Gforce23

Well here I am again, in the same place I was the last time I was here on SR. Hung over after a dinner party, sitting on the couch while my Husband and Son are out walking in the woods without me. I feel guilty and ashamed, though everyone was drinking heavily-- this is about me. I am tired of waking up hung over every week or so-- which maybe doesn't seem excessive, but I don't remember much of anything after our friends left. I barely remember putting my son to bed. I feel guilty and ashamed and I don't know how to stop this cycle. Once I start to feel better by tomorrow, the feelings guilt and shame fade along with any resolve I had to not drink again. I do not know how to stop this cycle of stupidity. I feel like I'm stuck between my unhealthy drinking problem and my fear of quitting. Should I see a therapist? I've been to A.A in the past, and going to meetings did not seem to help. I did not call people if I felt like drinking. I could never even get to that point because I had already justified my impending drink. I may not be in danger of dying in a ditch, but whenever I drink socially I can't seem to control how much I drink, and I just keep craving more. The next day or two or three I don't even want to smell alcohol, and I feel terrible physically and I usually experience a great deal of anxiety when I'm hungover. But... the bad feelings fade. How in heaven do I fight this seemingly inevitable brain fog? How can I not come here again repeating the same old song and dance?

Thepatman

Maybe it's time to stop for good. Not easy but it might be the pathway to freedom. Don't beat yourself up, if you stop you will be able to enjoy life with your son and husband.

Hevyn

Hi Gforce. Glad you came here to talk about it.

I kept doing that same thing over & over too. I kept insisting each time that I could use willpower to keep control. Of course, it never worked once. Each time I drank I ended up wasted and hungover. I began making poor decisions and putting myself in danger. In the end, I had to stop or risk losing my life. That was my motivation to quit - but it should never have come to that. I knew early on that I drank differently than any of my friends or family. There was never enough alcohol to get the job done.

Hopefully, things will never go that far for you - but you're wise to get this resolved now. I never dreamed my drinking would turn me into a person I didn't even recognize.

Glad you are here, please keep posting.

Gforce23

I would very much like it if anyone who can relate to my story or where I'm at could tell me how they did it. Just showing up to A.A meetings, did not work for me. Something else is needed here either as an alternative or as an addition to outside support. I need help combating this brain fog that descends. I don't know if a therapist can help, but I really can't afford it if it does. I know that I'm never going to "want" to quit drinking. I just don't know how to get past this place of "push-pull," if that makes any sense. I keep asking myself, "When will I ever be truly ready to quit?" Am I waiting for lightning to strike?

Delilah1

I tried unsuccessfully to quit many times. I am also a mom, and know there were times I was not fully present for my kids, and days I was not as productive at work as I should have been.

I did not have any huge event that triggered me to want to stop,but I think I was finally fed up with waking up and feeling guilty.

Today is 45 days for me and I have been on SR daily, I also went to the doctor, I am seeing a therapist every other week, and have attended an education series as well as a few meetings.

I have replaced my drinking hours with exercise, reading, and time with my kiddos. The first few days were the hardest, and I still think about that glass (bottle) of wine so e times, but I have not once woken up and thought I wish I had drank last night, where before I almost always woke up thinking tonight I will not have wine, it was like I was trapped in the movie Groundhog Day.

Keep reading and posting on here, I have found great support, and I also like to check in to see how everyone is doing, and to keep me accountable!!¡

pooky

Gforce
A part of me never really wanted to quit drinking either. I never had any really terrible things happen to me while drinking except the usual stupid drunken blackout behavior.(like that wasnt enough) It got to the point,though,that I was sooo tired of it defeating me and feeling like crap the next day.It got to the point that it was happening to me every day.
I finally started to go to AA meetings..never said much but liked the support and I keep on going. 6 weeks sober isnt a lot but it sure does feel good not being hungover and remorseful.

version2

GForce, I know just how you feel. Have been in AA and sober for 6 months. I had numerous slips before that and felt like crap. I knew I needed to give myself wholly to a program - whatever you choose. I chose AA and now have a sponsor and working the steps. Just going to meetings was not enough for me. Just my two cents.

