SaigonBob

Hi All,

I'm a 47 year old expat. I'm pretty much convinced myself that I need to stop drinking. Ideally I would like to be able to control the drinking and just have a couple and go home but this seems to allude me.

What advice is there on whether I should stop immediately i.e. is it possibly detrimental to my health to go from 10 / 15 beers most days (more on weekends) to just stop or to cut down.

I'd also be interested to see what others did to change their lifestyle, fill in the time normally spent drinking and did that manifest in loneliness, missing a social life etc.

Thanks for any advice offered

lmvalentine

I suggest a visit with a physician before quitting.
Withdrawals from alcohol can be deadly.

On your desire for controlled drinking it is impossible for an alcoholic to control anything least of all drinking!

I resisted AA even after a 28 day inpatient rehab in 2008.
When I hit my last bottom AA was there to help.
Check out some meetings. A sober plan of some type is needed.

Take care!

Mountainmanbob

Bicycle riding and AA meetings would be a great start for you.
True, we have to start somewhere so as to be sober.
These two could be a beginning for you.
Good luck,
Bob

least

Welcome to the family. I don't know how doctors are in Saigon, but in the States, doctors often prescribe benzos for the first few days of withdrawal to ease the anxiety.

I hope you can stop drinking. And I hope our support can help you do that.

carlingford

Hi Bob, I once too was an Expat, worked hard and drank hard, my advice is to see doctor for meds as you will need them for a short period to ease the withdrawal symptoms of acute withdrawal. Regards controlled drinking, I tried that many times and its a no go, if you read/google up on PAWS post alcoholic withdrawal syndrome and "kindling" you will see that you are causing more damage. Regards filling in spare time I have no problem with that as have young family and now go swimming, visits to parks, plenty of walking, sightseeing in country, picnics, shopping with saved money from beer.
Also and just after 9 days clean I have noticed a much improved work performance and no sore head on a Monday morning. Best of Luck Saigon and keep posting, Carlingford.

Zanna

What were your interests/hobbies, before drinking took over - rediscover the real you
I agree - check things out with your Doctor, if you're concerned, but I don't think any of us woke up bored one morning and decided to Google and then join an addiction forum, if we didn't already have the answers to ' Do I have a drink/drug problem.

SaigonBob

Thanks all for the advice so far. Doc's here are not much good and more interested in handing out pills for as much money as possible but I'll try to get a consult when in Singapore in a fortnight.

I've just found the local AA and will contact them now.

I've read many times that cutting down is not an option and wanted to get it first hand. I guess my biggest worry is that I live here alone and most people I know, I know through going to bars. I know my work and health are suffering and I've really screwed up in the past and made many people unhappy.

I'm normally a "happy drunk" but on some occasions will argue that black is white etc and on rare occasions have been violent.

There are a lot of underlying issues that I may address later on here.

Thanks anyway for your initial thoughts.

Zanna

I know in the UK it's usually Valium and I have to confess, I don't know what 'benzo's' are Valium though are ok for up to ten days and then whoa! Any decent doctor would not give you more than that.

LBrain

Welcome to the forum Bob

first thing you have to do is assess the situation...
the situation being, do you want to remove alcohol from you life completely? or do you want to 'slow down'?
without knowing your history, I can only assume by the number that you drink that it has been going on for years...

you can take any number of "Am I an alcoholic" quizzes.
I'll save you the time and just say that you 'qualify' just based on your drinking pattern...

alcohol is a highly addictive drug, not only mentally, but physically as well
quitting alcohol 'cold turkey' can be very dangerous...
you have 2 options; one is ween yourself from drinking, the other is to detox with the help of a medical staff
option one rarely works because you are still drinking, and if you can't control your drinking now, what makes you think you can control your drinking while trying to control your drinking ??? - ????

the most important question to ask yourself is WHY? Why do I want to quit drinking? If you have more than one reason - one is actually enough - then you should quit. The thing is, quitting means for good.
Because if you quit temporarily and go back, it gets worse - it really does - and there is scientific evidence to back that up. It's a brain chemical imbalance thing... but I'll spare you all of that...

The most difficult part of quitting is accepting the fact that you are quitting. Sounds bizarre I know. But, the most difficult part of quitting for most people is the reality that they will no longer drink. For those of us that drank our entire lives, 35+ years for me - I quit when I was 55 - not drinking seems alien to our existence.
How can I have fun and enjoy life without a drink >ETC.<

You will be offered suggestions of a few 'programs of recovery'. Most likely the 12-step approach. But that won't help you quit drinking.
Unless you are totally committed to stop and really want to stop, no program in the world is going to help.
So it boils down to you. What are your motivations for quitting? And are you willing to go "all in" to quit?
Quitting alcohol is not easy. Doing it alone is a lot more 'not easy'.

So take the time to think about it. Are you ready to quit drinking and change your life? I'll be honest, in the beginning it seems like torture from a living aspect. You will be learning how to live without alcohol as a 'friend' a 'crutch' and your go to substance that probably was a big part of everything you did. In time, you will begin to notice the positive changes in your life. They are subtle at first, but with more and more time, things will improve greatly.
There is a caveat though. Just quitting drinking is just quitting drinking. There may be, and probably are, other aspects of your being that also need work. Be it some sort or mental anguish from any number of reasons, or a bona fide mental condition you may not even be aware of. Regardless of any other of these types of conditions, you must also change the way you think about things and work on your personal development. It may not be much or it may be a lot. You may also benefit from a professional psychologist or some other form of therapy, or by joining a group. Only you know.

