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I'm a binge drinker

Old 07-15-2012, 10:16 AM
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I'm a binge drinker

I don't drink everyday but I drink every weekend. I've never called myself an alcoholic because I can go days without drinking anything and never really feel like I NEED a drink. I don't drink to forget things or because I'm super stressed. I really just do it because it's fun. I get off work Friday afternoon at 12 and go home and drink beer until I go to bed. Saturday I wake up and around lunchtime go buy more beer and drink until I go to bed. I never really get blackout drunk as it's light beer and it's over the course of several hours but I will put away 20 beers each day. I get horrible hangovers from it though complete with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. I can't schedule anything before 12 on Sat and Sunday mornings because I know I'll be recovering.

I don't want to do this anymore. I'm 27 and I've drank every weekend with few exceptions for 3 years. It's become a habit to where I drink just because it's a Friday or Saturday. It's become a routine. My wife and I had our first baby last March and I quit drinking for two weeks and said I wasn't gonna drink anymore. Then I started trying to rationalize...well it's okay if I just drink a 6 pack on Friday and Saturday. Then it became 12. Now it's back to 18-20.

So I'm gonna stop this routine this week. I'm sure you get posts like this every Sunday with people nursing their worst hangover ever and vowing all kinds of things. But I've told my wife my intentions so I will be accountable and I thought I would join this board and vent. I usually do great until Thursday afternoon when I start rationalizing why there is a reason to drink again on the weekend. If you guys have tips let me know. I've been reading through the board already and there is some great info here. Thanks for reading.
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Old 07-15-2012, 10:45 AM
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Hello, and welcome.

I was a binger,too. Then it turned into every other day, thinking I wasn't an alcoholic because I didn't drink every day. Boy, was I wrong.

I drank in the morning, I drank at noon, I drank at night. This went on for twenty years.
Alcoholism is progressive. I've sworn it off, made solemn vows and quit for a week, or month, at a time.
Thing was, I always went back to the bottle.

I truly hope you don't reach the low points I did. Horrible anxiety, panic attacks, lies, deception, they were all part of it.

Heck, I joined here like five years ago and I've been sober two and a half years. Took me awhile to get it. Alcohol was ruining my life.

What works for me, is thinking that first drink through to the end and the ramifications it'll bring. I was near hopeless, but I'm recovering.
Lot's of people find AA a great support group. Then you'll have more than your wife to be responcible to.

You'll find lots of support here. And I encourage you to post as often as you need to.

Best wishes.
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Old 07-15-2012, 10:48 AM
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Welcome and congrats on your first child !

You don't need to drink everyday to be an alcoholic... I was a binge drinker myself.

Thing is, alcoholism is progressive..... Please learn from our experiences and don't let it take you, your wife and your child through some dark times..

Many recovery programs out there too, I found AA to be great help to start your sobriety off...

Good luck !
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Old 07-15-2012, 10:51 AM
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Welcome to SR. It's good to have you here.

I was a binge drinker, too. I actually didn't even drink every weekend - I probably drank twice a month, maybe three times. When I drank, though, boy did I drink! I didn't think I was an alcoholic... I didn't think I had an addiction... but I knew that SOMETHING wasn't quite right there - I knew somewhere deep down that what I was doing was definitely not normal and was definitely going to get me in deep trouble if I continued doing it long enough. I'll tell you now that I know I am an alcoholic. I know that no matter what, once I have that first drink, I am unable to control myself. I know that I can never drink again, ever, because if I do... well, who knows what will become of me.

I wish you all the best and hope you stick around... it's a great place for support. Good luck.
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Old 07-15-2012, 11:49 AM
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Binge drinking was definitely my specialty. I should rather say it "is" my forte, since repeated experiments have proven that if I pick up a drink I will be right back at the expert bingeing. As others have pointed out and as the wealth of experience here at SR shows, alcoholism is progressive. You may not describe yourself as an alcoholic or one afflicted by alcoholism. That's OK since what really matters is the recognition of a problem. All the normal drinkers around me in my life don't ever, ever struggle with the "alcohol is a problem" self-inquiry, because they are not alcoholics. For me, even though I was never a "maintenance" daily drinker, and had many dry spells in which I managed to get some good responsible human living done, recognizing my binges for the destructive, absolutely out of control booze-fests that they were was a breakthrough step in honesty with myself I needed to take. There is great support here that I make use of and, since I am still early in sobriety, at not quite 40 days, daily AA meetings.

My binges started out as weekend affairs, or occasional party night social occasions. Lots of times they were incredibly fun, and full of laughter and joy and "social effervescence." I would never monitor my intake: these were free-for-alls. A fifth of scotch came to seem like a bottle of wine to me. They usually involved pretty awful hangovers. Gradually, progressively, as my tolerance increased, and as my hangovers began to mutate into something qualitatively different and unbearable--even before I realized I was an alcoholic I knew they were becoming actual withdrawal episodes--those weekends spilled over into the week, then the week into two weeks, maybe at an extreme three weeks. This degeneration took place over twenty years. I look back on that transformation and have a real "wtf" sort of bafflement, like I was watching it happen and it really wasn't me, but some other poor sap. Cunning and baffling indeed. Then followed several half-baked stabs at AA, a couple three month stretches of sobriety, followed by the "it's not an issue for me any more" moment, followed by one seemingly innocuous drink, then right back into the grip of an addiction I felt like I really hadn't signed up for.