jstar

welcome back! i'm a mom as well (of 4) and for a long time I didn't "really " want to quit either, like you I just wanted the relief from the mental fog, regret, anxiety, shame.. etc etc. problem was for me that alcohol stopped working for me. I was drinking all the time & binge drinking to the point of blacking out weekly. it got to the point where I realized that I can't get away from all those feelings as long as i'm drinking as the shame, guilt, remorse etc were a result of my drinking behaviors.
2 years ago I walked into my first AA meeting and didn't really work a program for much of the last 2 years off & on. once I got serious about quitting drinking, I stepped up my program.
I got a sponsor that has a lot of sobriety and I call her. I go to at least 1 meeting every day. I go a few minutes early and stay a bit after to talk to people and sometimes go to the "meeting after the meeting"...dinner, coffee, movies etc..to hang out with others in recovery. I go to outpatient sessions 2x a week, therapy 1x a week & couples therapy 1x a week. typing that almost sounds a little obsessive, but it is what works for me, right now to stay sober. my last relapse I ended up in the hospital and almost died. I have 4 kids from age 4 to 14 so I just need to be motivated for my sobriety, so i don't drink no matter what.

best of luck!

kla

gforce - your story sounds a lot like me in 2011, and for probably 10 years leading up to it. While I certainly did not drink everyday- probably only 10 times per year, it got to the point that every time i drank, i drank too much; and felt a ton of guilt and anxiety along with each hangover. What 'pushed' me over was telling all my family and friends that I wasn't going to be drinking anymore in 2012; for some reason once others expected me not to drink, i seemed to have much more motivation not to do it. i wish I could tell you it worked 100%, but I did have a slip in the wrong direction last Friday, but overall 2012 with two days of drinking was probably my driest year since 1982; and I'm hopeful that 2013 will be an entire year. A life insurance screening, which showed elavated liver enzymes and high cholesterol also helped convince me it was time for a dramtic change. If you haven't had yourself checked by a Dr. for any collateral damage, might be wise to do so. best wishes.

zeroptzero

I respectfully suggest that you are looking for a program or treatment that will take away your desire to drink. I do not think that you will be walking out of an A.A. meeting or a therapist's office and suddenly not want to drink anymore.
Unfortunately, you (or part of you) is going to want to drink. I think you are approaching this backwards; it starts with your decision to stop drinking, or at least a sincere desire to stop drinking. If you begin with that, you will still get urges to drink, but you will deal with them. You will feel like drinking, but you will recognize the feeling as an urge to do something you have decided you don't want to do. A.A., therapy, other methods/programs are there to help you deal with the desires to drink that you will have.
Now, I absolutely believe that A.A. and many other methods will help diminish the urges over time, and I have heard stories of people who say "The moment I did (x) I never wanted another drink." I think these instances are the exception.
What I am trying to say is don't blame yourself or think yourself weak because you desire to drink again after your last hangover is over; that is THE cycle that so, so many of us have been in. However, I don't think any method will remove your desire to drink unless it is founded on your sincere desire (or better yet decision) to stop. It takes time for urges to fade, but the great news (as was promised to me and came true) is that it gets better!

Gforce23

Hello everyone-- thanks for all the empathy and the sound advice. It is nice to know that people are out there who understand where I'm at and don't perceive my (up till this point) inability to change it as an attempt to string people along. I really do want to understand it. My husband is not much of a help here. Drinking has been a part of our relationship, and I usually don't get out of hand when it's just the two of us. We share a six pack on a Friday, watch a movie, and that's it. It is only when I am in a group--whether it's a dinner party, a party party, a bar or anything that qualifies as a social function that I binge drink. So, my husband has this idea that I can control it if I "want" to, and I don't think that he wants me to quit, for the same reasons I have for fearing to quit: I will miss that part of our relationship. It's something we do--we drink beer and play guitar or air hockey and have a good time with each other. Anyway, he wants to downplay it and doesn't seem to understand why I am making a big deal out of it. So, it's nice to know there are others' out there who do understand why I'm making a big deal out of it.

jstar

my husband didn't understand either when I first reached out (over 2 years ago) for help. him and friends of mine couldn't see what I knew I had secretly been struggling with. it is hard for them to understand and no one wants to lose a "drinking buddy". they all finally began to understand when I checked into rehab and then more fully understood how serious things were when I overdosed & almost died. I hope you never have to go through that, I know I scared the daylights out of my family & my kids.

no one can decide for you what you should do..but if you feel like you have a problem drinking, it can only improve your quality of life to not drink. what do you have to lose?

