Priss

I've tried sobriety before, and stupidly started drinking again, thinking that I could handle it. I did for awhile. Last night, however, I got completely smashed. God, I hate this. I'm tired of lying to my friends & family, tired of making up excuses like "Oh, I'll stop when the semester starts up next week", and I'm tired of feeling so damn guilty. God, if you're listening, please help me. Please make it easier this time.

Dee74

Hi Priss

yeah I could never really stop until I accepted the fact that it would always be that way - you might go 'good' for a while, but sooner or later you'll lose control. It's inevitable.

The only way to really stop - is....to stop. We'll be here for you

D

MycoolFitz

We do it because we're alcoholics. It's a brain disease which causes the brain to believe that alcohol is as necessary to our survival as air. See addiction doctor drug alcohol smoking at addictiondoctor.com It may not be easier but its always doable, who knows when. After many false starts I have the longest period of sobriety in my 45 year drinking career, and I ain't about to pick up now. You gotta want it like your life depends on it 'cause it does. With enough sobriety your brain rewires itself and booze is no longer mistaken for air. All my best, thanks for posting.

Aysha

I agree..The one more time, or I will stop next week. It is all just procrastinating the inevitable like Dee said.
But just keep trying. It doesnt have to be so complicated. But it isnt all that easy either. It takes alot of work and alot of dedication. But at the same time. Just dont drink. I know easier said than done.
You dont ever have to feel this way again. Thats all in your hands hon.
I find reading my old posts from when I used really helps me relive that misery before I go throwing it all away again.
Maybe remember this thread and reflect back on it in the furture if you need to.
Hang in there.

Priss

Thanks for all of the wonderful words. I'm detoxing now and I feel like my skin is crawling. I know I don't want this feeling ever again, but I'm worried about falling back into my usual habits. I have an acquaintance that doesn't drink. She doesn't know it yet, but she's about to become my new best friend!

1_day@_a_time

Your God IS listening.

Spiritual advisers will remind us, we must cooperate.

notofeudalism

Best wishes to you and there is a lot of good support here on these threads.

yeahgr8

You do have a choice and a new life waiting! Having proven that you cannot do it alone, get some help. AA works for me, loads of young and successful people attend. Go to a meeting, ask for help or wait 15 years, like i did, then go:-)

Wishing you some luck, get to a meeting!

Tosh

Every alcoholic has had thinking patterns like this, and if they say they haven't, I'd be surprised.

I've even found myself questioning if I am an alcoholic or not, and if you knew my drinking history, you'd laugh at that.

Anyway, I'm trying to live the programme of AA, and the first step is a guard against this sort of thinking, and I have a quick review of the first three steps as part of my morning routine; the first one being the reminder of why I shouldn't even have one small beer ('cos I won't stop with that one).

I don't know if you work a programme or not, but AA works for me.

penny74

A slippery road thinking you can handle it.
Allthough it cost me my job and almost my life, l am having one drink late at night now and then.
l too should know better.
And every time you think "This time it will be different"
Wish you luck and l sincerly mean that.


Now don't say you can't swear off drinking; it's easy. I've done it a thousand times.
W. C. Fields

penny74

l have been in detox twice, in the ER a few times, lost my job and dignity and still think that one day l will be able to drink socially like my friends...That l am not an alcoholic but it is all down to other issues...

It is better to travel well than to arrive.
Buddha

cjsg

Srry to hear your having a rough time. I read your post and it really brought back the raw emotion and depresion I felt not so long ago when I came here and posted my horrible dirty shameful past. With newfound willingness and strength, thanks to a lot of people here on these forums, I stood up, threw off the guilt and managed to take a few small steps. Now two weeks later I look back and see that I have come a long way. I still have more to go but I´ll angst over that tomorrow. Whoever said it doesnt have to be that way was right. It´s liberating when you finally decide your finished with the twisted roller coaster ride and that your ready to get it together. Drop the shame and guilt right away. I cant explain why this is poison, but in my case if I don´t keep dropping the guilt etc, I´ll drive myself crazy. You can do it, I second whoever said that first step is key. It was for me.... I almost lost my life to this addiction crap... If I can start out the journey You should be able to as well, cause I am nobody special. It hurts to see another human being crying out in such despair just as I did a few weeks ago. believe it or not you helped me.
Drop the guilt now
Believe every word of step one
Keep posting here. the support I got helped me tremendously
Don´t be sad , mad or anything... stand up, brush off, and decide to make a start and don´t look back.
and.. never forget step one
ahh of course.. don´t forget the meetings

Ths stuff does work I stayed clean for a year and a half
What happened you ask??
I forgot step one

ten years later I find myself doing step one again. This time its for good. Life is sooo awesome without using, and we all have tons of things to live for... these steps will work.. I did it... so can you... I wish you the best.. I know how it is to get floored by addiction, and how crappy you feel.. but.. it can get better, if you are willing. Go go go.. get started and good luck and reach out, allow other to help you... these forums are great.

