BiggerReasons

I’m glad I found this place. It’s day 1, but to be fair I reached Day 16 just two weeks ago, so I know I can do this. I’ll explain that in a minute.

Anxiety and depression is common with detox, but it was especially big with me my whole life. When I think back to how this all started, it’s crazy. I was someone who “played by the rules” - I never even had a drink until I was 21! I battled anxiety/depression for a long time and did well on an anti depressant for some time. The anxiety of doctors visits is bad enough for most people, but for me, it’s over-the-top hard. My doctor would renew my prescription over the phone for the longest time but finally decided I should come in for a visit since it had been a while before he’d renew. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I made excuses (that held some truth) that I didn’t want to become dependent (isn’t that a laugh given where I am writing now!) and I didn’t like some of the side effects so I would just ween off. That was roughly 7 years ago. I was a casual drinker, 25 at the time so you know, still the occasional night where you and friends have a few too many, but definitely not problem drinking. It stayed that way for a couple years, but I was finding myself grabbing a beer to calm my nerves a little more often since I was off the meds.

Then, if I was to identify a turning point, I remember the day. Anxiety was getting really bad and I was about to go to a social gathering that was making it worse. I knew there wouldn’t be drinks and I wanted my mind to chill. I thought: severely watered down, and especially if it has a little lemon, if I throw just a little vodka into this nalgene, I won’t get drunk but it’ll take the edge off and no one will be the wiser. I did. “It worked”... guess what I started doing in more situations? Guess if the amount increased or decreased? It grew, and it got to problem levels over the last 3-4 years.

I did a 21 day detox cleanse program successfully in 2014 and it felt great. I’m aware of how much the right nutrition, exercise, etc can do for your body - it’s capacity to right so many wrongs. That’s great, right! Wrong. I think it made it worse. It made me justify my drinking. Like all of you I’m sure, I constantly made “plans” to stop.. and I justified it by saying I could reverse a lot of negative impacts. I got deeper and deeper and am hitting panic mode that I could be getting into irreversible damage territory.

Now, I’ll leave it at that for now because “the whole story” would be a darn novel and I’d love to have a discussion, but my wife and I have been together for a long time. She’s somewhat aware that I’ve used alcohol for my anxiety but I don’t think she realizes how often. We were intentionally waiting to try having children but we recently started. I knew alcohol has negative effects on potency and we were unsuccessful for a few months. Her folks had tried for years before success so she was worrying that it’s hereditary and something was wrong with her. I knew it was most likely me. It inspired me to go full board with the detox again. We tried in that time frame and she’s now a week late (which NEVER happens). We’ll find out soon but there’s a great chance she is.

There have always been a plethora of “reasons”, including her, friends, family and every facet of my life and health it has or could possibly affect. But this is the final straw. There is no way I’m not kicking this once and for all if I’m going to be a dad.

It’s Day 1, again..

fini

welcome, BR, and way to go on showing up.
lots of ways folks are going about this, and i encourage you to look around and check out all the forums.

Dee74

Hi and welcome BiggestReasons

Sounds like you might have a brilliant reason to change your life for good - you'll find a lot of support here

Nonsensical

Welcome to SR!
What's the plan?

tomls

Welcome and best wishes for you on your journey!

BiggerReasons

It sounds simple, but do whatever I can to focus the energy and resources that were unfortunately being used to being a closet alcoholic and use it to refocus my attention on exercise and nutrition more than ever before. I’ve had some high-highs and some low lows when it comes to taking care of myself overall. I have some physical accomplishments along the way, I’ve run a half marathon, biked a century ride and completed a Tough Mudder, feel like I have a decent knowledge of nutrition and deep down have a desire to eat well consistently, but my weight has yo-yo’d because I also would argue that I have an addiction to bad food. Part of that is escapism when talking about the extreme anxiety, and the increase in alcohol use has CERTAINLY played a bad role in that increase for reasons everyone is familiar with. I was maintaining for a while because I was mixing some good food choices and decent exercise with all of my bad choices including the booze, but I’ve fallen way, way off the rails to say the least in the last 3+ years. It’s humiliating to try to do things I once did with relative ease, and I literally can’t do 15% of what I did before without feeling like I’m dying. Just 5 years ago I ran a half marathon but (until I get back on the wagon) I probably couldn’t step out to run 1-2 without feeling like I need to stop and walk. I think I’ve gained around 35-40 pounds in a few years time and just beaten the you know what out of my body binging and eating bad food.

Now I will say this: when I did a detox in 2014, even though I wasn’t NEARLY in as bad of a condition as I was/am this time around... it was more of a Bear. Obviously the first couple of days were ROUGH, but overall I was feeling better and not craving as hard or as often. Like I said, after 16 days I had “reasons” as I’m sure we all do to make an exception, but instead of getting right back on the wagon like I told myself, I spent two weeks slowly progressing into my old ways and levels so this HAS to be it. There are really no exceptions to be made.

Now I’m a bozo because my post was “Day 1”. I wrote that draft Wednesday night before joining it, so I’m actually sitting here on the morning of Day 3 LOL! Days 3-7 can be a monster but I’m feeling alert and OK right now.

I’m positive I’ll have to fend off symptoms later today but here’s a big reason why things feel better than 2014’s attempt. Use has stemmed around anxiety. My 16 day run a few weeks ago, and since then/this time around I’m taking GABA. I can’t tell you what a difference maker it is. If you’re reading this and planning to start, or at the early stages and really struggling with anxiety, I highly recommend it. It is not expensive, and it’s a naturally occurring amino acid that alcohol use/abuse affects. To steal from Wikipedia: gamma-Aminobutyric acid is the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. Its principal role is reducing neuronal excitability throughout the nervous system. From nearly all accounts it isn’t habit forming with minimal side effects unless you take way, way too much of it. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been for me - I highly recommend it!