DaDornta

Hi everyone, I've decided that since I have a "problem" that I need more than just myself to overcome it. I'm a huge forum-***** anway, so I thought joining a support forum for recovery would be ideal. Here is some short background on my situation:

I'm 23, and have alchoholism on my father's side of the family. Starting about at age 18, I began to drink socially. Once I got into college and didn't know anyone, I began drinking more frequently alone in my dorm room. I met a girl, things seemed to be getting better but really just got worse from there (in a non-alchohol/emotional sence).

I moved back home with my family, broke up with the girl that was causing me depression and grief. I got on Zoloft, and started seeing a psychatrist. Eventually, things started looking up and up.

I underwent a gastric bypass operation and maintained my sobriety for several months afterwards. The drinking started slowing and gradually--like it always did untill things hit a breaking point this past Friday.

Within the last 4 weeks the social drinking has become more a every other day (even alone) thing. I don't *feel* depressed, but I have so much free-time working only a part time job, and it's "somthing to do".

I knew I was spiralling down and down, and would have listened to my friends had they mentioned my increasing ammount of drinking. Unfortunaley they belived I wouldn't listen...

So friday I had 3, 3-shot martinis, and THEN somehow made it into the backseat of my friend's car to go to a bar and dance/party. Within 10 minutes of getting into the bar I stepped on my friends shoe (right in front of some bouncers) and got kicked out.

My friends weren't to pleased that they had to leave because of me, and my friend gave me his car keys so I could go and sit in his car.

I was completley blacked out at this point and the last thing I remember is being all alone, outside in the snow without a jacket wondering where my friends were and what I was going to do.

I tried to get back into the bar several times because I had no coat and it was in the low 20's outside. No good.

Apparently I went to my friend's car to get my jacket (don't remember this) and caught a cab back to my friend's house. I apparently carded in, and went apeshit in a fit of rage about being "abandoned" at the bar.

I took a dry-erase marker and totally covered my friend's fridge with swear-words and phrases of utter hate. It's quite scary to look at sober.

Soon my friends came in, and my friend was in a fit of rage. He grabbed me, threw me outside and showed me that his car had been broken into and his CD player, registration, sunglasses, and jacket had been stolen.

I was the only one with the keys to the car, and I *did* have my jacket on, so apparently I did go back to the car and leave it unlocked. I was also accused of moving the car to the other side of the parking lot (I highly doubt in my blacked out, barley-able-to-walk state I could have done this...but it's irrelevant now).

At this point, the rage I had about being abandoned in combination with being roughed up severley by my friends made me snap again. I tried to lunge at my friend (i still dont remember any of this) and basically I they had to pin me down, throw me in a closet...ect, ect...

The following morining a few extra friends showed up and had an "intervention" for me. I agreed that my drinking was getting out of hand and that I needed to go sober for good.

My friend (the one who's car got broken into) maintains that I have "four" destructive habits that I need to quit
1. alchohol
2. caffine
3. chew (nicotine)
4. marijuana

I however have been able to regulate and keep all but the alchohol under control for several years. My intake of caffine, weed, and nicotine has not increased whatsoever in nearly 3 years.

I want to quit the chew, could learn to live without the caffine...but the weed is more than a "way to get messed up". I use it as an appetite stimulant because of my stomach (gastric bypass remember?) I only smoke when I have no other obligations to preform. I weigh my dose out each day (same ammount no matter what) and do not allow myself to go over my pre-determined ammount.

I want to keep my friends, but If they know that i've contiuned to smoke (even if I never have another drink again ever) they'll look at me like a failure. I'm supposed to box up all my paraphenelia and give it to him, which I intend to do..but I know that my health overall will suffer if I can't use my vaporizer and then have a healthy evening meal.

A substance is a substance, but I really feel that the increased alchohol consumption in the past 4 weeks-to-year was as a result of it's cheapness, availability, and social acceptance.

I don't know what im going to do. Bonds were seriously stressed, and I acted really, really out of character. I'm embarased by my actions and scared sh*tless at the possibility that I could have hurt someone else or be dead today.

