Sampierce55

So I am not a day drinker and the most I have ever binged is 7 days and that's only been a few times as it made me too physically sick to go on after that.

However, what I find is that I will go a week or two get into a solid gym routine feel really good then feel a need to sabatoge this with benders that last for three days. I use any excuse to do it if I am bored I will get the beers, if I am depressed I will get beers if I am happy and feel good I will still get beers.

I don't make a lot of money and the last binge (7 days) left me with no money at all, I have tried different things over the years I am 29 now but after my last binge I can't keep doing it anymore.

I will feel like rubbish for three days and just stay in bed feeling extremely depressed so this time around I have commited to AA and went to my first one yesterday.

I always just try and white knuckle it but I guess doing the same thing over and over is not going to get me a different result so I need to try something different and be around people who are in the same boat and mainly people who have been there and have stayed sober.

Does this happen to anybody else? I know there are different types of drinking but anybody experience something similar?

Been going on now for about 5 years and has made me lose a business, become unreliable and not to mention trouble with the police etc..

Sam

least

I've never been in trouble with the police, but drinking made me lose my little housecleaning business and made me unreliable and untrustworthy. I got sober for good almost 11 yrs ago and have earned back the trust I had pissed away. I am retired now and am living a peaceful sober life. No drama and no danger.

I hope you'll use the support here to help you get sober for good.

Sampierce55

Yeah I am a personal trainer so imagine my on a bender for a few days when I am meant to be in the gym for 6am training clients!

Resurgence

Hey Sam,

I'm a similar age to you, and although I'm not a PT, I'm relatively fit and have played out this cycle for years.

I'm not in a great place myself at the moment but I'll catch up with this thread soon and hopefully offer some insights.

Congrats on your first meeting, too

freedomfries

Yeah. I'd finish a bender, then get into an exercise routine and start making progress then I'd get two weeks sober and go on another bender and lose all my progress.

Anna

I think there are probably many members here with similar stories to yours. The main thing is that if alcohol is causing problems in your life, stopping drinking is the solution. You will find lots of support here.

Erica375

Welcome, Sam! What going to AA meetings did for me 2as help me to understand I wasn't some sort of crazy, unique, hopeless nut case.

People would share some shameful secret of their drinking days and I'd think, Holy cow! I do that, too!

Maybe I was still a crazy nut case, but I was neither hopeless nor unique.😄

Stick around here, keep trying new things, and write down a plan for staying sober this weekend.

loulou1981

Hi Sam, yep anything triggers me too!! Im not a daily drinker, probably drank once or twice a week but when I did I'd get slaughtered, blackout & feel like crap the next day not just physically but mentally. I was/am a secret drinker, so I felt guilt about that too!
Apart from the drinking I live a really healthy/fit life, so its crazy I would sabotage it, if its an issue for u (sounds like it is) then decide if u want to stop, im not an expert at all & im just over a month in, but there's lots of varied experience here & a great place to come

Derringer

If you have a read of the AA book, you'll find that the guy who started it all , Bill Wilson, was exactly like that.

Going on prodigious benders on a regular basis, for no particular reason.

Dr Bob, the other forefather of AA was pretty much the same.

At age 29 you aren't drinking daily or during the day and neither were they, but it does get worse as we get older, and by their late 30's, both were drunk more than they were sober.

My own story is fairly similar. From bender drinking to daily and daytime drinking.

I wish I had seen the light at age 29.

Good on you 🐱

RecklessDrunk

My drinking pattern changed over the years.

I was in and out of reform schools in my teens. Hard drinking and druggin when i could. Late teens was the worst for me in terms of alcohol. Pounding hard liquor every night. They say it just gets progressively worse but that's not what happened for me..

This is where it can dangerous for people like us. After a while we can be like im not like those other alcoholics. Im not gonna drink myself to death or be homeless. Maybe not but we can sure can drink ourselves into some misery.

I tried to put my life together in my 20s. A life without alcohol was out of the question so I made things work the best I could. Some of my days were get up early to get in a 3 mile run. Work a normal 8 hour day then 4 hours of school. Then finally get home and smoke marijuana and drink a few beers. I would take sleeping pills before I got a couple of beers down. This is the only way I could prevent myself from drinking all night. I had to have that ease and comfort.

