rambleonrose--my story
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: United States, East Coast
Posts: 1
rambleonrose--my story
I first started to experiment with alcohol when I was in my early teens. Stealing sips of booze from my parent’s bottles or sneaking a beer from the fridge to spilt with other kids happened every now and again. By the time I was in high school it seems like my friends and I always were trying to get beer and we liked to party…looking back it was pretty amazing the quantity of booze we were able to score and even more amazing that nobody ever got hurt. In high school, alcohol always made my stomach upset and I didn’t like the feeling of being hung-over. I never drank very heavy.
However, when I got to college, I joined a fraternity and drinking basically became a competition sport. My relationship with alcohol really started to blossom and I enjoyed every aspect of it: how it lowered people’s inhibitions, how it bonded people together, and the overall Dionysian-like culture of it all. I loved the fact that when I turned 21 I could go to a bar anywhere and sit there and have a drink.
Through the decade that was my 20’s, I was a typical binge drinker and I never saw it as much of a problem. I held a very interesting high profile job, never missed work, got big promotions and my personal relationships never suffered, but really only thrived. I considered myself a “gentleman of leisure”…going to happy hours and drinking well into the late hours; racking up legendary bar tabs, going to and throwing wild parties involving excessive amounts of alcohol, taking extravagant drinking vacations, drinking fine wine and spirits at business dinners, and celebrating life by excessive drinking with family and close friends at bachelor parties, weddings, birthdays, holidays, funerals, snow days, concerts, football games and weekends.
None of this ever really struck me as a bad thing, but as one of the privileges of a good life and showcased the traits of a man who truly enjoyed himself. Sure I felt awful a lot of mornings and fought some depression issues (and couldn’t understand what was causing them), but I always just shrugged it off…just a day in the life. Never a second thought about it.
As I reached my 30’s I accepted a big job with a major corporation and also got married. My drinking also reached new levels. Not every night, but often, I would come home and immediately crack a beer. It was not uncommon for me to drink several beers while cooking dinner, drink two bottles of wine with dinner and then move right on to some scotch or bourbon and then back on to some beer to finish off the night. In the morning the countertop by my sink where I would keep my recyclables looked like a weird game of Jenga, but with a dozen beer cans, bottles of wine and sometimes empty liquor bottles as opposed to wooden blocks. My recycling bin out back was so full of cans and bottles that I had to get a second bin and homeless people would always rummage through it collecting the discarded items for money.
I became aware that when I started drinking I could not stop. So sometimes I would not drink. But, inevitably, in a day or two, or sometimes even a week later, I would binge drink again.
I was then, and am now, very sensitive about how people perceive me so I would go to a happy hour or party and drink somewhat reasonably, then I would go home from whatever event I was at and drink by myself for hours on end. I also found myself going to bars (within walking distance from my house) that I knew people I would know would not be at so I could drink excessively. I would eventually get kicked out of these bars for being too drunk and instead of going back, I would just find another one which I eventually would get kicked out of. The next day I would feel horribly depressed, hopeless, empty, exhausted, physically sick and all dried out in my throat from all the cigarettes I chain smoked.
All of my hobby’s basically vanished as I was either too drunk or too hung-over to do them. Relationships of mine became strained due to the fact I was too drunk or too hung-over to deal with anybody. My work suffered as I missed days due to being hung-over and phoning it in when I was there. Often times I would “come-to” in the middle of the day and not remember what emails I sent or who I talked to on the phone. I missed meetings because I spaced out and let things slip because I simply didn’t care.
I was 32 and it was a very dark time. I had a job that I hated, a marriage that was very strained and I was drinking myself completely numb. I seriously felt no real emotions accept hung-over-and-pathetic and drunk-and-pathetic. When I was at home, and not drinking, all I ever wanted to do was sleep. This obviously led to things not getting done around my house and a further weakening in the relationship with my wife.
Friends and family would eventually see me binging and were quietly observant, but none-the-less, horrified at my intake and resulting behavior as I would often become belligerent and inappropriate. And the remorse in the morning from my actions was paralyzing.
One Sunday morning I woke up in the afternoon and had no recollection of the night before. All I could remember was I was at my parent’s house and was drinking. Apparently, I lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor. I came to at one point and my wife drove me home. At one point in the night she said she became frightened of me and had to leave and stay with her Mom. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I decided I needed to end my relationship with drinking.
