rain in my heart
 

I watched the british YouTube video Rain in my Heart tonight. Someone from one of the forums recommended it. It's about 4 chronic alcoholic s who are very physically ill from alcohol and 2 die. They have done permanent damage to their bodies. It's an excellent film and very well done. And very scary. But it also made me think, well I was never that bad. I know there are varying degrees of the illness but I always considered myself a party girl who abused alcohol rather than a hard core alcoholic. .. I wonder if it could happen to me....but I've survived almost 6 decades and never totally succumbed to alcohol. I function, have a career, and a decent lifestyle. Yeah I've had too many hangover s and got sick and tired of being sick and tired a few days per week, once again. Well I guess writing this has helped me answer my own question. I've gotta keep at this. I need to try to continue to abstain even though I WASN'T THAT BAD! It was bad enough and I do feel so much better physically and mentally with my 3 and a half months of not drinking. I have plenty of denial, rationalization, minimization and all that good stuff. Anyone have thoughts on the varying degrees of the problem?

I'm not that bad YET. This is a progressive illness. It gets worse never better. People don't usually ask for help when things are getting better.

It progressed very quickly with me, but with others it is much slower. My mothers drinking went right out of control at the time I got sober. She's about 90 now and still a chronic alcoholic. She's been hammering it for forty years. There is nothing left of the human being that was my mother, just a seething pit of resentment. She's no end of trouble in the old folks home, the customer from hell. The only reason she hasn't died is that God doesn't want the aggravation.

When I got sober, she wasn't that bad. She still thinks it's everybody else's fault. She's had 40 years of miserable existence, most of it wanting to die. That's progression, not death but long term insanity.

I have been drinking for nearly 50 years,
since I was a kid. I have quit for short
periods of time, but I have always relapsed.
It is actually a miracle that I am alive and
have a functioning liver after all of those
years of drinking. I finally admitted that
I was an alcoholic after a particularly
horrible withdraw which caused me to
get help. As horrible as it was, I look
at it as a Godsend, I am sober today.

Hi happyandfree,

I have watched the rain in my heart videos and found them very compelling.
I was also 'not that bad', ........until I was that bad. And it took only a few short weeks. I was lucky that the doctor in the emergency room took my under his wing and literally saved my life. One more drink and I most likely would have died. You just don't know how many drinks you are away from 'that bad'.
:)

Yeah I guess it can turn south at any time. I know I decided to stop because it was getting harder and harder to control. And it hasn't been easy....go figure.

I was fortunate to quit while I still had a chance to regain my health and keep my family, job and home. I honestly don't care how bad I was compared to others, I know without a question of a doubt that I am better off sober.

I look at it this way: there are not degrees of alcoholism, there are degrees of delusion. I know that many times I tried to cut back, drink responsibly, etc. but over time I drank more because it took more. During that passage of time I recognized that I drank too much, but I saw it as a lifestyle choice. We all have the opportunity to quit at any time, but almost nobody quits until the pain of drinking exceeds the perceived pain of not drinking. Some of us are so deluded about ourselves and our disease that it kills us before we can quit. My mother was one of those people, she had access to any care she could have wanted, but she died an active alcoholic. I don't think I am all that different - I just recognized the truth soon enough to do something about it.

Holy cow, I don't even drink and that scared me!

Nicely put, Eddiebuckle, my body needed more and more just to attain the buzz. For me stopping completely was the only escape to, in time, killing myself with booze.

I hear you, happyandfree. Wasn't that bad....but honestly, it was bad enough.