Element115

Hi everyone,

i apologise for this lengthy post but I’m hoping I can get at least some advice or answers as I’ve never talked about my alcoholism to anyone otter than my own internal monologue!

Firstly, it’s important to mention that I had a great upbringing, came from a good, loving, middle class family (none of whom have problems with addiction - in fact I’m the only one out of several immediate family members that even smokes). There was no trauma in my childhood (other than my parents divorce when I was 7, but it was an ‘easy’ separation, they never argued and are still Friends today. I was just a very emotional child)

I’m 35 years old and had my first drink when I was 13 or 14. I began weekend binge drinking (as most youngsters do) at around 16. At 18/19 I began to drink on my own when I could. If I had the house to myself I’d raid my parents drinks cupboards, get smashed, watch telly, dance around to music. It was just a fun thing to do and certainly not a way to drown my sorrows or forget about the world.

When I left school i struggled to find work that I enjoyed and spend several years going from temp job to temp job, I felt like a failure and was falling behind my peers who were beginning to pave decent careers out for themselves. I lived for the weekend. If I was ever out of work, I would head into London looking for jobs but always end up in the pub and sinking a few vodka and cokes - mainly out of boredom. Eventually I decided to go to university at 23 and study music (I knew a career wouldn’t come of it but I felt it would be good for my soul to do something I loved and a chance to move away, start a new life, fend for myself, meet new people and have a little enjoyment in life. I soon realised that I could drink whenever I wanted. We went out most nights and those nights we didn’t, I would lock myself in my room and get drunk, much like I did as a teenager - because it was fun). I of course drank A LOT in those 3 years. When I eventually graduated, I decided to stay living in the city I studied at. My drinking habits didn’t change. In fact they got worse. As all my friends inevitably returned to their home towns I found myself completely alone. Every time I drank, it would be in my room, alone, most nights. At that time I was drinking a 35cl bottle of vodka at least 4 or 5 nights a week. But again, I wasn’t depressed, in fact I was loving it. I could do what I wanted. Eventually I found work in hospitality and formed a band (which now, 8 years on is one of the most successful wedding and function bands in the country), and began dating a local girl. Life was perfect. But I was still drinking. I even started drinking on night shifts. This is when I finally began to question myself eventually having to accept that I was an alcoholic, but even that took a couple of years of making excuses to myself.

Everyone has always known me as someone “who likes a drink”, but no one knew I was drinking so much on my own until my girlfriend (we’d been together around 4 years at this stage) found loads of empty hidden bottles (classic!). I made excuses and she naively believed me. We moved in together and that’s when it became difficult to hide my drinking (although I still somehow managed it). I would spend a couple of evenings each week writing music and she knew I was drinking when I would do that (it’s something I’ve always liked to do, get drunk and produce music). We eventually broke up on equal terms after 7 years but I know in my heart, it was mainly down to things that were affected, indirectly, by my drinking habits.

my drinking then escalated and I took a lot of cocaine too in the months following on. (cocaine is something that I’ve always dabbled in from time to time. The odd bag every few months, certainly not an addiction).

I soon met another girl (we don’t live together) and we’ve been together nearly two years. She knows I “like a drink” and even knows I drink alone when I’m being productive with music. But I still don’t think she knows the extent and certainly not my history with alcohol.

I can easily go days without drinking, I could go a week or two without if I really tried, but it’s never been longer than a week. For example, if I spent a few days visiting my family I won’t get a craving at all. I don’t even really like just having 1 drink in the pub on a sunny afternoon (and if I did, I could easily stick to the one drink). I never wake up wanting a drink although I have drank in the day time alone on a few occasions over the years purely out of boredom.

