Floki

Hi guys...looking for some advice here! But not completely sure on what....gambling or the drinking or both or lifestyle or all..but if you could spare the time to read I’d really appreciate some advice/feedback

So here the backstory....
I’m 23 work a often stressful very hands-on job anywhere between 60-80 hrs a week... 6 days on (but it’s my passion and I mostly love it!) it also involves managing other people who look up to me... on a regular night for the last few years i have to have a drink after work which leads to 5 more (6-7 pints every night) and my day off normally involves going to the pub!
The drinking though I’m not happy about it isn’t instantly damaging (I can still do my job etc though not at my best)
Unfortunately what happens when I drink enough, is that I lose the control to not gamble which can cause me to lose ferocious amounts of money in a very short amount of time.
I have since got help for the gambling and am 2 month betfree but still continue to drink and worry it’s only going to take one bad night drinking to start gambling again and lose everything (again!).
I really feel like I need to give up both to survive but giving up alcohol seems impossible compared to gambling (but they are still so linked) I hope you can understand my paradox/ the whole situation really confuses me!

Needless to say that outside of work or drinking I don’t have much of a life! I work unsociable hours and my free time is mostly late at night so finding hobbies or sober friends is difficult plus there’s my anxiety/shyness with new situations.

I also have a large amount of debt/loans that are very stressful and leave me with only £90 a month freed money (which I spend on about 3 nights drinking)
...So I get more loans and the cycle continues.
All of this makes it difficult to get to sleep (par alcohol) and almost impossible to get out of bed.

Sorry it’s such a downer!
Thanks for reading.
Floki

doggonecarl

Welcome to Sober Recovery.

Is it the idea of giving up alcohol that you find difficult? Or are you finding it difficult to stay quit once you try?

I had a hard time quitting drugs in my 20s. Thought I was just partying, but got addicted to meth, to pot, to just getting high. But the damage it was causing was too much and I did manage to quit. Drinking I hung on to, because it wasn't a "problem" like the drugs were. Fast forward about 30 years and here I am...an alcoholic.

You think the idea of quitting is hard at 23? Drink 30 more years. You'll find out what difficult is. Do it now while you can. Your life will get better.

Nonsensical

Welcome to SR, Floki!

Why? What happens if you don't drink?

Floki

Thanks for the response...I’ve been drinking like this for 5 years but can’t comprehend 6x that..I have dabbled with drugs but nothing I would call an addiction so congrats for getting past it. But I do get what you mean about drinking not being a “problem” at least compared to gambling.I can only drink £100 a night but can quickly gamble and lose 5k and sometimes I can’t even remember doing it... i have been known to give up booze for up too a week (once) but I always relapse harder and recently 3 days in a row 2 weeks in a row so yeah I guess it’s staying quit that’s my problem. I also do a couple days work in a pub those days are really hard to avoid alcohol!
Floki

Floki

I can go a day or two without if I’m really confident and my happiness improves loads! I’m way more productive..sleeping is difficult with hallucinations and overthinking but more just the deprivation of people as drinkings really is my only social outlet.
Floki

Dee74

Hi and welcome Floki

the support here really helped me turn my life around, I know we can help you too. I'm glad you're gettign the gambling under control - but you're right that addictions are often intertwined.

what kind of help did you get with the gambling would it help with drinking too?

D

topspin

.. Floki,
..Congrats on two months gambling free !

Connecting your drinking to destroying your decision to never gamble again is smart . I can see how you feel like the money you're p*ssing away in the pub seems insignificant ,...with the hours you work .

Drinking clouded my judgement the same way about income .

There are so many folks here at SR ( me included ) with such incredible transitions once we decided to quit drinking . I hope you read as much ( and as often as you commit to drinking now ) and will seriously consider it .

Good luck mate !

DontRemember

two months is great! I had a pretty large line of 'credit' on my phone and would bet stupid! I remember one night(early morning) trying to bet on women's tennis to "maybe cover my other loses". I know as much about women's tennis as I do physics..luckily I couldn't get it to work....that was my bottom on the gambling..I deleted my app/payment method and stopped drinking. I still place a wager from time/time, but I'm sober and have to actually go,in person, to bet.

