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Alcoholism, Addiction and Recovery
Local H Jay
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello folks it's time once again to bum everyone out with a thread about addictions and conquering them. I'll start by saying I'm making this thread to help keep myself sober. I was sober for 3 years straight before I had a small relapse onto alcohol in the summer of 2021. I kept doing my thing with small relapses until recently, I've decided to put my foot down and stop again, again. I've told the stories about why I stopped drinking before, but basically I tend to get black out and do really dumb shit. Like life threateningly bad to myself and others.
So this is to end the cycle of my secret drinking. I was addicted to cocaine too but hey I haven't ended up so bad I'm back to that shit. Recovery is a difficult process that is ugly and I'm super embarrassed every single time I relapse. There's never a good reason, just that I'm sad and don't wanna feel it anymore.
If it's ok this thread can just be for trauma dumping the shit you've had to deal with on the long path to being sober. Having a place to talk about this will definitely help and I'm sure I'm not the only one going through something like this. Apologies if there's already a thread like this or it's not kosher or whatever
So this is to end the cycle of my secret drinking. I was addicted to cocaine too but hey I haven't ended up so bad I'm back to that shit. Recovery is a difficult process that is ugly and I'm super embarrassed every single time I relapse. There's never a good reason, just that I'm sad and don't wanna feel it anymore.
If it's ok this thread can just be for trauma dumping the shit you've had to deal with on the long path to being sober. Having a place to talk about this will definitely help and I'm sure I'm not the only one going through something like this. Apologies if there's already a thread like this or it's not kosher or whatever
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They probably did notice but maybe thought I was just sick or something
My father's dad was an alcoholic, though. That might've stunted my father's emotional growth, and my household was somewhat dysfunctional while I was growing up. Still is, sometimes...
EDIT: What I'm trying to say is: anyone trying to stop being addicted or alcoholic deserves to succeed.
You don't have to feel shame over not living up to your sobriety goals, alcoholism is not (contrary to certain popular treatment philosophies) a character defect; your brain literally becomes dependent on alcohol to keep a normal balance of the chemicals that regulate your mood. Trying to quit without medication support and (competent, evidence-based) therapy is a preposterously difficult task, and self-medicating with alcohol when suffering from depression/anxiety, especially symptoms that are exacerbated by alcohol dependency, is a totally normal behavior. You say "there's never a reason" for your using, but then you say "I'm just sad and don't want to feel it any more." That sounds like a reason! You're suffering and self-medicating. With support, you may find alternative medications that work for on issues you currently use alcohol to medicate for and which have significantly less poor side effects.
I've definitely suffered through alcohol dependency over a long period, some times worse than others. Might dump out the rest of my purse for the thread later
I say this to remind everyone (including myself!) that it's possible to get better.
You're right, I should definitely stop beating myself up so much because it just kinda makes it worse y'know. I'll definitely look into that medication!
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Our daughter was born last December and finally gave me the motivation to face the problem. I don't want her to grow up seeing me drunk all the time, and I don't want her to grow up with daily drinking normalised in the same way that it was for me as a kid watching my family. I'll be 2 months sober tomorrow. Unlike my previous mindset, I've decided I'm done with alcohol for good rather than hoping that one day I'll be able to make it work in moderation. It just doesn't work for me - if I have one drink at the pub I can't resist picking up a dozen beers on the way home. So while I accept that I might relapse in future, the goal is always going to be to get back to being alcohol-free.
So far, it's going OK. I was really struggling with being more clear-headed because I'm also dealing with ongoing issues with depression, and alcohol helped fog things up enough to give myself the illusion of coping. Without booze I was just depressed. After talking with my therapist and GP I've started on antidepressants a couple of weeks ago. So far I'm feeling really good despite it probably being too early for the SSRI's to have taken effect - mostly I think because I'm finally doing something to deal with these 2 things that have been major problems for me for the entirety of my adult life. It's silly that I waited this long but I'm happy to be here and hoping I can stay in a good headspace to be there and fully engaged for my daughter.
