jc76

Hi everyone. I'm new and feel I NEED to be on this forum. Sorry for my drawn out story I tried to make it quick. I'm 35, and started drinking not until I was 32, when my mom died at age 60 after a 15 year battle w breast cancer. For the last month my 2 brothers and my aunt took care of her as she withered way and finally passed. We worked in shifts. Id slip into the garage for a shot of beam, you know take the edge off as my nerves were shot and I had to be strong, hold in all those feelings of watching a beautiful loving woman lose all her glow. Hospice was on call and would come help as needed. The worse mom got, the more I drank. I figured after she passed I would stop drinking, yeah right it only got much worse. I ended up with 2 DUI's, my wife of 6 years leaving for good, can't keep a job etc. My entire existence is Getting that drink. Moved out to California to "get away" for awhile, that was perfect now I could get wasted and nobody really got on me about it. Crash! Lucky I never had any children. Laying in bed one morning in my head I heard "you are going to die. 35 and your going to die. Your brothers will cry as they bury you less than 3 years after burying your mother. Your closest brother will be left with only your memory. He will suffer greatly". I knew I needed help, I knew I was alcoholic, I never denied that. AA did not work for me, its a great program and it gets nothing but respect from me, but I was so physically dependent that after 2 days sober I ended up in ER. Rapid pulse/heartbeat. They gave me pills and an IV. Doctor said I could have died quitting cold turkey. So I'm about a month into my sobriety with the help of medication. I did have 1 slip I forgot to take my Meds and bought a pint of whiskey, took a swig, then another, then threw it in the trash. So as the fog clears I'm seeing how bad I was. I cry thinking of how I would get hammered and transform into this evil monster. I called my ex-wife things I chose not to recall, the woman who stuck with me through everything now gone. Bank account down. But I'm sober and everyday I feel more, sometimes I don't like what I feel but I now know that at the bottom of every empty bottle floats a remnant of my soul, so anyone who got to the end of my story, my point is this; Alcohol is not the destroyer, its like a gun, in the hands of a sane and mentally healthy individual its fine, but watch it, its sneaky. Once the gun goes bang you don't know what's going to happen. As for me, I'll stay sober and leave the gun at the liquor store.

trigirl71

Nice post JC. Thanks!