paul...sorry you were off to a rough start. But, I did read something encouraging. You counted your drinks. I think that's a positive way to start, by keeping a clear accounting of your drinking, including financial and time costs, including both drinking time and hangover. You should also consider what made you trigger the first drink. In your case, a rare summer day with friends and bbq. Unfortunately, you may have to ostracize yourself from these pleasures for awhile after you quit.

Drinking does indeed cause euphoric feelings, or else most wouldn't do it. It can also give you energy, as its packed with sugars. But, it also causes bad judgment, which, in my case, caught up with me. I've now been 10 months without a drink, and love life far more than I thought I could when I was drinking. I was quite miserable at the end.

Keep trying. You can do this if you want it, and it seems you do.

Zebra1275

I know that tomorrow I will feel like **** and convince myself that I need more to make the pain go away.

That's the insanity of it. Alcohol causes you pain, so you drink more of it to make the pain go away.

Sounds like you are circling the drain. If you want to quit, you have to find a new method, just wishing you hadn't drank every morning is not going to do it.

Nirvana1

First, don't beat yourself up too much about your slip. You just recently declared that you are an alcoholic, and while that is a great first step, it really is just a first step out of many. When reading your post, I picked up a lot of "justifications" why you started drinking. "It was such a beautiful day", "My buddies were over for a BBQ", etc. All I have to say is that when you are craving for a drink, it won't be that hard to find some sort of justification if you want to find one.

What would work better is if you had a SERIOUS plan of action for how you won't drink today. SERIOUS means getting to detox, going to a DR, or getting some face to face help for your drinking. With your level of drinking, you will need way more than a declaration and will power will power to stop. You will need to trust all of us that we know what we are talking about, and I won't be the first or the last person here to tell you to get to detox, the dr, or make plans for rehab.

Best of luck.

dsjr

I have tried many times to go it alone. It's not enough to think you have will power. I hesitated to reach out for help but finally put myself in outpatient treatment and have started to go to AA meeting an have a sponsor. Even if you just start going to AA I think it will be a big help.

You don't have to do it alone.

FredG

You don't know where to start? That's easy ... don't take the first drink. When you've firmly decided, and are started, let us know. We'll help with the next step too.

jstar

i get where you are right now. i've been playing on the merry go round myself for the past 2 years with breif bouts of sobriety at times.

one of my friends says this all the time & i WANT to get my brain to think this way too so i just keep saying it to myself!

She says "We don"t drink, no matter what!"

that is a hard thing to implement but i've seen it change lives.

have you tried AA?

Peter G

Good luck. Really.

See, I needed to be able to do it on my own as well. Problem is I couldn't. And my life tanked exponentially for years and years from that 'need' to do it on my own, even though I was constitutionally incapable of the feat. Someone once told me that the absolute worst part of active alcoholism is how it so easily convinces us we don't need any help to beat it. I remember thinking he was a chump. Remember thinking "this cat obviously doesn't know who I am". Remember thinking there was no way on earth I would get THAT desperate. I have never been more wrong.

Having seen the end result of people forging ahead with the "I don't need anything but myself" attitude, you're chances are... well... like I said... good luck. I really do wish you the best in the struggles you may well be inviting into your not-so-distant future.

More than likely you'll come to see that "on your own" is a fool's errand where booze is concerned, if you're a drinker like I was. Inevitability, and all that. See Paul, I read your last thread. Your story tells me that you are currently walking a path I've already followed to the bitter end. You are now drinking in a pretty darned similar way to the way I was, having strikingly similar results as I did. And like me at a certain point, you still have a job, life, loved ones, e.t.c... The kicker is that there's a big whopping, massive downward spiral to be extremely concerned with. And it's not terribly far away from where you are right now.

So, once you can thoroughly get past the thought process you're clinging to now, one which is more than likely to do nothing but prolong and exacerbate your misery, then you will start to make massive leaps towards sobriety, towards beating this devil. My prayer now is that you survive the experience.

