FMP1989

First off hello to everyone, I've been a lurker for a while but decided to post and share a little info about myself

I have been drinking alcohol (at least a fifth of vodka or 10 beers a day) for the last 1 1/2-2 years. I was a hardcore alcoholic and drinking was never a big deal in my family as I would drink with my dad and my mom would buy me six packs when I was too young.
Now I'm 22 going on 23 in March and quit drinking cold turkey about 50-55 days ago. Some told me going cold turkey was a bad idea but all in all, this method worked best for me.
Now here is where I need help. I dont get many "cravings" for alcohol, as I removed myself completely from drinkers, however, there is a certain family situation that really makes me want to pick up the bottle or can or w/e I can get my hands on. Basically my younger sister is destroying her teen life by hanging out with really shady, bad people. I'm talking about possible sexual activities and drug use. I always find weed pictures or sometimes porn on the family computer and it just makes me feel low, hopeless and like I just want to give up. She skips school all the time and goes in late everyday. My mother is stressed and doesnt know what to do with her anymore and its affecting our lives.

I also really miss my ex girlfriend, she was so sweet and dudes on the streets woukd just stare and drool at her amazing looks/body. She hated that I drank but we broke up in June for different reasons. This would fuel my insane alcoholic appetite like no other. You know, you miss someone, you take a drink and reminicse (sp?)..

Idk I just feel so proud of myself, compared to how I used to be, I feel somewhat like a changed man. In the last 50 days or so that I have been sober, I've threatened to drink again to my family because of all the stress.
Sorry if this is long, but I needed to speak with someone, I dont go to AA meetings, and I am ashamed to tell people that I was a 22 year old alcoholic because trust me, they judge you right away.
How do I know if I will be able to socially drink ever again, if I dont pick up the bottle first? Like at 22 years of age and not ever drinking again? Isnt that too agressive?
Any comments/suggestions are really appreciated X 100

RobbyRobot

Hi and welcome, FMP.
Good going on your 55 days.

You mention you're now or otherwise were a hard core alcoholic. And you ask if you can ever drink socially again. And too young to quit?

I wonder if you realize that being a hard core alcoholic (I am a recovered hard core alcoholic) means drinking socially is not gonna happen. Losing the ability or talent for social drinking is partly what defines a hard core.

Are you now considering you can be a reformed hard core and drink again?

If you want to drink again, and you don't take some positive action to remain sober, you will in fact be back to drinking, imo.

There is alot of support here. Good to know you're reaching out. Nothing like working with others to better understand ourselves

camedown

First off, welcome to SR, and great job on making it as far as you did without help, that takes an incredible amount of strength and courage. As to being too young to be an alcoholic, I know a girl in AA who is 18, and has three years sobriety(she was her alcoholic mom's drinking buddy since age 10). My advice would be to check out a meeting, see what it has to offer. The program is more than sobriety, it is learning how to live sober, and it is a huge difference. As to your sister, all I can say is that sober, you may be able to help her, in being drunk, there is no chance of you helping her. I wish you the best of luck, and hang on to what has gotten you this far.

eh1988

From what you've said, you are not able to socially drink right now, more than likely you won't be able to socially drink again since you spent a year and half pounding 10+ beers a day. Not judging you, trust me I was A LOT worse for A LOT longer and I'm not even a full year older than you. The things going on with your sister have to suck, but how are you going to change it if you're drunk all the time? You have 50+ days sober, you need to know that drinking will never solve anything, ever. Be there for your family, be there for your sister, do everything you can to get her on the right path. You can't get someone on the right path if you aren't on it as well.

*side story*
since you brought up your gf leaving you and that kinda sparking your alcoholism. I've been with my fiance for 8 years off and on. We broke up when we were 20, which is when I started drinking every night. We were off and on for 2 years, and that made my drinking worse. I'd get into an argument with her and I'd go out and buy a fifth of vodka, rum, whiskey...anything, and an 18 pack. I could kill that in a night....easily. It was only a matter of time before I started drinking all day everyday, Beer for breakfast, beer for lunch, hard liquor and beer for dinner, pass out, do it again. Finally we got back together last summer, got engaged, and now plan on starting a family. Unfortunately, the bad habits I learned over the past 3 years are still hanging with me. I don't blame her for my alcoholism, but our breakup is definitely the reason why I started. I didn't have great advice when I was going through my break up, all my friends just told me to drink my sorrows away. They even bought alcohol for me because I wasn't 21 yet. So here I am, trying to stay sober, after years of drinking damn near every day, and I will not quit. Well that's my story, the moral behind it, drinking solves nothing. At the end of the day I have to fix so many things about myself and my life, it WAS NOT worth it.

DayTrader

Knowledge gained in AA and through working the steps has helped me find answers to all the questions you asked...... I'd recommend you give it a shot.

As for the part I quoted:

I missed my ex-wife....so I know how you feel. You CAN work through those feelings AND get past them without drinking. Go back to drinking and you keep those old girlfriend problems + add some new ones.