Congrats on 2 months
started drinking when I was like, 14 because drunk me didn't feel feelings and I got to go to parties and have friends.
stopped drinking when I was hanging out with some cooks (every chef I know had a substance abuse problem) and discovered heroin and felt actual happiness.
stopped doing heroin when I went a little crazy and tried to kill myself and instead got arrested (it's a whole thing) and placed in involuntary and had to detox while sharing a room with a schizophrenic who insisted the lights stay on and would crawl around under their blanket and yell at themselves.
I've been like, working on my mental health and shit. I'm still terrible, but at least I'm only addicted to actual medicine now. oh and weed, of course. I even stopped smoking cigarettes!
I just always figured that I would be dead by now, so now that it's here I don't really know what to do. I just exist as discreetly and out-of-the-way as I can.
my sister's having a baby and I am gonna teach them how to be a little rascal so I need to live a few more years I guess
I've never once felt like I'm dependant on it but it does for the most part keep me off worse shit
The thread ... It's working... Maybe too well I feel strong enough to kick god in the forehead
I grew up with alcoholism and addiction in my family. Dad was an alcoholic and mom was into pills. When I was a teenager my mom got me hooked on pills and kept me supplied. That was a weird and sad time, specially considering she’d use the pills to control/manipulate me. Anyway, that’s a while other thing! Toxic ass family members.
I joined the military to run away from all of that and I get to retire in a handful of years now. Haha, fucking crazy. Either way, booze has certainly been an issue for me over the years. Drinking to blackout levels wasn’t really a thing, but if I wasn’t able to have a drink or three while I was making dinner, it shifted my mood in a huge way, and yeah, not in a positive way.
I have myself semi convinced that I have some sort of depression/anxiety issues. The professionals I’ve talked to (military mostly) have steered very clear of handing me a diagnosis so that I can keep my job. I’ll revisit that in a few years when I get out. I will say though, one of these docs gave me some fantastic advice about 8 years ago that has kept me steady.
Are you taking care of yourself? Sleep, exercise, and a hobby. I sort of used this as a springboard to dive into weightlifting. I don’t think this is what he meant, but I’ve turned it into an obsession, or rather, an addiction of its own. It has done wonders for my mental health and self esteem. Oh, and tattoos.. while not the most efficient use of my money, covering myself in tattoos has been fantastic for my self-image and dealing with a number of my own issues.
Anyway, none of that was to say, “this is what I did and you should do, too!!” Just that yeah, I think I can relate a bit and there’s many ways through or around. If you ever wanna talk my dude, hit me up
bnet: moss*1454
We'll see how well that goes!
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I have ADHD and so that first drink would cause a flood of dopamine and my body'd be like "Oh fuck yeah!", but then every drink after would give only a tiny fraction of the same dopamine so I'd end up drinking a shitload just chasing that feeling (I only recognized this behavior in myself afterwards by watching a video of another person with ADHD talk about their own alcoholism). Long story short, I was finally able to stop when my wife decided to take a two week break from alcohol for the last half of December, so I didn't have it right there tempting me. After that two weeks I found it easier to not crave it, and so when my wife started drinking again it didn't faze me and I've been sober since, so for about 3.5 months now.
Oh, and about a month ago I finally asked my doc about getting on Adderall because while I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, I haven't treated it at all since then (and even then it was just Ritalin for two years). Goddamn it's been a night and day difference for me. Suddenly I can function like a normal human being for the first time in my life! I still have a lot of old behaviors and habits I need to unlearn, and new ones to learn, but I actually can now. I can also just DO things if I want to now. If I want to walk down the street and pay the water bill? I can do that! Before, if I wanted to walk down the street and pay the bill I'd get dressed and then just sit there staring at the wall while internally my mind would be like a scene from a movie where a guy is trying to do something but his arm gets possessed and it stops himself at every turn and it punches himself in the face and it drags himself away from the front door. Then I'd feel ashamed that I literally could not force myself to do this one simple task, but I also couldn't allow myself to do anything else until I did that one task, so then I'd do nothing all day long. So yeah, Adderall letting me actually function has been fucking amazing and I think it might help with my alcoholism if I ever end up relapsing because I won't be chasing the dopamine high quite as strongly as before.
tl;dr: our brains are the real enemy
Lately it just makes me really depressed the next day unless I've got the right company around me the whole time I'm drinking, and then in the morning.
