SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

Hi my name is Fonzie and I am an Alcoholic!!

First off I would like to thank every one for being here on these forums, it is a fantastic site, I have been coming to the site off and on for the last 2 years and never joined up until yesterday, This Alcoholic likes to procrastinate!!

I am 2 day’s clean and sober, I used diazepam 3 day’s ago to alleviate my anxiety. To me that is still a mind altering substance and I used it to escape what I was feeling (anxiety) like I did with alcohol, alcohol I used to escape from me.

When I first drank Alcohol it was awesome. I remember the feeling quite well!! I went to bed that night feeling like I was on top of the world and that I had found the solution to what ever it was that I was feeling, If only it would have stayed like that lol!! To cut a long story short I drank for 16 years and things just got worse!! Trouble with the police, family, friends ect!! I got to my first AA meeting about 5 years ago and left thinking that I was not that bad!! Things got worse!! Lost a job could not finish my study’s ect. Got back to meeting a year after that out of pure hope that my girlfriend, at the time, would not leave me!! That lasted about a month!! Well I lost her in the end, I did not lose her I know were she is lol, I went into melt down. I would binge every time I had any money, the paranoia and the loneliness was unreal. I started, at this point, to realize for the first time that I had a real problem!! I got back to AA and really got involved, Chairing meetings, got a sponsor, got a home group and done service work. All was going well for a month and a half and then I went out and drank again on knowledge. I picked up were I had left off. Things started to happen to me that I had herd at meeting, it started to freak me out!! One week end I went on a big bender and drank 24 hours strait, did not eat and was a complete mess. I passed out only to wake very groggy, the craving to drink had still not left me so I picked up a drink, I started to go insane I thought the beer that I was drinking had something in it, I was going mad and I was freaking out I thought I had been drugged I was pacing around the place trying to lay down but I could not coordinate anything in my mind my heart was racing flat out, I was that paranoid that some one had got into the house and drugged my drinks, someone who had it in for me , I jump into the car and drove to the ER did not worry about being pulled over or anything I just wanted to get to the ER, I thought I was going to die or go insane forever. In the ER they gave me a diazepam and man o man what a relief. I was told I was going though withdrawal and I was suffering with and anxiety attack but I did not believe them somehow!! Any way’s I new that was it I did not want to go though that ever again it was the scariest thing I had ever experienced in my life.

Well I stopped drinking and got a job and started to get my life on track. Things were really good and looking up!! Then I had what I now think was and anxiety attack at work and started to freak out like I did on my last drunk!! I thought, what is going on I have not drank in 2 months whey am I feeling like this and I was feeling like I had been drugged again!! Went to the docs and he proscribe to me diazepam and some anti-depressants and told me that I had GAD!! I did not fully believe him and thought there was something else mentally wrong with me, but the diazepam was working to keep me “sane” so I was using it every time I started to panic. I was warned that I would drink again, but I thought I new better.

Well the day came about a month ago when things started to get to me at work, the general back stabbing and the rest of the “normal” everyday things just got to a boiling point and after 4 months of starting to get some sort of structure in my life, I left the job mid morning went though the drive though on the way home got 12 stubbies and picked up were I left off. The fear of the dreadful night in the ER had left me and my ego was over the top!!

Well here I am now!! I have had good look at my relapse and can see were I went wrong. I had stop attending meetings, was not doing any of the program, was not talking to anyone about how I was feeling and yup, as they say in the meetings, it led me to the drink again!!

Today I look at this as a great lesson I had to learn, due to my ignorance to complacency and my ego.
I do have hope that I can keep moving forward from this day on and do what I need to do!! If nothing changes nothing changes!!
Thanks for reading Fonzie