my main problem is, if I’m on my own I drink, and I also don’t have an off switch when I’m on my own. When I’m in the company of others, even if they’re having a drink or two, I can happily go without. A lot of the time, it’s not even a craving when alone, It’s more “well, I might as well” or “I can do I will”). And like always, I’ll have a fun night on my own, listening to and making music, watching comedy, watching “mind expanding”. documentaries or videos etc etc. I’ve never drowned my sorrows, so to speak. At this point in my life though I’ll buy a 35cl and 3 pint cans or 2 bottles of white wine and 2 pint cans, or at most a 70cl bottle of vodka. I can’t handle any more than that. I’ll usually do that 3 times a week. I’ve recently started tracking my drinking and I’m averaging out at around 50 or 60 units a week. Which I think a lot of alcoholics would say isn’t very much - Adrian Chiles’ 100 units a week made me feel a little better about myself if I’m being honest. But I’m trying not to justify my alcohol intake as I know it’s far more than the norm. Especially that I’m drinking on my own! My current goal is to continue with the amount I drink but leave 3 days between each session, that’ll mean just 2 days heavy drinking a week at roughly 40-50 units a week.

I no longer get traditional hangovers. No headache, no nausea. Just very tired and around 10 hours after my last drink I begin to get incredibly anxious and suffer mild but prolonged panic attacks. I’ve started taking a low dose of Xanax whenever this happens which helps hugely. Does anyone else suffer from this anxiety? My stools are usually normal but the entire day after a drinking session I have horrible diarrhoea which is usually very dark in colour with a slight green to it (sorry for the graphic description but I’m just wondering if that is a sign? It’s just that it’s normally fine so Im unsure)

Although I am happy and enjoy life and the beauty it offers, I am very Much still in the same rut than caused me to want to go to uni - I’m an underachiever and really have nothing to show - I have no saving, don’t own a house (or even drive), no children and most importantly to me, no career. I feel this may be the cause of my drinking as it really started around the time I failed pretty much all of my GCSE’s (even though I’m a fairly smart person, I just didn’t put the effort in)

On the outside I would appear healthy, and apart from chronic laziness and severe lack of motivation and discipline, I feel ok. I have yearly blood tests for liver function and they always come back “clear”.

my questions really are -

- at this stage, how damaged is my body.

- how much longer can I continue on this oatg until some serious damage becomes visible

- what do I need to do so see a specialist (I think hearing the truth from a doctor will make me think about things more seriously- I kinda feel like I’m ‘getting away with it’)

- what type of addiction do I have? Physical? Psychological?? Do I just have very low will power?

- what options are there for me, judging by my story? Therapy?? Medication?

- as I feel I’m truly not psychologically addicted, is it possible for me to ever drink in moderation



sorry for the long post but it’s time now for me to really open up to people with experience and for me to seriously start considering ways out of this.

thanks for reading

Mizz

Welcome to SR!
It is so good you have found this forum. Thank you for sharing your story and it sounds like you are in the right place.

As for your questions:
1) We dont know

2) We dont know

3) Set an appointment with your GP and tell them of your situation in all honesty.

4) You get to decide if you are an alcoholic or not. Low willpower? My alcoholism doesnt allow for any kind of willpower no matter how much I try to will the power. It has a life of its own.

5) You have many many options. One of them is to quit drinking and see what happens. Therapy is there for you if you want it and has been known to help many people whether they have an alcohol use problem or not. Medications for what? To not drink? Stop drinking and see what happens.

6) I dont know if you can drink in moderation. I cannot drink in moderation. Have you tried to drink in moderation? When I try to moderate I end up drinking ALL the alcohol. Its quite the epic battle for me.

From my perspective, you are consuming a good amount of alcohol and it seems like it is not doing anything good for you.
Why not give sobriety a chance and see where it might lead?

Element115

[QUOTE=Mizz;7600680]Welcome to SR!
It is so good you have found this forum. Thank you for sharing your story and it sounds like you are in the right place.[QUOTE]

Hi Mizz,

thanks for responding. It’s certainly a very personal battle for all!

I guess the first step is to accept, which I’ve done.

second step for me, definitely an open and honest chat with my GP!

D122y

I apologize too if I miss some important detail or appear short in my answer.

Part of me doesn't trust newbie's to stick around, but the trusting part wants to help and hopes I can save a starfish like I was saved (by this site).

The most correct answer is see a Dr. Taking advice from a recovering addict (me) might lead a person to end up hurting themselves or worse.

I didn't see a Dr for personal reasons. I took advice from so many folks, some of them directly quoting what they learned seeing a Dr.

There is much much much more, but I am going to stop there for now.

Read around this site. The essence of my new lifestyle is founded on brain normalization.