Berrybean

The trouble is with alcohol, is it promises to make us feel witter , better looking, and sexier. But it gradually takes away our integrity and weakens our resolve to do the right thing. You can see where this will take you if you carry on, yet are so fearful of not drinking (even though drinking itself isn't a problem) that you're hesitant to even consider it. Why do you think you're so fearful of not drinking? Why do you think you can't just go on that pub and be the man who walks to the beat of his own drum and say, nah, I'm sticking to soda / water tonight?

I suspect you know deep down that alcohol IS becoming problematic for you.
Alcoholism is a funny old thing. It is more about how we react once alcohol is in our systems than how often we drink, or what. Most people talk about being more confident and self-assured. Of using alcohol to fill a void of loneliness, and of not-enoughness.

I couldn't imagine not drinking either. Nor what I'd do without my drinking buddies, as that was pretty much all my friends. After a month not drinking and feeling rubbish I started going to AA where I met others who had felt and thought like I did, and they helped me to learn how to Live Sober. (I'd been drinking since teens and knew no other way, although to an outsider it probably just looked very social as I kept the debt and other problematic side effects under wraps). Inside I felt like my life was like an expanse of dominoes all set to fall down, and domino number one was starting to vibrate ready to tip. I knew that the end was coming. The end of what? I didn't know. Thankfully a particularly embarrassing and shameful episode in Feb 2014 finally made me resolve NO MORE ALCOHOL. I was sick of myself and needed to change.

Alcoholism doesn't discriminate. Our jobs or status or professions don't deter it. In fact, most alcoholics I've spoken to in AA meetings and on here have been pretty smart people sober. Maybe that's half our trouble.
At the moment you're looking at the financially problematic side of things, but honestly, this is likely to be just the tip of the iceberg if you carry on drinking. It's progressive, which means if we keep drinking it gets much much worse and starts wreaking havoc in all areas of our lives.

I hope you'll decide that you are not just your drinking persona. It's fine to be more quiet and shy. You owe nobody confident. Confident poeple dont have more inherent worth than shy folk. And you know, if you need to be drunk to be in the pub, chances are you don't REALLY enjoy that environment as much as you think you do. There are LOADS of things you can do in the evening other than drink. To be honest, once I'd got to the stage in my recovery when I felt calm enough to sit in quiet on my own without loads of over thinking overtaking my brain, I actually started enjoying an evening indoors chilling on a weeknight.
There will be clubs and societies, volunteering opportunities, further education courses and all sorts you could try. There is a whole world going on beyond the walls of that pub you know. Not to mention AA meetings where you can meet others who are rebuilding their lives and learning to be happy without alcohol - a simple Google search will tell you where and when these take place in your area.

BB

Nonsensical

So....things improve when you stop drinking, but you can't imagine living without it?

There's a word for that condition. It's called addiction.

I was happy to get over mine.

Best of Luck on Your Journey.

Floki

With gambling I got a 1 to 1 councillor for free for 12 sessions, it seems quite easy to get compared to equal drinking counsel I guess due to being more hidden/rare...I’m not sure if I can do group session due to my work schedule/ more likely my anxiety!
I should definitely give them a try but not sure how to approach. I still have 3 weeks left of gambling therapy which has become gambling and drinking therapy but tends to get more heated around drink...
as in “great I haven’t gambled but I’ve drunk twice as much...which is bad cause I know that can cause me to gamble and makes me unhappy and tired”
Looking into paid councillors maybe that will help as it would be more personal.

Thanks for the support I really appreciate it!

Floki

That post was nice to read, thanks! Did you find it difficult to start AA/ how is the first session or first few? I’m interested but also worried! With gambling it’s always 1on1...but with many people I don’t know if it’ll be more supportive or crushing. What happens if you know the people or is above that?
With **** I can do to occupy my time I think you’re so right...I used to run a Cub Scout group and although these days I find it hard to do stuff for myself...taking up responsibilities around other people could be a great motivator (when it’s not just me at risk)
Thanks
Luke

Berrybean

Sounds like the work life balance could do with a little looksie. What you're doing isn't healthily sustainable for more than a few years. I'm a teacher and there are times of the years that I do long hours and things get stressful, but at least there are the holidays (which actually tend to involve a fair bit of work for home) that allow me to step off the hamster wheel and recover my equilibrium a bit.