Threatening to drink again unless you get your way isn't so smart. It's a good way to irritate others and besides, would you like it if the table was turned? What if someone calls you out on it......gonna go drink? I hope not...... I hope your sobriety isn't contingent upon how much stress your family does and doesn't relieve you of.

I've not had a bad experience telling ppl I'm alcoholic........ESPECIALLY not when I'm AT AN AA MEETING. I've not even heard of it, really. Matter of fact, one of my sponsees just got a better job and a raise (he's a union electrician apprentice) because the head of the electricians school he's going to ran into him at a couple meetings and respects him for making the effort to get and keep his life in order. Anyone who's been around AA has nothing BUT respect for new ppl coming in....TRUST ME. (I was a judgmental newcomer myself....and I also thought everyone else was just as judgmental).

If you're an alcoholic.....you can't drink socially ever again. And really.....do you reeeeally want to have one or two drinks and stop as soon as you start to feel it? Did you drink that way before? What makes you think you'll suddenly drink differently now? I either enjoyed drinking or controlled my drinking. If I was enjoying it, I wasn't controlling it.....and if I was controlling it, I wasn't enjoying it.

As for the 22yrs old and never drinking again........ can it be done?......sure. Is it too aggressive....NO. Would you feel better if you drank another 10 years, alienated everyone important to you, burned bridges all over town, had a crappy job (or no job) and a crappy relationship (or no relationship), or lived on the streets? ......on the other hand, I get it. I felt the same way and I got sober at 38...lol. The concept of never ever drinking again was too big for me........so I gave up trying to wrap my head around it. We don't know what the future will bring. What we do know is today....so work on/for today and work on tomorrow when and if it rolls around. No sense in getting all wound up today about a tomorrow that you may not be here for, yanno?

I'm not knocking what you're doing......almost 2 months is great and something to be proud of. Id suggest though, that there's possibly more to this deal than just "not drinking." I didn't want to be in AA at first......didn't even like AA at first.......but it's given me a lot of new tools and a way of living that's VERY rewarding. Before I got there and started working it.......I had no idea what I was missing.

Dee74

welcome FMP

I spent about as long you've been alive trying to be that social drinker.
That's a long time trying to make something happen.

I have to tell you - I believe that if you drank like I did, we never stop drinking that way.

I've known people who've stopped - sometimes for years - and then picked up again right where they left off.

I don't believe there's a reset button for me anyway because I never really drank normally in the first place - it was always drink to get smashed for me, drink as much as I could, drink to deal with stress....

If you are a drinker like me, I think the smartest thing you could ever do is accept things as they are. You could save yourself 20 years of futility FMP.

I won't be the the only person to say this to you - but I wish I'd made the right call at age 22....

D

InsertNameHere

Heck I am only 29 and I wish I saw the signs pointing to where I was headed with my drinking when I was 22 and pulled myself back then. Trust me you don't want to get to the two three four five and beyond year mark as a drinker, it dosen't get better.

Sorry to hear about the sister, I dont really have any new sugestions, except to also reinterate what camedown said, sober you can help her, drunk you won't even be able to help yourself let alone her.

Good job on catching this so early in your life.

INH

Db1105

My last drink was one month before my 18th birthday, I'm 52 now. I got sober in AA. The one thing I'm constantly reminded of in my daily life is that drinking alcohol is only one symptom of the disease of alcoholism. Not only did I have to change me, I have to maintain that change.

I've watched a few people struggle with this disease for decades. A few have died, some have bounced between bouts of drying out and horrible times. Some start drinking again and I never see them again, some stop going to AA and are doing fine. Some start drinking again and are doing fine.

I sure as hell don't want to find out what will happen to me if I start drinking again.i worked to hard for to long for what I have to risk it all over a drink. Not drinking hasn't hurt me, or kept me from doing anything. All I know is that I have a choice today about drinking. Once I start drinking, as an alcoholic, that choice will be gone.

sheerExcellence

If you truly want to help your sister, then I think it is best you remain sober. I do not go to AA. I am 3 and a half weeks sober from cocaine, weed, liquor, and even cigarettes. I'm a newbie so you can take my advice with a grain of salt. But you're thoughts of "do i have to give this up forever" are not worth indulging right now. You need to focus on this moment in time, and you need to focus on ways to help your sister.

A little over a decade ago I was your sister. I'm not sure what could have helped me back then, but i am 100% positive a brother drinking 10+ beers a night would not have been one of them.

Mo S

Congratulations on making it this far!
I went to AA and quit one month after my 19th birthday. I m 46 now. I believe that alcoholism is a disease of progression. For me personally; I will never be a "social drinker", a reformed alcoholic". I stopped at "hardcore" and thats where i would pick up if i drank again.
I had alot of reservations about being so young and going to AA. They were all in my head as I met a 15 year old with 9 months sobriety.

I wish you well. You have alot ofd stress going on. I hope you can find a way to deal with it without having to drink.