So I don't drink all that often anymore I guess. Which is good and a lot better than my worst probably 6-7 years ago where I'd probably drink 5 or 6 nights a week and too much for someone my size (I am fucking small).
I'm not very good at moderation at pubs, how much I drink is really a function of how long I'm there not if I've "had enough".
Generally I'm pretty good at leaving if I'm about to have the alcohol that pushes me over into "too much" land hit me.
I've been getting better lately at stopping before I drink those last couple.
My cornerstone/7 -11 has some Elysian Space Dust 12 packs in the cooler that's NEVER been added to the register or stock so no one knows it's price (usually around 19.00 in this area) so it gets priced at whatever they believe it is, and that's now currently 12.99 because the last new cashier actually took the time to check at 4AM in the morning with the owner and now I'm living the high(miller) life.
Way to go me
i think they just thought this was the general booze thread
It probably feels real bad, but seriously, good on you.
A classic, appropriate case of:
Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks.
Go go Sobriety Buddies! I've also never been drunk or tipsy.
Weeds been a great harm reducer but I def need to not vape....ugh... literally every night for multiple months to help with sleep and stress and just cause I can? On top of weekend recreational use? And I know it's not "addictive" but it's sure habit forming with the nice effects and minimal immediate consequences. I'll happily take advice from anyone who has done similar. I just don't have nearly the same push for it past the secret component. Versus beer which was going to much more directly ruin me. While I'll still imbibe it's a pretty strict no more than 1, mayyyybe 2 drinks and that's all you get, no cheating with high abv shit either.
so he switched to liquor.
also I'm no good on reducing vape use advice, when I stopped smoking cigarettes I replaced my urge to go out for a smoke with a hit off my vape so uh well I've been a baseline mild high basically for a month.
Last Halloween I started abstaining from that too, instead drifting into Monster energy drinks (as my craven logic tells me one can of Monster a day is better than 4-6 cans of Mountain Dew).
I recently drank A LOT of soda as I was on vacation and that's a built-in exception for the fizzy sugar water.
But I'm back home now and I think I am drifting away from standard Monsters and instead trying out their coffee/java-style beverages.
This has been the voyage through the continued journey to find something delicious to replace booze.
They make me shake so bad now my tolerance fell off a cliff
I started doing it when I was first writing, as this like performative thing. I was less focused on writing, more focused on Being a Writer, and drinking-while-you-work was part of that image for me. Because I was very dumb, you see. So there for a while, more writing sessions than not, I'd have a drink on my desk.
When writers rooms were in person, that introduced some forced separation. Can't drink in a writers room (at least, not most of them), so I didn't, and I got plenty of good work done. I'd still sometimes have a drink when I was off to draft and got stuck on a tough scene, or if I had to plow through some really boring expositional shit, but I was able to get some distance in there.
But in pandemic, with everything remote, the old bad habits are kicking in. If I get up early and write first thing, I can sometimes, sorta, trick myself into forgetting to grab a drink. But if my day's got a bunch of calls/Zooms up top, if I don't get to actually writing until late in the day? It's happening.
If the work I did when I was drinking was worse, it'd maybe feel more urgent? But the work stays the same regardless of what state I'm in, nobody's ever been able to tell the difference in the finished output (not even me). I know I shouldn't do it, know it's not, like, good for me or anything. But it's hard for me to put in the effort to fix it when some little voice in my head can credibly say, "Hey, it ain't that big a deal, is it?"
When I'm getting an urge to grab a 6 pack and get drunk I often find soda water (not sure if this specification carries over given the use of "soda" in america) mixed with a small amount of orange juice, and continually drinking heaps of that helps me replace the "physical" part of the fixation.
I do the same, but we just buy cases of the flavored soda water like La Croix and whatnot. Some flavors are bad, some are amazing, but my wife and I definitely like the unsweetened kinds the best. But even unflavored soda water is pretty great, imo