The slow downward sprial
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 5
The slow downward sprial
Hi all,
I am new here but have been lurking for a few months and am really happy to have found this website, it has helped a lot.
My back story: From the time my father poured a small amount of beer into a cup for me at age 10, I have loved the taste of beer. That first sip was supposed to be disgusting, but for me it wasn't, and became a bonding moment with my father, who I now realize is also an alcoholic. Actually, looking back, my entire family on my father's side either died from drinking, are in recovery, or are still drinking. Those few times I had a small sip planted the seed for later I guess. As a kid, up until I graduated high school, sports kept me busy and I never had any desire to drink, even though I had plenty of opportunities being on three varsity sports teams (lots of parties). It just never appealed to me. I would say "why do people drink, that's so dumb!" Fast forward to the summer after I graduated high school, in a small town, bored, no idea what I was doing in life, and experiencing a nasty breakup with my high school girlfriend of 3 years. That's when I started experimenting with alcohol, at the ripe age of 19. I had never been drunk before and never even desired to drink it after those few sips from my father.
Boredom is a terrible beast with an active mind like mine, and without sports and still figuring out my college situation, I had lots of time to fill. That summer, I started hanging out with an acquaintance from high school, and his family were all raging alcoholics. It was fun, drama filled, and there was never a dull moment at their house. That was my first mistake, surrounding myself with people who were out of control, all because of boredom. Long story short, I started drinking every weekend, mostly hard alcohol since I had to have someone else over 21 purchase it. That was the year 2000. In 2004, I got accepted to the University of California Santa Barbara, which is not exactly a great place for a budding problem drinker to attend. I was still a weekend warrior at this point, but things changed fast. Soon it was 6 beers a day, then 2-5 games of beer pong every day, etc. I managed to graduate in 2007 (somehow) with a crappy GPA but was able to talk my way into an accounting job out of school.
The hours were horrible, sometimes 80 hours a week, and the stress was astronomical. I continued drinking almost every night to unwind, and thought nothing of it. Everyone at the firm drank like a fish, even the partners, so I thought nothing of it. In 2008, I was out partying with co-workers and stupidly decided to drive home, but obviously this was not the first time doing so. On the way home I dropped my GPS unit on the floor and swerved a little picking it up and got pulled over, and was arrested for DUI - that should have been my wake up call. I quit drinking for a year but started again in 2009. This continued for 5 more years until 2014, when I had a panic attack at work and went to the hospital (I thought I was dying). I was in a car accident a year earlier and attributed all of my chest pains and anxiety to that, without realizing it was the alcohol that was tearing me down. I quit my job after this attack due to being pulled from my large client because of this incident, and moved up to the mountains.
Drinking has only gotten worse since then, up to about a 5th of vodka a day or 16 beers, whichever I decided, but usually beer. A few weeks ago I woke up and had one of those moments of "what the hell am I doing with my life." I quit on January 11th and am not looking back. I am 34 years old and although I don't feel like I have wasted my entire life drinking, there is a lot of shame and regret over the past 15 years of not using my free time wisely. My career was crappy, so I don't really care too much about dropping that part, but now it's like starting all over again, and it sucks. Sorry for the long intro.
I am new here but have been lurking for a few months and am really happy to have found this website, it has helped a lot.
My back story: From the time my father poured a small amount of beer into a cup for me at age 10, I have loved the taste of beer. That first sip was supposed to be disgusting, but for me it wasn't, and became a bonding moment with my father, who I now realize is also an alcoholic. Actually, looking back, my entire family on my father's side either died from drinking, are in recovery, or are still drinking. Those few times I had a small sip planted the seed for later I guess. As a kid, up until I graduated high school, sports kept me busy and I never had any desire to drink, even though I had plenty of opportunities being on three varsity sports teams (lots of parties). It just never appealed to me. I would say "why do people drink, that's so dumb!" Fast forward to the summer after I graduated high school, in a small town, bored, no idea what I was doing in life, and experiencing a nasty breakup with my high school girlfriend of 3 years. That's when I started experimenting with alcohol, at the ripe age of 19. I had never been drunk before and never even desired to drink it after those few sips from my father.
