GreenBottles

I can stop often and have often without missing it and enjoy the feeling of physical responses to the new environment of nutrition absorption and so on BUT I always end up being offered a beer somewhere and then its ON, its non-stop for about 20 per day for about 10 days and then stop again.
Sometimes I have bad shakes if i hadnt been eating properly during it but that has been my overall pattern for 15 years and it has costed me alot I am sure.

I am 38 now and realising that I am not developing much anymore, not remembering things, names, titles, facts, knowledge is weak, brain is weak.

I have always wanted to stop but always fall back for that one beer.

Anyone this type of pisshead? (i ALWAYS only ever drank beer)

Jake

Dee74

That was me for a long time until I 'graduated' to all day everyday drinking.
It may have been 'only beer' but it nearly did me in.

I had to change my life quite a bit to make sure those beer offers didn't come by anymore.

Good to see you here and thinking about change too

D

least

I was a wino and it just about did me in. But with the support of the good people here and my counselor I've managed to stay sober for over four years now. If I can do it, so can you.

KateL

I drank anything and everything. It sounds like you want to stop and your brain fuctions and general health will improve if you do. x

ClearMind

I've mostly drank beer in the past, but after a few beer would just about drink anything. I found my mental health had been deteriorating rapidly as well - short term memory issues, social anxiety, being prone to panic attacks, slurred speech even while I was sober, slower brain functioning, depression, and basically just a feeling of being mentally drained. This isn't even mentioning the physical issues. I was just like you in that if I were to be offered a beer, then it's "on" again for another binge drinking spell. I was both a binge drinker and an every day (I could get away with it) drinker. The only option for me was to stop permanently, and that's what I did.

PurpleKnight

I remember the days when 2 pints of beer was my night out, I would dabble with different types and finally settled on my beer of choice, though only the 2 pints, beer being quite heavy when your only starting out then became a problem as I couldn't pass a whole night with only 2 pints, so welcome into the fray Irish Whisky, but again only a glass was enough after my 2 pints!!

Fast forward to 2011/12 . . . I was consuming a 3/4 bottle of Whisky in one night, at home alone, and on a night out my body had become accustomed to putting away 6/7 pints, and that was before moving on to Whisky to see the night out in true blackout style!!

Permanent Sobriety was needed to stop that pattern, or who knows what would have happened!!

Nightswimming

For me a glass of wine could be a glass of wine or it could end up being 2 bottles chased by half a bottle of vodka. Always a magical mystery tour that I never wanted to end.....

Tried moderation so many times over the past few years and I would be kidding myself to say it worked even for a short time.

Toffee1

You will find that you become more organised,productive,efficient and so much more optimistic if you remain sober. People will offer you drinks in almost every social situation!! You need to get a plan in your head for this occurrence. You could offer to be the driver. You could say you are on medication. You could say you are taking a break from beer. It is not difficult to come up with something but I think you need to ask yourself a question. Are you using other people as an excuse to drink? Are you really saying that these people made you drink because they offered you a drink? If you really want sobriety then it is possible but you may have to strengthen your resolve a little in order to combat the obstacles that will surely come your way. All the best

Thepatman

Same here. One beer and I would jump in the barrel.

Now I don't have to swim my way out after a binge and life is 1000 times less complicated.

Glad you are considering putting a permanent hand brake on this.

GreenBottles

Well, if I wasnt ashamed of becoming a drunk annoying person in front of anyone and everyone on this small island of 300,000 people for the last 3 years then I am sure that I would probably be proud to decline a drink by saying, "I dont drink anymore. If I have one drink I will want to drink 1000, seriously, I am totally lost if I have one drink"

I guess I loved getting totally lost. I was hoping that I would wake up somewhere and have found myself.

Deep down I know why I drink. Its the only way to remove anxiety and also I really dont enjoy socialising in public that much, I get nervous and feel exhausted when I get home, I almost hate it. I dont hate people, I like people. But I just dont enjoy it.

You know another reason why I avoid abstaining permanently? I know I am probably more screwed in the head socially than I can be bothered facing. And you see when you are sober all the time you start facing it all.

Can I ask one more question of you al. Has anyone ever gone for like ten years telling themselves every single day that tomorrow they are going to stop forever? I went for 20 years. Even when I was 18 I cut my chest open with a knife like a mark;tatoo I would see int he mirror to remind me that I will not drink or smoke or anything this year....Of course, the next morning as I was cleaning off the blood I had a cigerette in my mouth, a beer probably later that week (at 38 now its basically every day all day except when my body refuses it or have get scared of my health and stop for a few days to pump nutrition back into me so I can recover enough to then go start drinking again....

Oh God, you dont really realise its a problem until you failed so many times already, telling yourself every day for 20 years that tomorrow you are going to go clean and quit everything including coffee.
Well ok then, THAT is the REAL me inside, the REAL ME doesn~t want to drink cofee;cigerettes;beer nothing.

So how to I meet the real me?

Is it possible to manage it? I want best answer to this. Or am I a case that really needs to face it that I need to learn now and quickly (instantly) that I should never ever drink again?
I am 38. I can turn this around.

