ReachingOut

First of all , let me thank you all for being part of this wonderful community! Hopefully I can get some inspiration from everyone here, to kick my habit which still plagues me to this day.

My story:
My name is Rob , I am an alchoholic. I have been for the past 4 years now. It started with beer, every night I would go through around 4 cans of beer ( 500ml cans ) , secluded downstairs , playing online games until 3 o'clock in the morning. The habit evetually increased until I ended up on whiskey mixed with water which I would drink until I couldn't walk. After some time I decided to step back down onto a lighter drink ( 25% vol ) mixed with water but still continued my very stupid habit. This didn't seem to bother me atall until January of 2003 when I had an awful nightmare of chestpains one night. During this nightmare I was snow shoveling in my front driveway when suddenly I got a chest pain in the area at the bottom of my throat. Anyway, in the morning this nightmare became a reality. After waking up I was constantly thinking about my nightmare, and sure enough , when I got outside to do the snow shoveling, the pain started.
I went into a state of panic. A real panic attack. My heart started beating very very fast, all I could think about was death. Even though I am a vigerous walker ( 80 mins a day of fast paced walking ) I feared for my health and my life. A week went by and I payed a visit to the doctor. He took my blood preassure, Examined me with his hands ( around the liver area ) and prescribed me to Micardis ( High BP medicine ) . He explained that from what he has examined , I was the instigator of the panic attacks and that I need to reduce my stress levels as it's not good for my BP. He then sent me away for 2 months.
2 Months past and the panic attacks had not been alliviated. The pains in the chest had stopped however. During my 80 minuets walk , all I would think about is death and what is wrong with me. I returned to the doctor and he re-examined me, re-prescribed my BP medications , and also prescribed me to an anti-psychotic. He was aware that I was drinking and told me to cut down. Which I did. The anti-psychotic seemed to take the panic attacks out and so one week later , he took me off them.
The next few visits were just re-prescription visits for BP medications. Until June of 2004 when my doctor changed due to staff move overs to different hospitals. My new doctor was the head of all internal organ departments, a really friendly man. This doctor did the usual physical examination and also a blood test. Prescribed me yet again to my blood preassure medications and sent me on my way. The blood test results came in a week later ... Slightly high white blood cell count and a high blood sugar level. He demanded that I cut down on alchohol and anything sweet that I might me eating. The high white blood cell count still panics me to this day. I have no idea what it means.
OK... That brings us to my last doctor visit , december of 2004. I told him of the pains I get in the liver region and he shrugged it off by saying that the blood test in june was completely clear on the liver side of things, and not to worry about it.

Despite all of this. I am still drinking , and not lightly either.
You see... My situation is a hard one for even attempting to quit. I spend all day in the house alone, nothing to do , completely bored out of my mind. .I attempt to get into some community games online but I find myself bored of that too and always end up grabbing myself a beer come 4pm. And we all know what happens after that. I have a lovely wife who really doesn't help me quit atall. This is why I'm turning to all you wanderful people. I want so badly to give up and feel high on life again.

Time2Surrender

Hi Reachingout,and welcome to SoberRecovery.You have come to the right place.Have you tried AA yet?

Dunitall

Hi Reachingout

Welcome to SR.

First things first. You recognise you have a problem and you want to quit. That's a fantastic start. You will come to realise that you can't expect your wife to "help" you quit. This is something you need to want and do for yourself. She needs to take care of herself while oyu get healthy.

Secondly, you might find it helpful to use your signature name and Reach Out for help. Quitting and staying quit can be really tough on oyur own, especially if you're struggling to fill your day with activities. AA is a brilliant starting point. Some people have diferent perceptions of AA, but it's almost certainly not what you may think. You will meet folks from all walks of life there and they will be able to share their experience with you.

Give it a try and please come back here to let us know how you get on.

My thoughts are with you.

Rich

ReachingOut

Firstly , thank you for your kind words ! it gives me hope that someone actually wants me to give up.

I live in Japan , where there is no AA but I am from the UK. There are absolutely no alchoholic support groups here.

I have a plan to quit completely from tommorow onward. But this , I feel , Is an alchoholic's statement , quite common. Do you have the name of the drug which makes you vomit if you drink , yet is quite safe otherwise? I asked my doctor about it and he said he didn't know of such a drug.

minnie

Reaching out

You don't get out of it that easily!!

http://www.aatokyo.org/meetlist.php?areaID=1

Give it a go. What have you got to lose?

Love

Minnie
xxx

minnie

Oh, and your wife might like to check out al-anon.

http://www.al-anontokyo.org/mambo/

boop64132

ReachingOut,
Welcome here to SR!

Oh My!The boredome! How well I know that feeling.
How bout reading..writing..drawing..anything you are interested in?
Maybe AA?
There really are hundreds of things you could choose to do to stay busy,but the one most important thing is you must put your mind to wanting to stop!
Put all your mind and body and soul into it!
Start a journal...if you have to write minute by minute of how you feel and why you want to drink.
And if you have access to the computer all day...then come here and post!
We are all here to help each other!
Again,Welcome.

Cathy31

Cool, Minnie! I was just about to do the same thing! Reaching out, this is a GREAT place to start! Re being in house all day...are you in a very isolated place...language class, gym etc just to get out of the house? AA is, as Rich says, almost certainly not what you think! go for it, give it a try!
good luck and keep coming back!
cathy31
x

Anna

Hi Reaching,

You know what you need to do and you can do it. Stop drinking today and begin to take care of yourself. Alcohol worsens anxiety and stopping drinking will probably help your anxiety to some extent.

