woowinnielrrm

I am so disgusted with myself. I'm sure a lot of you have been through what I'm gonna say: I CANNOT get sober. I have tried and tried 100 times. I'm drinking right now....wine....my best friend. I love it and I HATE it. I WAS on day 3 today.....until the school called that my middle son was in trouble again. TRIGGER. Got a large bottle of wine, its almost gone. I NEED to get sober. Married to the best man in the world, 4 awesome kids. I feel like such a wimp. Every single little thing is a reason for me to drink. I'm 44 years old, been doing this for years. Its not working anymore. And if I don't drink, I eat. And I am petrified of gaining weight. I used to drink and not eat, but now I drink and need to eat to regulate blood sugar. I want to be an awesome mom and hot wife. What has happened to me??? And friends? Hahahah, so lonesome I could cry Thanx for letting me vent.

bingeforfun

You are not alone in your struggles. We are all here with you. There are many people here who have been in your shoes and prove it can be overcome. Relapse doesn't make you weak, it makes you human.

woowinnielrrm

@Bingeforfun thanks....I needed that. Just to hear from ANYONE who UNDERSTANDS. No one gets it unless they walk it themselves. thanks you.

Stayingsassy

Hi there. 48 here. Happily married, 3 children. I quit only 7 weeks ago but it’s been worth every moment. Difficult, beautiful, frightening, exhausting, frustrating, peaceful...sobriety is living every single moment.

Just take a deep breath. Start day one. Don’t drink no matter what. You can do that.

Over time things like kids acting out or squabbles with people or trouble at work or at home will be handled with a calm and level head. It will take time but you will surprise yourself with your ability to handle life stress when alcohol is removed.

Best wishes

Forward12

Dump the booze and be that person you want to be!

Berrybean

I relate to what you're saying, and remember being a puppet on the string of alcohol as well. Food too, although that's still more tricky because it can never be as cut and dried as making the decision to abstain from alcohol.

In the end I realised there were always, ALWAYS, going to be 'triggers', because as an alcoholic pretty much 'Life' was a trigger. Happy, sad, bored, excited, Weekend, Monday, Sunshine, rain... anything. What I needed was to not take that first drink on a daily basis. And then I needed to learn how to pause - not respond to the triggers. Just wait. Pray. Speak to someone about it...anything other than drink.

Alcohol never solved a single one of my problems, although it made many of them worse, and brought me many unnecessary extra ones. I suspect that your son was still in trouble with school despite your drinking that wine to get rid of that problem. Learning how to react differently to our own thoughts and feelings is hard work, but it's completely possible - it's all part of recovery.

You say you have tried hundreds of times. Why not tell us what you have tried doing so far, and perhaps - if you're open to it of course, people could suggest some things you could try for your next attempts at sobriety.

For now, could you ditch the wine and go have a sleep??

BB x

JJ991

I am also 44 years old, I have 2 young kids. I read your post & thought at least you a trying, I just kept going, planning on trying but never making it, I had so many "almost" day ones, so many promises to myself broken.
I have just reached 50 days sober. I have 1:1 support & also go to a therapy group. The therapy isn't alcohol related but so much of it can be applied. What have you tried?
I promise you it can be done. At the start of my 1:1s earlier this year I couldn't even contemplate 1day off the wine never mind 50! It can be done. You can do it. X

Downthepath

46 years old, happily married with 4 kids here.
Tried many, many times without really trying too hard. Now that I finally have a bit of distance, I can see that it is impossible to make a good decision about quitting whilst you are still under the influence. I could never get past a couple of days because the physical cravings reeled me in. Once you get beyond the physical cravings, it is a lot easier (although still not easy) to make good decisions.
The thing that finally worked for me was giving myself a date to quit quite a way in the future. I am a teacher, so the first day back at work after the summer holiday worked well for me. Each day leading up to that, I drank like before - but I knew that it was coming. By the time it came around, I was quite resigned to it and ready to give it a go. Having focused on it for a long time, it allowed me to tell myself that if I didn't do it this time, I was done for.
It did the trick and allowed me to get a bit of momentum going. Once I got a bit of distance between me and my last drink, my head started to clear and I was able to make better decisions without the residual alcohol making the decisions for me.
I am not suggesting that this will work for anyone else, but it worked for me.

AAPJ

[QUOTE=woowinnielrrm;6673177] Married to the best man in the world..... I want to be an awesome mom and hot wife. What has happened to me??? /QUOTE]

Have you shared this thought with your husband? As a 50+ married man with two daughters I would certainly support my wife if she said this to me.

BTW if you think you have a problem with alcohol your spouse probably is quite aware of this issue.

Wish you the best and welcome to SR!

Tiredofthepain

I have been where you are so many times. Struggled with weight, my ex wanted me to be thin and hot. Everything was a trigger, disgusted with myself. Is the bottle of wine going to get your son out of trouble? Make you thin? Stop being so hard on yourself, realize that you are enough, you are enough without the alcohol. You can do this.

Pondlady

I thought of wine as essential.....I always made sure I had some, even doing "pretend shopping", when really my whole goal was to buy wine.

