ohwhatamalady

Hello, before I came into recovery I was a complete mess - I had lost my job and couldnt even leave my house because of the pains of withdrawing from heroin. I went into treatment and now attend NA and couldnt feel better - having a great time doing all the things I wasnt doing when using. I attend NA frequently and it really helps me to stay away from those situations.

However, I am still drinking. When I say this I dont mean its taken over as another crutch I mean I am having wine over dinner and whatnot - now I hear what counsellors are saying to me - that I will want more and more - but its been four months now and I've got a hold of it (for now at least)

I want peoples honest opinions and not just the broad "YOUR AN ADDICT" or you are cross-addicting stuff, the problem is in NA you only get one persons side of the story - how about the amount of people who have left NA and carried on in their lives - it is definately a biased viewpoint if nothing else -

so tell me - is it possible to carry on drinking socially after being a heroin addict.

Aysha

Couldnt tell you. Havent done either.
Welcome.

bostonluv

I think you can....but I don't know for sure. I know when I quit meth about 10 years ago I was able to control my drinking for several years. Well, I'm an alcoholic now so....that's not such an inspirational story.

But in all seriousness not all chemical substances appeal to me. I smoke pot once in a blue moom but can take it or leave it. Same with some other things. I know which areas my problems are. However, I'm by no means an expert on this. It's just my experience and thoughts.

ohwhatamalady

hello nice to meet you both- the point i am trying to get to with counsellors is that my real drug of choice was heroin. that was it for me - happy to just take it for days, weeks, months on end.. drinking i always did socially and the only times I might have overdone it were when I was a kid (Im in the UK, London - and thats pretty standard here) and then went on to cut back and be a bit more sensible around it.

I am just a bit confused - I have surrendered to my heroin addiction - but I feel funny about the alcohol thing as its never been problematic for me

bostonluv

Nice to meet you also. It'll be interesting to see the replies on here tomorrow. It's such a personal decision. Maybe stick around and if it gets to be a problem - switching one thing for another - you'll already know how to get better and abstain. I think it's wonderful that you've been off the heroin for 4 months.

serenityqueen

When I first read your thread, I couldn't get to the post reply fast enough. I started getting high when I was only 11 and everyone around me was also drinking beer or any other type of alcohol whenever we could get our hands on it. Me. . . the taste made me gag. But wanting to fit in, I tried so hard to drink but I still couldn't. Within about 4 years, due to female problems, I had discovered prescription pain pills. They became my drug of choice, but I still did coke, acid, quaaludes, speed . . . whatever mood altering substance I could get my hands on. Several years later, I learned to develop a tolerance of certain mixed drinks so I fit in at the clubs. I was dating the drummer in a local rock band and there was no way his girlfriend could be seen drinking a Coke.

I knew I had a severe problem with the pain pills. I was taking 30, 40 pills a day. I had went into detox and treatment several times and would stay away from everything sometimes for a month or two at a time. I soon got so bored, my whole social life had always consisted of going to the clubs or friends houses where alcohol was always there. I was in my 20's and 30's, where else do people go to hang around with friends? So I figured since alcohol was never my drug of choice I was safe to have a few drinks. It wasn't long before I thought it wouldn't hurt to do some Coke when it was offered. My disease would soon convince me that if I could control using these things, I could now control my pill usage.

Fastforward to about 7 years ago. I still had my love affair going on with the pain pills and was now using around 70 or 80 a day, all the while working and holding down what I thought was a normal life. But when I couldn't get any pills in order to not feel what I was trying to numb, I would drink. I soon became a full blown alcoholic. I started on several day binges that consisted of getting a bottle of Bacardi, isolating at home while I drank it, passed out, woke up drank more, all the while replenishing my stock. I went through days on end of nothing but drinking and passing out,waking up still drunk but getting shaky, drank more to stop the shakes, passed out, woke up, drank more . . . I became very sick, weak, unable to even get a shower, get dressed or even begin to stop the cycle each time I woke up from passing out. I would be dehydrated from doing nothing but drinking alcohol, I tried to force myself to eat but I couldn't keep anything down. I'd have diarrhea so bad that the alcohol went right through my system. I ended up in detox in the hospital so many times. I'd try to stop drinking at home and would begin having the DT's, seizures, full blown alcohol withdrawals. I would get out of the hospitl and started using the pills again, then when I couldn't get any, I drank. And so the vicious cycle continued.

By the Grace of God, I have been clean and sober from all mood altering chemicals for a little over 3 years. For me, I cannot use one substance and not the other. I developed the addiction to alcohol so fast that it became just as much of a drug of choice as the opiates. This also happened to my little sister, Linda who was a cocaine addict. She had the stong distaste for alcohol just like I did. Her coke habit had began costing her several hundred dollars a day and when she couldn't afford it any longer she started having a few drinks to calm herself in the evenings. We buried her two years later. She died from chirrosis of the liver at the age of 26. It took no time at all for her to become so dependent on the alcohol, even after her Dr.'s warned her four months before she died that she was in serious, medical danger from drinking. She thought she was too young and after all, she only drank for about 2 years.

I know other people who didn't become what we would classify as an alcoholic, but they relapsed on their drug of choice after having a few drinks. After all, alcohol is one of the biggest "confidence builders" ever. That false sense of being able to handle it, to only do the coke that night, or in your case some heroin, set in pretty fast. Please, please, don't risk it. You admitted how great you feel after you qutit using heroin, is it really worth the risk? And my thought is, if you feel that strongly about having the wine with dinner, a possible addiction to the alcohol could already have begun.

I hope you'll continue to post and share with us. You have found a tremendous support system that I feel so blessed to have found myself.

God Bless and Congratulations on your clean time!
Judy

Dee74

hi owhatamalady

I have nothing to add - I was basically a drinker and pothead with the odd once off experiment in other stuff thrown in.

I choose not to do anything now but that's my personal choice.

Just wanted to say welcome
D

Anna

Alcohol is what caused me problems, but I know that anything that weakens me in any way, will be a problem. If I get too tired, stressed or hungry, I will be weaker. If I was to take pain pills, I believe I would be weaker.

If you are thinking about your drinking and believe you are controlling it, then I think it could be a problem.