pleasehelpmeout

Hi all,

I could really use the help of this community - nothing seems to be working for me.

I'm a 26 year old male that began drinking heavily about 3 years ago. It started with "just weekends" and progressed to every night. I was at the point of having 7 or 8 drinks (whiskey and coke) per night and have (in the past week) reduced this to about 4 per night. I've tried to kick this horrible habit so many times and every time, I fail. I have two children and a wife and cannot afford to lose them because my addiction. Because of my job, signing up for something like AA is not practical - I'd end up out of work if they were to find out.

I've tried switching to beer and attempting to reduce it that way and I've managed OK without anything whatsoever for two days at the most. After the two days, I wind up having a few beers, then it's back to a few whiskey and cokes, and then it just increases in number again. This is seriously concerning me because my blood pressure is unbelievably high - 200/100 the majority of the time. My doctor put me on blood pressure meds and I'm still around 140/90. I know that what's causing this is the alcohol and I know that I can get off this medicine if I can kick this habit for good.

Any suggestions or support is greatly appreciated. I have a very supportive wife but I have no friends, honestly, so getting out of the house with my buddies and doing something fun isn't really an option for me. I usually start drinking around 9PM so I know I need to find something that I can replace it with but I just can't find anything that works. I've tried tennis, exercising, cleaning, reading, etc. I always wind up pouring a drink

I want to be me again. Please help.

EDIT: I also wanted to ask HOW. What is the best plan of attack to rid this monster? How did you do it? What did you learn? Thank you everyone.

Dee74

Hi and welcome

I think every successful recovery rests on two things - support and a willingness to change.

Make a commitment to stop drinking - find the support you need for that, whether it's SR or a recovery group like AA or something similar...or maybe a mix.

I also recommend you see a Dr if you've been drinking on meds and have hig blood pressure.

Detox can be rough - your health and safety is more important that anything else you can think of.

I hear you on the need to be on the downlow AND iI know those suggestion seem untenable - but you may lose your health and job anyway if you don't do something about this....I did.

Change your life - if you start drinking very night at 9 change your routine. Make you house an alcohol free zone - do something with your wife or your kids.

Plan it out - be ready for the cravings.

With a little forethought and work I have no doubt you can do this

D

disco22

Hi. I'm only 10 days so sober, but I can try to lend a helping hand. I quit cold turkey.I was a black out drunk. I go to a meeting once a week, thursday. My work doesn't know I do it. For me as long as my hands are moving I feel a lot better. For me I make string bracelets (not really a man thing, but it keeps my hands moving and my mind on a creative path. I also swim. For me swimming is all about breathing and body movement. Can't really think about drinking when your trying to stay afloat.

This site does have chat room aa meetings, no signing up and no leaving work. If your trying to find a community to share with.
Chat Meetings and Chat Discussions - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information (link to some of the meetings)

I know taking recovery one day at a time really works. Only focus on today. Also I focus a lot on work when I am there, keeps my mind distracted.

If you don't mind me asking what gender are your kids? Maybe finding a hobby that involves them and you would allow you something to keep you busy and focused on them instead of your next drink.

I hope something in this message helped. If you need anyone to talk to, I would love to help you.

Best wishes.

Happier

Hi and welcome. Best to consult you doctor but I did have a good experience of my blood pressure coming back into a good range within a month or so after I quit.

Sorry if AA isn't an option. I don't do it (yet) personally but know it seems to help so many people. There are other options such as rational recovery, AVRT, SMART, etc. heck, lots of us get great help, support and insight by just posting and reading on this site very regularly. That has been my approach for the past year.

Just don't give up! Keep seeking and progressing and findings what WILL work for you. We can and do get better. "Wanting to be me again" means a lot to me. I feel like I have slowly but surely been getting that back. You can do it too.

Sorensen

Your health sounds like it may be the most concerning considering your only 26. Medications and alcohol do not mix well, it is important you are honest with your doctor with how much you drink. 200/100 BP is extremely high and is mostly associated with people that are obese. It is possible that the chronic alcohol use has created anxiety that has given false BP readings aka white coat hypertension. I know when I was drinking frequently my BP read 160/90 and I was physically fit at the same time.....alcohol can mess up your brain chemistry and create unwanted anxiety. True alcoholics cannot cut back they have to give it up. They might cut back at first for a while but it always ends up escalating to the frequency and amount as before.

hope this helps

pleasehelpmeout

Dee - Thank you. My wife is very supportive and isn't much of a drinker herself. She actually told me we should remove all alcohol from the house and that she wouldn't have a problem not drinking and doing it with me

disco - they are both girls, 20 months old and 9 years old. We do quite a bit of activities throughout the day and on weekends. I am fortunate enough to say that I don't wake up and begin drinking and that I can at least get through the full day without it. Regardless, I know I still have a problem. My drinking starts late at night when the kids are in bed and my wife and I usually just watch TV shows.