Out of the dozen or so alcoholics I've known over the years, not one single booze-hound came to find lasting sobriety doing it on their own. And that's certainly not from any lack of trying, believe me. Each and every one needed some sort of help/treatment/program/technology. Allow me to elaborate slightly. Those alcoholics include a dean of sociology, a writer for Rolling Stone, a Grammy award winning songwriter/pianist, a Marine Master Sergeant, and one other lady that I'm convinced could solve global warming she's so frikin eerily brilliant. Reason I mention them is not to be an obtuse a$$, but to preface the following: Do you think you are better at figuring out a booze problem than those folks? Special perhaps? Unique? Not as bad as us? Not really an alcoholic? Were we worse off than you are right now? More "Addicted"? Less capable? Funny how I thought exactly the same things, and still went on to burn my entire life to the ground, just slightly short of ending my own life.

Of course it's possible that you'll take what I'm saying as combative and write off the underlying message as asinine or simply not applicable to your own, special and unique situation. Been there. Done that. Bought the T shirt. In spite of all that, I've gotta let you know what I know from real world experience, not from any lofty ideals, early sobriety epiphanies, or puffed out egos. My truth is that I've never seen "going it alone" work for long, not for me, nor anyone else who has a genuine and serious problem with booze.

I stopped believing I could buck probability and the statistically quantifiable proof of millions of boozers before me. It happened the minute I woke up bloody, broken, on the side of the road, with a knife in my leg, in a country I didn't even remember landing in. And even after such a realization it was another 2 + years before I stopped putting off getting the help I knew (by then) I needed. In fact it took an ICU unit and a diagnosis of certain death before I managed to pull my head out of my a$$. So honestly, it's entirely up to you whether or not you wanna chance all that or not. If you think it's an acceptable risk to move ahead "on your own", believing you are the exception to the rules I speak of, my only hope is that you're absolutely right and I'm absolutely wrong. Otherwise I feel for ya bro, cuz IMO it's gonna get much worse before it get's better.

I only bother saying these things to you now, because there's 1 potential future for you that I've seen first hand, and it's bloody grim, sick, life threatening, and completely tragic.

When you are ready to admit this might be a tad beyond your best intentions and most enlightened purview, there is help available 24/7. We can help you find it, and then help you apply it. In the meantime, what's the problem buying some books, doing some reading, calling some people to ask about what your problem might be? Doesn't a solution require at least some research? At the very least it won't hurt a damned thing to tell your doctor you want to stop drinking but can't, and then see what he/she says on the matter. That's the start you're looking for. Whether you are ready to find it is another question.

Payton

Hey Peter G, when you say you finally decided not to do it alone, what resources did you use? Thanks again for your blunt posts...they always kick me in the ass even though you're posting to someone else.

Paul, I can feel your despair coming through your post. It hurts to see. Wish I could give you a hug. Don't give up. I think you need to work with a doctor for detox and then get yourself into some kind of support program.

tomsteve

conceding to yer inner most self that alcohol is a problem for you and you will do whatever ya gotta do to get sober is a pretty good start.

pauladmits

@Peter G

Thanks for the brutal honesty. And you probably do understand me better than myself, lol. I am very stubborn and arrogant and believe I have the power to do things on my own which I'm sure most alcoholics have that same mentality. The one thing I would disagree with you, is I don't feel my case is special or have that center of the Universe type mentality where I think I'm the only one who has or is going through this. I actually feel weak and vulnerable. I feel normal. I go through my entire life putting on an act that I have everything figured out. It is so nice just to come here, even in the anonymity of it and just tell people the truth or most importantly, tell myself the truth. I am weak, I have a problem, and I do need help. And having this many people respond this fast with support and their own personal stories is amazing.

I just feel like two different people right now. Right now, I feel great, I did all the things I needed to do this morning to fight the hangover, got my workout in, ate a good fattening breakfast, took my vitamins, drank my electrolytes, and water... I feel great and in control. Right now I do not crave alcohol, I actually want to fight it and not drink today just to prove that I do have control.

But then I read what I wrote last night, and it's a whole different story. That is me with no control. I don't like that guy right now, he seems weak and pathetic. Makes me want to battle him for control over my own body. This site is invaluable in the sense that I can see the other side. It's kind of weird. So, I'm going to the drawing board, gonna do some reading today and figure out a game plan. I will post it later.

Anyways, thanks again for your comments.

Heidi1220

Hey Paul,

The only thing you have to worry about right now is today. Just don't drink today. Get a good night sleep, and do it again tomorrow. Don't worry about the long run, worry about today....or this hour....or this minute. One day, hour, minute at a time. That's all you can do. When you feel you need a drink, pick up the phone, call someone who supports your sobriety (girlfriend, etc).