Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselling Thread

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I drank daily and allot for about 15 years. Then I started having obssesive thoughts and compulsions in regards to my liver.

OCD. It has plagued me over many things over many years. Finally it latched onto something positive.

Something’s different.

I’ve had spells of heavy drinking in my life, but I’ve never had any problem stopping.

My last time was in my early 30s while on the road, working construction. I’d drink a liter of bourbon every night. I gave it up when I got tired of working all day with a hangover.

It was easy to stop. I just “put it down” and never looked back. I did the same thing with tobacco. After a 20 year habit I just stopped. It was easy…

A few years ago, I started drinking again, but only beer. I’d have two or three around a meal at the end of the day. It relaxed me. I never got out of control. I never got drunk.
I did that for a long time.

In the last year or so I started to drink a bit more. My work/school schedule doesn’t allow for a fixed sleep time, so I’d pop a few melatonins and drink 3 or 4 beers to make myself sleep when I had the chance.

Lately, I’ve “binged” a few times. I didn’t really get drunk, but the only reason I stopped was because I ran out of beer. Last week, when I knew I was going to be snowed in, I bought a case of beer while stocking up for the storm. I ended up drinking the entire case in about a day… I was annoyed with myself but not too worried. The problem is, I did the same thing this week too. I drank a case of beer, mainly out of boredom, because I was snowed in.

I like my beer and I don’t want to give it up, but I can’t afford to drink it by the case either! I just don’t have the time or the brain cells to waste.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this… It’s just so strange. I’ve never felt like I could become addicted to anything before, but right now, I’m worried.

The things you have said here do not sound to me like alcoholism as I have known it, yet I still hear your expression of "worried" there. Try taking a look at what or why might be either drawing or driving you toward "bottled relief" ... and resolving that might take care of all of this. At the same time, meaning concurrently, it is at least possible that the alcoholic's "physical allergy" is beginning to develop where a residual of alcohol builds and remains in the brain and eventually makes controlled drinking virtually impossible. In my own time, that factor is what drove me to even *want* to quit ... and that desire was based on something quite similar to your overall "worried". In any case, the thought here is too try to take a look at the "why?" of your own drinking ... and the problem will go away after that has been resolved.

^^^

Yeah, that’s pretty insightful.

Looking back, things might not be so different after all. Most of my periods of heavy drinking have been tied to stress—getting divorced, changing jobs, working away from home.

I do have some new stressors I haven’t gotten the hang of yet… I guess I should stay away from the beer store while I work on my calm.

I take pride in being self-aware, but it looks like I need to work on that too.

Thank you.

Perhaps it's a bit presumptuous of me to do so, but I am going to start a new thread in the Members Only section in regards to my experience with alcohol.

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Just wanted to post here with a quick, hopeful thing for anyone struggling with abstinence from drugs and alcohol. I was a crazy, messed up, hopeless crack addict for about 4 years. I celebrated 3 years clean and sober from all mind altering substances on Thursday. I was homeless, hopeless, etc. I should have been dead. Or institutionalized. I ended up neither, and here I am. Still messed up, still kinda crazy, but loving every minute of it. I learned how to identify with me, even if others still can't sometimes. I was one of those people who said life couldn't get any worse. Then it did. Now I appreciate it a hell of a lot more than I ever did before in my life. It's out there for anyone. You just have to want it and be willing to do whatever it takes to get it. There is hope. I'm a freakin' miracle. Peace.

for the past 2 weeks or so, i've been getting drunk just about every day. I just can't cope with my life anymore so i'm trying to drunk away my worries. I don't see how anyone in this thread would be able to help me, but i'm giving it a shot anyways. How can i avoid becoming a hopeless alcoholic?

I got free of the bottle by finding something to replace the effect I got from alcohol.

Good story =)

It's a sad but true fact...many people have to reach the bottom of the barrel before they realize how precious life really is.

You're in a good position to pull people out of the barrel =) use it well.

I see you're from Belgium.

Unfortunately - as I know from having visited on several occasions - it's not the easiest country in the world in which to abstain from booze, seeing as the beer is strong and plentiful. Your strong beers actually taste palatable too - whereas anything above 7% proof that you buy here in the UK tastes like lighter fluid.

I don't know what to suggest unless you're in a position to emigrate to the Netherlands for a while ... they have quite a few substitution options there

Btw I don't mean to sound flippant as I have some issues with alcohol too.

Thanks I try. I always have people ask me if I hit my bottom in my addiction.... if I had enough. And I always answer with the most honest thing i can say, even if it's scary. "No, my bottom is six feet under. That is a very probable thing for me, it's something that would only take one hit for me to accept freely. I am not scared of death, and still crave the peace that it brings, but just for today, I don't want to be the girl who died in the woods with a crack pipe hanging out of her mouth."

ha there's an image for you.
my friend who works at a mental institute that's located next to some woods was outside his work and a homeless person came up to him and asked him to come take a look at his friend so he took him back in the woods and his friend had od'd on some drugs and was dead. Don't think anyone wants that from themselves or their family and friends.

I've been drinking and popping codeine almost daily since august. It is not so much that I love the feeling of being buzzed (wich I seriously do) but I can't stand my life when I am sobre.
I oftenly get this very present and profound feeling of sadness (been diagnosed with depression a few years back) and also a deep remourse for things that may seem small to others.
As I don't have a job, I get all my money from my mother and I feel guilty for spending so much of it on alcohol and pills.

The codeine, which wasn't that great to begin with, isn't doing it for me anymore so I'm getting kind of irritated by the lack of a decent opiate buzz in my daily life, and my inability to aquire better stuff. This in turn makes me very hostile towards others. I've been in a lot of fights in the last couple of months, both at uni and at my dorm, which soiled my reputantion pretty badly.

I've been telling myself that "I'm gonna quit" for some time now, but that rarely materialises in anything more then a two-day pause.

Anyway, just thought I'd share it.

Yes. S.O.B.E.R. = Son Of a Buck, Everything is Real!

When things have been bad enough for long enough, you will develop a desire to stop ... and then some nut will try to sell you some kind of nonsense about how beautiful it is to be sober.

Sobriety is the entrance to recovery, not its goal, and the Twelve Steps make sobriety bearable.

I've heard this expressed lots of different ways. This rings truest in my experience. Thanks for that...

You are most welcome, and I am thrilled whenever I hear other people already "get it" about that!

The so-called "A.A. Preamble" says, "Our primary purpose is to stay sober", but Bill only wrote that as a very loose description intended for non-alcoholic people curious about A.A. As you might know, A.A. Tradition Five (long form) presents the actual facts about all of that ...

"Each Alcoholics Anonymous group (or 'each A.A. fellowship group') ought to be (an autonomous) spiritual entity having but one primary purpose - that of carrying [the A.A.] message to the alcoholic who still suffers."

And of course, even that message is clearly described:

"The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news (message) this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism."
("A.A.", the book, page 17, emphasis and italic added)

So where the book is "the A.A. message in print", we who have recovered are the message of that book ... "in the flesh"!