My drunk expeditions alone on the internet are probably the worst thing I have done to myself. But also in public I am just a terrorist of annoying words always looking to make people laugh but its very dry humour and often they dont realise I am having a loan. Its always self-deficating or else ridiculing our common enemies, never insult people personally in public because am scared of violent retaliation.
But on the internet when drunk (30 beers in one day) I go off my head in abuse and insults and threaten to kill people and wow, probably every single member of the IDF wants to kill me and would kill me if they had a convenient chance to. \i mean, what kind of a drunk am I? I dont make friends, I actively seek new enemies. What the hell is that?

Dee74

I was scared of who sober me might be too - but it turned out ok - turns out most of my issues were drink related, or unfounded fears fed by my drinking.

I doubt very very much you'll come to prefer drunk you to sober you.
That's not to say early recovery is easy - it's not but it passes

You'll be amazed what can happen in 90 days tho.

I turned things around 40. You can do this.

Face the fear. Take the leap Green Bottles - you're not alone

D

Imabuleva

I'm a hard liquor man, but honestly it's the same monster.

The inability to limit one's drinking is a classic symptom of alcoholism. I can't take one shot... or I end up drinking as much as I can and either dumping the rest out of disgust or passing out.

It's much easier to get medical treatment if needed (to start) and then abstain.

Imabuleva

Kate, you always say it best. Short and succinct.

360shoes

Hi GreenBottles,
Oh, I told myself I was quitting every morning after I drank. 15 years of those mornings. Honestly, that's what I got sick of more than anything. I also knew for 15 years that nothing was going to get better if I didn't stop. I had a 10 year non drinking run so I knew what the real problem was. Just never put the work in. For 15 years I just kept trying to think the problem away.

It didn't work till I said I'm freakin done and I'm willing to do and endure anything. Then I had to do and endure.

It gets better. I would have never had the chance to find the real me until I stopped drowning the real me.

Stick around.

Imabuleva

Tomorrow is the battle cry of the alcoholic. We never want to do anything about it today. That means no more drinking, and our addictive voice can't have that....

The little voice in your head that tells you that you'll quit tomorrow is your addictive voice. Tomorrow always becomes today, and as you've noticed, the pattern continues until you physically can't do it any more, you die, or you figure it out.

Welcome to SR where you have a fighting chance at figuring it out.

GreenBottles

You know,. I guess the only man I can think of who views the world at 50 the same he did when he was 20 would be an alcoholic. His viewpóint being that he needs to get through the life being drunk all the time.
I cant think of any other man other than an alcoholic who could go from 20 to 50 and still see the world the same.

So what did you do in the end? Just stop it forever?

I actually have said no to one beer many times not because I didnt want to drink but because literally I knew that for this situation it was literally one beer we would be having. I hate one beer. One beer makes me feel tired, clouded, depressed.
Whereas if someone offered me a beer with a wink-wink, as in, you know we are just going to drink as much as we want tonight the bottleshop is around the corner 24 hours, then I would be ON.


You see when I drink its not the 38 year old, its the 20 year old there he is back, he wants to have a beerlarious night with the boys just like he did in O-Week. For me it was O-week that made me an alcoholic. What the hell Universities have "Pub Crawl" for Orientation Week (your first week at Uni in your new department of whatever). What the hell is that? Oh no here now you see I am trying to blame someone.

grandma12

My drink of choice was vodka, but I thought wine was more lady like so I would have a nice glass of wine with a shot of vodka in it, I never thought how un-lady like passing out was. Now I think it through to the end, a cup of coffee does me fine.

kflee

Glad you are here now. You have to start somewhere. You are not alone. I did it for ten years with the balancing act and justification for my binges. I did not realize my daily social drinking was a real issue for many years. Sounds like you are not in denial about what needs to be done to make a change. Thanks for sharing your issues.

GreenBottles

Or lets look at Bukoswky. Alot of literary critics claim him as the greatest American contemporary poet of the 20th century.
Or look at my internet activism that did help the resistances and was part of the movements to warn the banksters we know all their war mongering murderous souless profit machine systems and we dont accept it and we will rise and smash them if at least they dont back off just a little (of course they are not backing off). BUT I could never have been a part of that from 2006-2012 if I had been sober because I would have been too nervous to write against them.

Well, so, the question I think as we at in late 30s (everyone here I bet is basically in 30s and on because in 20s you not going to think about stopping drinking) is that everyone in this forum obviously came to a day where they knew it had to stop for really one reason, "Ok man, yes Bukowsky drank more than you and was the greatest American poet of the 20th century but YOU are not Bukowsky and YOU are not genetically him and YOU are going to go downhill and die man if you dont stop. You have drunk the entire planet, what is next then for your next 50 years? To go drink the planet again and this time die? You cant do it man. You are so lucky you are here because it means you know you cant do it and you didnt come here because you made a decision to stop drinking. You came here because you made a decision to keep living"

GreenBottles

THANKS.I am surprised there are so many supportive voices here and is inspiring to know I am not alone and have a typical problem and that there is going to be support for me here thankyou it means alot.