Binge drinking
 

I find I don't have to drink every day. If I know (for whatever reason), that I will only be able to have 2 drinks, I usually don't bother. But when I do drink, I don't get blackout drunk, but I have to have at least a bottle of wine and a couple of beers. I have tried to stop drinking several times during my life but the most I could do was almost 30 days. I feel so frustrated that I can't seem to control this. I have been tracking my drinking and lately I can't seem to go more than 4 days without anything to drink.

Welcome back Happy Camper. I think most of us reached a point in our life when our drinking became unmanageable/uncontrollable. The amount or frequency is not really as important as if it seems to be causing problems.

Is your goal to quit or to still find a way to control it?

I really don't know Scott. When I think of totally quitting, it seems so hard. I wish I could just control it, but I doubt that will happen. I wish I could just have a couple of drinks instead of having to stop completely.

Yep, that's the age old conundrum.....wanting to control it but knowing you can't control it. I tried desperately for years to find a way to moderate or control my drinking, but it never worked. The solution that set me free was to eventually just accept that I can't control my drinking - and that quitting completely was the best solution. I also had to quit trying to figure out "why" as there is no logical answer.

And yes, it's hard - but most things in life worth having aren't easy.

Once my mind focuses on having a drink I know that I am in for a 2-3 day binge. The shame after knowing that I am not fooling anyone creates so much anxiety in me that I think I am going crazy. I just need to deal with the intense cravings and triggers. That is my biggest battle.

Not going to speak for everyone. Although I do think this applies to everyone on this board, but I know some won't accept that, so I'll just speak for myself...

There is no "moderation" drinking for me. As an addict, and an alcoholic, that's just a fact. My brain doesn't let me "just have a couple". That is what defines me as an addict. It is not a desire to want a drink. It is not a desire to want to drink more than a few. It is literally my brain chemistry telling me that I NEED to drink, and that I NEED to drink MORE. There is no cure for that. It's nothing to be ashamed of, it's just something to accept and be cognizant of.

Welcome back, HappyCamper!

I tried controlling my drinking for a long time and it got worse and worse. It was truly exhausting and depressing. I found stopping completely was much easier . Yes, it's hard to imagine life without alcohol, but it can be done. If you look around here, you will see that many of us succeed and are happy.

Ditto for me - there were no such things as "moderation" or "controlled drinking" because I drank to get drunk, to wipe myself out. So for me it was "To drink, or not to drink?" Grateful that I chose the latter, as can you Happycamper109. Best wishes

Step 1 of AA is "We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable."

To me, "powerless over alcohol" means that once I have one drink, I can't stop when I want to. Or I can, but it's a huge effort and often fails. What kept me sober was realizing that I DO have power over alcohol if I don't drink at all. As far as life becoming unmanageable I took it to mean any negative consequences. Most of my drinking days were more like yours, binge drinking. However, like alcoholism for most, it escalated over the years, where the days of not drinking because I couldn't have more than two became fewer and fewer, the amounts increased, and I increasingly drank to passed out/blacked out.

Normal drinkers simply don't have these thoughts and conversations. If they want to drink, they drink, if they don't, they don't, and they stop when they want to, generally before negative consequences other than maybe a slight hangover.

Step 1 was the beginning of my road to sobriety, which was long and I threw everything I could at it. Ultimately I didn't use AA, but I do credit Step 1 with giving me a solid foundation.

Can you moderate? Possibly. Data on this site suggests that moderation is rarely successful, particularly over the long term, but I don't like the word "never." But chances are that you are at the beginning of a problematic relationship with alcohol that will only progress in a period ranging from months to decades. I went through phases of terrible binge drinking which progressed interspersed with long periods of relatively normal drinking. However, it ended badly for me, where I was told that if I didn't stop drinking I'd be dead within six months and that the only recommended course of treatment was medical detox and a full 30 days of inpatient rehab, at a minimum. Which I did, and it was there that I encountered Step 1.

I also determined that I was done negotiating with alcohol. Moderation, if you drink alcoholically, is not fun and a lot of work. If that's what it would take to be a moderate drinker it wasn't worth it.

Just my two cents. If you decide to get sober, what's your plan?

