I only drank twice a week, but they were for 3 days each...

SSZ

I was a binge drinker.... Would go months without a drop then binge (at night) for 3-4 days.

2-3 days per week. Unfortunately, virtually every time I drank I would blackout to some degree at least, if not totally. How I haven't killed myself or someone else is a darn miracle.

Day 22

Every night for 9 and a half years. The first 5 years were a 6 pack and the next 4 and a half were 8-10 beers. Then I cut back for 2 years to 2-3 a day because I read that this was moderate drinking and I was worried I was killing myself.

5-6 nights a week. 18-24 beers a nite. Id start at about 9pm, you know once I had every thing "done". Id polish off all the beers by 1am, then pass out. How I made it to work for the last 10yrs, I will never know.

Day 43

I usually drank only soda at bars and restaurants and if there was no alcohol in the house I rarely went out and got some. The problem was that when I did drink I drank a lot very, very fast. My husband likes whiskey, and when he has a bottle in the house, which is often, I chug it like there's no tomorrow. Not good.
Today I quit drinking. Unfortunately, there's a bottle of brandy at home taunting me.

I was a daily drinker from the moment I started until I realized what a big problem I had. Then I switched immediately to binging. I'd hold out and not drink and not drink until I couldn't stand it anymore and then I'd just give in and dive into the bottle.

When I decided to really become sober, the only thing that really changed was the frequency and severity of the binges. I drank much less often, but each drunk was much worse.

Hey Shoshi, do you think your husband would be willing to help you out by agreeing to only drink while at a bar and not bring it into the house?

Perhaps he would even be kind enough to make that bottle of brandy vanish out of there. It'll be a lot easier to do this if you have his help!

-Goat

Not quite a daily drinker, but I drank most nights (around 5 of every 7) over the last five years, usually around a bottle of wine or its equivalent in beers. This year, have only drank around 50% of nights yet still feel a bit of an emotional mess, which is why I just want to knock it on the head completely and go teetotall.

Every day. If not my hands shake badly, my heart pounds and races, and I feel jittery.

The last 18 months of my drinking career the routine was 4 24 ounce beers at about 12:30 PM on Thursday while driving home, get home and drink another 6-8 12 ounce beers, take a break and workout before the wife got home normally coach a youth sports practice, eat dinner polish of about half of a 750ml bottle of vodka before bed. Wake up Friday and either pop 2 beers at 7:30AM or I would have a large bottle of hard lemonade, unless I had a meeting, if I had a meeting I would hold off until 11:30AM then start with the 4 24 ouncers again and repeat with about a 12 pack that night and then the other half of the bottle of Vodka. Saturday is where it gets blurry, being that I would start drinking as soon as I finished walking the dog and could get away from the wife, then pace myself with about two beers every hour until the wife and kids went to bed and I would hit another half of a 750ml vodka bottle. Sunday I would slow up on the beer normally sleep in a little and finish the other half of the vodka bottle that night. If I went heavier on Sunday for whatever reason I would roll Sunday in to Monday then taper off but would normally have a 1/2 bottle of vodka while watching Monday night football and then Intervention.:) I would not drink Tuesday's!! Tuesday seemed like a great day to stay sober!:0 I would normally drink Wednesday night about 3-6 beers and another 1/2 bottle of vodka. Then I would take Thursday AM off and do it all over again.

Believe it or not that schedule didn't give me much of a problem, and my body got pretty used to it, where I had problems was when I drank hard, which would happen 1 or 2 weekends a month when I drank with my friends, then I didn't moderate as well as I did during the week. Normally this would have me drinking anywhere from 10-15 pitchers of beer normally between 2 or 3 guys over a 4 hour period with shots of tequila, yaeger and what ever anyone else felt like putting in a shot glass in about 20 minute intervals, then i would go home have a beer or 2 and then hit the Vodka until it was empty.

Looking back I must have been a very thirsty guy! And also a complete idiot!!

Birth to 15: Blissfully sober
15 to 20: Learning to binge throughout highschool
20-32: Blissfully bingeing
32-45: "Responsibly" bingeing on weekends while raising children
45-50: Major stress hit and wine became an almost daily friend. Began at 5:00 while making dinner and stayed with me until bed. The kids (now teenagers) began to talk about my alzimers.
Now: Day 16 without my "friend"

from the moment I opened my eyes to the moment I closed them.

I know!! I had two heart attacks in 28 days in 2000 & I STILL smoked & drank & downed pills for another 8 1/2 years!!
Mind-boggling.

Everyday I would drink 6-12 beers... on Friday and Saturday, I would typically drink 15

For me it's usually 4-8 days of all-day drinking (starting at 8 in the morning before work, ending just before i shut my eyes at night) followed by 2-4 days of gruelling, sleepless sobriety. Never less than a half-bottle of red wine and a half-bottle of whiskey. Slowly increasing.

(It is the ruined sleep, I find, that causes the biggest challange to the dedicated drinker. This morning as i limped through the office towards the toilets, the earth suddenly jerked around ninety degrees and hit me in the face with the floor! Luckily, I don't think anyone else saw it.)

Sorry for sounding flippant, but drinking itself soemtimes feels like a terrible and distasteful joke. :(

Every day
 

Every day. I think I went about 5 days last summer without drinking. Then 2 days about 8 months later.

For years it was mostly wine or beer. Suddenly it was vodka. Always. Vodka stashed under the sink. Vodka hidden in my briefcase. Vodka before work. Vodka after work and all night long.

Each and every day as much as possible.
Waiting for the switch in my head to go "klick" so l would finaly feel a bit better...or not feel anything at all.


"You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. "
William Blake, proverbs of hell.

Occasionally id spend an anxiety ridden day in bed but aside from that I drank to excess every day.

I drank every day all day, work or not. If I woke up at night, I'd sneak away and have a shot or 10 until I'd go back to sleep, then drank in my dreams. It was exhausting.

Started drinking regularly at 14 years old.

14-15: Friday or Saturday night binges every few weekends. Got in alot of trouble.
15-18: Friday and Saturday night drinking. Excessive but rarely to black out. The occasional mid-week drink or two from 17 onwards. Doing well at school and enjoying life. Didn't see much harm in this at the time.
19-21: 4+ times a week. Still didn't see the harm. Generally enjoyed myself, rarely annoyed anyone, but in retrospect I was quitting jobs and university courses constantly.
22-24: Generally drank all weekend, day and night, then occasionally Monday night too to get rid of the anxiety. The odd week or two off drinking here and there, but never more than 3 weeks. Mental health was really taking a hit now - becoming a moody, introspective drinker, suffering from bad social anxiety when sober.
24-25: 13 months of sobriety from alcohol, after lurching into a 7 day bender. Great period in my life. All of a sudden I was funny and talkative to friends and strangers alike, and generally an optimistic person.
25-26: Started drinking again. The odd brief week or two of 'controlled drinking', alot of Friday and Saturday binging, which spilled into mid-week about once every month or two, and culminated last week in a 6 day binge. Desperately trying to tell myself I was enjoying drinking again, but alot of depressive drinking episodes in there too.

I don't think I've honestly analysed my drinking 'career' like that before. I've always convinced myself that for most of my life my drinking was in control, and I only really lost the plot when I was 22. In reality bar a few years in my late-teens when living at home kept a check on it, its always been excessive. Even then my 'party piece' was sinking a 1 litre bottle of cheap cider to start the night before sipping on beers. That's not normal drinking, much as me and my friends thought it was a riot at the time.

I think I've cloaked my drinking problem behind the fact that binge-drinking is so commonplace among young British and Irish people. Reality is that I've always been teetering on the brink of being a daily drinker.