That is all for now.

Thanks.

advbike

Welcome, Element. That's a long story. I can relate to some of it as I also started out slow in life, didn't finish college until a decade later, and drank very heavily in my 20's due to anxiety, which it only makes worse. I did manage to get on a career track though, in IT. But everything involved drinking until my liver tests were bad in my early 30's and I quit for a couple years. That helped, but my divorce threw me back into it. I eventually pulled it together enough to have a good career but my relationships always suffered and now that I look back I wish so much that I had stayed off the booze when I first quit, at your age. Instead I dragged it out over another couple decades and lost much of the opportunity that life gave me.

I'll be blunt here. 60 units is a lot of alcohol. Undoubtedly you are doing damage, both physical and mental, whether it is showing up on tests or not. What you also may not have realized yet is that addiction, by it's very nature makes us selfish, because it comes before the other aspects of our lives. Addiction is avoidance of life, not embracing it and becoming the most we can. It is a destroyer.

I hope you stick around. Read some posts, join the March group. There is a tremendous amount of support here if you decide you want to get sober and have a good life. Man, you're still young enough to have a great life if you want it.

biminiblue

You won't read any stories here about problem drinkers becoming normal drinkers. They're like unicorns.

You will read a lot of stories here about people who want to or tried to become a normal drinker. You can also read Alcoholics Anonymous famous Big Book (for free on its site, aa.org) and it describes the whole thing pretty well. Where you are now is just a dot on the line of progression of the disease. It will get worse, not better.

I hope you decide to stop drinking. It really doesn't do anything good and it wants to kill you.

Bottom line? If drinking is causing problems the solution is to stop drinking.

Welcome to the site.

Anna

Welcome.

It would be a good idea to talk to your doctor to discuss any physical damage to your body.

Since we are all different, no one can predict how long it will take to cause damage to your body.

To see a specialist, it would probably be a good idea to start with your family doctor.

Addiction is not about will power. And, only you can decide if you are an alcoholic or not. If alcohol is causing problems in your life, then stopping drinking is the solution.

Medication would be something to talk to your doctor about. Therapy or some kind of counselling could be helpful because recovery involves much more than stopping drinking.

Once you cross the invisible line to alcoholism, there is no going back. I think most, if not all of us here, have attempted to control our drinking and failed.

BackandScared

You seem to be at that stage when you know you have a problem but you are not ready to accept the solution to the problem. You think you can stop, but you actually do not stop. So many times I have been there: totally convinced I could quit whenever I wanted to, followed at times by 2 or 3 days/a week without drinking to reassure myself.

Your panic attacks are probably not only in your mind. your heart is probably racing, your blood pressure spiking, your body trying to recover. And you give it Xanax, which masks the symptoms for a while. You are at risk of becoming addicted to that too. Any of these medicines can be extremely useful for a temporary problem. They are just adding another (massive) issue to the mix, when you are trying to fix an alcohol problem.

My panic attacks disappeared when I quit. It took months, but anxiety became much much better in a few weeks. I am extremely grateful I never took medicines for anxiety. It would have prolonged the agony; a big motivation to quit was the anxiety it caused the day after. The need to drink earlier to cover it up. If I had used another substance I would be still drinking (or dead).

I quit at the age of 47 (did not drink until much later than you it seems too). You have many young years ahead of you.

Hevyn

Welcome, Element - I'm glad you posted.

I had the same background as you - I didn't drink to escape a horrible childhood or any sort of trauma. I just loved it from day one. It seemed to help with my self-consciousness. Instead of trying to figure out why I was uncomfortable in certain situations, I got numb & foggy. I continued that behavior on & off for decades. Over time, I lost all control - and that's the danger. You say you can still have one drink & leave it at that. I was once able to do that, too - but when I hit my 50's I was drinking every day with a life in ruins. I never imagined there'd be a day when I couldn't use willpower to control my drinking - but that day came.

There is cause for concern here, Element - I hope you'll stay with us.