I don't know anyone who says that they weren't stressed out by walking in the door of their first ever meeting. But I know that I also got a massive relief from it. I have met people I know in the rooms, but they're there for the same reason as me after all (as long as it's a 'Closed' meeting which means just for alcoholics themselves, hit family and friends) . Right from the first meeting it was supportive. Everyone there (including the secretary and person making the tea) are all recovering alcoholics themselves. There is no one there who hasn't experienced problems with alcohol for themselves. It is run BY recovering alcoholics, FOR recovering alcoholics. Lots of people hold off AA they think (like I did) 'Maybe my problem isn't really bad enough for AA'. I kind of expected lots of people who'd spend half their lives in the throws of low-level drunk living. A few I've met did get to that stage sometime in their dim and distant past, but they're mostly very successful nowadays. The reality is that the only thing needed for membership (which is never done officially on a register or anything - no need to give anyone your surname) is a desire to stop drinking. Or a concern that this might be necessary for you. There is no need for you to even speak during the meeting. You can just listen, and I fact that's how we learn most, although offering our first name she they ask if there are any newcomers or visitors tends to be a good idea. I did / do most of my talking in chatting on a 1 to 1 basis before or after meetings and in the tea break initially, rather than sharing in the meeting itself, and I think that's pretty normal.

There is also GA, Gamblers Anonymous which might be worth investigating, as those 12 weeks of counselling sessions will soon come to an end. Like AA, those meetings are run by and for people who have had problems with gambling. I think GA was the second 12-step fellowship. The guy who founded it recovered from gambling and found he was also an alcoholic (some studies have shown that up to 49% of compulsive gamblers also drink compulsively, which is what makes the addiction powerful). https://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk

You know, one of the things I've found to be massively helpful in recovery has been helping others, and many people on here and in AA who have healthy ongoing sobriety volunteer their time. I tend to stick to volunteering for one off community events - I've helped by marshalling runs, at firework night displays, and Christmas day meals in my local cathedral, and things like that. Partly that means I get to experience the fun and excitement of things by in a new sober way rather than doing what I did for the first year of festivities and hide away from everything. We can easily get very introspective, and self-obsessed as drink takes over. That sounds almost like we're being very kind to outselves, but actually we can be almost turturing ourselves with those thoughts. Especially when the shame and self-loathing peaks remembering some of the actions we took when we perhaps didn't act with the integrity we would hope to. Volunteering / working with others alters our focus and thereby relieves us of some of those painful thoughts. Anyway, perhaps that could be something you'd consider starting up again.

You are young, and would find perhaps that many folk in meeting will be older than you. But they all remember what they were like in their 20s. In fact a couple of the old timers I know with 40 odd years sobriety arrived in AA themselves in their 20s. And there will be some other younger people. One of my sponsees is 20. I'm so please she's decided to reclaim her life from alcohol now rather than let things progress.

Anyway. Wishing you all the best for your sobriety and recovery. Keep reading and posting.

BB

Floki

Hi guys, just a quick update...things are looking a lot better for me. I’m over 6 months sober from gambling! And I only very occasionally get cravings..I still have many debts but I should be able to pay that off within the next 2 years... the drinkings has improved too, I’ve met an amazing girl who has really helped show me that there’s a world outside of the pub and addiction. I now don’t drink every night and am adapting to sober socialising.
Thanks for all your support, It really helped!
Luke

JVO15

Good on you Floki! I too was a drinker who liked to gamble and a gambler who liked to drink. I did WAY too much of both. I've fallen of the wagon on both accounts over the past 6 months so your update is appreciated .

decchemist

Congrats on your progress, Floki.

Your original story reminded me of a guy who came to our SMART group with problems with drink and cocaine. The coke was costing him ca. £250 a weekend so he wanted to stop this but not the drink.
He said he did not take alcohol or coke in the week and assured us that if he were offered coke right there and then he would not take it. He only took it after drinking.
It took a good half hour to get him to see that if he did not drink he would not take coke. He was convinced at the start of the meeting that he just needed to stop taking drugs and the drinking would be able to continue. But they were linked completely.
He never came back but might do one day I hope.

GreatInquiry7

Been there and I'm very close to your age. I went to Vegas and not only did I drink too much I spent thousands on gambling most of which I don't remember.

Its an awesome thing you quit gambling because it can ruin your life to massive scales. Now when you quit drinking, not only will you stop ruining your life but you'll feel good and not do stupid things that induce more money spent