Then in my later 20s into my early 40s i would diet perfectly all week and drink only (mostly) on weekends. I guess on average out of every 10 weeks i could go 8 weeks without making a mistake and drinking on a weeknight. I would run or lift weights on nights that I didn't drink. Exercise would and still does give me much of that ease and comfort that i would get from taking a few drinks.

My binges would usually end on Mondays for some reason. It was the start of the week and I was hungover almost every single Monday. It was routine to just tough out Monday at work and be dying for my 6 mile run after work which would snap me out of it.

For example let say I planned to stay sober all week like usual and it's Wednesday but for some reason. Maybe its summer and the office is quiet cause people are on vacation. Well it feels like a holiday in this mellow office atmosphere. I'm supposed to blast chest at the gym tonight but now I have the obsession to drink. Maybe this eats at me from 11 am until about 2pm when I finally agree with myself that ok, Ive been good lately so why not have a drink instead of the gym. The instant I decided to drink i would feel better already. I can get back on track Thursday and blast back and biceps. So I tough it out at work Thursday. Then it becomes clear during the day on Thursday. I already messed up the gym so drinking Thursday night wouldn't be much worse. Besides I can run on Friday. Friday arrives and now its well, I already messed up so why not just drink tonight and finish out the weekend. And there i have it a 5 night binge.

I had been good about the drugs from mid 20s to mid 30s but once I got back into that, combined with the drinking it nearly destroyed everything for me.

I would suggest keeping an open mind, getting a sponsor and working the steps. Don't get all freaked out about the God thing. I'd say do some deep thinking about our purpose and how we got here. You can learn this and that about spirituality from different sources but in the end its for you to figure out for yourself. You don't have to figure it out right now and it's ok not to know.

I started to take life for what it was at the moment and try and make the best of it. Grateful for every little thing I had, basic stuff like food, health, shelter. The idea that the World doesn't owe me poop and everything I have is a blessing.

D122y

There is more to binge drinking then spoiling a fitness run.

It is permanent brain damage. It will only get worse.

The only way out is suffering. It is analysis vs emotion.

There are plenty of folks that don't drink. Some never, some quit.

Moderation just keeps the door cracked. Once a drunk gets used to the buzz at a certain level, there is no turning back.

1 drink is a joke. The job doesn't get done until half a bottle of wisky is gone. I might be able to have 1 beer for a few days, but if the door is open, the destruction is guaranteed.

Suffering and time.

You already have the answer in how to cope because you are into exercise. Add to that this place and you have my solution.

SR saved my life.

Thanks.

EndGameNYC

The things you describe don't get better -- and always get worse -- without making changes along the way, sometimes major changes, that place you in a better position to succeed.

We don't get a second chance to be children, to relive late adolescence and into our twenties.

Start now. It sounds like it's time. Everything else is just procrastination.

AAPJ

This ^^^^^^ +100

One does not have to get to the level of every day morning drinker full blown alcoholic to realize it's time to get off of the merry go round.... unless you are a slow learner like me. My story is a lot like RecklessDrunk's. It can be dangerous because it's a slow slide down hill at first.

Sampierce55

Thanks everyone I have done a few 30 days completely stopping over the past few years just on my own and end up going back and again it gets worse and worse.

I remember once coming off a cheap cider 7 day binge throwing up really really bad and being a mess and my girlfriend just looked at me and said " I really don't understand why someone would keep doing this to themselves" but ahe doesn't drink at all so would probably really never understand.

Sam

Sampierce55

I have commited to AA meetings twice a week for the time being it's not something I have done before and have always wanted to do it but social anxiety put me off, the idea of being in a group scared the crap out of me and even though I am a boxer and have had fights the thought of talking in a group terrified me.

This time around I don't care about the social anxiety as it can't be worse than being a druken mess and feeling like crap after a binge, I am trying to get a counciller too that I will pay for when I start making a little bit more money, there is free stuff here in the UK on the NHS however it takes about 6 months to gt reffered to somebody.