The drinking has to stop--and I'm commited to making it happen.

Any thoughts?

Little Missy

Welcome to SR!! Glad you have made a decision to change your life for the better. I would suggest learning all you can about alcoholism. There is more to it the just to stop drinking. We seem to have trouble dealing with life.

Also, find a program of recovery that is right for you. I go to AA, but there are serveral different options.

Glad you are here. Keep reading and posting. Lots of experience, strength, and hope here!!

Missy

lulu70

Hello DaDornta--Welcome to SR. Glad you found us. Sounds like you had a pretty rough time. It is also good that you realize that quitting drinking is probably a good idea. As far as the pot is concerned, only you can decide what to do. For me, I knew I could not work an honest program of recovery while continuing to get high. (I smoked pot every single day for over 15 years.) If I continued to smoke I would eventually drink again, no doubt about it.

I hope you will hang out, read some more and post a lot! There are a lot of really wonderful people here who will offer you lots of support and encouragment. Myself included!!!

Hang in there--

DaDornta

See, im so young and the drinking really has only become a problem in the last 6 months (and last 4 weeks even more so). AA just dosen't strike me as somthing "for me". I haven't lost jobs, friends (yet anyway), or really fit the "profile" for the alchoholic. It's just somthing that WILL happen if I continue down the road im on.

I'm gratefull my friends stepped in BEFORE I hit rock-bottom...

I think I need to get back into therapy with my old psychatrist, but group-AA meetings would only depress me and network me with people that have even MORE serious problems than I do.

After reading for hours and hours about alchoholism i'm happy that I'm not "that bad at all"...but I STILL need to stay sober for life--if I started drinking even years from now, the downward spiral would begin all over again. Alchohol is the only substance that ive used on a regular basis that has this effect on me.

I consider myself to be a neo-shaman. I highly respect the esoteric and mystical things in life, and hold people like Albert Hoffman and Terence McKenna in high-esteem.

I'd rather focus my life around spiritual transformation and the ethnopharmacology of indigenous cultures than be a "wine-o" or a "abnoxious drunk"...but that's what I've become in the last month or so. It's just to easy to pick up a cheap box of wine and just sip on it durring my off-time. This is so bad, it just makes the alchohol seem like it HAS to be part of my routine/daily life.

I'm glad that I don't have years and years of habitual use under my belt that i'm trying to break away from. I'd be totally happy if I could transfer all of that energy from alchohol into reading and learning about psychedelics and chemistry.

I keep reading that "sober is sober"...well i'm on zoloft...does that mean i'm supposed to stop THAT too? Of course not...alchohol is so much diffrent than marijuana or many other substances in that you can learn to function on higher and higher ammounts...I don't know, but I just *know* that not ALL alchoholics are forced to give up their morning cup of coffee (in my case a redbull or somthing similar).

I mean, it's already hard enough that I can't see most of my friends because they all drink regularly and have alchohol on hand.

I'm starting to feel a little resentment too about my friends and this whole situation. Yes, I have a problem...but they treat me like I'm the ONLY one with a problem. If I wanted to, I could go on for hours about all of THEIR problems and how THEY need to shape up their life.

*sigh* I'm doing this for ME, but at the same time I feel like there is this unfair double standard. They drink just as frequently as I do...unfortunatley Friday night I had a few to many and some unfortunate incidents had to happen. It's all for the best I suppose... I don't know.

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

DaDornta

See for me, alchohol and pot were never interchangeable. For almost 3 years I only smoked pot...ONLY. It wasn't untill about a year after my stomach surgery someone convinced me to "try" a glass of wine. I then discovered that I COULD drink the alchohol. . . And slowly but surley it began to creep into my life. It wasn't untill about a month ago though that I started "mixing" the two.

I understand about being "honest" in a recovery program...but I just don't feel like I need someone to tell me what to do. I just need to not buy any alchohol, or be around anyone who could possibly enable me. I remember going for months and months without even THINKING about drinking. It wasn't untill I started doing it regularly that I actually thought about it durring my sober times.