My defining moment was the occasion of my first blackout. I woke up one morning and was confused to find my knees and legs covered in mud and mud all in the bed. I had NO recollection how I got in that shape. I sat there for a while just going through everything and coming up blank. Finally a very very vague sort of a ghost of a memory of me falling out of back of our trailer started coming into me but I wasn't sure so I asked my kids. They confirmed it. In our trailer if you turned right you went into the bathroom and if you turned left and unlocked the back door then you fell out the door onto the ground because there were no steps. Obviously I turned left and fell out.

That was an eyeopener to be sure but it was still a long time and many more blackouts, bad behaviors, calling off of work, trips to multiple liquor stores to avoid looking like an alcoholic, hiding, driving home on my lunch hour to have something to stop the shakes, driving to a liquor store on my lunch hour to stop the shakes, driving my kids to school drunk, drink in the face of major organ shutdown and many many other stupid things before I was low enough to actually do something about the drinking.

Good thread, thank you for starting it!
Kellye

...when I started doing things I swore I'd never do then found myself saying they didn't actually feel as bad as I'd thought they would....i.e. drinking alone, becoming a sex worker, not going home for a week etc...

When my sister asked me not to come to a family function because she was worried i'd embarrass myself.

I pretty much always knew I drank too much but it really became a problem when I developed alcoholic hepatitis and pancreatitis when I was 27. I learned then that an alcoholic death is a very painful way to to and it planted the seed in my mind that I really needed to quit.

JigofLife you have reminded me of my earliest noteworthy hangover, which too occured when I was 14. I remember I was out w my best friend and we drank Grolsch beer. the next day I remember sitting on my front porch of my childhood home, around 9am, holding my head in my hands in case it would fall off my shoulders, I remember my thoughts at the time, like "why is the sun SO BRIGHT today?? and why am I awake this early??" and just, well, how BAD i felt.
Guess that wasn't enough for me either! I needed another 23 years to figure it out. But like you, I dont want to blow this chance either. =) thanks for the reminder!

I realised I had a serious problem when I kept on drinking even after everybody else had stopped, and when I always looked for a reason to do it - it's the weekend, the football is on, blah, blah.

I realised I was a full-blown alcoholic when I couldn't stop even when I wanted to, very badly indeed. By that time, I had become physically dependant on it and required medical help to stop. :(

I realised I'd a serious problem about 10 years before I decided to do anything about it.

When I had to cancel work meetings cos I couldn't stop shaking.

When I'd need a drink in order to eat.

When I'd drink a half bottle before going out as I didn't trust the people I was with to drink fast enough for me.

There are many many more

I was home alone all day and very excited to see the torch come through Atlanta (I think this was 2004?) that evening. I decided to have "a couple of drinks". I ended up wasted by 5 PM in the parking lot of our church waiting for the torch to come by. After that we were supposed to go out and see a movie, but on the way to see it, I had to stop the car (I was driving) and puke, and turn around and go home. This was about 9 PM. That was the 1st time I ever thought I needed to "slow down".

When I would chug half a bottle of wine before going somewhere - to class, an audition, meeting up with friends, etc. When I would do this also before calling a romantic interest...When I would down a couple of drinks when I knew he was on his way to pick me up (the terrible thing is, I started doing this when he was a recovering alcoholic). I did this so that I could erase all my feelings of self-consciousness/social anxiety, and it did work in my favor as long as I was buzzed...unfortunately, I managed to convince myself for a time that I *needed* it/was psychologically dependent on it for my motivation. I used everything that I loved as an excuse to drink...i.e. "I need to drink to be creative." I drank to write my papers, and the words did flow, but when I didn't have my wine I was stuck, insecure, neurotic. The academic anxiety was pretty bad, but I felt terrible about myself when I was not able to open up to people without a drink because I would become a zombie when I was anxious. The more I drank, the more I felt a sense of alienation from other people. There was a time when I only drank to party, but around the time I turned 21 I started drinking by myself...and yes, I have a lot of memories of drinking by myself...It's been a pretty lonely existence. I would drink and drunk dial men...particularly one guy who didn't care for me because he was too busy drinking himself.

Man, so many of these I can relate to but they came closer to the end for me. Of course my "career" was 3.5 years start to finish so I passed a lot of milemarkers really fast.

1) Blackouts
2) Mild Shakes in morning
3) Discovered a drink would make shakes go away
4) Developed more dependency to where I had to have drink at lunch to get through day
5) Kept alcohol on me at all times
6) Swelled up, developed unhealthy color, liver hurt and kidneys stopped functioning properly
7) More and more instances of alcohol poisoning
8) No longer having a desire to drink but having to drink to keep withdrawals at bay

In the midst of this I started isolating from friends and family more and more and started hanging with people that I NEVER would have hung with before doing things I NEVER would have done before. My morals pretty much disappeared (not totally but certainly lowered) and yes I had to sneak drinks so people wouldn't see how much I drank, so "they could keep up", so I wouldn't look bad and I rotated liquor stores so nobody would know the extent that I drank. I would hide empties and stow them in the trunk of my car to get rid of them "later". Closer to the end I was so demoralized that I couldn't face the mountain in my trunk so I left them there, prayed that my kids wouldn't get into my trunk or God forbid I wouldn't get stopped by a cop. Once I got sober I shamefacedly asked another member if she would help me clean out my trunk. I was about to die from embarassment until she started cracking up laughing. Then I started laughing. She told it at my 3 year birthday last year.

