Ghostlight1

I hear ya. I found that identity very hard to let go. It was who I was.
A heavy drinker. An alcoholic drinker.
And I lived the life. I worked with heavy drinkers. I had friends who were heavy drinkers. It's all I knew. For thirty years.
How was I supposed to change that?

But it got worse. A lot of things happened I won't go into, but it was progressive.
I started drinking all day and night. When not recovering, I was drunk.
I had to change things if I wanted any hope of being a viable human being.
I took action. I listened to directions from people who had been where I was.
I wanted what they had, and it took me quite awhile, but I finally got it.
That was over ten years ago.
I'm no longer pushing the boundaries of how far I could take my drinking. I found out and it was a very dark place.

Best to you in quitting drinking. It doesn't have to be who you are and, believe me, you don't want to see how far you can take drinking. Alcohol will win. It'll kick you in the ass, as it did me.

DontRemember

Personal accountability.. Is what im getting at.. I,nor you, should care what your roomates do. I 'blamed' my drinking on a lot of things.. Exwf,exgf,business/work,ect.. It all came down to me and at a court ordered AA meeting an old dude told me to "dumb it down and stop trying to over think it".. He helped me get sober.

Dee74

I pushed the envelope as far as anyone can without dying (and that happens too - I've seen it here)

I really regret not getting sober sooner. I wasted a lot of years.

There's nothing inevitable about drinking again.There are thousands of peopel here staying sober no matter what.

You could do the the same.
You don't want to wake up one morning and find a decades gone by.

Tetrax

All right, fair enough. I guess this whole post though is me fighting withdrawals (in the wrong way, admittedly). I can't wait to see the dawn, basically (though by that I mean the metaphorical dawn, not the actual dawn about to happen in England: of that I am terrified...)

DontRemember

look,man..my advice; go watch the sunrise and 'talk/think to yourself' some refer to it as prayer, but im not religious. The sunrise and sunset have been huge in my recovery.. Makes 'me' and my nonsense seem so small..cant hurt.

Tetrax

Yep. My housemates talk like that too.

Can't wait to move out.

snitch

It's a sneaky, cunning, horrible progressive disease.

From the Big Book of AA....

A VISION FOR YOU

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination.

It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it. There was always one more attempt—and one more failure.

The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened, ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places, hoping to find understanding companionship and approval. Momentarily we did—then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous Four Horsemen—Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration, Despair. Unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand!

Linked with the permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

....
that was me. Always trying to chase the old 'Good times' I had to surrender. It wasnt like that for me for a looooong time and it never ever will be again. It's so much easier now at 11months since I ceased fighting and I have zero doubt in my mind that of I were to pick up a drink today I would be right where I left off. Actually no it would more than likely be worse. I have had all the battles of why I am like this, when did it happen, when did it change. The answers I have come up with? I just dont know. And really it doesn't matter to me anymore. I just am.

August252015

I was just on a podcast talking about my recovery and so on.

My path was progressive - and I see that in clarity only in retrospect, for real. Not while it was going, and YES, like you I sorta kinda got it was headed that way - but didn't want it to.

Something I loathed accepting for a long time, that I talked about on air: WHY. If I could just figure out why I drank - if it could just be ANY other reason than I was an alcoholic and just could not do it -that would be that and I could handle drinking normally! And, yeah, I've identified a bit of any "why" since I quit drinking - but it doesn't matter in terms of me STILL BEING AN ALCOHOLIC who can't drink.

Nope.

And, you have to get all of the sh*t out of your system to figure any of this out.

Do you want to live? Yes? Then get sober and piece by piece you can deal with appropriate meds, what your self is like now and so on -it's not easy but it is the only way.

You know what's not working. Exactly what you are doing.

