thomas11

I was able to finally to stay sober from October of 2015 to November of 2019 and relapsed over the holidays. Drank every weekend for roughly 6-8 weeks, things spiraled (as expected) and I was able to put an end to it in January 2020.

I reflected on my alcohol use recently and it was interesting. I really didn't start drinking until college. Some of the best times in my life were during social events while drinking or being drunk. Memories for a lifetime. And it was fun, it was really really fun. Then it became a little less fun and less memorable. At some point I had my first dark episode where it was no fun at all, in fact it was painful and sad. Over time it seems that the fun was not there 99% of the time. And the dark episodes continued. In addition to the mentally dark times, the physical toll started to show. I asked myself: how did something so fun become so miserable? How could this happen? I don't know the answer to that and I'm not sure it matters. I know I can't drink.

Question to forum is do you agree its progressive and reaches a tipping point where we simply must let it go to save ourselves?

doggonecarl

Yes, alcoholism is progressive. I also believe that it progresses when we are not drinking. I've seen people sober for some time relapse and it's like they had never stopped drinking--to the point where their drinking is worse than when they stopped. That can only happen if the condition is progressive.

DreamCatcher17

For me,
I blacked out in high school, often when I drank.
Then I went to Meth, so I was not blacking out
Went sober from Meth and 2 years later alcohol was reintroduced...
This time it was progressive (it was bad, to begin with, but just got progressively worse)
My drinking in my early 20's was every weekend and to blackout
I kept this up for many years slowly and painfully until I had to stop in order to save myself.
I have NO desire whats so ever to drink. That would be the stupidest most irresponsible thing I could ever do.

nez

That was definitely my experience. Very true for me.

Surrendered19

I certainly don't know the answers to any of your questions. I'm nearly 4 months sober after non-stop drinking for 30+ years. I will not ever drink again but I somehow instinctively know that if I had one drink, it would be like I had never stopped. Maybe that means as Doggoncarl said that you keep getting a worse case of addiction even when you aren't using. Yet another great reason to never drink again.

PeaceManic

I've been a pretty heavy drinker all my adult life. In my mid thirties now and benders usually leave me feeling on deaths door or in hospital. There's a massive purely physical progression, in my early twenties I could drink two bottles of wine and barely have a hang over. Before that, I even had a limit and could put down a drink before I had too much!

Now I have to drink loads to get any buzz, and it does ten times the damage. It's dead end street.

lessgravity

Yes definitely, almost exactly as you describe. I never believed harmful drinking was "progressive" until it progressed. Grateful to be free.

Thanks for the post Jeff.

HeadEast

This was definitely my experience also.

Gettingcloser

Your drinking timeline could be superimposed on my time line and it would be an almost perfect match.
There was a time when I thought who the h*ll would choose not to drink? Like you, a lot of my best times involved drinking but when it went wrong it went so horribly wrong.

Callas

Yip, totally progressive. Unfortunately the earlier “good times” with booze are forever lost. Only the horrid remains.

Billymacintosh

Definitely progressive, although I feel I've been a blackout drunk on occasion since my early twenties and I'm 41 now. Although I've managed (I think) to stay out of serious trouble I'd starting reflecting on tbe fact that most of my time out of work was engineered around my drinking and I was sick of the shame and anxiety that went with every hangover, plus the fact I could never remember going to bed
I knew it could only escalate from there, hence I have quit.
'Nothing changes if nothing changes'


​

Hevyn

That's almost exactly how it went for me, too. My mistake was in not admitting it was no longer fun or exciting - I kept insisting it could be if I could control it better. Chasing that time in my life where I had some control cost me everything.

Billymacintosh

It's amazing how long you can convince yourself you can control it isn't it? I bloody tried to convince myself I could, despite overwelming evidence to the contrary!

DriGuy

My drinking was like yours, fun at first with a gradual change from fun to necessary, and after about 25 years, what by then was heavy drinking, changed to a hideous spiral. That became a nightmarish freak show. OK, that's one kind of progressive drinking.

When I quit, I quit and never looked back, so I don't have any personal experience with progression that continues during an absence of drinking. When I first heard that I questioned it, but I hear about it now so often that I think it's probably true.