Happier - That's good to hear about the BP. I was hoping it might be something like a week or two after quitting, but I guess things do take quite a bit of time to go back to normal. thank you for your support.

Sorensen - That seems to make sense. I'm 6'2 and only 165 lbs. Very fit and athletic. I'm constantly hot and constantly sweating.

Itchy

Pleasehelpmeout,
You wrote!:
"Because of my job, signing up for something like AA is not practical - I'd end up out of work if they were to find out."

If you got several DUIs would you end up out of work?

If you grabbed a woman or started a fight with someone and landed in jail would you end up out of work?

I am not saying that AA is for you, but how would someone at work find out without being there? If he or she can keep their job despite being found to be going to AA, SMART meetings, counseling, going to their minister or talking to their doctor then no one would ever be able to get face to face support who needed it. I sure did.

I could not quit my excessive drinking and smoking three packs a day. I got so bad I had to have some scotch in my coffee because my hands shook so badly in the mornings. It was 50/50 as to whether or not I could keep the first one down long enough to settle down. So I did a one week medical detox after telling everything to my doctor who helped me every step of the way. I told my family and close friends and my grown boys tried to minimize it saying Dad, you don't have a problem you just need to cut down a little.

All I wanted was a head start, and if I could detox I would never let myself ever get trapped like that again. So instead of asking which method I read all the books and joined AA got counseling, and joined here. I took what I could use and left the rest. I stopped AA after three months leaving because I was recovering nicely, not because I had issues. Unlike many I realized that AA is short term for some, medium/long term for others. I loved my home group and go back to visit once every six months or so. I credit AA with as much a part of my recovery, and now despite being one drink away like everyone else, I am recovered. I will not drink again, I already drank my fill.

My recommendation is the same as many here. Do it all and then drop off what does not fit. Scattergun it. You will have a better shot than one bullet you have everything riding on. What if you miss? Would you buy a pair of shoes you never tried on? Same with recovery methods.

One thing no method can do better than AA. They can tell you all the things available for recovery in your area.

In any event, I would not worry about a recovery method getting you fired. I would worry about not having a recovery method to keep from losing your job because you were found out to be a drunk and became unreliable and less attentive to detail.

Irrational alcoholic reasoning to not change. I know I had that too and could not quit either for decades. Until I stopped putting conditions on getting sober that prevented me from getting sober. See, I was much more afraid of continuing to commit slow suicide, because I am not suicidal.

Thinking about it hasn't worked so far for you. So what are you going to do differently this time? Have you already discovered that if you always do things the way you always have that you will always get the same results? You came here to SR, good start!

pleasehelpmeout

Well, it starts today (the sobriety that is). I'm actually pretty excited.

AugustWest11

Congrats & Good Luck .. Seems like you knew what had to be done ...

Spinach

Good luck.
You've got all the ingredients!
John.

Louise82

Hey pleasehelpmeout, welcome to SR. Congrats on making the decision to get sober and starting out on your sobriety journey today.

Where I'm from, AA really does take the "Anonymous" part of its name seriously but I know that's unfortunately not the case in every neighbourhood around the world. So check out the alternatives others have mentioned above - the chat meetings here on SR, AVRT, SMART etc. Also, if you Google "aa speaker tapes" you'll find a site where you can listen online to recorded AA speaker meetings and also download them.

Notmyrealname

The second "A" in "AA" is for anonymous. They don't actually have you sign anything or identify yourself. You show up and say "hey I'm Bob" or whatever and that's about it for self-identification. No ID check, no filling out forms with attestation clauses, no fingerprint kit next to the tray of glazed doughnuts.

Also, why do you think your employer would fire you for doing something that helps you stay sober?

Employers fire people for calling in sick too often, or stumble-bumbling into the punch bowl at the office Christmas party, or coming in visibly drunk / smelling like booze after lunch / not coming to work because of being in jail for DUI or drunkenly assaulting other bar patrons .. there are myriad possibilities for being terminated from your position that are related to drinking, yes. But it would be irrational for your employer to infer (were it to find out, which may be fairly unlikely, see above) from your consistent attendance at AA meetings that you're abusing alcohol. I think most would assume the opposite from that information.

As for quitting, if you're like me the hard part (at least initially) is just getting through the first few days. That first day, not having that drink, that's hard. And then the next few days just suck because you're dog-ass ill. After that you start feeling better. It doesn't sound like you're particularly unhappy and using alcohol to cope, so maybe you just need to break the vicious daily cycle. It's hard, but it's simple. Just pick a day, and then don't drink that day. Don't worry about the next day, just worry about that day.