And, drinking or not drinking is your choice and it's not up to your wife to help you stop drinking. You can do this!

Love, Anna

exlibris

Hi Rob and welcome to Sober Recovery.

I tried to stop drinking on my own and just couldn't do it. There was a time when I swore I would never go to AA. Now I love it.

I hated drinking and what it was doing to me. You have to use every tool in the ansernal when you want sobriety so much. The walking is great - I go to the gym and it does help alot. But I also realized that I needed help with my thinking - hence AA.

Good luck!

Richard

CAPTAINZING2000

Welcome to S/R. I hope, you can find what you're looking for here.


Chris

ReachingOut

Thank you all for your suggestions! Let this be day one of my "cold turkey" sober up! at the moment I have full confidence that I can pull this off but.. I have just woken up (7:58am) and am still hung over so my confidence might be due to that fact. Still to come today is the boredom, but I will try and go out for a walk or something.
I checked out the AA page and sent an email requesting information about AA groups in my area. Hopefully there is one.
I will go with boop64132's suggestion. If it's ok with you I will post minuets here of my road to recovery

Day1:
So far: Woke up 7:45, got a coffee and went to these forums to see what people had posted. I'm still hung over ( still feel drunk ) and am fearing this day's pains which will undoubtedly occur. But I have a determination which I want to hold on to. Sitting below me is a bottle of shouchu ( 25% volume spirit ) which I will hand to my wife so that she can take it to work with her. I will have no access to alcohol during the day. Hopefully this is a good start.

Evanna

Sounds good to me.

Joe90

Hi Reachingout I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic I'm 2 and a half months sober..You can stop drinking..just listen to the suggestion's above..good to hear from you.

2dayzmuse

Good luck on your journey. We all start at day 1. This is day 1 of your new beginning.

Here is a link to a discussion here at SR on the drug Antibuse. That is the name of the drug you were referring to in your post. Some of the members here have taken it. That particular discussion was back in April 2004. I don't know if any of the members are still around, but if they are maybe they could send you a PM with more information.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ead-28322.html

You will find other information links in the thread. I hope this helps answer some of your questions. Good luck...

ReachingOut

That drug sounds a little scarey. I use Hairtonic and mouth wash so it's probably a good idea if I give that a miss and use will power instead.

12:23pm Day 1
Am now over the hangover and have started my usual routine of panic. Observing my hands and thinking " They look more yellow than usual " , Sensitivity to pain in the liver area. I find myself holding my liver area, even if there is no pain. Upper chest and shoulder pain. A little bit of confusion when typing and reading ( I read a word wrong in almost everything I look at ) 4 hours until the time when I usualy grab a drink. So , at 4:30 I am going for a walk. My wife will arrive home at 5:20 and from then I won't be so isolated and bored. It's just hanging on for those 5 hours which will be the challenge. I have just called the AA hotline in Japan and found out that there are no meetings anywhere near my area , closest one is 3 hours drive by highway and over 8,000 yen in highway fees ( around 80$ usd ) . I guess I'm out of luck on that

If you would like to talk to me on MSN Messenger , my msn adress is [email protected]

ReachingOut

5:53 pm Day1 :
The panic and pains seems to have given way a little bit. I spent the afternoon with friends on IRC doing some multiplayer painting. This kept me very entertained all the way until 5:20pm when my wife returned home. I ate dinner and instead of alchohol , I had a green tea with it. only 5 more hours until my usual bed time. Symptoms still remaining are a kind of forgetfull ness to breath (sounds weird but I forget to breath occasionally , I only realize i need to when I start feeling like im suffocating ) , and easy breathlessness.

I am now planning on taking the dogs out for a walk to kill one hour. I am teaching english from 7pm.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone in the whole community for providing such helpful encouragement and also the forum owners for providing us with a place we can all meet up.

Wish me luck!

Ashes

Sounds like you've gotten off to a good start! I hope you can keep it up. Getting the alcohol out of the house was a good idea.

Why are you home all day? Do you have a job? You mentioned teaching English. If being home during the day is a problem for you, I agree with what others said about getting out more. It might take some looking into, but I'm sure you can find places to go and things to do.

Congratulations on taking the first steps!

~ashes

ReachingOut

I only work weekends and evenings doing teaching. This leads to very very boring day times.

Day 3 18:32
The day went much quicker today as I was busy building a website during which time I didn't notice any panic attack which was a relife. Once I finished creating the website, it all went downhill. The pains started up and I felt the smallest hint of a panic attack, this prompted me to go outside and snow shovel...so I did. The pains seemed to back off during the activity of snow shoveling.
By 5pm dinner was ready, Started to eat dinner and experienced a gradual oncome of dizzyness which ended up quite bad. I had to go outside to get fresh air because of it. As a result of this dizzeyness I decided to go and take my blood preassure at the local pharmacy( I have high blood preassure and am on medications for it, I thought that maybe my BP was too low as a result of sobering up + medications ) I did the test and the results were as follow:
High : 142
Low : 90
Heart Rate : 109bpm
which was a supprise as every other time I test my BP it's more like 160 / 100. Maybe my BP is low because of the halt on alchohol consumption.

Anyway , that brings me to this very moment. I feel a slight amount of confusion, a little pain in the liver region and my hands are slightly shakey. Other than that , I feel ok.
PS *when will the insomnia stop?

Time2Surrender

Hey Reaching out.Nice to see you keep coming back.Have you read this thread yet. http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ad.php?t=47857