Off the bandwagon, so I'm on the forum
 

Hey there, folks. I recently admitted to myself that I have a drinking problem and that it's consistently worsening. I'm only 27 and I'm terrified that if I don't get a handle on things now, I will make problems for myself that are not easy to fix.

I feel like my future can go one of two ways...quit drinking: great life with goals accomplished. Keep drinking: end up a burnout with a broken body and a long list of regrets.

I've known deep down that I've had a problem with alcohol for many years now. Honestly, I've been making terrible decisions while drinking since early high school. I've been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, arrested for disorderly conduct and spent the night in the "drunk tank," gotten in physical fights with the people close to me, missed work, missed class, cheated on past lovers, stolen from people, chipped a tooth, gotten a black eye, fallen asleep in random places, been WAY too close to getting a DUI, and many other stupid/irresponsible/dangerous things, solely because I can't control my drinking.

I've been in denial about how alcohol is threatening to destroy me...how it already has destroyed so many opportunities in my life. My relationship ended recently and I became homeless. The bottle always fueled our arguments. I can't help but wonder whether or not we would still be together if we were both sober, or at least not heavy drinkers.

The day after my ex essentially forced me to move out of our place, I lost my job because I was pounding whiskey the night before a 7 a.m. shift and came in almost an hour late. I had already been late at least 10-15 times, mostly because of being hungover and sleeping through alarms.

I never wanted to use the word "alcoholic" to describe myself. It seems like a term of doom and it makes me feel like a failure. But the fact of the matter is that, at 27, it's no longer a college phase and it's definitely not cute to be pre-gaming before every social occasion anymore.

I drink BEFORE I go to the bar, after I get home from the bar, and sometimes the morning after if I have no obligations. I don't know if I can use explicatives here, so I'll just say that I'm a full-blown "B word" when I'm tanked. My personality changes and I become either an emotional wreck ugly crying over my daddy issues (which is sadly my more desirable drunk persona) or an angry monster that will verbally obliterate you for little to no reason.

I've also developed tremors that last for at least a day after the more noteworthy binges. I thought I wasn't an alcoholic. That I was too young, too smart, too talented, too beautiful, too social, and too functional to be an alcoholic. Then I sat down, evaluated myself from an outsiders perspective, and realized that I'm a total mess. I rely on alcohol for stress relief. It makes me forget and numbs my strong emotions so I don't have to feel what it's like to be a full human being. Drinking has replaced most of my other hobbies, most of the time.

I thought I wasn't an alcoholic, until I tried to quit. That was 3 weeks ago. So far, I have made it 4 consecutive days without drinking anything. I even made it a full week without getting black out drunk. Then, I convinced myself (yet again) that I was in control, so I spent the past weekend binging at a music festival. Although nothing awful happened and I generally had an awesome time, I drank myself silly and I feel really disappointed. I've been ultra hungover all day and haven't done anything at all--one of the main things that makes me crazy about my drinking habits.

I really can't do this on my own. I think this thing has a much bigger hold on me than I realized. I can't remember the last time I went a week without drinking. I'm honestly very scared. I'm unsure of how to go about quitting now because I keep messing up.

I'm incredibly clueless...no one in my family drinks and heavy drinking is normalized in my friend group. Addiction is a common thread in my family, but all of the alcoholics are dead now (go figure, right?). Any tips, stories, resources or simply kind words that you can offer would mean a lot to me. I know I'm the only one who can take the initiative to stop drinking, but willpower alone has left me stumped. Much love to everyone here and I appreciate you taking the time to read my story

Welcome to SR, tangledknot! I'm glad you found us here. It's scary to acknowledge the problem but you're wise to change your ways now. It only gets worse as the issue progresses.

Why not immerse yourself in a culture of nondrinking people like AA? It's pretty obvious from your history that drinking is going to destroy you so try something new. All the best.

Hi and welcome tangledknot :)

By default of doing nothing, I chose the latter of those options - trust me it's not something you want to do. I wish I'd stopped at 27.

You have every chance of reclaiming your life and a bright future - if you can accept now that you have a toxic relationship with alcohol.

I've heard it said - 'I never got in trouble every time I drank, but everytime I got in trouble drinking was involved'.

If that sounds like you to you, you're in the right place.
you'll find a lot of understanding and support here.

D

Hello tangledknot , a warm welcome to you .

I knew by the time I was 27 that I was a different drinker than most my age still I kept it up till I was beaten mentally and physically . I had crossed the line of no return .IE every single time I drank I was dreadfully ill and for some insane reason kept this up till about age 50 ,i,m now 60 .

You have came to a great place for help and support .

Welcome and thank you for your well written heartfelt story.

Now you're about to have a bunch of responses from a souls who shared their story not too long ago. Many of which read like yours and many who WISHED they woke up BEFORE they did destroy everything.

Stay active here. There's a lot to learn about alcoholism, recovery, and most importantly yourself. Stay close and soak up everything SR has to offer.

I understand now that I'm going to have to force myself to go that route if I want to get better. I've been reading through an AA book that my Dad gave me (he's not a drinker but has many addictions he's had to seek extensive counseling for). It helps, but I can see that I need more than words on a page to convince me to abstain.

Truth be told, I've just been making excuses for why I'm "too busy" to start going to meetings. I contacted my local chapter weeks ago to get information. I think I'm just ashamed of myself for letting things get this bad, and being in AA is going to make me face that head on.

I'm going to the next meeting though. I can't take the weight of this anymore

Take the first step. You need to get back in control. It is not easy at first. There are alot of reasons we drink. But only one reason to quit. We want to live.
You are too young to die from alcohol abuse. Get serious about quitting now. Keep reaching out and posting.

