Another Newbie Here!
Hangovers Suck!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Southeastern U.S.
Posts: 176
Another Newbie Here!
Hello everyone and Merry Christmas or Merry Giftmas as I recently heard it called.
I actually quit drinking for almost 4 years, but made the fateful decision to have "just one glass of wine" at a celebration dinner with my wife and some business associates in March of 2007. I had just earned a promotion I had dreamed about for years, and the dinner was in my honor. My wife, of all people, urged me to take that drink. Note here that I'm not blaming her, but it does shock me when I think back on it, given her knowledge of substance abuse and the havoc it has cause in her own family. Her words were something to the effect of "can't you have 'just one' without going over the edge again?" My rational side was screaming HELL NO!!! I knew better, but allowed my idiot side to override my common sense, and here I am. Started back slowly, but we all know how that eventually ends up....The last six months I've been drinking pretty heavy, just like the bad old days I used to think were so much fun. I took my last drink last Sunday, 12/21, which is my 14 YO son's birthday. I reckon I figured I just had to finish off the rest of that half-gallon of Makers Mark since I paid over $40 for it. Felt like crap at work on Monday at my dream job and decided "Enough!" I worked my butt off the last several years to get here and I'll be damned if I'll let the desire for a temporary feel good booze buzz cause me performance problems and ultimately family and health problems.
I never hit bottom, but I can honestly say that EVERY time I got in serious trouble in my life it was booze related. When I look back on my life, I can only shake my head and wonder what I might have achieved had I left the booze monster alone. I got drunk for the first time at age 14, drank and smoked pot all through high school. Drank even harder during 4 years in the Marine Corps, getting popped on a urine test for marijuana, and discovering LSD could not be detected at the time on a urinanalisys, so me and my buddies did acid every chance we got - The Few, The Proud, The Tripping Marines..... I Discovered cocaine and crank after I was honorably discharged with a good conduct medal (Amazing, right?!) It was easy quitting the illegal drugs; by age 25 I was done with all of them, except the legal one, booze. Alcohol was the hardest to shake for me.
The four years prior to my decision to take that one drink was fantastic. I slept better, no hangovers, no upset wife, pumping iron at the gym 5 days a week, making 3-mile runs with ease. WTH was I thinking? Well, I have returned to reclaim the sobriety that is mine.
I like the logical, rational approach taken here because it suits me. And, if in some way, I can help motivate someone else while maintaining my own motivation, that in itself will be gratifying beyond measure. I know I am going to do this, as many here have already done.
I'm looking forward to meeting many new sober online friends.
John
I actually quit drinking for almost 4 years, but made the fateful decision to have "just one glass of wine" at a celebration dinner with my wife and some business associates in March of 2007. I had just earned a promotion I had dreamed about for years, and the dinner was in my honor. My wife, of all people, urged me to take that drink. Note here that I'm not blaming her, but it does shock me when I think back on it, given her knowledge of substance abuse and the havoc it has cause in her own family. Her words were something to the effect of "can't you have 'just one' without going over the edge again?" My rational side was screaming HELL NO!!! I knew better, but allowed my idiot side to override my common sense, and here I am. Started back slowly, but we all know how that eventually ends up....The last six months I've been drinking pretty heavy, just like the bad old days I used to think were so much fun. I took my last drink last Sunday, 12/21, which is my 14 YO son's birthday. I reckon I figured I just had to finish off the rest of that half-gallon of Makers Mark since I paid over $40 for it. Felt like crap at work on Monday at my dream job and decided "Enough!" I worked my butt off the last several years to get here and I'll be damned if I'll let the desire for a temporary feel good booze buzz cause me performance problems and ultimately family and health problems.
I never hit bottom, but I can honestly say that EVERY time I got in serious trouble in my life it was booze related. When I look back on my life, I can only shake my head and wonder what I might have achieved had I left the booze monster alone. I got drunk for the first time at age 14, drank and smoked pot all through high school. Drank even harder during 4 years in the Marine Corps, getting popped on a urine test for marijuana, and discovering LSD could not be detected at the time on a urinanalisys, so me and my buddies did acid every chance we got - The Few, The Proud, The Tripping Marines..... I Discovered cocaine and crank after I was honorably discharged with a good conduct medal (Amazing, right?!) It was easy quitting the illegal drugs; by age 25 I was done with all of them, except the legal one, booze. Alcohol was the hardest to shake for me.
