Murdock80

I am in a real bad place. I have been abusing alcohol daily for 13 years. My daily intake has gotten to an unimaginable point. I feel like I am failing my wife, my kids and myself. I’ve gained weight and blown money. I am always sick. To be honest, I am absolutely terrified and feel totally lost.

I quit for 46 days, 6 months ago but slipped. Aside from that I don’t think that I’ve gone more than a day without a drink. The thing is, it is never “a drink”. It is blackout on the couch and wake up sick. Every. Single. Night. I have surrounded myself with activities and friends that encourage consumption. I am an avid home brewer and participate in quite a few activities involving local breweries. All of my favorite activities are tied in with drinking. I have to tear down the entire structure of my social life and begin to rebuild. I plan on learning to play the guitar. I plan on learning how to fish. I need new hobbies that don’t remind me of drinking.

Today is the day that I give it up for good. I am making a game plan and sticking to it. The site looks great and I look forward to sharing and learning!

doggonecarl

Welcome to SR.

At the end, my activity was drinking. I don't think I had any associations I had to undo...except the booze.

The sooner you get away from the beer crafting, and the social life that obits around alcohol, and the friends that drink, the better.

Good luck.

2granddaughters

I committed to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I, too, felt like Humpty Dumpty but AA is putting me back together again.

I wish you the best.

Bob R

Cleopatra1

WELCOME MURDOCK,, heres to your new and sober life,,hope you find lots of caring and supportive friends here at sr,,its a great place to start to rebuild a nice clean future xx
keep in touch xx
x lv cleo xxxx

veryready

Sounds like a plan. Listen to the experience here. These people know what they are talking about. It's worth it.

I started taking piano lessons a year ago. In a way it is a silly thing at my age, but it has been a life saver. Even a positive distraction for an hour or 2 a week is awesome. Music is awesome. I really love it. I was still drinking when I started lessons, but it helped pull me out and give me one more reason to stop drinking.

Go find a teacher today!

Cleopatra1

i agree veryready,,music or indeed any art is a lovely ting to immerse yrself in,,
its healin powers are awesome,,go for it murdock,,,i look forward to hearing/seeing yr first concert/exhibition!!! heehee xxx
xxx

Murdock80

Thanks for the support, everyone! I know I’m going to need it. My family is very supportive but no one seems to think that I actually have a problem (how is a six pack and a half a handle of cheap Scotch every night not a problem?) so I’ll take all the help I can get.

Despite never playing any instrument, my brother bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas so, between that and my kids, I think I’ll have some good distractions.

I’m just nervous about the “routine” of it all, y’know? It’s ingrained in me that I’ll have a beer when I get home from work, wine with dinner, more beer after dinner and then a few glasses of Scotch after the kids are in bed. I just need to break the pattern.

veryready

Murdock, it was hard for me to do anything sober when I was used to doing everything while drinking. There's a hundred hurdles; some big and some small. Watching a football game without drinking, cooking without drinking, Friday night without drinking, and on and on. All you can do is take them one at a time. Be patient and don't try to worry about too much at once. One day at a time, one hurdle at a time.

Murdock80

Thanks! Sports are going to be a major hurdle for me but I plan on making some sun brewed blueberry tea and reserving it for sports. Hopefully this will become the new “routine”!

After poking around here a bit, the mantra seems to one day at a time. I like it! When I made it roughly two months sober, that is exactly how I approached it.

I really appreciate all of these words of support! It means a ton!

SDSurfn

You can do this Murdock. How do I know?

Because I did it. And if I can, I know you can.

It won't be easy, but a truly better life awaits you. Stick around SR, this is a great place place for experience, strength, and hope.