I do know that trying to fix yourself while you are still 'under the influence' of alcohol is spinning your wheels.

Using the 4 step approach....
Step 1: Acknowledge you need to stop
Step 2: Accept it as a fact
Step 3: Quit drinking
Step 4: Fix your life

There are sub-steps in there, but that is the big picture from my perspective.

Hope you are ready. It will change your life.

SaigonBob

LBrain.

Thanks so much for your considered reply. I think I can address most of the reasons as to why I want to quit drinking but, as you rightly point out, accepting it is forever, is the part I am struggling with.

Even when I played rugby and was very fit, (a long time ago) drinking was a big part of the culture and therefore I convinced myself a year ago that just working out would help if I felt fit again, but to no avail. I just kept drinking even though I looked a bit better.

A lot of it comes down to my being insecure and only believing myself to be fun to be around, interesting etc, when I was drinking. It is a big part of who I am to a lot of people I know so my biggest fear of stopping being forever is that I will lead a lonely existence. I guess there is psychological help available through groups or maybe one on one. I will do further research on this.

I just know that the route of all my problems is the fact that I drink rather than face up to anything, especially being alone. I also know (or I think I know) that I would probably not be alone now had I been able to control my drinking a long time ago.

Thanks your thoughts. I'll take each day as it comes and hopefully get to an AA meeting to see what is what.

carlingford

Excellent advise LBrain thanks.

August252015

Lots of good stuff here.

Bottom line: is drinking causing you problems? Then quit. IMO worry about a "label" (ie alcoholic) later. Some of us were fine with saying that right away because we KNEW and had just denied it; others not so much. Get the alcohol out of your system and you will think more and more clearly. I have detoxed with drugs and in hospitals, and without- when I quit 7 months ago today (!), I did it cold turkey. And I was a serious vodka drinker at the end. It is possible to do it that way- with the amount you are drinking, I would suggest that you take a couple of days off of work if you go this route. I did have a team of drs and visits in those first weeks but none of my meds were for detox.

As I always (always) say on here, tapering is a bad idea. Just one reason why? It makes it easy to "move the target" on when you quit, and how much you decrease and when. Basically, you have license to "play around with" the decrease all you want- which an alcoholic mind will want to do, plenty- because you haven't decided to actually quit, full stop.

Sounds like you know drinking is bad for you. You haven't faced severe consequences yet- which most of us will tell you that you WILL eventually, it's a matter of WHEN not IF- nor do you have to get to that point as many of us did.

SR is a great start. You can quit drinking- as we say in AA (and as non-AAers will tell you, too), you have to want to be sober more than you want to drink. And getting sober and living a recovered life are two different things, but you gotta do the former to get the latter.

Good luck.

doggonecarl

To listen to most drinkers, alcohol has them sitting at the head of the banquet table, and without it, they'll be alone. Maybe at some stage of one's drinking, alcohol is the golden ticket to fun and a social life. But not at the end.

For the last three years of my drinking, it was done at home, alone. By choice, I thought, but it was mainly my addiction demanding all my attention. Now that I'm sober, I'm free to engage in anything I want to, free from the chain of addiction that dictated where I went and what I did.

Don't let the fear of loneliness keep you from getting sober. The reality is, being alone, truly alone, is the fate of too many active alcoholics.

Soberwolf

Hi Bob

Dee74

Some great advice here already Bob - so welcome

D

MissPerfumado

Welcome Bob. I know that part of the world reasonably well. I have several expat friends who live in Saigon. I agree with you that seeing a doctor in Singapore or even Hong Kong is a much better idea.

Generalising now ... but in my experience expat communities in Asian cities drink far too much. The combination of cultural isolation, being far from home, cheap booze and lack of family connections brings out the alcoholics in us.

However, the same communities can also be very sport focussed. Which supplies opportunities for finding new things to do and changing your lifestyle dramatically. My last 6 months of living in Hong Kong I did sober and enjoyed it very much. I finally made my gym membership worthwhile, ran outdoors a lot, joined a group sport and trained every week with them, and stayed the heck away from the bright gaudy bars and clubs. It's really doable and more than that enjoyable. The expat life is a great life, it does not have to be an alcoholic life.

Hevyn

It's good to have you with us, Bob. It feels good to no longer be alone with the problem.

I drank for a similar reason. I was self-conscious & anxious in social situations. I thought drinking calmed me down & helped me enjoy myself. I used it to cope with challenging situations - but it actually kept me from growing & maturing in a normal way. I ended up completely dependent on it. I was so thankful to get free of it. You can do it.

uncorked

Hi Bob and welcome! Are there any ex pat doctors you could go to? In the U.S. the Rx of choice for alcohol withdrawal is librium. I went to rehab and that's what they gave me. I think finding a group of like-minded people (AA) is a great idea. I don't find AA to be helpful in regard to abstaining from drinking, BUT it certainly would be great for you to find companionship that way. Good luck!

PurpleKnight

Welcome to the Forum Bob!!