javamama

How much did you drink? How often? What was your choice of drink? We're you always drunk...or just buzzed? I'm just having a bars time deciding I whether I have an actual problem or doing it more for my husband...who I love dearly. 11 years married and 3 kids...but he's not a drink. Not even one or two.

javamama

Here's my thing

I only drink when my kids are asleep, I drink to get a buzz...I don't get drunk, except on occasion.

Michael66

Typically I was 4-6 pints of 5% beer per night on weekdays, and 4-8 pints on weekend days. I drank to relax, but nearly always over-shot the mark. In the last few months I would also pop out for a couple of pints at lunchtime and sometimes 1-2 on the way home (both before the evening drinking).

P.S. But the important thing is whether the amount you are drinking is causing a problem.

GracieLou

I drank 4 or more 1/2 gallons a week

I was a daily drinker. Whiskey.

I was not always drunk. I worked 8 hours a day and I slept six or seven hours a night so other than those times I was drinking. The weekends I drank all day long. I was drunk but it felt I was always chasing the drunk. Like I could never get drunk enough even though I was. I also blacked out quite often.

It does not really matter what you drink or even how often. The fact was I had no control over how much I drank. Once I had one drink I drank more and more. The first drink got me drunk. There was no cutting back or moderation. I am not capable of it.

I assume that your husband is complaining about your drinking or how often you drink. Only you can come to the conclusion if you have a problem and to so something about it.

Have you tried to control it? moderate it? change it up with different alcohol?Do you feel you need the buzz?

javamama

I guess I feel like what is the difference between liking to drink and having a problem? I know lots of friends and moms who drink, they don't have just 1, but don't have a problem either...or at least according to them.

Midlifecrisis

Alcohol was not my primary drug of choice but when I did use it (which was alot towards the end and alot in the past) I would:

Have baileys in my coffee for breakfast (in the end to tide me over if I didn't have any pills.)

Drink a bottle of wine a night on top of many pills to enhance them. (Stupid and dangerous.)

Skull alcohol simply for the mind numbing effect (anytime of day but normally at night.)

Drink throughout the day if I didn't have to drive.

With the drugs I was high all day, everyday. No exceptions. I woke up in the night to use more.

Rewind 15 -20 years. Addiction was always there but it crept up on me. I was an addict when I only used every second say

Dee74

I drank all day everyday. End of story.

A few questions about your situation occur to me tho....I hope you don't think I'm too harsh

Your husband obviously would like you to stop?

My ex-partners wanted me to stop too. I didn't.

At the time I thought their demands were incredibly unreasonable.

I look back now and think 'geeze, I effectively chose alcohol over my partners (thats plural, it happened not once but twice).

When you got here you said things had gotten out of hand lately...how can you be sure they won't now JM?

What would happen if there was an emergency when the kids were asleep?

Could you say for certainty you'd be on top of the situation?

I think there's more to this than you might be considering right now?

D

javamama

Your right Dee, I really think my AV takes over me. It's just so hard. I don't know how I can be a good mom and wife while I'm anxious and upset. M husband means so much to me, that's why I went to AA to begin with. I love the people at AA but I always hear such horrible stories and scenarios that just aren't me, therefore leave me questioning whether I should stop.

MidnightBlue

Hi, Javamama.

My drinking pattern WAS - 1 bottle of wine 1-3 times a week. Sometime I went without wine for a week or two, or three.. Sometimes it wasn't a bottle but a half of a bottle, but once the other half was still in the fridge it wouldn't rest there for a long time.

I was playing with the idea that it was kind of "normal" and a lot of people do like this.

Then, once I hit 2 bottles. Next day I felt like I was dying and thought it was kind of accident and it will never happen. It happened again, maybe a month later when memories about this killing intoxication vanished.

I realized one bottle was not enough any longer. When I saw the bottom of 2 bottles for another 3-4 times I decided it was high time to stop.

Now, looking back, I do realize that my pattern was way too far from being "normal" long before I hit 2 bottles a night.

Best luck to you)

Dee74

I know it's often hard to identify with some other stories - but a problem is a problem is a problem.

