Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselling Thread

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Hello a quick connection expect I will be coming back to this thread
newly self diagnosed at age 63
have been in recovery for last 24 years and today life is very good.
For me - self medicating what I now finally am understanding - did not work at least past the age of 19 or 20
spent 19 more years digging a deep muddy dark hole.

Hardest thing about recovery was getting over terminal uniqueness.
Second hardest thing was discovering that the rooms are full of people as socially awkward as I am and so the isolation ended gradually rather than with a pop!

Yes, Find a hobby, or better yet an avocation.
A sober life in the woods is very good. Am a retired geek have taken up nature photography and am combining it with
writing recovery books. they are on line - free. Requires flash and fast connection here is a sample
Maybe I've posted enough here they'll let me put a link up
Being Right

No flash right now, but I'll check it out later! Thanks!!

I am officially quitting drinking. I embarrassed myself in front of some of my closest friends last night. I had a public meltdown which many people witnessed, then I locked myself in the bathroom, pulled out my hair, and self-injured. My body still hurts. I have bruises everywhere.

I apologized though and my friends said they'd support me through this. I still feel like I screwed up majorly though and they actually hate me now. I should have controlled myself, but I couldn't. The worst part of this was I WANTED to get drunk.

I may not have full-blown aspergers, but I have a very sensitive neurology, and if I want to ultimately be happy, I cannot allow myself to do this anymore. It`is fun until a certain point where you feel the world is crashing down around you.

I'm done.

I always quit one drug only to move to another....

i've never been completely sober except for like two weeks once when i was in high school.

and around the age of 12 and prior I was sober...

my brain is always in scrambles, and i'm always in some sort of withdrawal.

Had quite a lot to drink today. Started at 1:30 PM with scotch and quickly thereafter I migrated to wine. My heads a bit fuzzy, but an hour ago I drank some water and had a cup of coffee and am feeling better.

First, I'm sociable; amiable. Then in the later stages of drunkenness, I become more and more bewildered at things that should be obvious and then, even more later, I transform into this curmudgeonly boob. Not always, but it seems to occur more often than not. Perhaps its depression perforating the intoxication.

Should I keep my energy drink habit going?

I need like one a day to like, feel awake in the morning, regardless of the amount of sleep.

I use them to cope, too, once when I had I guess a meltdown I was having like 4 16oz monsters a day. Average now is 2 a day to keep up with everything.

I know it makes me more productive and better at everything, but it's not healthy really. I have NVLD, nonverbal learning disorder, which means I have like, sorta right brain deficiency. My verbal IQ is like, 130, but my nonverbal is like 80. I notice it allows me to do everything better, caffeine, without like, changing me. It feels just like a better me. I have to kinda "think" out everything I do verbally, and caffeine allows me to get things done more fluidly it seems.

I could probably get an Adderall prescription, but that'd likely be even worse for me, considering it's speed. But, as it is, I feel like I'm just self medicating with caffeine and stuff.

Will I kill my kidneys?

i'm not bad enough with my drugs to consider myself an addict...
but i don't know what life would be like without drugs...
though I am able to do the things I need to everyday and by definition addiction isn't true until it affects you carrying out your daily tasks in a negative way. i should be glad that i'm not deep deep into drugs...but i'm not i wish i was at rock bottom because then i'd have a reason to quit...but i don't right now...i'm not deep enough to quit though i know i should.

I was 18 when a friend's mother began supplying me with marijuana as partial payment for an art project she had asked me to do. Over the years that I have known her she has asked me to do work for her - paying me large amounts of money up front that I was supposed to "work off" always getting me more in debt to her. This was supposedly to help me by giving me a break so I could get ahead by having some extra work but as I said I always wound up further in debt.

She is a social worker and frequently gets people to do work for her in exchange for councelling that she initially promises "pro- bono", she has even done "councelling" while smoking up. Even though she knows that I have had disabilities since I was a child, she never offered any guidance about how to apply for disability supports - even when I was homeless.

she claims to be my friend but "forgot" that I had cancer last year . . .

When I told her that I had got some advice and that the statute of limitations protected me from her trying to collect, and that I could not pay her anything because I do not work, ( I am now in the process of applying for disability suppport) she got really angry and acused me of "playing it that way" - as if I planned to have a developmental disability??? . . . like I was planning to not pay her back when I was assembeling my genetics in utro (argh!)

She has pressed my husband several times and continues to demand that I work it off in some way (specifically she wants a stained glass window I made). Even though I was told that "working off" a debt is extortion and is illegal in Canada.

Now she has made several comments that imply that she does not think we are good parents even though I never smoke anymore - not since before my son was born (not since I saw her last actually) and we live in a different province - she has never actually met my son but has implied that we would not be good parents and I am worried now because she is a social worker.

If she was any other drug adict I would think just don't talk to her and hope she goes away but because she is a social worker I am worried that she could hurt our family.

What should I do?

not sure how it works in canada but in washington state a case worker has to be assigned to the case in order to work on it. also in order to open a case there would have to be sufficient evidence. seems like she is not assigned to a case with your family and she does not have any evidence to support opening a case...i would leave it be and move on. You could always question her credibility by insisting on her taking a drug test and questioning her reliability as a witness which sounds like she is not credible. Also if she keeps harrassing you, you could get a restraining order.

If she contacts us again I will get my husband to talk to her and tell her what she has done is illegal and that he is aware of it and that we will get a restraining order if she continues to contact us.

Alcohol took over my life when by all rights I should have been playing with action figures, discovering girls, and working hard in school. I've recovered quite a bit, but my mind doesn't work the same way anymore. I should have done like other kids and gotten into fights instead of ruining all the good things that I had.

This is by all means absolutely NOTHING compared to a real alcohol problem but.....I think my body has become mildy dependant on drinking. It's only 1 or 2 a night, 3 max (quiet drink with my dinner at around 8pm and the following drinks until bedtime) . But when I go for days without drinking I get headaches, I become fatigued. I went home sick from work thursday last week as I could just not do a single thing a work due to extreme fatigue, migraines, tiredness and lack of energy to the point where it was draining to walk up the stairs. I was sitting like a zombie at my desk until cried from the tiredness. I hadn't had a drink since the sunday before, and I'm beginning to think my lack of drinking might have played a part in it, or maybe it was just a combo of my periods and not eating well enough, I dunno. I have NEVER felt ill like that before. I've only been regularly drinking since July or so (when Dan Murphy's Discount Liquor opened lol)