YVRguy

Hey Living

I hid bottles , changed stores, lining up with the others as soon as a store opened and all sorts of other crazy stuff. I also became a morning , waking up and drinking , drinking when I would wake up at 3am , not sleeping and drinking .....but I am an alcoholic and found out I was hardly unique in the symptoms of the disease.

I can't tell if your an alcoholic only you can. There are lots of supports that can help like AA, SMART Recovery , Life Ring , SOS and more. My tip? Get a plan and get support and have a serious and honest look at where its leading. For me , it meant wife and kids left , near loss of my job , a lot more humiliation than humility.

DrunkTx

That may have been rhetorical, but so much worse. Checking out of rehab to get a drink, working for a US senator and falling down the stairs of the state capital building, regurgitating the bottle of vodka you drank in a cup so you don't waste it. I was fortunate to avoid all of that because my sponsor equivalent has been in my life for 25 years, and gave me a peak into where I was heading.

There comes a point in alcoholism where every single next day is worse than the day before. By the grace of god, ya way, Buddha, Mother Nature, Jupiter, Zeus or whomever you revere, pray that they/it stops you before then.

LivingforMe

Thanks so much for that visual.

tinkanman

living for me, its not an "if", its just a "when". and when it does, it's oh so ugly and in so many different ways. take steps now to help your self. you've come to the right place for support.

DrunkTx

Have to admit that visual scared me sober.....

Casmasta

That visual is not one I'm going to forget any time soon.

Delilah1

I never did the morning drinking, but I did buy wine in different stores on the way home from work, and my weekend drinking moved from evenings to late afternoon to early afternoon. Like you, I managed to take care of my kids, manage crazy work and kid schedules and function throughout the day, but I was waking up foggy and managing to get through the day.

I am starting to feel better every day. I know that I will never regret waking up sober, but will regret waking up hungover.

sothisisit

Oh yeah. One difference though; I would DREAM of waking up at 9:00 am because that would mean I could get to a liquor store without waiting (such things are highly regulated here in Toronto. There is no way to get anything earlier). I usually would wake up at 5:00/6:00 and have to climb the walls until 9:00.

Fortunately I'm enough away from the vicious cycle that booze is not the first thing that enters my mind when I wake up now. Its amazing how I have come to appreciate such little things in life. The craving doesn't rule me. It still tries to nudge its way in now and then but doesn't have the power to overwhelm me.

soberbythesea

I never hid bottles, per se, but I would do other sneaky tricks so my husband wouldn't realize the extent of my drinking. For example, I learned that he would get alarmed if I drank a bottle of wine from start to finish in an evening. But if I drank a couple beers, then a couple glasses of wine, then a couple more beers, or maybe rotated among different bottles of wine so one wouldn't go empty too fast (got to have Both a white and a red open at all times anyway, right?) then he was much less likely to notice my overall level of consumption, even though I was drinking the same amount either way.

I didn't do the rotating stores thing, but that is because we always had a ton in the house, we are/were wine collectors (hubby still drinks in moderation) so there are 200+ bottles in the cellar, plus a load of beer and a full wet bar. Getting alcohol was never, ever an issue.

jennikate

Yup-all of the above. I even hid it in the leaves down the road. I would set an alarm for like 3 am, get up, walk down the street, retreive the bottle, and then drink it. Unbelievable lengths.

I also recommend AA. I have never had trouble finding listings of meetings on the internet. Just type in your state or city and AA. My life is soooo much better now. Yours can be too.