Boredom is a terrible beast with an active mind like mine, and without sports and still figuring out my college situation, I had lots of time to fill. That summer, I started hanging out with an acquaintance from high school, and his family were all raging alcoholics. It was fun, drama filled, and there was never a dull moment at their house. That was my first mistake, surrounding myself with people who were out of control, all because of boredom. Long story short, I started drinking every weekend, mostly hard alcohol since I had to have someone else over 21 purchase it. That was the year 2000. In 2004, I got accepted to the University of California Santa Barbara, which is not exactly a great place for a budding problem drinker to attend. I was still a weekend warrior at this point, but things changed fast. Soon it was 6 beers a day, then 2-5 games of beer pong every day, etc. I managed to graduate in 2007 (somehow) with a crappy GPA but was able to talk my way into an accounting job out of school.
The hours were horrible, sometimes 80 hours a week, and the stress was astronomical. I continued drinking almost every night to unwind, and thought nothing of it. Everyone at the firm drank like a fish, even the partners, so I thought nothing of it. In 2008, I was out partying with co-workers and stupidly decided to drive home, but obviously this was not the first time doing so. On the way home I dropped my GPS unit on the floor and swerved a little picking it up and got pulled over, and was arrested for DUI - that should have been my wake up call. I quit drinking for a year but started again in 2009. This continued for 5 more years until 2014, when I had a panic attack at work and went to the hospital (I thought I was dying). I was in a car accident a year earlier and attributed all of my chest pains and anxiety to that, without realizing it was the alcohol that was tearing me down. I quit my job after this attack due to being pulled from my large client because of this incident, and moved up to the mountains.
Drinking has only gotten worse since then, up to about a 5th of vodka a day or 16 beers, whichever I decided, but usually beer. A few weeks ago I woke up and had one of those moments of "what the hell am I doing with my life." I quit on January 11th and am not looking back. I am 34 years old and although I don't feel like I have wasted my entire life drinking, there is a lot of shame and regret over the past 15 years of not using my free time wisely. My career was crappy, so I don't really care too much about dropping that part, but now it's like starting all over again, and it sucks. Sorry for the long intro.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 42
Originally Posted by UnixBer 
Great post and welcome to SR ! 
You can have reasons, or you can have results, but you can't have both.
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Syracuse, NY
Posts: 1,232
Hi and welcome. I also stopped on January 11.
Never regret your past. By Western material standards it may look "wasted," but the truth is your life experiences have given you humility and perspective well beyond your years. I would not have guessed you were only 34.
Tomorrow is 3 weeks for us, so congrats in advance! Guard your sobriety like a treasure and don't let anything tear it down!!
Never regret your past. By Western material standards it may look "wasted," but the truth is your life experiences have given you humility and perspective well beyond your years. I would not have guessed you were only 34.
Tomorrow is 3 weeks for us, so congrats in advance! Guard your sobriety like a treasure and don't let anything tear it down!!
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 1,355
Originally Posted by Time2Stop4good
Hi all,
I am new here but have been lurking for a few months and am really happy to have found this website, it has helped a lot.
My back story: From the time my father poured a small amount of beer into a cup for me at age 10, I have loved the taste of beer. That first sip was supposed to be disgusting, but for me it wasn't, and became a bonding moment with my father, who I now realize is also an alcoholic. Actually, looking back, my entire family on my father's side either died from drinking, are in recovery, or are still drinking. Those few times I had a small sip planted the seed for later I guess. As a kid, up until I graduated high school, sports kept me busy and I never had any desire to drink, even though I had plenty of opportunities being on three varsity sports teams (lots of parties). It just never appealed to me. I would say "why do people drink, that's so dumb!" Fast forward to the summer after I graduated high school, in a small town, bored, no idea what I was doing in life, and experiencing a nasty breakup with my high school girlfriend of 3 years. That's when I started experimenting with alcohol, at the ripe age of 19. I had never been drunk before and never even desired to drink it after those few sips from my father.