Scd619x

I recently had a very honest chat with our family GP. I told him i was drinking about 70-80 units a week and was worried at mid 40s how long i could keep going and that i needed blood tests etc. He replied to me that i had a blood test a few years ago at my request for everything and nothing came back concerning so i didn't need another. I said i was worried about cirrhosis to which is got his annoyed 'i have real patients to see' look and he told me that even i drank a bottle of whisky a day for the next 2 decades i would be hard pushed to get the earliest stage of cirrhosis and afterwards, if continuing the same drinking it would not be the cirrhosis that finally ended up killing me. He said i'm far more likely to die from an accident than die of anything medical associated with my level of drinking. He asked me if i was worried about my drinking and how it affected me? To which i snorted yes of course! He said well if i was doing something that worried me that much i would stop doing it, then hurried me away. I hate that guy.

ciowa

Welcome to SR.

I dont really know anyone who was an out of control drinker after taking their first drink. Instead it happened over a period of time. At one time, many of those who develop a problem were considered "normal drinkers" because they were able to turn it on and off for awhile. It could even be years they were able to do this and then one day they weren't able to control it.

The loss of control can happen despite the amount of units drank per day or the number of times someone drinks per week. If one is trying to stick to a quota then chances are they realize something is not right. And quotas get harder to stick to the more you keep drinking. They increase in quantity and duration to justify the loss of control.

A lot of folks have an awareness that their drinking is a problem but might not take any action on it or will take action once a lot of damage has been done. its good you are at least looking at things in your life and asking for insights. There are also some podcasts, books and other resources out there in addition to the forum. Keep reading and learning because this is a good time to take in knowledge and think about what it all means for you.

Tanky

Hello Element, and welcome!

so good that you are taking an honest look at what is happening for you.

Others have already given great advice about seeking help from doctors etc. Based on what you have said, you may or may not be an alcoholic. Only you get to decide that.

But here is the thing, I can pretty much tell you for sure based on your story , that if you have not crossed the line yet, you probably will. It is degenerative. Many of us once were able to do what you describe - Eg have periods where we did not drink. I have to confess I don’t get the concept of being able to have 1 drink and stop. Never have. But I think some alcoholics do start out as being normal in this way. But over time this is no longer the case for them.

You can wait for that line crossing to occur - where you are no longer able to have any influence over when and how or how much you drink . Or you can decide now, when you still have so much life ahead of you that is not where you want to go. Not compatible with what you actually want out of life.

Because I am reading your story and wondering what exactly is alcohol doing for you now? What positive benefits does it still have? It’s already causing massive anxiety issues. It doesn’t seem to be much fun for you, anymore. Just numbing boredom? Perhaps you still believe it increases your creativity? How exactly is it helping you to address what makes you dissatisfied with your life?

By all means go ahead and try to moderate. But you will read here in SR that it is usually not a successful strategy.

Why not try something really new? See if you can go without it at all for a fixed period - Eg 3 months/a year. If nothing is different then go back and drink.

FreeOwl

A lot of your story rings deeply familiar to me.

I was going through a lot of similar questions around 35..... took me another 6 years (and significant decline in my circumstances) to finally realize that the simple answer was:

I'm an alcoholic
Over any significant period of allowing alcohol in my life, I am powerless over it's negative impact on my life
Sobriety was the answer
AA was a powerful tool to help solve my problem
Therapy and other tools would also be useful

I'm now in year 8 of sobriety and my life has been immeasurably better for it.

Stick around. Maybe you'll come to a similar conclusion.

Thanks for sharing and opening up and being vulnerable to admit these things.... that's a fantastic start. In fact, it's the ONLY way to start.

Now it's down to you: Are you ready to do whatever it takes to have a beautiful and cherished life?

Tetrax

Welcome! I can relate to so much of your story (including age, I'm 36). The drinking alone habits, the going to uni and staying in the same town afterwards and drinking even heavier if anything, working hospitality, how you can go without with family, don't like the one pub drink etc. etc. etc.

Stick around and learn some stuff about addiction. Message me if you want. The way you describe your hangovers (no longer 'traditional' but panic setting in later) sounds to me like if you were to go on a several-day bender you'd probably end up with full-on withdrawal symptoms, e.g. the shakes and sweats alongside the panic. But I can't know your physiology. I just see a lot of myself in your story I guess.

It's tough but there is support, including here.