ElChupacabra

I think I might be on the last hurdle.

I've been through all different types of drinking. Most of it I have found out has been linked to anxiety and/or depression.

Unlike a lot of folks I have not been on the steady downward spiral like others. My drinking has been erratic and has coincided with increases in anxiety and depression, often due to personal circumstances.

What I first signed on this forum it was because I had spent a year getting over a swift descent into Vodka. I had spent about 6 weeks drinking at least a 75ml bottle a day, and it was making me seriously ill. My body simply wasn't used to it.

As I was readjusting to life off of it I would still go through a week here and there of serious binges. I would take five days off work and down 3-4 bottles of wine a day for 3 or 4 days. I'd then go four days of awful physical withdrawal and then be sober for a couples weeks, maybe with the odd few drinks here and there, before doing it again and having the same miserable experience of withdrawal.

After a time the relationship I was in ended, I lost my job, had to move house and my father was diagnosed with cancer. All this happened within weeks of each other, and curiously, none of it because of drink (as quite a bit of my on/off wine binges was done in private when people weren't around).

Anyhow, when the you know what hit the fan I descended into increased drinking. I was on the wine every day until I felt too ill to drink anymore, then I'd go through detox again. This lasted for a few months. After that I switched onto cans of beer strength cider. I'd hoover through about 12 of those a day, but all told the alcohol level was less. I had switched because I felt I couldn't handle the wine anymore. Notwithstanding my anxiety and depression were still terrible and that was why I couldn't bare to face life with a drink, therefore I would wake up and spend a miserable half day or so waiting for the first tin to escape with.

Well, fast forward to a couple years later and I have slowly reduced my drinking since then. I haven't had a glass of wine in nearly three years, haven't drunk vodka in 6 years and barely touch any hard stiff at all, save for the odd Whiskey or Gin with a meal out, which isn't very often at all. Otherwise I now drink between 6-10 cans or pints of either beer or cider every 3-4 days. So, for the most part, I go at least half the week booze free and the strength and quantity of booze I have has been lower than the best part of the past 7 years. These days I tend not to get withdrawals after drink, well other than a standard hangover, because I don't drink long enough or enough in quantity to generate them. As a result I am generally much happier in life and feel more "normal" as it were than I have felt in years. It took my this long to get to this stage because I have a high tolerance and my hangovers were generally headache and vomit free, which is why I could go on the extended binges that I once did.

However, I still have anxiety problems and the days that I do drink are usually the days that I go out of the house. This is a problem I have developed in my most recent years. As it is I have found that I tend to get by when I am out with few drinks now than I used to. But still the problem is there. But I really don't want to be substituting alcohol for other chemicals like SSRIs. So I'd rather just knock the booze on the head for good, get myself fitter and just try and enjoy life as a healthy person. Thing is that I've come all this way over these years and now it seems that I am at the least hurdle I can't seem to jump it.

I appreciate that a lot of people have experienced a steady decline and just quit, and that this story is more atypical then most. But if anybody has had such an experience I'd be grateful for any tips on how they made the final jump.

Mirage74

I think to quit all of us have to make that final jump, whether you're drinking a fifth of liquor or 2 glasses of wine a day. You just have make the decision to quit and not drink. Then look for a recovery method that will help you stay quit. It really ultimately comes down to you making that jump.

MythOfSisyphus

Your case is almost unique in my experience. For the bulk of us it's a steady inexorable descent to the bottom. In the beginning I had some control over my drinking but the longer I drank the less I could alter my tendency to drink til everything was gone.

The final hurdle for me was accepting that I was completely unable to moderate or control my consumption once I took the first drink. I had to accept that I was looking at a binary situation, one or zero, on or off. But I didn't know any other way to live, and that was the thing holding me back. Eventually it got so bad that I figured anything was better than living that way so I took a chance.

AVRT is the thing that quite literally saved my life. It helped me to understand the war in my mind and separate my Beast/AV from my rational self. So far I've gone a year without a sip, with no real cravings to speak of.

I wish you well, ElChupacabra. Hopefully you can find whatever it takes to stop for good.

jaynie04

I have to echo Mirage's statement. It sounds like you know the ropes, and it doesn't sound like you consume alcohol, it consumes you. I have been a problem solver all my life, prided myself on seeing connections that others missed, worked an angle that no one saw coming. I couldn't think my way out of being an alcoholic.