That was January 18th, 2011. I did it cold turkey and it was not easy. The first week: I had a mandatory work event that required me to go to cocktail parties and a large event with opens bars all over the place, a dinner with friends that I usually drank with and a dinner with a family member who I also drank with. Got through them all without touching a drop. I thought, “ I got through these… no excuse to not keep on going”.
I then decided that I needed to quit my job because it made me miserable and made it just that much easier for me to want to drink. I quit that job, and while I didn’t exactly have another job firmed up, everything worked out and I was scheduled to start a new job in a month and a half from when I quit my initial job. This month and a half off gave me time to focus on learning how to be sober. I learned how to fall asleep (not just pass out), how to do daily tasks sober, how to talk to people sober, and I drank gallons of PG Tips tea in place of booze which I think helped to clean me out. It also gave me time to read a number of self-help books, to start doing yoga and to learn the basics of meditation.
It took a few weeks for my body to stop feeling bad, (and for me to wake up and not think “OMG what did I do last night”) but when it did, it was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz (or Dark Side of the Rainbow) when she opens the door and the film changes from black and white into color. (cha-ching… “Money…”).
My senses were all alive and I felt like I was using them all for the first time. I saw new beauty in ordinary things. I had meaningful meetings with family and seeing how proud they were of me, it gave me a ton of strength to keep moving forward. By the time I started my new job I felt like a different human being. The job was also a great switch and gave me a lot of positive things to think about other than drinking. I found that I was doing things and saying things that I never did or said before. The new power and confidence in sobriety still astounds me and has only led to positive things.
In my personal life, I started hiking and backpacking again, I started cycling, I got into boating and found renewed interested in life in general. I wake up and am excited to get moving. For years it took everything I had to just turn off the alarm and get my feet on the floor.
Sobriety has given me tremendous clarity of mind, this combined with daily meditation, has also given me the opportunity to feel true peace which has led to genuine happiness.
My relationship with my wife has improved by leaps and bounds and her tremendous support of me has helped me to continue to achieve sobriety day after day. I feel lucky to have her in my life and I am so thankful she stuck with me through my drinking.
I think of drinking some days, but I never think about, “Oh it would be nice to have a cold beer”…I think about the 10 beers, and then the bourbon, and then the madness and depression…it is all a downward spiral.
I take tremendous comfort in knowing that I cannot have one drink because it leads to an infinite number of drinks. It’s an easy answer! One drink = guaranteed unhappiness. Why would I chose to be unhappy?!
It’s one less thing that I have to do. By doing something less, I actually gain something more and that is the pleasure of a person who is actually enjoying their life… feeling everything and seeing everything as it truly is. It is beautiful.
However, when I got to college, I joined a fraternity and drinking basically became a competition sport. My relationship with alcohol really started to blossom and I enjoyed every aspect of it: how it lowered people’s inhibitions, how it bonded people together, and the overall Dionysian-like culture of it all. I loved the fact that when I turned 21 I could go to a bar anywhere and sit there and have a drink.
Through the decade that was my 20’s, I was a typical binge drinker and I never saw it as much of a problem. I held a very interesting high profile job, never missed work, got big promotions and my personal relationships never suffered, but really only thrived. I considered myself a “gentleman of leisure”…going to happy hours and drinking well into the late hours; racking up legendary bar tabs, going to and throwing wild parties involving excessive amounts of alcohol, taking extravagant drinking vacations, drinking fine wine and spirits at business dinners, and celebrating life by excessive drinking with family and close friends at bachelor parties, weddings, birthdays, holidays, funerals, snow days, concerts, football games and weekends.
None of this ever really struck me as a bad thing, but as one of the privileges of a good life and showcased the traits of a man who truly enjoyed himself. Sure I felt awful a lot of mornings and fought some depression issues (and couldn’t understand what was causing them), but I always just shrugged it off…just a day in the life. Never a second thought about it.
As I reached my 30’s I accepted a big job with a major corporation and also got married. My drinking also reached new levels. Not every night, but often, I would come home and immediately crack a beer. It was not uncommon for me to drink several beers while cooking dinner, drink two bottles of wine with dinner and then move right on to some scotch or bourbon and then back on to some beer to finish off the night. In the morning the countertop by my sink where I would keep my recyclables looked like a weird game of Jenga, but with a dozen beer cans, bottles of wine and sometimes empty liquor bottles as opposed to wooden blocks. My recycling bin out back was so full of cans and bottles that I had to get a second bin and homeless people would always rummage through it collecting the discarded items for money.
I became aware that when I started drinking I could not stop. So sometimes I would not drink. But, inevitably, in a day or two, or sometimes even a week later, I would binge drink again.