Mummyto2

No time like the present to put the bottle down, we never know when we will run out of tomorrows

August252015

FOR THE RECORD, Tetrax: I can personally and officially call BS on any variation of I'm a bartender, etc that you have about any of this. Keeping a job there, losing a job there, getting f*ed up no matter what- it's that last part that simply isn't inevitable; the first two simply cannot matter to you as excuses to keep going. If you want to stop.

I work in the restaurant industry, was at my alcoholic worst in it, stayed in when I got sober and live in it sober. And beyond that, live in it WELL.

DR and I - and Dee too - are all telling you variations of what you need to hear - HAVE to hear and accept- and don't want to.

We've ALL been there.

It's up to you- quit the BS and live, or keep going and eventually die.

Yeah, I'd wager you're headed that way sooner or later based on everything you've told us.

And you know what? I'd also wager that the thoughtfulness and searching that you have described COULD be just what someone said above: a great thing to see you develop as a sober person.

Finalround

Tetrax, pick a side.

Yes, alcoholism is progressive.
Yes, it became unmanageable for me.
When did it happen? Probably shortly before my join date here. Makes sense that most of us came here when we new drinking had changed.

Trying to salvage a bar tending job (and drinking life) in spite of your declining mental and physical well being by choice is a big red flag.

Stop trying to taper. It is a mostly unsuccessful technique but it seems you are using it as excuse to keep drinking.

If you are waiting for the bottom, you may be getting close. What are you hoping will be so bad that you will be forced to quit? Jail time would do it. Irreparable organ failure might.

You keep posting. Clearly a call for help. People here are giving you all the help they can. In many different tones. You clearly don't like the direct advice and you ignore the suttle advice.

At some point it's up to you to make the choice to not drink and get the help you need to stop.

I wish you well. As does everyone else here.

Hawkeye13

Tetrax, I was also very "bulletproof" and drank loads frequently with little to no negative physical consequences. My euphoria / fun "window" was long and I had a great time. That acutally lasted until mid forties for me. Now I'm mid fifties, and it has progressed for the worse. Now my "window of fun" is an hour or two if I'm lucky. I sometimes blackout now, and I have trouble processing the alcohol in my system just as you are describing for yourself. I assume that's the beginning of organ failure due to the abuse from the booze.

Even when you quit, you don't get "reset' back to square one. It just picks up where you left off or worse. I can't "hold" nearly the amounts of hard booze in particular that I used to be able to drink and barely notice a buzz.

I realized I either had to quit or proceed with the self-destruct alcoholic sequence I've seen in so many others. I wasn't having "fun", I couldn't sleep well for days after drinking, and my paranoia, anxiety, self-loathing, and fear kept increasing with each binge.

Increasing costs, including physical and mental decline, decreasing payoff of fun and connection with others, leading ultimately to death and the destruction of my life and relationships.

That's sounds like where you are, or will be soon. I feel you--it is hard to give up the party life, the fun, but it is already gone, isn't it?

I chose life and sobriety--I thought it would be sterile and boring, and the first weeks were hard, but sobriety has surprised me.

It is rich and joyful.
I enjoy waking up and seeing the sun come up, being in Nature, having "real" conversations instead of drunken philosophical pontification.
Being present and reliable for friends and family.
Liking myself again.
Body has healed and is strong and free of pain once more--I look ten years younger now.

That's the "price" I've paid to give up booze for good and get sober.
Increasing quality of life and hope for the future once more, and decreasing pain and suffering & physical and mental decline.


A good investment Tetrax--I suggest you seriously consider it

biminiblue

Tetrax, like August I got sober in my early thirties while living the bartender life. I worked at TGIF in the late 70s and early 80s and I got sober while working there and remained sober while working there for ten years. If you want to quit, no one has any say over that and there are many sober bartenders. What other people do or how they drink is not your business.

Okay that's out of the way.

Stop giving yourself excuses. That's all they are. Looking for a definition and/or a reason why it happens is a fool's errand and not necessary in order to stay quit.