Sorry, I digressed big time, my whole point was that I can relate to so many of your shares on this topic. I LOVE SR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hugs,
Kellye

So many moments...

When I started to cry because they wouldn't accept that I was old enough to buy beer at the bottle shop and I didn't have a car to go to any other ones. I was sober.

When I woke up on the table at the pub alone. Everyone I was there with had left me because (apparently) before passing out I told them all that they were f-wits and f this and f you and f that, then passed out and they couldn't wake me up (I can remember waking up but none of the stuff that happened before).

When my mum asked me "please don't drink tonight" because the night before I'd woken up everyone in the house trying to get into the car to get more alcohol, but because I had the wrong keys it wouldn't work. I was refering to myself as "we" and told my little sister that there were 2 other people in my head, and that she needed to help "us" because she was "unavoidably linked to the mafia". That was a freaky night. I have no memory of it at all. I had taken stilnox sleeping tablets that night also. My sister can laugh about it now, but imagine how scary it would be to have your big sister tell you there were 2 other people in her head - apparently, when she asked who they were, I said one of them was a bit of an idiot but "we've known him a long time so he's ok".

When I woke up after a black out at a friends house and realised I'd wet myself from being so drunk.

So many moments.

Oh crap I forgot about the whole peeing the bed thing. Nice!!!!

Thank God for sobriety! How you coming along with it ForeverDecember?

Kellye

What a great thread! I knew when I left my two small children asleep in bed and drove to the supermarket at 11 pm because I finished my bottle of wine and I just HAD to have vodka! And I was a social worker for Child Protective Services as my career!!!

And then I started running across the street first thing in the morning to the convenience store, telling my kids I was going to buy them doughnuts - just an excuse, because I HAD to drink. I couldn't even wait for the clerk to unlock the refrigerator at 6 am where the booze was kept! I just grabbed a warm bottle of the expensive stuff off the shelf. Morning shakes, nausea...then I became a maintenance drinker. Had to drink all day long. But it didn't even get me buzzed or drunk anymore. My body just needed it.

Dropping my kids off at school at 8 am and going straight to one of 3 stores(which I rotated so they wouldn't think I was an alcoholic!) to buy wine. I'd also have to buy other stuff, just to make it look like I hadn't just come in there specifically for the alcohol at 8 am!

I am SOOOOOO glad those days are over! It was hell on earth, literally!

Ugh!

I'm one of those drinkers who generally would wait until after 9 p.m. to hit the beer (usually a 6 pack of tallboys), and almost always alone - although I've had friends who are very heavy drinkers I'd want to be by myself to "indulge". After losing my job 3 months ago, I started slugging down expensive whiskey with the beer every single night, but as my money dwindled it quickly became cheap liquor and cheap beer. I can't believe how patient my boyfriend has been. We've had a house together for a year now, and the most he ever says is "you're drinking every night now, aren't you?". He was a problem drinker in the 90's but somehow lost all interest in it after getting a DUI over 10 years ago before we met.

I am disgusted with myself, always tired and rundown/ hungover, have no interest in intimacy, depressed, unable to keep a clean house anymore and even simple things like laundry, anxious, overwhelmed, scared of dying, terrified of getting us evicted if I don't secure employment very soon, and all the secrecy eats at me. There's a chance to pull out of this hole if I get sober now. This is my 2nd night without alcohol, and I'm having slight shakes and chills. I'm slugging down water and hoping that I'm not still shaking on Thursday and Friday, because I have job interviews on both days. Sorry, didn't mean to write a book - but it's 4:00 a.m. and I haven't been able to sleep all night. Thanks for listening.

Waking up after blackouts, not knowing where I was and hoping that someone would know where my clothes were. Then later on it was starting to wake up in hospitals and jail and I started to concider the possibility that I might just have a problem.

You can do it LadyInRed. The first few days are the toughest physically, after that it's mental. Hang in there - it WILL et better (including sleep!)

Tom

Thanks so much, Rurdy! Although I am having mild "shakes" today, my head feels a little clearer and I got another call for a job interview. A while ago, I heard a guy who had been in recovery for many years say the best thing for him was - instead of waking up saying "Good God-it's morning!" he now wakes up sober with a smile and says "Good morning, God!". For some reason, that was very significant to sum up the dread many people like myself experience toward the sun coming up each morning after a night of drinking. A new day is something that should be treasured.

When I was trying to "counsel" an alcoholic friend into not drinking (he just got out of rehab) and I had a beer in my hand and realized I couldn't make it through the night or know what to say to him if I didn't have a "buzz"...he's back in rehab...I am in my first 24 hours....