-SD

duane1

Murdock, I felt the same way when I first quit. Everything I did revolved around alcohol. My next door neighbor was a drinking buddy of mine. How could I possibly avoid drinking around him? Well, turns out now my neighbor rarely drinks now that I've quit. We now run together and I drink water if I go over to his house when he has a beer. He can handle alcohol. I can't.
I was a little like a deer in the headlights in the beginning. I didn't even know how to do anything without alcohol. It is hard at first, but it didn't take long before I got involved with other things. I play guitar also and that is an excellent way to spend your idle time. In the 9 months since I quit, my playing has gotten so much better. I now am involved with a bluegrass roundtable on Tuesday nights. I also have other opportunities with music that I might explore. Exercise is also a big part of my life now. Any time I feel anxious, I go for a run. It is tremendously helpful for relieving stress.
One thing I will say is that if you are going to make this stick, you have to resolve yourself to the fact that you will never have a drink of alcohol again. Never! Let that sink in. For me, it was much easier to quit once I accepted that fact. When you accept that, it crushes the power of your AV. Your AV is strong right now. I can tell that because it is your AV that is playing the scenario in your head about everything you do being tied to alcohol and how can your social life exist w/o it.
Well, I'm hear to tell you it can. My AV was wrong. Yours is wrong. Look into AVRT. It was very helpful. Stay on this site. You will learn a ton from people on here.

Murdock80

Thanks, Duane! I appreciate the encouragement. You’re completely right. At this moment, I am thinking about the family trip to the beach, Christmas parties, weddings, grilling…… how am I going to do anything without drinking? I honestly believe that keeping a picture of my children with me at all times and looking at it whenever the craving hits, will be my way of dealing. I’m going to remove myself from society for a bit and just focus on getting this right.

After I get a little more comfortable with sobriety, I plan on instituting an exercise routine. I used to run and lift ages ago so I’m excited about getting back into that.

Bluegrass roundtable?!?!?! Sounds great! I was having so much fun with the guitar that I purchased a beginners banjo about two weeks ago.

doggonecarl

It might help if you change the terms you use. You highlighted routine. Drinking, at this stage, is more than a habit. A habit is buckling your seatbelt every time you get into car. Blackout drunk is serious $#+!. The routine of drinking at a certain time, drinking with a certain activity, the pattern you've established are just the outward manifestations of addiction.

I just don't want to think you can change this like you change a bad habit. You don't recover from bad habits, you just stop. For this, muster all your forces.

Good luck.

Eddie2010

Used to be I couldn't even iron my work shirts without a beer buzz going.

It quickly gets to the point when you realize you can do everything better without the stuff. Not to mention remembering.

Many of my friends don't think I have a problem either, but no one knows you better than yourself and nearly always significant others.

Welcome to SR!

0percentABV

I think I know where you are coming from. Here's my first post:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...alcoholic.html

I am currently in the process of tearing down my social life as well. Stopped drinking in early February (tried to make a conscience change a year ago but finally threw in the towel a couple months ago). So far so good. However it's still winter here so not much is going on. But I had to make a choice on who will I still remain in contact with and who I will just let pass. And by pass I mean just ignore. For instance on Facebook I "hid" people from my newsfeed that constantly post pictures of beer or events and I also hid the ones that I only know them from beer events. I mean, really if that's the only thing we have in common, then we don't have anything in common anymore. As far as the closer friends the jury is still out on that. I got some overnight cycling events coming up with a good handful of them and though I'm not concerned that I'll fall off the wagon I'm more concerned if this will get in the way of me trying to rebuild. So I'm working on a plan that'll occupy my time when it's their time to drink. But that said they didn't drink like I did so it might not be so bad but still, I'm working on a plan B and C. Luckily for me I'm a natural introvert, alcohol made me extroverted (sort of), so breaking away from people is almost welcoming but still, I will need to build a new social life but that will come along with time I guess. Losing my social status in the beer community was big for me but now, a year later after I stepped out of the crowd I was just another craft beer groupie trying to hang onto my love affair with alcohol.