The four years prior to my decision to take that one drink was fantastic. I slept better, no hangovers, no upset wife, pumping iron at the gym 5 days a week, making 3-mile runs with ease. WTH was I thinking? Well, I have returned to reclaim the sobriety that is mine.
I like the logical, rational approach taken here because it suits me. And, if in some way, I can help motivate someone else while maintaining my own motivation, that in itself will be gratifying beyond measure. I know I am going to do this, as many here have already done.
I'm looking forward to meeting many new sober online friends.
John
Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Glitzville
Posts: 334
Welcome, John. Yes you can do it again. Glad you're back in the saddle and ready for the gratifying sober life.
Keep us posted on your progress. It helps all of us, and any newcomers to know that they can succeed also.
Merry Christmas!
Keep us posted on your progress. It helps all of us, and any newcomers to know that they can succeed also.
Merry Christmas!
Member
Join Date: May 2008
Location: NY
Posts: 6,608
Wow JJ! Thanks for sharing that story. You help us remember we can never go back and it helps hearing it from someone with 4 years. So sorry it happened, but glad you're back and determined to start again. Most important you are restarting. Congratulations!
Drunkaholic
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Channelview, TX (Houston)
Posts: 514
Hey Devil Dawg -- you got a Squid here saying I'm glad you're here too.
I'm six days into starting the sober life too.
I smoked my first joint at 8 years old, was buying ounces of weed in the early 70s at 11 years old and even buying 714 Ludes too. Ate mushrooms by 12, and tripped on the way home from school at 15.
But it was when I was 15 that I was dropped off at an AA meeting that finally made me realize that all of this was wrong.
Of course I have struggled off an on for 30 years with booze. Like you the drugs were dropped off the radar for the most part by the mid-80s. I'm not a pot person but I have been known to enhance a Saturday Night Live once or twice with weed.
I joined the Navy at 27 and found myself with an unlimited number drinking buddies.
Now at 45, I am just frickin tired. My symptoms were moving towards classic.
No dramatic bottom here either other than just plain hating myself because I couldn't get out of bed from feeling like I wanted to die and having people reconstruct nights I had no memory.
Glad your here and I hope you will stay, because tomorrow when I wake up it will be Day 7. This site has made me feel safe and normal and I like both of those feelings.
I'm six days into starting the sober life too.
I smoked my first joint at 8 years old, was buying ounces of weed in the early 70s at 11 years old and even buying 714 Ludes too. Ate mushrooms by 12, and tripped on the way home from school at 15.
But it was when I was 15 that I was dropped off at an AA meeting that finally made me realize that all of this was wrong.
Of course I have struggled off an on for 30 years with booze. Like you the drugs were dropped off the radar for the most part by the mid-80s. I'm not a pot person but I have been known to enhance a Saturday Night Live once or twice with weed.
I joined the Navy at 27 and found myself with an unlimited number drinking buddies.
Now at 45, I am just frickin tired. My symptoms were moving towards classic.
No dramatic bottom here either other than just plain hating myself because I couldn't get out of bed from feeling like I wanted to die and having people reconstruct nights I had no memory.
Glad your here and I hope you will stay, because tomorrow when I wake up it will be Day 7. This site has made me feel safe and normal and I like both of those feelings.
Hangovers Suck!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Southeastern U.S.
Posts: 176
Thanks everybody!
Hey X-Navy! Glad to be here too. Man, I hung out with guys who partied like you all through my teenaged years. I forgot about the ludes....did a few of those too. Bought many OZ's and even an 8-ball of coke once. It's a wonder we are still alive! Some of my party buddies are dead though...
I know what you mean about being tired. But know this: You have decided you just don't drink anymore, so you are on your way! I did it for nearly 4 years until I had my "Dumbass Attack" and made a bad decision. And choices and decisions are what it all comes down to, simple as that.
Well, hang in there for day 7 and the next thing you know you'll have made days 700, then 7000 and then 17,000. Believe it or not, the urges get less and less frequent over time, but you have to be aware of them and let them pass. Like I just proved to myself, even after several years, you can still make a bad decision. You do have an "Addictive Voice" in your head, and the key is to recognize it, and understand that "it" wants a drink, not you.
Do whatever it takes to stay sober. No one method or technique is always right for every person. But if you really want to, you will succeed!
