The giving up/cutting down alcohol thread part VI

Lurkio

honeybear wrote: »

No rest for the wicked... :rotfl:

.....and no wicked for the rest :cool:

40somethingmum

:hello:Hi

Must have a catch up;)

40Smxx:D

MountainOfDebt_2

Hi everyone.

Well, had a bad weekend. Really annoyed as I avoided the free booze at the lounge and on the flight, got home to a nice decaf coffee (Lavazza) and woke up all virtuous on Friday. Wife took ED to gymnastics and come back with 6 beers and a couple of bottles of wine saying she'd been good all week and, basically, talked me into having a drink with her. Fast forward to me drunk on the couch 4 hours later havign run out of booze, I opened a bottle of 60 year old port I'd been saving and drunk it. Woke up in bed feeling utterly dreadful and miserable with ED there. Felt really ashamed of myself all day Saturday, but was really healthy and had a good day witht he kids. Sunday, my very best friend on earth rocked up and invited us all over for dinner. It's funny how you associate people with actions or behaviour and with him, we always drink, always have done. So, cue 6 hours later I am asleep at 8pm rolling drunk.

I have had trouble coming on here to own up to be frank; I feel terrible for myself more than anything else. I have been feeling so postive. I asked not to be upgraded this week, that any extras they can send to my room, bit no booze; I feel this week could be a struggle for me.

graemecarter

fedupandskint wrote: »

I've remembered what I was going to say....

I feel like I am at a similar stage to when I stopped smoking years ago. It took me ages to get to the point of stopping even though I thought about it every day. I then moved to very occasionally smoking and realised I didn't enjoy anything about it anymore and stopped and have never smoked since (11yrs ago now)

Maybe I am at a similar stage with alcohol - if I am truthful

Do I enjoy anything about it any longer? No - not really not even the taste now
Will I enjoy being a non drinker? Yes - I enjoy it now
Do I think I miss out on anything by not drinking? No - what is there to miss?

I have recognised at long last that it is my thirst that drives the triggers for my drinking and that alcohol does not satisfy the thirst. Pop and water do the trick better! Its only taken 20yrs to realise this! And only with all the help and support available on this thread

Maybe these 2 drinking days for this month and last month are me getting to the point of stopping for good. I feel it is what I want to do without any thoughts holding me back at long last.

Great post. I started to loath smoking, and carried on even though it did nothing for me (apart from cost me money, make me smell, damage my health, and give me headaches). Eventually enough was enough, and I am extremely glad to not have had a ciggie in 447 days!! Today I can say I never want another one, however I must remain vigilant as one puff and those cravings would start again. I just need to make sure I never take another puff

It sounds like you have had enough of alcohol - I stopped when the fun had gone out of drinking (the fun left years before, but I only realised the fun had gone the day of my last drink) and the consequences were unbearable.
If you don't want to drink any more, that's great. Having that desire not to drink is important to stay sober. It must be awful wanting to drink and not allowing yourself a drink. Having to control it is rubbish (I tried for years) and I was not happy until the desire to drink had left me. It sounds like it has left you too.

I found thirst to be a common trigger - and it is the trigger most easy to get rid of by keeping hydrated.

Good for you - I know for me an AF life is a better one than a life with alcohol in it

Lurkio

graemecarter wrote: »

Great post. I started to loath smoking, and carried on even though it did nothing for me (apart from cost me money, make me smell, damage my health, and give me headaches). Eventually enough was enough, and I am extremely glad to not have had a ciggie in 447 days!! Today I can say I never want another one, however I must remain vigilant as one puff and those cravings would start again. I just need to make sure I never take another puff

Sorry GC, but this is what I don't get (I ally smoking and drinking together, for the most part)

If you say that you never want another cigarette, why do you need to remain vigilant? Why can't you just get on and enjoy your life without having to be constantly 'on guard'?

To me, it's like saying "I must remember not to inject myself with heroin" every day. I don't. I don't think about it. Similarly with smoking (I stopped a few years ago and don't give it any thought), and I can't see why the same can't be said about alcohol once you have stopped.

I'm not being critical, btw . I'm just trying to understand how and why alcohol dependency is treated differently to any other addiction........

Hope this is read in the spirit it is intended



*changes in to flame retardant clothing*

graemecarter

MountainOfDebt wrote: »

Hi everyone.

Well, had a bad weekend. Really annoyed as I avoided the free booze at the lounge and on the flight, got home to a nice decaf coffee (Lavazza) and woke up all virtuous on Friday. Wife took ED to gymnastics and come back with 6 beers and a couple of bottles of wine saying she'd been good all week and, basically, talked me into having a drink with her. Fast forward to me drunk on the couch 4 hours later havign run out of booze, I opened a bottle of 60 year old port I'd been saving and drunk it. Woke up in bed feeling utterly dreadful and miserable with ED there. Felt really ashamed of myself all day Saturday, but was really healthy and had a good day witht he kids. Sunday, my very best friend on earth rocked up and invited us all over for dinner. It's funny how you associate people with actions or behaviour and with him, we always drink, always have done. So, cue 6 hours later I am asleep at 8pm rolling drunk.

