WritingFromLife

Thanks Dee! That's the one i was looking for!

Red78

Thanks Dee, this was very powerful to read and very sad...

Berrybean

So, you don't want to die. But you don't want to consider long term sobriety.

Sounds like this could be problematic. You want help, but not with long term sobriety. What is it you DO want. You know that you're unlikely to ever be able to drink 'normally' right? And that when ever you do drink it's likely to lead to this kind of dangerous (for you and for others) behaviour. But as much as you don't want to die or feel like you're feeling now, you aren't willing to accept the solution to this (sobriety and recovery).

Sounds like you have some more drinking to do and a lower bottom to find. I hope that this doesnt prove fatal for someone (you or some hapless victim) and that you remember that this place and AA are there for you when you've done this and reached a more painful extreme of desperate and come back so folk can help you with sobriety.

BB

Rar

WOW! Very sad!

apollo986

I think you'll find that once you abstain from the alcohol, you will be less obsessive and compulsive in other areas of your life. You can do it!

wpainterw

I agree with Atomic Blue. The Twelve Steps and AA helped me for several years. I might really have been a goner without that. It seemed to me that the key was the companionship and encouragement. People are collective animals and alcoholism is a lonely illness. It helps to have other sufferers with you, supporting you and you supporting them. Do it together! And keep posting on SR! I'm sure you realize that it's crucial that you give up booze and other stuff.
Every good wish.

Bill

ProfessorD

How are you today, RobotGirl?

Algorithm

I would strongly encourage you to disregard this insipid remark entirely, RobotGirl. You've been to the pits already, and contrary to what some may suggest, there is no guarantee of a built-in barrier against further self-destruction, except death, which you apparently fear.

Your own dread fear of where you are headed, however, can certainly provide the impetus to do what needs to be done in order to save yourself. If you aren't afraid of where you are headed, it is unlikely that you will do anything to avoid going there, no?

Really think this through, and create your own 'moment of clarity', as they say. Do not wait for it to come, as if by miracle or accident. You can get off this destructive path that you have been on for so long at any time -- even today.

Sunflowerlife

I am a binge eater and have been learning about the higher vs lower brain in the example of binge eating. Your lower Brian (think primitive brain) is the one telling you that if you don’t stuff your face (or shop or have sex or drink) this very moment you are going to die. Your higher brain is the one who questions this thinking and absolutely knows in the moment that giving into your lower brain is going to cause problems.

If this resonates with you check out the podcast, “Brain Over Binge”. It’s based on a book with the same title.

The drinking is a bit more complicated obviously because there is also physical addiction but it is also very much a brain issue and habit which you can overide once you decide to stop giving into your urges and commit to your sobriety (and your life.) Give yourself a chance to live a meaningful existence. You are worth it.

Berrybean

My 'insipid' remark was based solely on the fact that when someone says "... it would be a lie to say I'm going to stop drinking.
I just need to know I'm not alone and maybe get some advice on how to stop binging so excessively. " they usually are in a place where they're still going to be drinking for while. And if alcoholics keep drinking, it doesn't get better, it gets worse. This addiction in its active form isnt pretty, and when an active alcoholic asks how they can carry on drinking but binge less excessively... well... It's hard to post back honestly and completely positively.

To clarify, there is nothing I'd like more than for you to change your mind and aim for sobriety. What do you think RG? Is it worth at least considering and giving a shot? If it was possible for you to moderate / control your drinking, chances are you'd have done that by now, prompted by some of the other disastrous consequences of your drinking that you detailed in you OP.
I went to my first AA meeting in the hopes of finding out how to drink normally. As someone there told me, if we had the answer to how an alcoholic could learn to drink normally there wouldn't be too many folk here. But the truth of it is, we can't reset that broken / faulty off switch. Once we drink, we're likely to DRINK, and that's the way it stays. And this thing is progressive, which means it gets worse over time.

BB

snitch

I went to AA last summer. I accepted i was an alcoholic and I was powerless over alcohol and my life had become unmanageable. After 2 months I drank. Why? Looking back now I was an alcoholic who, like you BB, wanted to drink normally. I even thought (I kid you not) that if I worked the steps and sorted myself out and became a better person, then I would be able to drink normally.

My last binge lasted 10 days. I fell one storey onto the concrete floor of a basement flat (a fall that you said paralysed your best friend) I mixed alcohol with xanax (you said you knew a woman in her 40's who died on her couch after mixing booze and pills).

I read your post last night and thought There but for the Grace of God, Go I. It really shook me up. I didn't even know what to post to you.

Forget about your other addictions/impulses for the time being. Eating mac n cheese every day in a row won't kill you. Drinking WILL. You are a YET my darling and you don't have to be. Please, please really re think your decision to continue drinking and get some help.

Lots of love to you x x

snitch

I went to AA last summer. I accepted i was an alcoholic and I was powerless over alcohol and my life had become unmanageable. After 2 months I drank. Why? Looking back now I was an alcoholic who, like you BB, wanted to drink normally. I even thought (I kid you not) that if I worked the steps and sorted myself out and became a better person, then I would be able to drink normally.

My last binge lasted 10 days. I fell one storey onto the concrete floor of a basement flat (a fall that you said paralysed your best friend) I mixed alcohol with xanax (you said you knew a woman in her 40's who died on her couch after mixing booze and pills).

I read your post last night and thought There but for the Grace of God, Go I. It really shook me up. I didn't even know what to post to you.

Forget about your other addictions/impulses for the time being. Eating mac n cheese every day in a row won't kill you. Drinking WILL. You are a YET my darling and you don't have to be. Please, please really re think your decision to continue drinking and get some help.

Lots of love to you x x

Algorithm

Kathryn Hansen used the Addictive Voice Recognition Technique (AVRT) from Rational Recovery to finally stop her own binge eating once and for all. She describes how she did so in her book, Brain Over Binge.

AVRT was originally developed for ending drug addiction, however, so it is no less suited towards that task.

DontRemember

After a 'share' at an AA meeting an old man told me "you're not done drinking yet." I think I was maybe 30-40days sober and I was livid at his remark...That weekend I went out with my now ex and had 3 drinks throughout the night..the following week and month,I was back to drinking. Total surrender is needed for sustained sobriety IME and i've tried every way under the sun/moon to drink 'normally'.

Algorithm

Perhaps, but profound self-doubt in one's capacity to end the spiral of destruction is nevertheless a hallmark of active addiction. There is no need to suggest that someone in that predicament continue doing the very thing they already believe they cannot escape from doing, on the assumption that they may come to their senses before self-destructing. In fact, they may not.

Even Bill Wilson wrote of 'raising the bottom'.

DangerZone

First you need to get the thought of 'I'm not going to stop drinking,' out of your head. You will stop drinking if you truly want to. Believe in yourself otherwise you don't have much of a chance at beating this.

If you don't stop drinking what happened before will happen again and it is only going to get worse.. You'll get raped again. You'll get another DUI. You'll sleep with some random guy and regret it. Worse you'll probably kill someone driving drunk and might get a long prison sentence...

I was just like you. I fed myself lies in order to keep drinking. I told myself I would be different the next time I got drunk but I never was. The drunk me is the drunk me. Sure there'd be a time or two when I would drink and be fine but that was luck. Drinking for me is like playing Russian roulette. It was a matter of time before something bad happened.

Look at all the bad events that have happened to you due to drinking. Why would you want to risk those events happening again? Don't drink it's not worth it. Do whatever it takes to quit because based on your post if I had to guess you are lucky to be alive today. Your luck is eventually going to run out.

Dee74

Hows it going RobotGirl?

D