I was then, and am now, very sensitive about how people perceive me so I would go to a happy hour or party and drink somewhat reasonably, then I would go home from whatever event I was at and drink by myself for hours on end. I also found myself going to bars (within walking distance from my house) that I knew people I would know would not be at so I could drink excessively. I would eventually get kicked out of these bars for being too drunk and instead of going back, I would just find another one which I eventually would get kicked out of. The next day I would feel horribly depressed, hopeless, empty, exhausted, physically sick and all dried out in my throat from all the cigarettes I chain smoked.
All of my hobby’s basically vanished as I was either too drunk or too hung-over to do them. Relationships of mine became strained due to the fact I was too drunk or too hung-over to deal with anybody. My work suffered as I missed days due to being hung-over and phoning it in when I was there. Often times I would “come-to” in the middle of the day and not remember what emails I sent or who I talked to on the phone. I missed meetings because I spaced out and let things slip because I simply didn’t care.
I was 32 and it was a very dark time. I had a job that I hated, a marriage that was very strained and I was drinking myself completely numb. I seriously felt no real emotions accept hung-over-and-pathetic and drunk-and-pathetic. When I was at home, and not drinking, all I ever wanted to do was sleep. This obviously led to things not getting done around my house and a further weakening in the relationship with my wife.
Friends and family would eventually see me binging and were quietly observant, but none-the-less, horrified at my intake and resulting behavior as I would often become belligerent and inappropriate. And the remorse in the morning from my actions was paralyzing.
One Sunday morning I woke up in the afternoon and had no recollection of the night before. All I could remember was I was at my parent’s house and was drinking. Apparently, I lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor. I came to at one point and my wife drove me home. At one point in the night she said she became frightened of me and had to leave and stay with her Mom. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I decided I needed to end my relationship with drinking.
That was January 18th, 2011. I did it cold turkey and it was not easy. The first week: I had a mandatory work event that required me to go to cocktail parties and a large event with opens bars all over the place, a dinner with friends that I usually drank with and a dinner with a family member who I also drank with. Got through them all without touching a drop. I thought, “ I got through these… no excuse to not keep on going”.
I then decided that I needed to quit my job because it made me miserable and made it just that much easier for me to want to drink. I quit that job, and while I didn’t exactly have another job firmed up, everything worked out and I was scheduled to start a new job in a month and a half from when I quit my initial job. This month and a half off gave me time to focus on learning how to be sober. I learned how to fall asleep (not just pass out), how to do daily tasks sober, how to talk to people sober, and I drank gallons of PG Tips tea in place of booze which I think helped to clean me out. It also gave me time to read a number of self-help books, to start doing yoga and to learn the basics of meditation.
It took a few weeks for my body to stop feeling bad, (and for me to wake up and not think “OMG what did I do last night”) but when it did, it was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz (or Dark Side of the Rainbow) when she opens the door and the film changes from black and white into color. (cha-ching… “Money…”).
My senses were all alive and I felt like I was using them all for the first time. I saw new beauty in ordinary things. I had meaningful meetings with family and seeing how proud they were of me, it gave me a ton of strength to keep moving forward. By the time I started my new job I felt like a different human being. The job was also a great switch and gave me a lot of positive things to think about other than drinking. I found that I was doing things and saying things that I never did or said before. The new power and confidence in sobriety still astounds me and has only led to positive things.
In my personal life, I started hiking and backpacking again, I started cycling, I got into boating and found renewed interested in life in general. I wake up and am excited to get moving. For years it took everything I had to just turn off the alarm and get my feet on the floor.
Sobriety has given me tremendous clarity of mind, this combined with daily meditation, has also given me the opportunity to feel true peace which has led to genuine happiness.
My relationship with my wife has improved by leaps and bounds and her tremendous support of me has helped me to continue to achieve sobriety day after day. I feel lucky to have her in my life and I am so thankful she stuck with me through my drinking.
I think of drinking some days, but I never think about, “Oh it would be nice to have a cold beer”…I think about the 10 beers, and then the bourbon, and then the madness and depression…it is all a downward spiral.
I take tremendous comfort in knowing that I cannot have one drink because it leads to an infinite number of drinks. It’s an easy answer! One drink = guaranteed unhappiness. Why would I chose to be unhappy?!
It’s one less thing that I have to do. By doing something less, I actually gain something more and that is the pleasure of a person who is actually enjoying their life… feeling everything and seeing everything as it truly is. It is beautiful.
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