I think you really need to decide for yourself how you feel about all of this.
It really needs to be for you, not your husband I think.

D

MilligramSmile

I would drink 4 to 5 pints a night weekdays, then weekends I would drink until A) I couldn't afford anymore, or B) I couldn't physically drink anymore. This was always beer also, I found certain spirits made me violent so stayed away from them, and to be honest always thought that since beer was a lower percentage than spirits, It wouldn't do my body as much harm.

It doesn't matter though, any alcohol in those amounts is dangerous In the long run.

Personally I knew I had a problem when I would be so so SO hungover on days, think to myself "Why do I do this to myself?!" but then buy more booze and drink again the same day. Also given myself health problems and issues, even to the point where I have damaged my liver; so for me, that was the wall that highlighted my issue with drinking.

javamama

Thank you, this is what I needed to hear. I drink about 3-4 small bottles a week, and I keep saying its normal. I'm never hungover. I need to decided what's important in my life though. I'm 29 years old, been married for 11 years. Since I was 17, I got pregnant at 16 and me and my husband have been together forever, we grew up together.

Michael66

Hi Javamama

I'm aware that lots of people drank far more than me on a very regular basis, and the stories in the AA big book are often like that. I don't relate so much to those stories - I never had a black-out, I never lost my job, my family, or crashed a car, etc. I am perhaps not an "alcoholic" by the standards of the AA stories.

But I do not that drink was damaging my relationship with my wife and children, and with God. It was starting to impact on my work. It was starting to affect my physical and mental health (overweight, lethargic and mild depression). I tried to moderate and failed (repeatedly).

In the end I came to the conclusion I need to accept life-long sobriety, and I am so glad I did - it really is so much better once the first few miserable months were over with.

I think we all need to look at our own lives, and not compare too much with others. Just because other people drank more, and had more problems, doesn't mean I had I had a healthy relationship with alcohol.

Midlifecrisis

I think it's probably important to look for the similarities in meetings and on here rather than the differences. There will always, always be someone with a 'worse' story. Always someone with more tragedy, always someone who has done worse in the name of their drug of choice.

I fell into that trap. I went to rehab for amphetamines when I was young. I hadn't used a needle yet. Most people there were there for iv use or heroin. I thought maybe I didn't have a prob. So I got kicked out and immediately picked up the needle. Briefly went back to NA, thought I didn't have a bad enough problem because I wasn't using Heroin. So I went out and started using heroin. Dangerous thinking IMO.

doggonecarl

I think you need to go back and read your initial posts. You claimed to be drinking daily and recognized that it was getting out of hand. Something alarmed you about your drinking. Something brought you here convinced you had a problem with alcohol.

Now you wonder if the problem is with you or your husband and his perception of your drinking.

Maybe 3 or 4 bottles a week is your attempt to control your drinking, to be a normal drinker. You want to be normal?

Normal drinkers can quit and not give a second thought about it. They don't need to rationalize their drinking, they don't have to control their drinking. If you have to control it, it's already out of control

Maybe your alcohol abuse was a phase and you can rein it back it. All I know is that I spent the last ten years of my drinking trying to convince myself that I didn't have a problem while all the time the problem got worse and worse.

If you struggle to not drink, if you have to justify your drinking, if you can't put the bottle down and it not cross your mind for a second to drink again, something is amiss.

Wish you all the best as you search within for your answers.

Anna

I think that comparing yourself to other alcoholics is a bad idea. I judge my alcoholism on the way it affected me and my life and that had nothing to do with other people who were alcoholics.

If you are not sure you're an alcoholic, try stopping drinking for a fixed period, say 3 months. If you're not an alcoholic, you should have no problem at all doing that.

choublak

Maybe they do and maybe they don't. But you're not them; you're you.

ScottFromWI

How much one drinks or when they do it is much less important than how said drinking affects your life. If you think it's causing a problem, then it probably is.

Wastinglife

I went from a weekend drinker to an everyday, all-day drinker in a span of 3 short years. Get help now before it gets worse. You will save yourself a lot of future anguish.