It's great that you are taking an honest look at your drinking pattern, and posting/reading here will be a great benefit. I have two young kids and a loving wife who wonder what the hell exactly happend to me over the years of worsening drinking, but now what they truly care about is having the real, sober me present, healthy and active in their lives. I really did play with fire and get burned. My best wishes to you on your path!
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:02 PM
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This is me too. Am 27, total binge drinker and currently feeling like rubbish as I type. Ashamed and embarrassed. There is no other way. I have to stop drinking. I can't spend another conversation with my BF talking about what I did last night. I'm lucky he's still here. But I can't moderate my drinking. Therefore I need to quit, just like a did with cigarette. It's taken a year of therapy to get to the point where I feel strong enough to say I'm going to stop drinking and actually feel like I might be able to do this.
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:11 PM
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I started out the same way, got progressively worse, first wife drank more than I did, we got divorced, I kept drinking, remarried the girlfriend that would put up with the most of my BS, she put up with it for 10+ years, started complaining because I did a lot of idiotic ****, I cut back for a week or 2 then back in full force, repeat a dozen times. Eventually I got tired of hearing it so I moved out because it was her fault that I drank anyway, right?

Now after about a year of being alone I finally figured it out and will never drink again. 20+ years after I started and literally 100s of thousands spent on booze, I'm sure. Luckily my wife is still waiting for me to come back and I'm not even sure if I'm ready for that yet.
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:24 PM
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Anyone who goes out 12 Friday and is blotto all through the weekend is definitely not normal, by anybody's standards. You are certainly not present for your wife and child and don't seem to have any family life on the weekend. Don't tell me your wife is happy with this arrangement, I certainly wouldn't be and my husband would have gone berserk about it before now.

You just have to make up your mind what sort of life you want. I decided after years of horror - it gets worse - I love my sobriety. I love my family. I love the peace instead of the chaos alcoholism brings. Good luck
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:25 PM
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Welcome to SR!

Glad you are here!
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:36 PM
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Binge drinker here too. Just weekends. The frequency of the drinking was not what made me alcoholic. It's what happened when I put alcohol in the system. Once I put it in all bets were off. I had no control how much I consumed. Your rationalizing sounds very familiar. Our minds tell us it is ok or that I will control it this time. That is the baffling and cunning part of alcohol. If you ask a moderate drinker about this they will not understand because they don't ever rationalize, they can take it or leave it. Weird I know! Bit once they have drink the allergy for more doesn't kick in. If you have that allergy the obsession to drink like a normal person has to lost. Because you can't change your body.
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:56 PM
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Binger here also, wow everyones story sounds just like mine.
Anyway bk to day1 again for me, 4 months clean down the drain.
About a month ago i said sure i'll just go back to weekend drinking, then got heavier and heavier, now today i'm sitting shaking from a 10 day binge.
Normal drinkers dont sitting thinking about it next day from nite b4
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Old 07-15-2012, 12:58 PM
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Ditto Seanie. I feel like rubbish today. Very angry with myself. I've drunk heavily for the past three weekends, with a few nights drinking heavily during the week. My BF is starting to get it but he doesn't sit and think about what he's done after drinking.
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Old 07-15-2012, 02:01 PM
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Originally Posted by lillyknitting View Post
Anyone who goes out 12 Friday and is blotto all through the weekend is definitely not normal, by anybody's standards. You are certainly not present for your wife and child and don't seem to have any family life on the weekend. Don't tell me your wife is happy with this arrangement, I certainly wouldn't be and my husband would have gone berserk about it before now.

You just have to make up your mind what sort of life you want. I decided after years of horror - it gets worse - I love my sobriety. I love my family. I love the peace instead of the chaos alcoholism brings. Good luck
This post hurts but I need people telling me this. When I think about it in terms of being there for my wife and child it tears me apart. You are exactly right. While I am here with them my priority is not spending time with them, it's drinking beer. And that is pretty sorry. I'm glad I posted here. Never imagined I would get the responses like this but I'm grateful.
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Old 07-15-2012, 02:14 PM
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as many people have pointed out, alcoholism is progressive. when you find yourself unable to break the "habit" and parts of your life start revolving around getting your fix, that's an addiction. a regular person doesn't have to rationalize their drinking because it doesn't effect the responsibilities they have in their life. then again, there's a lot of people out there who think of themselves as "normal" who actually probably have some problems. "normal" is relative. VERY relative. congrats on realizing that alcohol is having this negative impact on your life and for wanting to do something about it. remember, you're probably going to be able to come up with a million excuses why you can drink but they're just that. excuses. you've got three big excuses not to drink that outweigh every drinking excuse out there. your wife, your child and above all you. because you cannot gain true sobriety unless you want it for yourself. lots of people want to hinge their sobriety on other people but it often doesn't work out well because relationships have factors other than sobriety that come into play. your sobriety is above all for you and how happy you will be knowing that you are doing everything you can unselfishly fulfilling your obligations to your family by not drinking. it's called pride. we lose it when we drink. we get it back when we sober up. we learn humility to keep it in check because we are powerless against alcohol. it's a cunning little beast. it only takes that one drink that we think we can handle. then we think we can handle a couple more. since we're fine after that we're down a six pack. after that we've already screwed up so let's go for broke. cunning. it knows us well. have a plan this weekend for how you're going to handle your temptations. you can make it. you're not too deep in the jaws of the beast! kiss you're wife and kiddo. they're so very lucky to have someone like you who care so much about them and himself. congrats!
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Old 07-15-2012, 06:36 PM
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Welcome Elroy!