That was over 5 years ago. I wanted to stop, I needed to stop. I thought it was sophisticated, I thought I was ok, but in reality my husband saw his wife drink from the moment she got home from school, till she basically passed out a few hours later....missing out on evening walks, shared meals....time together.

I told my husband I wanted to stop. I made sure I had no alcohol in the house. I took a lot of walks, ran errands, cleaned the house......especially at 4 PM. I kept things simple, I went to bed early knowing at least I wouldn't be hung over in the morning.

Keep close to SR, post when you feel like drinking, reach out for help. I hope you decide to stop drinking.

jessie65

I can very much relate to your post, and I'm sorry you are struggling so much. There were so many triggers for me too, stupid little irritating things would make me drink., Boredom would make me drink. Loneliness, anger, feeling fat, even a Good mood would make me drink (I bet I can feel Even Better with a strong drink, yeah right, never quite worked that way).

I can tell you that is is possible to stop the madness. You have to make it priority. You have to accept that it won't be easy, and uncomfortable feelings are just a part of life. Drinking doesn't fix anything, it temporarily masks them, that is it. Those feelings, whether it be anger, sadness, boredom, loneliness... come back with a vengeance when you sober up.
There is nothing that drinking can't make worse.

You Can get sober for good, don't ever think you can't. I 'relapsed' hundreds of times, tried to get sober for 10 years, and once I got serious and decided I will not drink no matter what, it worked. Coming up on 2 years next month, and I'll never go back. There really are so many challenges in life, drinking made them all worse.

PinnacleOR

Wine drinker here, 1.5 liters a day, sometimes more. On October 29 my neighbors found me flat on my face on the sidewalk outside my apartment and called 911. Spent 5 days in the hospital. On Day 20 now and wow, what a difference. Pour the wine out, you can do this. Rooting for you!

Anna

Welcome!

Believe that you can do this, because you can. Get rid of the alcohol in your home and don't buy anymore today. You will be able to find healthy ways to deal with stress. You can be the person you want to be.

Cjmyers513

Day 3 here. What's on my mind right now are my daughters. At this very early stage, that's what's helping now. One hour at a time.

Steadwell

Wean, wean, wean. I'm big on the taporing approach many disagree with me on that. It requires a lot of self-discipline but it's far better than ending up in the ER! The discipline is not that difficult to execute, everytime you pick up to take a sip, just think about what you're doing and set the thing down. Eventually, you'll end up taking a sip every second, third or fourth time. Then it becomes such a tedious practice that you'll be willing to give it up entirely. But just remember, you'll end up at a point where you take your last sip, and that's when the healing starts to begin. It'll be painful for sure, but the object is to make it less painful and once you get 3 or 4 days without a drop, you'll start to sleep better, eat better and live better. Save a memento from this episode for later down the road to serve as a reminder of the torment so that the next time you get the urge to pick up, grab that old smelly nightshirt and take a deep whiff of it. I'm certainly no expert on longterm sobriety, I've stumbled so many times, I've lost count. I am an expert on detox though. I've found that it all seems worse than it really is when you're coming off. Don't panic, just ease yourself into recovery mode. No need for masochism and cold turkey is precisely that!

soberandhonest

Welcome woowinnie! Let me just say this: we can change. Huge changes to our lives begin by taking the smallest steps. My philosophy and beliefs regarding addiction have changed and developed during my two years of sobriety, and this idea of "we can and do change" is now a huge part of my recovery and belief system. Domestication, fear of change, and this prevailing societal thought of "people don't change" are things that stand in the way. I'm a different person today than I was two years ago and freeing myself of the chains of addiction has proved to me that even more and greater changes are ahead of me. You can do this. Start small and recognize that every small change will lead to much, much bigger things. Stay positive. Good luck!

Stayingsassy

I want to add a couple things. I have the same weight issues. In fact in many ways, I drank to keep weight off. Until there were entire weekends where I did not eat at all, I just drank 24/7. Can you see how drinking instead of eating is not sustainable? So your justification to drink in order to keep weight off is basically a death sentence.

I gain weight in sobriety. It’s derailed me before. I have gained about five pounds total in the past two months of sobriety, for me this is progress. I gained 30 one time and 40 another time. Truth: you have to watch what you eat in sobriety, and you have to exercise. If you let yourself get fat you’ll probably relapse. So you have to learn how to eat. I’m still learning and I see it as a process. For someone who either got fat or drank to stay thin for years and years, of course this is a learning process. I still want to reward myself with food and I do. I exercise to help with this want, but I still have to keep food rewards in check. That’s a reality. I know that is different than drinking all the time, killing the appetite completely, and still dropping weight....I’ve been there done that have a drawer full of T-shirts. That part of my life is over and for once I feel like that is ok.

This form of “drunkarexia” so many of us women have is a killer and never an excuse to seek sobriety, peace and health. Take care of yourself.

woowinnielrrm

Thank you all! I am overwhelmed by your kind responses! Finishing day 1 sober today. Was massively hung over but got through it. My husband is rooting for me again and i will keep coming to SR to talk with you all. Wish me luck!

SoberforStarWar

You only fail if you give up trying. I'm rooting for you!