Wastinglife

I've been in that cycle for 15 years. I've lost everything. My career is ruined, I'm bankrupt, have A DUI, been in the ER multiple times. The consequences for my drinking have been quite severe yet I still can't stay stopped. Although, the 3 days in bed all depressed is horrible, I've gone through that once a month.

I am sober now, but nothing seems to comes between me and a drink if i am determined to drink.

Mizz

I first got sober around your age. I have always known and seen how alcohol has negatively affected me. From 27 to 40 I have been in and out of actively drinking. Bouts of sobriety followed by long bouts of drinking. Anything that I learned when actively sober about alcoholism went out the window when I picked up drinking again.

I think it is WONDERFUL that you are attending AA meetings. Bring in as many meetings and tools necessary to keep yourself sober.

Alcoholism is progressive and the bouts of drinking, hangovers and behaviors get worse. You can do this! You really can. We are here for you. Keep posting often. Keep up those meetings. Power on!

DriGuy

Oh my, YES, and I wasn't even a binge drinker.

Day Drink or Binge: The source of both of these is addiction. I drank every day and to be honest, binge drinkers were always a mystery to me. How could anyone go without alcohol for two weeks (some binge drinkers can go for months). But we all get here because we can't control our drinking once we start. And fully understanding that last sentence is vital to our recovery. "Once we start," is the part to which we need to pay attention throughout recovery and the rest of our lives. It emphasizes the importance of not taking that first drink ever, because from common experience, we all know that first drink is where we lose control. You might be able to take a drink tonight and not follow up with another, and think you've solved the problem. I did that once and thought the same thing, but the next night I was more ready to make up for it by guzzling my way to a stupor.


I had this insight just before I stopped drinking. We usually associate drinking with stress or boredom, but just about the time I quit, I realized that I drank after a bad day to unwind, but I also drank after a good day to celebrate. Obviously bad and good had nothing to do with it. My problem was addiction. And that's the problem for all of us. We don't feel satisfied unless we drink. Drinking is our solution to everything. We just need alcohol.

This is a start, and it's where I turned the corner. I went to my first AA meeting after a record shattering 5 days without a drink. I had planned to buy a bottle after the meeting, because I was climbing the walls. I almost went to a meeting after the 3rd day, but I sat in my car outside the meeting place that day and then chickened out when I watched strangers going into the building, and I went home.

But at my first meeting two nights later, I talked about learning to control my drinking, and someone responded that AA does not recommend controlling. Its goal was for us to never drink again. The person who said that almost looked like she was sorry to tell me the bad news. But the fact is, I had never considered not drinking. To me, there would always be that special occasion, usually a celebration that called for drinking. But really, I wasn't opposed to not drinking ever again, I just saw it as too absurd to consider. But at that meeting there were old timers with years and years of sobriety behind them, and they seemed happy as punch about it, so it hit me then, that never drinking might actually be something to take seriously. That changed everything for me, and I decided to commit to that. My commitment was not to AA, although I attended meetings for years. My commitment was to myself to never drink again. And I didn't buy that bottle after the meeting.

I don't consider the day of my last drink as the beginning of my sobriety. It was the day I committed to total abstinence that began it for me.

There is always a white knuckle battle at first. I don't know of a way around that, but the cravings diminish quickly, for me at about 10 days, and the rest of the battle is learning to not listen to that little voice telling you you've done well and deserve a drink. Instead of fighting cravings, it becomes a battle of thinking through consequences, and keeping in mind your ultimate goal. And eventually, that becomes second nature too, and no longer a battle. You just need to keep thinking clearly after that. Thinking and choosing not to drink until it becomes who you are, rather than who you want to be.

Binge drinkers may face a special problem. They go for weeks and months without a drink. By that time, I was out of the woods, and all that was left for me was learning how to think each drinking impulse through. I have often guessed that binge drinkers have mastered the cravings phase, but haven't mastered the thinking part of recovery. But I'm hardly in a position to relate to binge drinking. It wasn't how I drank, but our problem, both you and I have an addiction. It's not about good days and bad days. And you need to make a commitment to yourself to be sober from here out. You may fail a time or two, but think about what happened, and rethink what making a commitment means to you.