Well, thanks again for the warm welcome. The family and I are about to pack up and head back east to visit the inlaws & outlaws for a week, but I'll be checking in as often as I can.
Hey X-Navy! Glad to be here too. Man, I hung out with guys who partied like you all through my teenaged years. I forgot about the ludes....did a few of those too. Bought many OZ's and even an 8-ball of coke once. It's a wonder we are still alive! Some of my party buddies are dead though...
I know what you mean about being tired. But know this: You have decided you just don't drink anymore, so you are on your way! I did it for nearly 4 years until I had my "Dumbass Attack" and made a bad decision. And choices and decisions are what it all comes down to, simple as that.
Well, hang in there for day 7 and the next thing you know you'll have made days 700, then 7000 and then 17,000. Believe it or not, the urges get less and less frequent over time, but you have to be aware of them and let them pass. Like I just proved to myself, even after several years, you can still make a bad decision. You do have an "Addictive Voice" in your head, and the key is to recognize it, and understand that "it" wants a drink, not you.
Do whatever it takes to stay sober. No one method or technique is always right for every person. But if you really want to, you will succeed!
Well, thanks again for the warm welcome. The family and I are about to pack up and head back east to visit the inlaws & outlaws for a week, but I'll be checking in as often as I can.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Oregon
Posts: 212
JustJohn- I appreciate your post. I am 7 days sober today and at last night's Christmas festivities was tempted to have 'just one' glass of champagne. thankfully I didn't but I did wonder if a year or two from now I might be able to. Your post is the answer to that question. I must accept forever that I just can't drink like 'normal' people.
Glad to have you here!
Glad to have you here!
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 99,776
Welcome to a great place for support. I credit a lot of my sobriety to my friends here. THey had faith in me when I had none in myself. Glad you're getting sober again. It's a hard road but you can do it, one day at a time.
Hangovers Suck!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Southeastern U.S.
Posts: 176
Originally Posted by snowdog 
JustJohn- I appreciate your post. I am 7 days sober today and at last night's Christmas festivities was tempted to have 'just one' glass of champagne. thankfully I didn't but I did wonder if a year or two from now I might be able to. Your post is the answer to that question. I must accept forever that I just can't drink like 'normal' people.
Glad to have you here!
Glad to have you here!
Hey Snowdog! We have a Golden Retriever too. What wonderful creatures!
I hope you're hanging in there for day 8....In all of our hearts (us former drinkers & dopers), we know we will not stop at one. Many years of sobriety have been undone by that "one drink". And what is the point of "one drink" for that matter? If you are thirsty, there's water, coffee, tea & many other soft drinks that actually hydrate your body. (Ever woke up hydrated and refreshed from a night of boozing?) I've learned that for me, the intent to take one drink was the intent to have another drink after the last one was finished until I was adequately buzzed enough to satisfy myself or until I fell asleep, only to wake up the next morning regretting it, then repeating the cycle until the hangovers got so bad I had to recuperate a few days so I could drink again and......Insane what we do to ourselves, isn't it?
"Normal" drinkers? There is no such animal. Alcohol is a foul tasting substance - that we somehow convince ourselves tastes good - that is toxic to us humans. Some humans manage to poison themselves to a ripe old age to be sure, but there is nothing "normal" about consuming poison made from the controlled rotting process of fruits and grains in pretty containers and masked with various mixers to make it tolerable to our taste buds. It's all a social mind game by the manufacturers and purveyors of the poison to hook us and ensure much of our money winds up in their bank accounts instead of ours.
And they got a boat-load of my money over the years. Wow! It really makes me angry when I think about it that way! But worse than absconding with your hard earned money, they will take your health and your life eventually...
So just visualize booze as the poison it truly is the booze pushers as the drug dealers that they actually are (alcohol is a legal drug, right?) and it gives you a different perspective on all that fun we thought we were having all those years.
And it all comes down to how we allow ourselves to think about booze, doesn't it?
Hangovers Suck!
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Southeastern U.S.
Posts: 176
Originally Posted by Abraham
13 years later. How did this end up? Anyone know. John still around?
Originally Posted by doggonecarl
He drank. For many years. But he's back now!
So here I am on day 94, fully committed to abstinence and staying alive. I figure if I keep giving sobriety a chance it will eventually stick.
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