But that freak show at the end was so bad, it never occurred to me to test the waters. I believe I'd probably start back drinking somewhere in the spiral, possibly worse. I don't believe I would somehow be normal, and since my life has been better ever since I quit, I can't think of one reason to go out and have even a taste of someone else's drink. That has never been a struggle for me. There is nothing luring me back. My AV hardly ever mentions it, and when he does, I chuckle at him as if he's a petulant child.

Kdon853

Absolutely

ciowa

Prior to intensive outpatient, I was never taught that things would get worse over time, but thats exactly what happened with me. I always thought you could "reset" your clock if you only changed other things about the way you drank. So when I started to lose control of drinking I would try things like changing my sleeping patterns, exercising more, diet changes, switching up the alcohol and all that. None of that worked. f

I had a lot of fun memories from my earlier days when I didn't drink as often. I tended to drink in groups of friends at social gatherings. We'd go hard for a night and then recover the next day and go about our business. As I got older, those groups of people all moved away and I got more responsibilities in life.

A few years back I started going to the bars by myself and it felt weird at first to be out drinking by myself. But I soon built a lot of connections at the bars with everyone and I really went downhill at that point.

The bars became the starting point for what would eventually turn into several days of out of control drinking. I'd start off in the bar and then barely sleep for the next few days, not eat, no water, just drinking liquor by myself in my place. After several days I'd even start to become delusional, talking to people on the phone and telling them about things that obviously didn't happen. It was scary whenever I came to and realized how much I couldn't remember and the wreck my apartment was in. Not to mention how worried my friends and family were from not hearing from me for a few days.

The irony was that even though things were going to hell, I always started these benders by thinking my night was going to end with funny memories, like when I was younger, and that I was going to go home, pass out and get up and take care of business in the morning. I realized those days were gone and got into IOP. There i learned about progression and how I was a classic case of this. So I knew it was time to say goodbye to those days because life was going to be better in recovery.

2ndhandrose

"Alcohol and time:

The early years - Alcohol = fun

The middle years - Alcohol = fun + consequences

The later years - Alcohol = consequences

We can't turn back the clock."

Definitely progressive.

Dee74

The first time I drank, without family around, I finished a bottle of Southern Comfort.

I remember being very sick later.
That should have been a warning for me - but it wasn't.

How does fun become not fun?

if you do it thousands of times over twenty years like I did you're going to change physically and mentally.

What was fun in the beginning and easily rationalised - 'so I drank too much who doesn't? - was medicine by the end, and not fun at all.

I'm lucky. I 'let go' in time.

I know people in my life - and people from this website - who did not let go, either in time, or at all.

D

Mac4711

Oh yes, agree 100%!

BackandScared

I have drank more and more over the years. I don't think I realised it while it was happening, but it was not only how much I drank that changed ever so slowly (but steadily) but also how I was drinking and why.

Did not drink much at all until I was well into my 20s.

I would only drink sporadically partying at WEs in my mid-20s.

When I hit 30 and met my husband I started drinking often, at home, as a 'grown-up', with meals, going out, etc. Until I found myself looking for excuses to have a drink. It was becoming an issue but I became pregnant and I quit. I stopped breastfeeding when my baby was 6 months old because I really wanted a drink.

I was drinking every night (mummy's little helper) despite having a small child depending on me. But I got pregnant again. This time I breastfed for a year.

And then, the same happened but much faster. I started drinking daily very fast. When it was obvious that my drinking was not normal I stop looking for excuses to share alcohol with my husband, have one by myself, and I started drinking alone and hiding it.

I was not that bad (I told myself): only in the evenings until I started earlier and earlier; I was holding a job and I was not drink driving. But I was always unable to drive and my job was suffering. Until I woke up with withdrawals 8 months ago and decided not to drink to stop them.

Basically, I have quit drinking several times and this gave me the feeling I was controlling. However, every time I came back to it harder. The last 2 years of drinking were a nightmare. I don't want to know how much worse it can be if I go back. I really hope I don't make that mistake.