Step one. Admit you don't drink in a normal, one-or-two-per-day way. Admit it is out of control. You can use the panic attacks or the cocaine use or the buying a bottle of vodka when you don't like vodka as indicators, but it's out of control, yeah?

Then stop.

I had increasingly bad outcomes from drinking. The only way to stop those outcomes?

Stop putting drinks and drugs in my mouth. Only I could make that decision, and I also had to be the Enforcer.

You are a precious child of God. You are standing on holy ground, Tetrax. Rise to the occasion.

DriGuy

I went for years easily recognizing that I was a "heavy drinker," and I had no problems with it. I liked my alcohol. I functioned in my job, and most of the time, didn't make too big of ass out of myself. I noticed at one point, that I very occasionally raised some eyebrows. Not that anyone said anything, but I just picked up that some people were reacting oddly when I was drinking. You know, not the usual slap on the back and a friendly, "You're a great sport, Buddy!" While this struck me as odd, it was just occasionally.

None of this spelled progression for me. I was just being me and being pretty happy about it. In retrospect, I see it now as the progressive nature of alcoholism. It was slow, and if the progression would have maintained the same rate, I might have drank until I died, probably with some regrets about a life unfulfilled and a few resentments against others that hindered my happiness.

But at a point, I entered a spiral of uncontrollable drinking. I was running into friends and coworkers in grocery stores and public places while I was drunk. I was waking up in the middle of the night and finishing off the bottle that still had whisky in it. I started driving at 40 miles to a different liquor store, to hide my consumption from the local clerk. Nothing about this was fun. I was alone with my bottle, and that became a preferred state. There was this sense that my life had strayed off course, and I couldn't do anything about it. I stayed in the spiral for two years, getting worse month by month.

And then I quit, which of course is the same old story of struggle and change that all of us here experienced.

nez

I was bulletproof up to the point I realized that it was no longer a choice...I needed to drink.

WeThinkNot

The second time I attempted sobriety I had about 2-3 months before the usual BS justifications..."I have it under control"..."I'm bored". So I went out on a Saturday evening with the intention of just getting a nice buzz. I blacked out and had a terrible hangover the next day.

But the consequences were even worse. Before I had been an evening drinker/weekend binger. Now I was a 24/7 drinker. Drinking on my way to work. Sneaking drinks on my lunch break. Sneaking drinks on my smoke break. Drinking on the way home.

I knew I was an alcoholic for a long time and that I was slowly killing myself. Once I started the round the clock drinking is when the dread sunk in and I realized the depths of my addiction. Were my organs going to fail? Was I going to die in a fiery car wreck and kill innocent people? Was I going to get arrested and spend time in jail? Was I going to mouth off to the wrong person at a bar and end up in a hospital?

I have absolutely no illusions about what will happen to me if I were to start drinking again. Dead within a year, likely much sooner.

August252015

THAT. Or, as someone said the other day, "he knows he's escaped the hangman's noose too many times to try again."

I never got a white chip and I don't have one in me.

rayna87

I couldn’t agree more that it’s so progressive. And unfortunately a very fast progression at that. I feel like one day I was drinking socially, with friends, totally fine and normal....then the next day I was drinking in the mornings, at work, stashing wine to bring with me everywhere I went. I have no idea where or when it got out of control, that’s the scary part.

DriGuy

So was I. The transition to "not a choice" can be slow and unnoticeable, and I think I lived in that state for a long time. Then one day you decide not to drink so much. That's when you have that scary recognition that you can't stop drinking so much. You never realized that before because you didn't bother slowing down, but here you are addicted to a substance. You didn't plan it, but you made it to full blown alcoholism and all the benefits that come with it, and you didn't even have to work at being an alki.

Kdon853

Of course there were great times alcohol was the best. I drank to keep it together then it all feel apart . Don’t know exactly when. I know I tried to recapture the “fun” for 10 yrs never got there. Finally put it down . No more questions no excuses , that was awful also not happy not drinking or drinking. Had to get rid of the self pity and the whys. Took a while