Don´t EVER forget step one... its a fact that will never ever change.

Wishing you sucess
Chris

I hope I don´t come across as a know it all.. I definately do NOT know everything... I just hate to see another person suffer. I´d take it from you if I could

Tosh

Penny said:


Penny, do you really believe that, or are you joking?

Given my drinking history, I know alcohol is out of the question for me and I'm fine with that. I've got a whole different attitude to drinking it's really unbelieveable (for me) that I just don't want to drink again.

It's said that crazy behaviour is where you keep doing the same thing, again and again, but expecting a different result each time (or words to that effect).

Penny, in kindness, please get some help and because I know it works may I suggest AA? If not try another programme - you sound like you need something - but I think that believing you can drink again is dangerous, especially after being in detox twice and ER a few times, losing your job and dignity.

Alcohol for you, sounds as dangerous as it is for me.

Pilgrim

Hi and welcome,

I know exactly what you mean. I was not able to stay stopped once I decided I didn't want to drink anymore. Here are some quotes from the first edition of the Big Book of Alcoholocs Anonymous that may interest you. The only change I made was to add "alcoholics" in brackets in the second paragraph below. You can read the book online as well. You see I think this book describes what is probably happening to you and it says it so much better than I could. Here goes. I hope the length of this post doesn't put you off.

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

They (alcoholics) are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind, rather than in his body. If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache. If you draw this fallacious reasoning to the attention of an alcoholic, he will laugh it off, or become irritated and refuse to talk.

Once in a while he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time. But in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a real hold, they are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game. But they often suspect they are down for the count.

At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected.

The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.

If you have any questions about any of this, let me know.

penny74

Tosh, thank you.
What l meant to say was that after all the trouble, sickness and bad things alcohol has brought me, l still have a voice saying "Oh.. go on.. one or two won't matter..no one will know"
So l understand people thinking they can handle a few.
After a while you feel good again and confident.
A trap l have fallen into many times.
And l know l can't and should not even think about it.
It is the devil himself whispering in your ear.
Thanks for your concern.


The mind is everything. What you think you become.
Buddha

Tazman53

Welcome to SR Priss.

I can tell you from my first hand experience that you never have to drink again unless you decide you want to.

I was where you are at now in my early years of drinking, I to would swear "I won't do this again!" then time would pass, I would forget the guilt and the embarrasement of that last drunk and remember the good times only and would decide "I just need to be more careful and control my drinking." Sometimes I would have some success at this, but eventually I was always right back where I had left off before the last time I had quit and the cycle would start anew, lengths of sobriety got shorter and shorter, times drinking got longer and longer and I drank more and more to get the old effects I sought.

Eventually drinking became a solution for everything in my life, it was the answer!

The last 5 years I drank I did not draw a sober breath, my entire world was on the verge of total collapse, I drank when I did not want to drink.

I needed to find a new solution for life, I found that solution in the fellowship and program of AA.

When you have that first drink do you ever feel you lose all power you have over how much you will drink?

When you drink do you feel your life is unmanagable?

You said:

This would lead me to beleive that you beleive that a power greater then you can help you correct? Do you ever feel that your starting to drink again is quite insane? I sure did for many years.

Well it looks as though you and AA would be a good match! Why not check out AA, trust me you will not be the only younger person there, especially if you go to AA meetings in and around where you go to school. The University of Mary Washington is in Fredericksburg where I live and we have numerous meetings where people in there 20s are in the majority and a great many of them attend Mary Washington, you are not alone.

Priss

Cjsg--Thank you for the kind words, they brought a tear to my eye. I think we all know suffering all too well. I take comfort in knowing that I don't have to feel this way again, and I take comfort in knowing that I'm not alone. I can face this with all of you here for support. I look forward to today and the next day and the next, knowing that while my sobriety is an uphill battle, it's worth the climb.

smacked

Welcome. We've been there.