Boredom is a terrible beast with an active mind like mine, and without sports and still figuring out my college situation, I had lots of time to fill. That summer, I started hanging out with an acquaintance from high school, and his family were all raging alcoholics. It was fun, drama filled, and there was never a dull moment at their house. That was my first mistake, surrounding myself with people who were out of control, all because of boredom. Long story short, I started drinking every weekend, mostly hard alcohol since I had to have someone else over 21 purchase it. That was the year 2000. In 2004, I got accepted to the University of California Santa Barbara, which is not exactly a great place for a budding problem drinker to attend. I was still a weekend warrior at this point, but things changed fast. Soon it was 6 beers a day, then 2-5 games of beer pong every day, etc. I managed to graduate in 2007 (somehow) with a crappy GPA but was able to talk my way into an accounting job out of school.
The hours were horrible, sometimes 80 hours a week, and the stress was astronomical. I continued drinking almost every night to unwind, and thought nothing of it. Everyone at the firm drank like a fish, even the partners, so I thought nothing of it. In 2008, I was out partying with co-workers and stupidly decided to drive home, but obviously this was not the first time doing so. On the way home I dropped my GPS unit on the floor and swerved a little picking it up and got pulled over, and was arrested for DUI - that should have been my wake up call. I quit drinking for a year but started again in 2009. This continued for 5 more years until 2014, when I had a panic attack at work and went to the hospital (I thought I was dying). I was in a car accident a year earlier and attributed all of my chest pains and anxiety to that, without realizing it was the alcohol that was tearing me down. I quit my job after this attack due to being pulled from my large client because of this incident, and moved up to the mountains.
Drinking has only gotten worse since then, up to about a 5th of vodka a day or 16 beers, whichever I decided, but usually beer. A few weeks ago I woke up and had one of those moments of "what the hell am I doing with my life." I quit on January 11th and am not looking back. I am 34 years old and although I don't feel like I have wasted my entire life drinking, there is a lot of shame and regret over the past 15 years of not using my free time wisely. My career was crappy, so I don't really care too much about dropping that part, but now it's like starting all over again, and it sucks. Sorry for the long intro.
I am new here but have been lurking for a few months and am really happy to have found this website, it has helped a lot.
My back story: From the time my father poured a small amount of beer into a cup for me at age 10, I have loved the taste of beer. That first sip was supposed to be disgusting, but for me it wasn't, and became a bonding moment with my father, who I now realize is also an alcoholic. Actually, looking back, my entire family on my father's side either died from drinking, are in recovery, or are still drinking. Those few times I had a small sip planted the seed for later I guess. As a kid, up until I graduated high school, sports kept me busy and I never had any desire to drink, even though I had plenty of opportunities being on three varsity sports teams (lots of parties). It just never appealed to me. I would say "why do people drink, that's so dumb!" Fast forward to the summer after I graduated high school, in a small town, bored, no idea what I was doing in life, and experiencing a nasty breakup with my high school girlfriend of 3 years. That's when I started experimenting with alcohol, at the ripe age of 19. I had never been drunk before and never even desired to drink it after those few sips from my father.
Boredom is a terrible beast with an active mind like mine, and without sports and still figuring out my college situation, I had lots of time to fill. That summer, I started hanging out with an acquaintance from high school, and his family were all raging alcoholics. It was fun, drama filled, and there was never a dull moment at their house. That was my first mistake, surrounding myself with people who were out of control, all because of boredom. Long story short, I started drinking every weekend, mostly hard alcohol since I had to have someone else over 21 purchase it. That was the year 2000. In 2004, I got accepted to the University of California Santa Barbara, which is not exactly a great place for a budding problem drinker to attend. I was still a weekend warrior at this point, but things changed fast. Soon it was 6 beers a day, then 2-5 games of beer pong every day, etc. I managed to graduate in 2007 (somehow) with a crappy GPA but was able to talk my way into an accounting job out of school.