I don't think any of us intentionally set out to hurt ourselves or those we love. We just happen to be one of a million others like us that are susceptible to alcohol addiction. What's so great is that you've recognized a problem and are willing to find a solution. Even though it doesn't feel good right now, it really is a huge step in the right direction!

Keep reading and posting..... and make some fun and different plans for the weekend that have no relation to alcohol. Glad you're here!
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Old 07-15-2012, 07:57 PM
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I am the same way. I would drink at night and on the weekends. I was a functional alcoholic. I went to work, tried my best to take care of my kids and house and maintain relationships with my loved ones. I convinced myself that I wasn't a drunk. Drunks made fools out of themselves. I had myself convinced that wasn't me. It took a lot of soul searching to convince myself otherwise.
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Old 07-15-2012, 08:24 PM
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I was also a binge drinker and wow Oinobares really hit the nail on the head describing the increased tolerance and those hangovers. How awful that life was. We all became slaves to it at some time, but there truly is a way out. Like Ghostlight said thinking through the drink is such a powerful tool. Our minds tend to romanticize alcohol and one of the keys is to take the power away from that romantic vision. I may think I want a few glasses of wine, but let's be honest when has that EVER happened? I'd drink a few bottles and pay dearly for it- mind, body and soul. Nothing romantic about that whatsoever.

You can do it. We're all here cheering you on!!
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Old 07-15-2012, 08:35 PM
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Problem drinking is really short-term-thinking behavior. Is it worth a bad hangover to be drunk? Ehhh, maybe, if you're young, and in college, but that's a pretty short-term analysis.

Is it worth damaging your organs, gaining extra weight (not healthy), wrecking relationships, virtually burning dollars you could be saving for your retirement, tarnishing your reputation and good name, and I haven't even gotten to all the missed opportunities--all of the positive things you could be doing for your family, your career, your body.

Is it worth waking up one day and realizing that you essentially were asleep at the wheel for large parts of your daughter's childhood, to be drunk all the time? Worth it?

These are pretty easy questions to answer, I assume.

That's why I say that drinking is short-term thinking. When you start thinking longer-term, and start asking yourself, is what I get from the bottle worth all the awful crap that comes along with it, the answers get a lot more obvious. When you start with the full-on, long-term thinking, and ask yourself, "is this drinking thing worth it, long-term?" only a fool would say "yes." But a drunk man's denial tends to keep his view short.

As I have become sober, I've realized it is either a cause or an effect of a change in my own thinking, from short-term thinking to long-term thinking.
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Old 07-15-2012, 09:36 PM
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lots of good advice here - welcome to SR Elroy

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Old 07-16-2012, 06:28 AM
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Originally Posted by Notmyrealname View Post
Problem drinking is really short-term-thinking behavior. Is it worth a bad hangover to be drunk? Ehhh, maybe, if you're young, and in college, but that's a pretty short-term analysis.

Is it worth damaging your organs, gaining extra weight (not healthy), wrecking relationships, virtually burning dollars you could be saving for your retirement, tarnishing your reputation and good name, and I haven't even gotten to all the missed opportunities--all of the positive things you could be doing for your family, your career, your body.

Is it worth waking up one day and realizing that you essentially were asleep at the wheel for large parts of your daughter's childhood, to be drunk all the time? Worth it?

These are pretty easy questions to answer, I assume.

That's why I say that drinking is short-term thinking. When you start thinking longer-term, and start asking yourself, is what I get from the bottle worth all the awful crap that comes along with it, the answers get a lot more obvious. When you start with the full-on, long-term thinking, and ask yourself, "is this drinking thing worth it, long-term?" only a fool would say "yes." But a drunk man's denial tends to keep his view short.

As I have become sober, I've realized it is either a cause or an effect of a change in my own thinking, from short-term thinking to long-term thinking.
That hits HARD and it's so true. It's absolutely not worth it. She is too young to really understand what I have been doing but it won't be long before she can. She will understand that her daddy is pretty much worthless on the weekends because he's drinking beer all day. She will understand that if anything ever happened to her or her mother, her daddy wouldn't be able to take them anywhere or do much of anything because he's drunk. Today is Day 2 but I am feeling as motivated as I have ever been thanks to you guys on the forum.
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