sobersolstice

I've been coming here for years, but am still drinking. I feel like the last decade has been unfruitful and stagnant. My relationships have come and gone, and I work a labor job. Friends are busy with family, and we go out on occasion. My mom is sick, and dad is financially in strife at almost 80yo., so I'm just working every day until my joints hurt.

I stopped drinking for a couple months (no idea how many days). I started eating healthier, but picked up drinking again a couple weeks ago. One thing I will say, is I'm trying to eat a solid and healthy 3 meals a day, and my urge to drink has subsided considerably. I was hungover last Sunday morning, but still got out early and worked. I don't feel horrible at the moment drinking 3-6 coors lights in the evening after dinner, then falling asleep at 8:30pm; waking up at 4:30am to work.

My parents taught me to drink beer in place of eating carbs since I was a kid, so I've been eating carbs and sugars more to replace the beer-carbs. This has been helping.

I'm not sure if alcohol is the issue. It's kind of more along the lines of apathy and not caring. I'm trying to help, and be a productive part of my world, but all I see is chaos. I'm not unhappy, and get a good number of laughs in during the day, but would be totally content with what I've done with my life if I had a heart attack or got hit by a ups truck today. No one lives forever, and I feel I'm trying to make the best of things, but to what end? To what goal? Nothing feels tangible, and humanity feels like a mission to destroy the earth the way viruses spread and kill cells. I don't have kids, but am terrified of what the future holds for people. We live in the easiest time humans have experienced (at least in the U.S.), and maybe that's the root of our aimless behavior. There's no team-endgame. These cynical thoughts are enhanced by insane introspection when I'm sober, and i guess a few beers brightens my evening for a short bit, then I just fall asleep because I'm exhausted. I'll eventually just get tired of it I think... I drink less and less with each relapse, and it will likely just go away.

For now, it seems eating well is my first priority, as it keeps me from drinking too much, plus I don't crave as much. I guess my goal has changed a bit from "I have to quit" to "I should live a healthier life; physically and mentally". I don't binge anymore because I have to force myself to wake up early, so I stop just when I begin to feel relaxed/tired. I've been exercising every morning before work, and don't want to be heaving lol, so I just drink far less than I used to.

I'm sure many people have similar viewpoints; likely with different approaches. Stopping is the best option for me, and I told my Mom i would, but she told me that I should know myself well enough to know when I need to call it a night, but that I'm not an alcoholic. Maybe I'll take another few months off...

Anna

You sound very sad. I think you might find that your apathy disappears if you stop drinking. I think, with a clear and sober mind, you may find some purpose in your life.

ScottFromWI

Thanks for coming back sobersolstice. Beer was the "solution" to most issues I face for the better part of 3 decades of my life. Looking back of course it was quite the opposite - it actually caused most of my problems.

There's no sugar coating life though....there will always be bad and good in the world, in every area, that's a given. Sobriety won't solve that, but it will make things much easier to deal with. In a sense you are basically stacking the deck against yourself by continuing to drink, even if you can somehow "drink less". Drinking less is still doing damage both physically and mentally. Consider the possibility that your apathy is stemming from a psychologial source like depression, which is very common in addicts. Alcohol itself is a depressant so it makes everything even worse, additionally you'll never be able to recover from a condition like that while you are still drinking, no matter how much or how little you drink.

It sound to me like you are still in the "bargaining" stage with your addiction...you have several statements in this post that try and rationalize your drinking in several ways. I did that for years too, so you aren't alone.

fini

so I stop just when I begin to feel relaxed/tired.
if you can do that easily, then it sounds like what most of us here would like to be able to do but cannot.

bexxed

I bargained that I was "allowed" to drink as long as I did so with a meal. I gained a lot of weight that way, and while it was good to eat, it didn't, over time, change that I drank.

There's a baseline happiness that I have now that I didn't before. Things still suck, believe me, but with less darkness and despair. And, less apathy. In many small ways I'm caring about myself and my life more than before, when I was drinking.

One of the things that used to twist my head up was that so many people told me I'm not an alcoholic. Lots of people in recovery did that - people who I know who I never talked to about my struggles. It really used to freak me out; like I'd call them up to hang out and I'm literally doing it to ask them to take me to a meeting or something and when I broach the subject and we start talking about addiction and recovery, I'd be about to say "you know I think I might have a problem" and they start telling me that I can't understand them because I don't have a problem, in this really assured way. And I'm like, inside, like, no, I have this horrible secret, and it's crazy, how can you not KNOW??? It reminded me of how people used to assume I was straight, too, and it would just get washed down the road another day or week or year of living my life in inauthenticity. It's one of the reasons I relied so heavily on this site, actually. So, that's a long winded way of getting at, don't let your mom or anyone define you. That's for you to do.

Welcome back.

B

sobersolstice

I guess I grew up only knowing what a roller coaster feels like. There was never stability, or any kind of baseline; only chaos. This may sound weird, but I feel uncomfortable without that chaos, it's been that way for so long.

I felt stability for a while when I stopped, then I encounter an event, or something that takes me into a mental spiral that wants the sine wave (more like an irregular heartbeat) again. I didn't drink on Saturday, then had a six pack in the fridge on Sunday morning. Drank it all because I was hungry and didn't have food. I felt like crap in the evening after a nap and ate dinner at midnight.

It's too windy to work today, so I'm laying in bed typing here on my laptop. I'm going to close the blinds, listen to the wind, and stare at the texture on my walls in half-darkness. Maybe I'll go to target and buy a video game...

2ndhandrose

Hi sobersolstice, this doesn't sound the slightest bit weird.

I can totally relate and I believe that there are more SR members, than not, that can relate to this.