Gforce23

Yep, you are right: I am looking for this to be easy. In my heart of hearts, I want to be able to say, "well I just won't do it," and that will be that. On some level, I think it is really that simple, and it's only our mind and it's fear of changing that make it complicated. However-- if drinking didn't provide something for us, we wouldn't do it. It's pleasurable (for a few drinks,) my husband and I bond over our love of beer. We look forward to it together. We use it as a tool for loosening up and having fun with each other. But--the kicker is, my husband doesn't have a problem, and I do. He rarely gets drunk. He likes to enjoy a few beers after work or with friends, or even out at a bar or party, but he has something I don't: a little voice that tells him it's time to switch to water. I'll be sad to give up that part of our relationship. Though I guess dwelling on what's lost is pointless, I feel the need to at least acknowledge that it's not just drinking alcohol that your giving up when you give it up. Actually, if I am being honest, it is this aspect of our relationship that is the most difficult part of wrapping my head around "just stopping."
This all being said, what I really want to know from people who have finally stopped this cycle for good, is how do you stop that voice of remorse and resolve to stop from fading away after you feel better? I know it's a classic maneuver, the hungover "I'll never drink again!" proclamation. The thing is, I really don't want it to be that. I want to keep this objective voice that this is bad for me from being drowned out and eventually eliminated by the one that tells me that it's no big deal, and that voice is mighty powerful, hypnotic even. It likes the status quo and it doesn't want me to change. That voice senses the anxiety I feel about quitting, and rushes in to tell me that it's fine, I don't have to quit, I can keep being the same. I end up believing that voice because after all, it sounds just like my voice, and at that point I can't objectively separate myself from this voice. I can't even say to myself: "Oh, that's those thoughts again, don't listen." Because at that point, I am so thoroughly identified with the voice telling me that it's no big deal. How do I circumvent this? Is there a way?

flutter

I had a hard time losing the "fun drinking" part of my relationship with my husband.. hell we'd been drinking buddies for ages, it was pretty much all we did socially or for "entertainment". It was a really really difficult learning curve to go through, we literally had to really get to know each other in a new way, our entire relationship changed. He struggled with it too, he missed the old party stuff. He is not an alcoholic, he has never and will never understand fully why I had to completely quit drinking. I don't expect him to... it's my deal. Those first few months were rough (in regards to no longer drinking together). He kept our home alcohol free for quite some time, and actually stopped drinking altogether for a while, out of not really knowing what to do. We started going to dinners and actually talking, we went to movies which was pretty new to us as our old life revolved around being in a bar, or sitting at home playing board games and drinking. Before I quit for good, I selfishly used his discomfort with my new sobriety as an excuse to drink again, I knew he'd be "ok" with it, not knowing how deeply disturbing the experience really was. It was easy in our relationship to equate drinking with "fun", on my end it was pretty selfish, and didn't give our true relationship a chance at developing. How much of our lives I missed, how many awesome conversations I never had, how many clear mornings I could have had cooking a nice breakfast, or never having to regret those "night before" activities. I will say that now, and for the past few years, our relationship is better than it ever has been, but it was really really hard for both of us to get here. I had to fix me, solo. He stayed on for the ride (thank God) and reaped the rewards of having a friend, a wife, a true partner that he didn't even know he had. I'm really happy to provide that to him now, and I get plenty of rewards back on my end too.