Tracking
 

Good job tracking your drinking. I still do it. At first just going a week was hard. A month seemed impossible. I'm past 8 months now. Keep trying. I was a binge drinker too. No moderation worked for me.

I could never moderate my drinking. I tried but it never worked.

It was much easier in the long run to quit completely. It was hard the first month or so, but it got easier the longer I was sober.

This is beginning to be a real good thread (at least for me). Thanks for starting it, HappyCamper! It is a thread I definately need to read. Especially in my weakest moments when my strongest cravings begin. I agree that my brain starts "needing a drink". My mind doesn't.

Glad you are back.

I was also a binge drinker who could have one or two in public but always wanted more. I could go 3-4 days or even a week with nothing but then shut myself up for a weekend and go through 3-4 bottles of wine and a six pack of beer. I know it sounds obvious, but when it really, REALLY hit me 1) how miserable the constant worrying about drinking, the hangovers, etc., were making me, and 2) that ALL of that could just go away if I took alcohol out of the equation...it was like a revelation. I didn't HAVE to feel so bad all the time. I didn't HAVE to worry if I had enough to drink in the house to last the night, or if I could drink enough to get drunk but still make it to work the next day, all that. It really can get better if you use whatever resources you can to help you say, Alcohol just isn't part of my life any more. You'll find lots of support here. :grouphug:

I am also a binge drinker.

I have often let myself think that those gaps are me "under control".

They very rarely, or perhaps never, are/were.

And even if I had my drinking under control. Well, its under "control". That means its an issue in the first place.

People with healthy relationships towards alcohol don't spend huge amounts of effort trying to "control" their drinking.

I dunno if that is relatable to you. Hope it is.

Welcome back happycamper.

I've been a binge drinker and an all day every day drinker - I think they're plot points on the same graph quite honestly - The things that kept me from drinking in the beginning - job, relationships, self respect - were no longer there at the end.,..

It can happen to anyone.

Noone needs to ride the crazy train to the end of the line though :)

The sooner you decide to do something definitive about this, the better I think?

D

Thank you, MindfulMan, of mentioning the idea of negotiation with the AV as pointless. It's an argument that I need to leave behind, just accepting that it's a losing proposition that drains me and can lead only to a return of negative consequences. I don't need to waste my energy that way.

I said that aloud at a 12 Step meeting during inpatient rehab, and three people asked me to repeat it. Over the next few days a number of people asked me about that statement. It really resonated, because it's so true. If you're not an alcoholic, moderation is just what you do. If you ARE an alcoholic, moderation is exactly that, a tiresome and endless negotiation that is often lost. If I'd tried to moderate after medical detox and five weeks in rehab, I might have been able to drink moderately...for a time. But nearly two years later, I'd either have realized that it was impossible and would have quit for good or been back to a crappy life of booze and rock bottom. Again.

I realized that drinking was far from a joy, it was a chore. As was all intoxication for me.

Yes, this.

If there’s a problem, you have to control it.
If there isn’t, you don’t.

Oh, the mental manipulations around my drinking. I had gym days, days the kids had things going on, days I had to work.....I literally spent most of my time snaking my mind around the days to drink and the days to recover, it was an unreal maze of scheduling. Days I drank I was off to the races (unreal amounts of alcohol) so I needed the drinking day plus the recovery day, needless to say, I missed the mark lots of times, I’d negotiate whether it was worse to do the hard workout, or the workday, after the entire bottle of gin the night before. Then I’d choose my schedule accordingly.

Oh, the sweating, sick, shaking, palpitations, feeling like I might die inside but wearing my game face. Work clothes drenched in sweat.

Game over. Thank God.

Just to echo what Dee said....so often people talk about (earlier on) being binge drinkers, and ultimately progressing to the all day/every day sort.

IMO and IME....it simply does not matter what "kind of drinker" anyone is, if you are an alcoholic like me.

Threads and shares like this always make me think of what AA calls bargaining. We can do it in innumerable ways:
"I never drink during the week"
"I only drink wine"
"I have two every night after work and they're never that big."
"It's not always that much"
It's...or it's not...

That word YET almost always enters the picture if we don't stop.

For me...I wasn't dead yet - when I finally stopped. I definitely would have reached that final YET in short order if I hadn't, regardless of the type of drinker I'd been at any point along the way.