And once you have that down, just do it . . a second time. And follow that with a third time. There's just no getting around the fact that quitting starts with that first day of not drinking. Not complicated, right? It's like walking, just put one foot in front of the o-ther, and soon you'll be wal-kin out the door . .

You can do it, the fact that you got here means you already are taking steps in the right direction and you've got momentum on your side. Plan and execute. Good luck!

MeSoSober

So if your M.O. is to pour a drink around 9 PM, the first thing, it seems to me, is to do as Dee suggested and don't have alcohol in the house. That's one hurdle you can put between you and drinking.

Another thing you can do is be out of the house, actively engaged in some other activity. Not every night, of course, but at least one or two nights a week until you have some sobriety under your belt. Could you volunteer somewhere? Go to a movie? A family trip to the library (our local branches are open until 9, I believe, Monday through Thursday). How about you do an 8 or 9 o'clock grocery shop (unless that would put you in danger of buying booze!)? You can make up a shopping list with your wife. Better parking spaces and shorter lines at the supermarket! Is there a public pool that's open late nearby? Your kids would love that, no doubt! How about a class of some kind?

Get an events calendar for your area and pick out some things to attend.

You mentioned exercise -- for me, I think a good workout makes it less likely that I'll be awake later at night. It's much harder to drink while sleeping. :-) And the health benefits are a bonus!

And for indoor activities -- how about a family game night once a week? Charades, a board game, whatever.

As for plans of attack, Anne Fletcher's book, Sober for Good, is based entirely on input/feedback from people with several (or more) years of sobriety, including how they got sober. So you get all kinds of advice from a huge range of people with different education levels, socioeconomic backgrounds, professions, etc., who have been where you are now.

Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking Problems -- Advice from Those Who Have Succeeded: Anne M. Fletcher M.S. R.D.: 0046442219075: Amazon.com: Books

Good luck and welcome to SR -- you will find a TON of support and fabulous people here!

DrakeCKC

I was in your position, started slow, 6-8 up to 10 (who was counting?) drinks a night. My BP and blood sugar was sky high, I was depressed, sick and lethargic. I made the decision to quit. I have used the support here and the twice weekly chat meetings on Tues and Fri.

Do it now, I am 30 years older than you and the drinking has taken its toll.

You will find tons of info and support here.

Good luck!

pleasehelpmeout

Thank you guys so much. You are all such helpful, supportive, and wonderful people

Last night (when I posted this) I only had one drink. And tonight I'm doing none. And will continue, as others here said, to put one foot in front of the next and stay sober for good. My biggest problem right now is not feeling the "need" necessarily, but HOT. Even though I'm on BP meds, I'm still extremely hot. I guess this is from not having alcohol or something? Did anyone else experience this? I feel like I'm burning alive from the inside out.

MeSoSober - we actually have a pool here in our condo community that is open 'til 10. I was considering going out there around my 9PM 'normal drink time' to try and clear my mind and just swim. Figured it would make me less hot too haha. Good suggestion on that book - I will pick up a copy.

As for my being concerned about AA, honestly, I actually work from home and own my own business. I was just fearful that if I put myself in an AA meeting, others in the local community might see me...and know...and then not visit my business perhaps? Who knows. It just concerned me, especially with how some people judge alcoholics.

I will keep you all updated. I want to say, again, thank you so much for your support everyone. I really means a lot to know that other people are in my corner backing me and helping me kick this demon out of my life

DrunkenBob

Way to go pleasehelpmeout!

I am in similar shoes to you except further down the road. 41, married, 13 yo twins and consume probably twice as much as you described.

When I was 26 - I was EXACTLY like you. The progression REALLY sucks. It's awesome at your age you see this now and are doing something about it.

Getting off my BP meds is a huge motivating factor for me.

Good luck!

pleasehelpmeout

Thanks man, I appreciate that. Good luck to you as well!

yukonm

Good luck to you. I am so glad that you have made a decision to begin a different way of living. As you can see, there is lots of support and encouragement here. Glad to have you as part of our community.

thekl0wn

I had the EXACT same fear about both/either job finding out. However, just a few weeks in, and I no longer carry an extra shirt so I can change out of the corporate logo'd one. Looking back, it was a pretty irrational fear, and for me, was my alcoholic voice trying to give me reason to jump off the wagon. Yes, I do see people involved with both jobs there. The key thing is: They don't want everyone to know either, so they're not going to go around telling people, "I saw Cornelius at one of them drunk meetings I have been attending myself."

Lightning Bug

Get the booze out of the house. 9 pm is your trigger? Give your wife your keys, wallet, checkbooks and as her to put them in her purse and then she should hide the purse. That way you wont be able to get any. It helped me in the beginning. I was a late night drinker too. My husband still puts his wallet and keys under his side of the mattress. Good luck and post often!