Gforce23

Good morning, well it is day two for me, which after a hangover, is usually no problem for me. I don't usually start wanting to look at alcohol for at least a few days, sometimes even a week or two after a really bad hangover. I am trying to figure out how to stop the fog that comes over my brain a week later when my husband comes home with a 6 pack of hop head IPA. At this point, I will only have a beer or two, so it's easy to tell my self that I was silly to think that I really have a problem, look see, every time I drink with my husband, I have a few beers and go to bed early. No big deal. Right? Well, if that's all I ever did was share a few beers with my husband, it probably wouldn't be a problem, but whenever I drink at a social function of any kind, I nearly always drink way to much and end up feeling like physically ill, I smoke when I don't normally smoke, so I end up with a terrible migraine and nausea the next day. I am a serious mountain biker and I am trying to get back into shape. My Uncle died of esophageal cancer (though he didn't get it from smoking...but still.) I don't want that!!! I feel depressed, anxious and ashamed when I'm hungover. I like to think that I don't do it very often, and it's true--if I'm not very social for a while, or I just don't go out, I don't drink to this point, and sometimes I've gone for months drinking moderately at home. But as soon as I go out to a bar to see some music or a dinner party with other prodigious drinkers, blam-o. I will be a hungover mess for a day or two. Which means I usually suffer about 5 hangover's during the holiday season. I was hungover last weekend, so I think it happens more than I like to think. If I could just keep the moderate at home drinking and ditch the destructive social drinking, I would. However, I am pretty sure you all will tell me what I all ready know: it just doesn't work that way. I just want to know how to keep this voice that knows this isn't good for me from getting drowned out by the voice that wants to hypnotize me into believing that nothing needs to change.
I am thinking of going back to A.A, despite my misgivings and downright disagreements with some of A.A's philosophy and beliefs. I am going to be very honest and say that I just moved to a small town, and I'm feeling very self-conscious about showing up to meetings here at the church in the middle of town. It doesn't feel very "anonymous." Would there be anything wrong at all with me driving down the road to the larger nearby town to go to meetings for a while? There is a woman's meeting there and I am wondering if that might be good for me. Any thoughts?
Thanks for listening.

sugarbear1

When you realize that a few beers aren't for you, that any alcohol isn't good for you, then maybe you'll realize you have a problem consuming alcohol......you can stay stopped, too, if you want to badly enough.

There is no magic pill, it takes a lot of work to stay stopped. Are you willing to put effort into staying stopped?

Gforce23

Thank you for your story. It really actually moved me, but you describe exactly how it is between me and my husband as well. We've been drinking buddies for a long time. He doesn't understand why I can't just "moderate" when I drink in social situations because he sees me drink moderately with him. Yet, he gets pretty annoyed with me when I come home wasted at 2:00 am and he'll make disparaging remarks about how the day will be a "write-off" for me and he'll say some thing like "I guess I'll be hanging out with (our son) to day."
Even though it sounded pretty hard for you at first, at least you two muddle through it and now your thankful. That gives me some hope that while I may giving up significant way that my husband and I have bonded over the years, I can replace it with something even better. Thanks.

Gforce23

See there, there in lies the problem: "if I want to badly enough" Well, I really "want" to when I feel like crap. When I stop feeling like crap, the urgency of that "want" seems to fade. So, I personally think I wait until I actually "want" to stop, I'll be waiting until hell freezes over. I have to do it not because I want to, but because I need to.

Xune

I admitted to my wife and Dr that I have a drinking problem and simply can no longer drink alcohol.

I gave up, I surrendered to alcohol.

The only option I have is to not drink alcohol for any reason...ever.

If I stop myself from having the first drink, I remain in control.

I also see a psychologist with a background in addiction.

I am an addict in early remission and wouldn't have it any other way.

For me, there was freedom in admitting defeat and walking away from booze.

I'm not in AA and found reading 'sober for good' helpful.

2granddaughters

AA didn't work for me either until I committed to it.

Go to the meetings and ask the oldtimers there how they did it, they'll tell you. Then YOU do it.
AA will work miracles for those who work for it.

I can relate to you and I can tell you my life got continually worse until I committed to recovery in AA. This isn't a G.D. game


I wish you the best.

Bob R