The hours were horrible, sometimes 80 hours a week, and the stress was astronomical. I continued drinking almost every night to unwind, and thought nothing of it. Everyone at the firm drank like a fish, even the partners, so I thought nothing of it. In 2008, I was out partying with co-workers and stupidly decided to drive home, but obviously this was not the first time doing so. On the way home I dropped my GPS unit on the floor and swerved a little picking it up and got pulled over, and was arrested for DUI - that should have been my wake up call. I quit drinking for a year but started again in 2009. This continued for 5 more years until 2014, when I had a panic attack at work and went to the hospital (I thought I was dying). I was in a car accident a year earlier and attributed all of my chest pains and anxiety to that, without realizing it was the alcohol that was tearing me down. I quit my job after this attack due to being pulled from my large client because of this incident, and moved up to the mountains.
Drinking has only gotten worse since then, up to about a 5th of vodka a day or 16 beers, whichever I decided, but usually beer. A few weeks ago I woke up and had one of those moments of "what the hell am I doing with my life." I quit on January 11th and am not looking back. I am 34 years old and although I don't feel like I have wasted my entire life drinking, there is a lot of shame and regret over the past 15 years of not using my free time wisely. My career was crappy, so I don't really care too much about dropping that part, but now it's like starting all over again, and it sucks. Sorry for the long intro.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 2,578
Welcome, Time2Stop, and congratulations on your decision.
I can so relate to your story. I worked in public accounting the last 10 years, and my drinking escalated over that time. Everything you posted is so familiar ... the long hours, the stress, and the drinking culture. Maybe I was destined to develop a drinking problem no matter what my career was, but accounting certainly hurried the process along for me.
You're still young, and having survived that work environment, you'll have a lot of skills that can transfer to something else that is more supportive of a healthy life.
Welcome and keep us posted!
I can so relate to your story. I worked in public accounting the last 10 years, and my drinking escalated over that time. Everything you posted is so familiar ... the long hours, the stress, and the drinking culture. Maybe I was destined to develop a drinking problem no matter what my career was, but accounting certainly hurried the process along for me.
You're still young, and having survived that work environment, you'll have a lot of skills that can transfer to something else that is more supportive of a healthy life.
Welcome and keep us posted!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Lawrenceville, NJ
Posts: 103
Hi, welcome to SR! I relate to your journey/story in so many ways. I am 37, just a few years older than you and I started to really drink heavily at the age of 19 myself. I really didn't care about drinking in high school because I had so many other activities going on such as sports, hobbies, lots of friends etc. It really didn't take off until later in life for me.
I've had periods of sobriety but never maintained it for very long and like you I had a DUI which you would think would have stop me from continuing to abuse alcohol...but it didn't.
Any case, stay strong and stay connected with all of these people -- they really want to help. You will find many new friends as I am starting to find from all over the world.
I've had periods of sobriety but never maintained it for very long and like you I had a DUI which you would think would have stop me from continuing to abuse alcohol...but it didn't.
Any case, stay strong and stay connected with all of these people -- they really want to help. You will find many new friends as I am starting to find from all over the world.
Member
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 14,919
The title of you post "The slow downward spiral" caught my eye
I've often described the progression of alcoholism like water "circling the drain" - it keeps going faster and faster as you get sucked down closer to the bottom
I've often described the progression of alcoholism like water "circling the drain" - it keeps going faster and faster as you get sucked down closer to the bottom
Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 1,355
That slowe downward spiral will soon pick up into the most epic tailspin you have ever encountered. At least it started to for me. Things started to fall apart so rapidly I'm not sure what I would be doing now if I was not sober. Things got ridiculous fast! I hope you can reverse that downward spiral and start climbing out of that hole. We can help!
Member
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Upper Midwest
Posts: 1,730
Welcome to SR. As you read through what others here have written, you will see how important it is to choose and follow a plan for recovery. Sometimes it works to "wing it" but more often, success comes to those who have a plan.
Good luck. I am glad you are here with us.
Good luck. I am glad you are here with us.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