Nirvana1

If you go to an AA meeting and introduce yourself as a first timer with 55 days sober, people will be impressed. Being sober that long is no easy task and everyone will know that. I stayed sober for the first 93 days on my own but I was miserable. I had to shut myself off to society almost that whole time. It wasn't until I walked into an AA newcomer meeting that I started to get a little bit more comfortable in sobriety. Trust me, you learn so much about living sober because you get to talk to many people who have been where you have been. Also, with 55 days sober, you are in position to help those that are on day 1 of sobriety and have absolutely no clue on how to stay sober. P.S. I'm in my 20's too.

soberlicious

I am one of those people. 10 years...
FMP, I quit at 22. I know how it feels to be young and not drinking at a time in life when it seems pretty acceptable and cool to get trashed all the time. But I can tell you, I had no problems having fun, meeting guys, etc. I started my career, got married, had kids, lived life. The mistake I made (which I will never make again) was deciding that after 10 years, I certainly had it figured out. I could drink safely. Within 2 weeks I was drinking daily, earlier and more each day. The next 7 years was a descent into madness, which ended in a firm and resolute decision to take my life.
The only way to absolutely guarantee not being addicted to alcohol is to never drink it. Ever. Period. Anything else is a gamble. The stakes are too high. Walk away from the game while you still can.

langkah

I hit my first AA meeting at 21, had drank like an alcoholic from the begining at 12(absence of control) and at 19 found I couldn't decide to stop and make that stick. Should you start after deciding to stop that puts you in the same boat.

Wasted my time in AA before doing all the stuff at 28 and staying stopped for a long while now. My son was like me but did all the AA stuff at 20 and has stayed stopped for over 10 years. Doing AA has given each of us an amazing life, ones impossible without it.

You can sense you're at the end of your temporary sober stretch. You'll need more of an answer to keep it going and get the benefits of living sober as opposed to just not drinking which as you say after 55 days is insufficient in rewards to cause you to want to continue.

No need to feel badly because you didn't wise up as early as some AAs. It's never too late to live more comfortably sober, and even now that you're older you can still begin anytime.

The alternative is to be a still older and sicker drunk when you finally do all the stuff and that serves no purpose that I can see. What you've got now is what you'll need to deal with one way or another the rest of your lifetime. There are bad ways to deal with being an alcoholic and better and healthier ways.

I'd suggest carefully choosing something now.

RobbyRobot

Hi again,

I can add to my other post and say I quit at 24 years old. I started when I was 12. I haven't drank again since I was 24. It's never to young. My ex-wife quit when she was 15. She is now 28 years sober. Yeah. Never too young, you know!?

Be true to yourself. Do the right thing.

sober4metoday

I love that!! You're never too young to quit! In my 20s I thought quitting was for older folk!

Congrats on your shared life of sobriety!

jocata

There are people much younger that you in some of the meetings I go to. Don't let that be an excuse. The sooner you can get sober, the better off you will be in the long run.

The steps of AA have saved my life and countless others. Give it a shot before you give up on it.

God bless.

Gr8ful4Life

Gratz on the sober time, that's awesome!!

I can remember feeling pretty much the same way, I have 2 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters. 1 of each of them seem to be taking the same path I did and it hurts me to see that. I know when I was in their spot, no one could tell me anything, I was going to do what I wanted to do and that was it. Now that I'm sober, I realize that was the best thing I could've ever done the help them. My younger brother looks at me differently now and so does my younger sister. They still pretty much do the same thing, but I think at least they know there's a different, better way to live.

Also, I want to say, if saw you at an AA meeting, I would not judge you for a second. Actually, quite the opposite, I would look with admoration, I wish I would've done this at that age. I'm 32 and that would've saved me quite a few years of misery. And to go along with what DayTrader said, I had much of the same questions and working AA I now have an answer for everyone of them.

I wish you the best, and Gratz again on the sober time, that's no small feat!

sugarbear1

Alcoholism is progressive. It continues to progress whether we drink of not. If you stay stopped for say, 5-10 years and decide to drink again, look out! No one can predict what will happen.

I wish you a soberly beautiful life!

Fenris

I have yet to run into a problem that I couldn't make worse by drinking.

FMP1989

Hey guys and gals, thanks for all the amazing, positive responses!! I'm so glad I decided to register and share my struggles with drinking. I read everything posted in this thread and it really helped me see things from other POVs.
When I posted this thread last night, I was ready to take down a couple beers just for the hell of it, someone even left 1/2 a six pack in the fridge. I picked up the beer and looked at it for a couple minutes lol, then decided to put it back, post here and find an alternative solution to my stress.
I love the feeling of having control, like having the alcohol right in front of me, being able to put it down and not really fiend for a drink. Honestly, I feel like I've come a long way since my alcoholic days, and this is the number one reason I've choosen not to drink. I have 2 months without it, if I relapsed, I would feel so guilty, dirty and ashamed of myself for letting a liquid get the best of me and control my life.
I think I only wanna drink when I'm super stressed, and just feel like oh F the world.. I don't care, etc. I believe it is a form of self destructive behavior and I do it to either feel nothing at all or to deal with things that I do not want to deal with.
Thanks again everyone, I love this forum.