Thinking beyond the solution....a term I overheard here. Thinking we can outmaneuver and negotiate our way around the simplicity of taking action, it's exhausting. Moderating or limiting or whatever we try to do in an effort to keep that door open, it keeps us on the hamster wheel. I woke up one day and said enough. Good marriage, happy home, financial security, no problems with the law...not of that was enough. I was so bloody miserable and so licked and so exhausted from it all. I don't want one glass of wine I want a bottle. I will never want one glass of wine.....for me that was the jumping off point.

Wastinglife

When I had progressed to daily vodka drinking (750ml bottle per day), my life spiraled fast. Within 2 years, I was unemployed, bankrupt, got a DUI, pancreatitis, and lost my girlfriend of 5 years. That is probably a quicker descent to rock-bottom than most and you seem to have been able to exert more control over your alcoholism, but if you keep drinking, you will eventually get to a bottom.

ElChupacabra

Yeah, see this is why it's been so difficult for me, because I've never been quite the same as most of the other cases I read. I think most of my heavy drinking episodes have been directly linked to times where my depression, most often manifesting itself by way of anxiety (sometimes severe), have caused me to seek refuge in the bottle as an escape primarily, rather than having to face the unpleasantness. Quite simply when I've been better mentally I've tended to stay off the drink. But, notwithstanding this, the fact that I use it as my escape, and also as a way of trying to get some enjoyment in life, that it has become its own problem to the point where it's a serious health risk to me.

Dee74

...but by the same token, you've been battling to get off the drink entirely for at least 5 years, if not longer.

Stomach deep or neck deep it's still quicksand...

I spent years rationalising my drinking.

I dunno whats making you reticent to make the final jump but for me it was fear.

I wanted to be a controlled drinker - keep the good bit and jettison the bad - but I had to accept in the end it's not kind of a deal.

not having alcohol in my life scared the bejeebers out of me...it terrified me to be honest.

welcome back btw

D

ElChupacabra

This is what I'm worried about. Better to try and take the final hurdle now while things are in a better state.

ElChupacabra

Yeah, fear. But not fear of not having alcohol in my life per se. Fear of not having somewhere to hide when the anxiety or depression gets grim.

DayTrader

Then that HAS to be your focus.

Convincing myself I was so much better --but I was still drinking, while true, helped keep me from making the "jump," as you call it.

Even now, when I settle for second best, or even third, forth, or fifth best....if I focus on "this is better than before" than I get stuck/trapped into that mode of settling. I've got to have a clear view of where I am currently but I've also got to have a clear vision of what I want to be or become. I frequently underachieve my objectives. If my objective is to slowly get a little better and I underachieve that one.....odds are I don't progress much at all.

Early on, I couldn't come to grips with the idea of getting and staying sober forever. I could do a handful of days just like you can and I could even get a couple weeks here and there. A couple times I had months of not drinking but that was the most I could manage.

Somewhere along the way though, I had to get willing to consider that I simply CAN'T ever drink again. I didn't know if I could do that and I didn't know how I'd do it.....but I made it my goal AND started to take actions that were in line with that goal (rather than taking actions that were in line with "just get a little better" which, as I said above, never seemed to work very well for me).

That simple change of my goal helped me get really honest with myself about the efficacy of my past efforts. How many times was I going to trust my own judgment......again.....to get me out of the hole that "my judgment" got me into in the first place? -- hence, my Einstein quote in my signature below.

Making that final jump really started to become a reality when I began to actually DO a lot of things I'd not been willing to try in the past.

MythOfSisyphus

Self medication is the motive many of us cite when we first started to drink. The problem is it causes more problems than it solves and none of us are doctors! Certainly no sane doctor in the modern era would prescribe booze in the first place. If depression is fueling your drinking binges, best to address the issue medically instead of with alcohol.

FWIW I thought for a long time that I drank to cope with depression. Turns out that my depression was probably caused by being a drunk. I'm not saying this is your situation but it's something to think about. Alcohol is a depressant and not all that helpful for actual depression.

No matter the reasons for drinking you have plenty of reasons to stop. And the method for quitting will be the same regardless of why you made the choice.

Sounds like your hurdle is actually the acceptance part.