But you know what the reality is. The reality is that it's over but you are not alone in this. Now is the time to turn the page. Close that chapter, don't try re-reading it and trying to relive the glory days, you'll never get them back. I tried for a year to teach myself other ways to drink but they never satisfied me. In my opinion once you cross a line in your drinking there's no turning back. Start taking guitar lessons. I find working out is a great release. But really what you have to do is change and want to change. Last year when I made my decision to slow down I still kept my foot in the beer scene so I didn't lose my spot you could say. But I couldn't let go that way. I had to remove my foot, turn around and walk away. I don't regret it for a second and neither will you.

0percentABV

I hear ya. But you know what. Thousands of people do it all the time. So can we.

**EDIT** And I would like to add something that someone on this site said to someone else a while ago but it rang so very true to me:
"You are giving your kids the gift of a sober parent."

Hevyn

Hi Murdock - great to have you here with us. It's good to not feel alone with your feelings. We all understand how hard it is to face your addiction and admit things have to change.

I had no control, either. No matter how much willpower I tried to use, or how determined I was to just have 'one or two' it never worked. I could never trust myself once the first drink was in my system - dangerous things always happened after that. That's why I had to stop all together and admit it was toxic to me.

You can do this, Murdock. I stopped after drinking for a lifetime. I am free, and you will be too.

Murdock80

That sounds very similar to my experience as well. Its almost like you fool yourself into thinking that because you are drinking a premium product, there is no way that you have a problem. For the last two years I would constantly look at ABV and price as the sole determining factor. I found a local Triple IPA at 11.2 ABV that came in a four pack for $8. It was insane. Like you mentioned, I have (had) plenty of friends who could go to a tasting, have one or two and move on with their day. Unfortunately, I would have that one or two and end up buying a growler or two and spending the rest of the day drinking.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. It makes me feel better knowing there are others out there.

doggonecarl

I can't balance my checkbook without a calculator, but I could walk into a convenience store, look at the beer selection and immediately determine which one had the most ABV for the cheapest price.

When I quit, I was drinking some nasty stuff. Crazy.

0percentABV

Every once and a while a thread would pop up on the random beer forums with people questioning their consumption and what follows in the responses is pretty telling of the scene once you get to this side. People basically describe themselves as alcoholics in the clinical sense but since it's well nurtured beer that you must appreciate people don't really factor in that it still has alcohol in it and prolong daily consumption is not good for you, health wise and addiction wise. You've been to beer festivals. People are drunk. It's a drunk fest. Screw the appreciation. People are there to get drunk, on good beer, but still, they are there to get drunk. The craft beer craze has gotten pretty big and it doesn't have much of a stigma against it when it comes to alcoholism. In my personal experience it propelled me to where I am today. Sure, I was always an alcoholic and I probably would have ended up here eventually but my drinking the 5 years before I got in to craft beer compared to the 5 years after was not the same. I remember when I picked up my first Belgian 750ml. Two things I discovered, one it was something I've never had before and it was good but two, it went pretty fast and it only gave me a mild buzz and there wasn't a second bottle. Right off the bat appreciation was muddied. I loved sours but low ABV and steeper price meant I was getting another bomber of some RIS or IIPA and sixer of, you guessed it, an IPA.

I'm not the preachy type when it comes to people, my experience might not bet the same as some of the people I know out there in beer world, but I just can't help but see people that I knew 5 years ago and today. They are more bloated, lazy and their intake of beer is much higher and their life is revolved around one beer event or another. Around the same time I got into craft beer I got into cycling where I met some good people, good people that liked good beer however. They were all fit and rode constantly with drinks after rides. The last couple years however the rides consist of going either straight to the beach to drink or to a bar or anywhere to drink. They don't have nearly the amount of stamina they used to and all their bike gear is stretched out. Are they alcoholics like me? No, not yet or at least as far as I know but still, it's effecting their lives.

I have a feeling that we'll see more and more craft beer groupies come through here as the years roll on.