Hi tangledknot.
Wow did your story hit home to me. I am going to assume you are female? I am the exact same as you. 26 year old female, and by the outside I could never classify as an alcoholic. All the things you say, I thought too. Not to toot my own horn, but I have a very good job, a wealthy family, I am beautiful by the definition of "society", a petite blonde with blue eyes and it also took me a long time to realize I drank exactly like you do.
I always blacked out when I drank, and also went on 3 day binges. Morning after I drank after a night out etc., Alcoholism does not discriminate.
I realized the same thing you said, get a good life with goals, or continue down this path, and I saw what that path was in a moment of clarity, and it was damn scary. I saw myself as being disgusting to other people, stumbling around, losing my looks and dying, or killing someone I loved in a car crash, because I do STUPID **** when I am drunk.
People our age seem to think we are still a bit invincible, we aren't. I also thought the same thing, I am so young... all my friends drink, this sucks.
But a lot of people on here changed my thinking around that. They all said they WISHED they got sober at 26,27 instead of trying to control it for another 10-15 years, and ended up with ALOT more **** their drinking caused them.
Imagine the things that you could do in 10 more years... scary hey?
I don't really care what any of my friends think, and in fact I am proud to be sober... once you get out of the fog a bit, and give yourself a chance to love sobriety, and feel good waking up every morning, and regain your confidence and feel proud of yourself... you wont want to go back to drinking. You must give it a chance. Literally one day at a time, don't stress about the future, or Halloween and how youre not going to drink (that's what I used to do about every future event).
Be an inspiration for people our age, and show them that the sober life is the good life, a couple years down the road, people will be asking you for help!
If you want, PM me, I would love to chat more!

Welcome tangledknot

Very heartfelt post- resonated with me.

I would rule out nothing is my advice! be prepared to try anything and everything.

I will do anything to maintain my sobriety, I do not want to go back to the fear and pain I felt in my drinking days.
Sober is so much better.

by the time I was your age, I'd checked off a lot of the list of things you shared as well. I hadn't (yet) gotten my first (of two convictions and three arrests) DUI and I hadn't (yet) even begun to admit to myself that I had "a problem". That would come a lot later and at a lot greater cost.

I finally did get it. But not until I was 40 years old.

I hope you don't wait that long. I can tell you with sincerity and conviction that if you set aside all the excuses, all the doubts, all the BS and all the baloney rationale - and you just get yourself busy getting fully committed to a sober life as your absolute priority - your life will be incredible by comparison.

You've shared a story that many of us have lived. I can promise you - that life does NOT get better. It gets worse. It gets more painful. It impacts many others. It spreads the pain and destruction and eventually - it just kills you in some awful manner, killing the hearts and wounding the souls of those who care for you along the way.

In contrast - accepting the obvious and taking on the responsibility of making yourself into the best version of you that you possibly can by embracing sobriety with all you've got - will result in elevating your life to new heights, bringing about positive to those you care about and to many others in life.... it will turn the whole story around.

There is no drink, no high, no drug, no bottle, no buzz that will compare to a life of gratitude, sobriety and joy.

It's really as simple as that.

AA is a great start. This place is a great start. But know that no program or website or person apart from YOU is going to do it for you. You have to choose it. You have to choose it, then take ACTION to support it every day. It's simple, but it's not easy and it takes commitment and consistency and effort. Eventually, it gets a lot easier. Eventually, it gets wonderful. It's most often not like that for a while and you have to be ready to suffer a bit through the early days of putting in the pain and the work and the discomfort of the transformation.

Trust me though, it is so worth it.

Welcome

:grouphug:

Hi, tangledknot! Great post, glad you made the scene. SR can help you quit drinking and straighten yourself out.

Thanks for the encouragement! You hit the nail on the head with that quote! It definitely speaks to me. Sometimes I can get away with a bender unscathed, but more often than not, I end up with new wounds (literally and figuratively).

When I started comparing my drinking behaviors with other people I partied with, it became blatantly apparent that I use alcohol in a totally different way. For 75% of the night, it increases my fun...but I can't stop once I've started and when I do inevitably turn that corner into oblivion, there's no telling what will happen. Many, many people have pointed out my "alcoholic tendencies." It's pretty incredible that I've continued to drink for so many years after all of the mistakes I've made because of it. I feel pretty foolish.

Thank you so much for your response. It actually brought me to tears. My greatest fear is that I won't be able to quit and that it will get worse. I know that my family worries about me a lot already. It hurts me to know that I'm hurting other people. I can't imagine being rejected by my mother if I break her heart with this addiction.

I know that I'm an addict, but I don't understand the psychological mechanisms that drive addiction because I never wanted to know. I've always...discriminated, I guess you could say, against people that chose to be sober. I guess in my mind I thought that they were boring and unwilling to take risks.

Sobriety is a completely unexplored landscape for me. I'm not sure what to expect or if I should expect anything, but I really hope that you're right when you say that things get better eventually. I've been an emotional wreck so far, which as you can imagine, just makes me want to drink again. Day 2 complete. Gotta start somewhere I guess.

Hi tangledknot.

Can only add that I so wish I'd stopped when i knew i was different. I didn't. It got worse. "If only..." is hard to live with. Do it now. It's a new scary place to imagine journeying to, but when you get through the scary, foggy exit/entrance of drink/sobriety you will start to feel sooo much happier. We're all saying it as we've experienced it. It's the best we can get.