I have had trouble coming on here to own up to be frank; I feel terrible for myself more than anything else. I have been feeling so postive. I asked not to be upgraded this week, that any extras they can send to my room, bit no booze; I feel this week could be a struggle for me.

I'm sorry you are feeling the way you are. There seems to be a lot of despair in your post.
I know exactly how you feel. I had periods of being AF, then I would end up drunk. I hated myself for it, and felt I had let down my family, friends, and myself. I felt weak willed and pathetic.

I now know that I am alcoholic, so that's why I drank like I did. I think of it as an illness. I have made the choice to recover from the illness.
I, like you, could not say no to certain people. I felt I had to drink for them to enjoy themselves.
I realise now that people who truly care for me want me to do what makes me happy and healthy. And that's not to drink.

You can turn this into a positive. Learn lessons from it :
Other people are a trigger
You don't want to stop when you have started
The bad feelings after the event are longer lived than the good feelings of drinking

etc

graemecarter

Lurkio wrote: »

Sorry GC, but this is what I don't get (I ally smoking and drinking together, for the most part)

If you say that you never want another cigarette, why do you need to remain vigilant? Why can't you just get on and enjoy your life without having to be constantly 'on guard'?

To me, it's like saying "I must remember not to inject myself with heroin" every day. I don't. I don't think about it. Similarly with smoking (I stopped a few years ago and don't give it any thought), and I can't see why the same can't be said about alcohol once you have stopped.

I'm not being critical, btw . I'm just trying to understand how and why alcohol dependency is treated differently to any other addiction........

Hope this is read in the spirit it is intended



*changes in to flame retardant clothing*

Great post, and thanks for asking the question.

Today I don't want another cigarette ever again. However I don't know how I will feel tomorrow. So all I can do is stay vigilant today and not smoke today. Admittedly, the likelihood of me smoking tomorrow is extremely slim, but if I stay vigilant everyday, then that likelihood is diminished even further.
I give cigarettes very little thought, and by remaining vigilant I mean that for a few seconds in the morning I say to myself that I won't smoke today (I say that about drink too)
Then I can enjoy the rest of my day - I am not on guard. I can enjoy my life while remaining vigilant (as it takes so little time and effort). I don't avoid places where people will smoke etc, but I must remember that if I have a puff of a ciggie, I could well be back to 20 a day in a very short space of time.

I don't think about heroin either, but I have never been a heroin addict. However, I have been addicted to nicotine and I am alcoholic, so I must remain on guard about those two things. I went to a stag do in a pub on Saturday night. Before I went in I said to myself "I will get through this without a drink, and enjoy it" - and I didn't even want a drink and really enjoyed myself. Because I remain vigilant it means I am not fighting it like some people on this thread. I have no 'bells'

I don't think alcohol is treated too differently to heroin or cocaine dependency. It differs from cigarettes in that alcohol, heroin, cocaine, etc all are chemicals that change the way you feel. Cigarettes are not that strong. You cannot really pass out through smoking, or not stand up etc and the compulsion to smoke more and more doesn't really exist in many. Many people stick on 20 a day for many years. It doesn't go up to 40 , then 60, then 80 a day.However, alcohol progresses. 2 bottles of wine a week 10 years ago is often 4-5 bottles a week now. Alcoholics don't start off drinking 3 bottles of vodka a night - they progress to that.

Alcohol is said to be cunning, baffling and powerful. I believe that.
When people get complacent, they often drink again. You only have to follow these threads for a period of time to realise that very few people are successful in giving up (bravo to those people) and some people who do give up for a time slide back into drinking again (even though they promised not to)

I see parallels between smoking and drinking, but do not see them as similarly as you do. My question would have to be if you can give up ciggies, why can't you give up booze?

I believe I can never forget about booze safely. I am alcoholic, will always be one, so to forget about it would lead me back to a drink. And when I drink, life gets messy.
Alcohol works on me in subtle ways. In the past, if I had a few days under my belt without a drink, I would tell myself (and believe) I didn't have a problem with alcohol and start drinking again. So I know how cunning this disease is for me. It tells me things which are not true to get me to drink again. I don't want that to happen so I stay vigilant. Vigilance keeps me AF. When AF I am much more happy. When happy I don't want to drink to change the way I feel.

honeybear_2

I just managed to report one of my own posts as spam

:rotfl:

Lurkio

graemecarter wrote: »

I see parallels between smoking and drinking, but do not see them as similarly as you do. My question would have to be if you can give up ciggies, why can't you give up booze?

That's a good question. My answer (which may well change if I give it more thought) would be that I don't consider myself to be in the same position as I was with cigarettes of 'wanting' to stop enough. If/when I do, I will employ the same tactics as I did with smoking. Additionally, I think it may be slightly easier to stop smoking, as it has for many years been the 'antisocial' habit, whereas drinking is still widely considered to be a social activity - as smoking was in the 50s and 60s. Until this changes, I think it will be harder than it otherwise would be (for everyone, not just me).

Great reply GC, thank you. I'm not dismissing the rest of it by not quoting it, I just wanted to respond to that question in particular

eta : I've never been a heroin addict either. Just to clarify

Lurkio

honeybear wrote: »

I just managed to report one of my own posts as spam

:rotfl:

Q.E.D....... :rotfl: :rotfl: