medicatrix

Hi everyone.

This is my first time posting to a recovery board, although I've known I needed help for a pretty long time. Thing is, I never wanted to go to AA because...well. I'm pretty sure I'm an alcoholic, I just don't want to admit it to anyone I know. I don't want the stigma of being a recovering alcoholic to follow me around in any way, especially since I've kept my serious drinking a secret so far as I know.

I've been putting away a bottle of wine a night or more for about three years. Before that I had what I called "bouts" -- years where I drank every night and then just sort of drifted off of it for a while. I didn't stop completely but it was just not part of my life and how I managed that I have no idea.

Anyway, back to now.

I live alone. I don't have any friends, I have a job and for the most part I've been able to function on my own for years. But it started to get clearer and clearer to me that a lot of my extra energy was being taken up by drinking, hangovers, hiding alcohol and etcetera. I never thought I was "that bad" but I also realized I wasn't thinking that clearly at work, and the weekends were just one long hangover.

Then, a couple days this summer, I called in drunk a couple times. No one knew -- no one really cares that much -- but I knew it. I also had plans I wanted to carry out -- fitness goals, goals for a side business, thinking i wanted to do more socially..but..well, put away a bottle of wine every night and there is just no room or energy for anything else.

So this summer I got involved with a man, who I realized was a severe alcoholic on his way down. He was out of control, drunk all the time, drove drunk, picked fights, was manipulative...etc. What we did together is he would come over to my house and we would drink and smoke cigarettes on my patio.

After a few months of this I realized the reason he was so attached to me was because we had a drunk relationship. We were both drunks -- him much more out of control than I was but I knew that if I stayed with him that was where we were headed, even though he talked about getting married and buying a house and moving to another part of the country and starting a school and on and on.

When you just knew nothing like that was going to happen if he kept drinking. If I kept drinking. I kept looking at it thinking...you stay here with this guy, you are going down. He might stay on top of things, he's been doing this a long time and has lots of drinking buddies. You, on the other hand, are going down.

And if you don't do something you're never going to get in shape or get a promotion or establish a real relationship with anyone or travel anywhere or really do anything else but sit here and get plastered and dream about a life you are not capable of creating.

So I broke up with him.

That was about a week ago.

It's been four days since I had my last drink on Saturday night -- or actually this is my fourth day. I don't want to be a drunk. I don't want to be a functional drunk. I don't want to waste my life.

I don't want to turn out like my ex-boyfriend.

So I don't know how long the four days is going to last. I am stopping right now out of exhaustion. I can't lead my life and drink like that.

I have to go back home for Christmas, which is always a massively alcoholic affair and I'm pretty sure I won't make it through that. But *until then* I am sober and I need your help. I need to make it through today.

I am in an absolutely crap, irritable, tearful sh*t mood. Everything is just bugging me. A lady cut in line in front of me at lunch today and I was going to leap on her and start tearing her hear out. The door slams constantly in my apartment building which almost brought me to tears last night. I am so tired, not sleeping, overwhelmed.

I know a drink won't fix it. I know not drinking might.

I'm not going to drink today. I want a life.

escapist

The first couple of weeks were really hard for me. I know how you feel. A lot of us here can empathise. You have made some sound decisions. You won't regret any of them.
Glad you are here.

2granddaughters

And if anyone knew for sure what I was doing and what I was thinking they would expect me to change or lock me up. (That's what went through my head)

So I stayed out kicking and fighting until I was licked ... then I went to AA just before I killed myself.

It's worked for me since 1989 and may just work out to be a longterm solution to my alcoholism

All the best.

Bob R

Auvers

Medicatrix, good that you found this site. I think it will be a comfortable, helpful place for you to explore what you want to do about alcohol. Lots and lots of what you wrote sound like the way my life played out with alcohol, including the so called serious relationship with someone who drank more than I did. I could not see things as clearly as you have, took me lots of years in which I just could not put the life together that I thought I was capable of, and I never considered it was alcohol that kept me from it. I am now 6 months sober and the improvements keep coming. Not having a BIG secret is so wonderful. I have so much more patience and acceptance of the little annoyances, I am actually calm and have an inner peace. wOW. Never thought it could be me. I actually have some friends who are not heavy drinkers and I do stuff I used to think could not be fun because it did not allow for the big glass of wine being the primary draw.

Glad you have some days sober behind you and see the little improvements. I was totally surprised that it took several months to get out of the foggy alcohol mind but it is so worth it to make the big change. Wish I had done it years ago. Best to you xx

MIRecovery

You will know it is a long term solution when you die sober but it seems like you might be on to something IMO

rainyengland

Hi :-) ..welcome to SR :-)

Sorry to hear your problems - first weeks are not nice but dig in and it gets better I promise!!

Good luck :-)

TTBABP

I try to read everyone's first post. They all have some similarites. Sometimes I think we could construct 5-10 stories and just say insert name to describe everyone's addiction problems. The reason I say this is because you are not alone. I have come to realize that regardless of whether you drink every day, binge, drink wine, beer or liquor or all of them are old, young, male, female, from north, south east or west - there is someone who has gone through or is going through the same thing with alcohol and who can understand and provide help and support. It is out there and it is here. I wish you luck and hope to see more posts from you. BTW - good for your for recognizing the problem and for taking the what I am sure was difficult step of breaking up with the boyfriend.

Delilah1

Welcome to SR, this is a great site you will find lots of support on here.

Dee74

Hi and welcome medicatrix
absolutely

Try not to worry about Christmas yet - just focus on today, and then tomorrow.

It is entirely possible to stay sober at Xmas tho - with the right support - and you'll find a ton of that here

D

Junebugapril

Medic, you are amazing! So very brave and wise to have made the decision to live for you, and not the relationship.

And are you me, LOL?!!! I was reading your description of yourself, and I saw me in there. I started drinking a bottle of wine each night, sometimes more, for the past couple of years. When I was drinking, at night, I didn't do anything but drink, watch TV, play drunken scrabble online with friends. But I had no brains for anything else at night, I just was "gone", if that makes any sense.

I have not been sober that long. Only 18 days. But already, I am thinking clearer. You said you have ideas for starting a business. So do I. But drinking, I only managed to get numb. I had no clarity in my thinking. I could think of ideas, but not really expand on the ideas of what I would do.

It's not been easy. I still crave my glass of wine, but it has gotten easier.

I am thrilled to see you here, and thrilled that you dumped that guy. I would love it if you joined our Class of November thread http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-part-4-a.html even if you stopped in December. It is a great bunch of folks, and you would be welcomed with open arms.

medicatrix

. Thanks for your replies. I haven't really ever typed or admitted or talked about this ever to anyone else, except to myself. I've been keeping this a secret for a long, long time.

This summer though things started to change. I was drinking more. I had more hangovers. This boyfriend was literally insane. He didn't remember half the things he said to me. But there was more going on there too -- I don't know a lot of people and pretty much everyone I run into here is a drinker. Somehow they're drinking. It's a big social thing since sports are everywhere. Since I live alone and it seems like most people are drinking alcohol all over all the time it was sort of easy for me to dodge around under the radar, appearing to have it all under control.

But I was also collecting things people were doing and saying about drinking. I remember reading someone had posted their memoir about being alcoholic. They said drinking was a game, where the object was to figure out how much you could still drink and stay inside the lines of polite society; how to get away with it. I was thinking about that while I was driving to work hung over, while I was driving to work maybe still drunk every once in a while.

I kept realizing no one cared if I did that or not. I could throw my life away if I wanted to and nobody would notice. I kept registering what this boyfriend was doing: a sixpack of 16 ouncers on Friday night, wake up to hit the bar at 11 AM four beers and four shots, driving back home full of all that and then ready to rack em up again after a nap.

That was his *weekend*.

I'm not judging anybody here or anything they do. But to me that was shocking. How are you doing this? I kept wondering, and then I realized he really wasn't doing anything at all with his life except drinking. And that was totally the life he wanted with me, and I kept...sort of not saying no.

I kept stocking up on wine since he was around, and I would buy extra *so I would have enough for myself*. One night I stopped by this place that had a sale on wine and went to his house. I didn't plan on telling him it was in the car, but one bottle in and I had given him my cars keys and told him to get some more out of the trunk.

By about three AM FIVE bottles of wine were gone.

I think that's the most I have ever drunk in my life. He woke up, got dressed and went out to the bar to watch the game. Came home after five beers and two shots.

He scared the living hell out of me. The thing that scared me the most was that I was capable of keeping up with him. The other thing that scared me was that neither of us talked about our drinking. As abusive, out of control and sometimes insulting as this man was the one thing he never did was criticize my drinking. He couldn't even say the words.

I figured it was one of the things I was doing he really liked.

Auvers

You are seeing this so clearly, express it very well. It's so true, throwing all the possibilities for a fulfilling life down the drain. It does not have to go that way. You see that. You have the hardest part down. You know. Good for you.

Windancer

Welcome

You sound like you are being quite honest with yourself and seem determined. That is great! You can live a happy sober life. Please let us know how you make out!