New Alcohol self help

Taffyscot

Glad wrote: »

the previous thread has been locked while the abuse team consider wether an alcohol support thread still has a place on a moneysaving site

please do not start another one until a decision has been made

thank you

This made me have a chuckle. I checked the first page to see about alanon info and I saw this. Wondering if alcohol abuse belongs on a money saving site. Well guess what? If this can help people in any way stop drinking it is unimaginable just how much money a MSE'r would save if they could just stop drinking. Would probably be one of the biggest things they could ever save money on. No offence intended just seemed a bit of an oxymoron thing to say whether it has a place on a money saving site. lol Taffy

lewt

:T

brodev wrote: »

Hi Star nice to meet you. I've been reading your posts and your honesty is refreshing. I know what it is like to live a lie. You seem to be really wanting to get sober again and I feel as if I must be just as honest with you. Get yourself back to the meetings. I know that you know that is what is needed. You are in a different position from someone who has not been before. You KNOW it works. It has worked for you before and you KNOW it can work for you again. When you first went you could only hope. The problem may be a bit of pride/ego needs to be overcome but as the old advert used to say you know it makes sense.
I must thank you for bringing back to mind that feeling of how good it was not having to lie. I wish you every success

:T :T :T great post brodev

masterthief

Star-X - don't apologise. I joined this tread a few posts before you and was gonna come on here right now and lie. sya how wonderfully sober I'd been. and it isn't true. and reading thru your posts I couldn't write that lie. so don't apologise, 'cause I'm thanking you.

my original posts were asking advice about 'whether I had a drink problem' - I'd long thought I did, and tonight has confirmed it (as have the posts I got as a response to my initial query. I'm at my mum's right now and she has this wonderful thing (I'm 23, so she's still v. 'motherly' IYKWIM) of offering one small baileys, or brandy or summat, then criticising me when I drink half the bottle. I can understand where she's coming from, but equally I have explained countless times that if I have one drink I'm going to have more than one - I've even told her straight that I have a drink problem.

the reason I started posting here was because I seem to be the only person I know who thinks I have a problem with drinking. due to hollow legs and a (quite possibly temporary but also bloody fortunate) ability to go without drink for long periods, ppl I know don't think my drinking to excess (whenever I drink) is a problem. the mere fact that I was going to lie about my drinking tonight proves that it is a problem. so thank you for affirming my conclusions - I'm in a position to do something about it, and I will.

the truth is that tonight, that one small baileys was followed by a rather large baileys, 8 bottles of Carlsberg, half a bottle of brandy, and a bottle of wine. and the turth is that from tongith I'm fully prepared to tell ppl that I'm an alcoholic and I can't and, perhaps more importantly, wont drink again (slight fingers crossed on that last bit - if I manage 90% of it I wont kick myself too hard, lol). the posts I've read, and my inability to speak honestly about my drinking has affirmed my belief that this isn't something I can control, or at least isn't something I'm comfortable with - therefore it is an addiction.

And re Star-X again - your OH might not believe you now when you say you are going to deal with this, and you've said he has good reason to be doubtful, but I'm sure that with every day of your sobriety he will come to have more and more faith in you, so don't give up. you might not be able to look him in the face and tell him your gonna be sober today, but it sounds like the both of you want that situation to happen someday and mean something (i.e. he is still wth you, still supporting you), so give it time. one day, you'll be in that situation.

and for what its worth to anyone who reads this? the biggest indicator that I had a problem with drink was my inability/unease in saying I had that problem with drink. the thought of saying I'm an alcoholic makes me twinge inside - and one great motivation for kicking his habit for me is being able to be in a social situation and comfortably refuse alcohol on the grounds that I'm an alcoholic.

as for MSEing.......................if you had any idea of the amount of cash I spent on booze through uni (and not just my own cash), you'd understand why this thread deserves a home on MSE. the retail pice of the booze I consumed in one year of uni could clear the debts of some DFW's with ease. and it is the primary cause of my (fairly modest, fortunately) debts.

lewt

Well done MT i know i dont know you personally. but reading your Post has made me proud of you. it is a big thing to admit when you are young i was 26. i felt better once i had admitted this to myself. the dishonesty is common with us it can also be looked apon as denial. i can remember being sat in rehab dening my life was unmanagable. lol.

My mum used to offer me alcohol, and also buy me it for gifts sometimes. she just didnt understand the illness i had and the craving that starts once i have one. so i dont blame her tday out of her 3 kids i am the only one witht his illness. and she had not been around it before me.

Just one point and i don't mean this in any bad way at all. i read you said if you manage 90% of the time..... with my alcoholism i look at it that i have an alky inside me still today that talks in the same voice as my normal thinking. (my HP also has the same voice but its very long... )i just wondered if that could be your alky inside trying to leave the back door open, you know what i mean ?

I know sometimes i can be blunt to the point. i hope i have not offened you as i don't wish to offend anyone here. its just when i was around in the begining of my recovery i was lucky enough to have people round me that would point these things out to me. and i know it helped me.

but you know this is a very open forum with about 200 readers aday at least it was yesterday so even if you dont get anything from what i say someone else might and also someone else may come along and make more sense to you than i do now. i wish you all the best.

brodev

This is certainly the time for people on here being honest with themselves. The start of something good. MT I was 23 when I joined AA a long time ago now. Everything happened very quickly for me. I was drinking at school and didn't get to uni because drink took over my life. At that time everybody loved me and I was the life and soul of every place I went. I will not tell you the quantities I could drink because I would not be believed. I never showed any effects of drink, except that I always blacked out, but, as I didn't behave any differently, nobody knew. I didn't have much money and that controlled my drinking. When I left school and joined the forces my income went up. I was medically discharged within 1 year at the age of 21 because of my drinking. By this time I was behaving totally differently in black outs and the things I was told that I was doing made me feel terrible. I began to lose my hollow legs and people started to distance themselves from me. 2 years later after a couple of suicide attempts and with no self respect or friends I joined AA. I am now just another old man with children and grandchildren living an ordinary life of peace and happiness. What joy. I was told that I had my life in front of me and people will probably say similar things to you. When Alcoholism strikes young it very often kills and I have seen many young casualties in my life, but the life that sobriety brings to a young person gives him/her the potential to fulfil all their abilities.
As regards money I never had money. Other people had pounds and coins. I had enough for X cans or bottles. Now I don't know how much I have but I have enough to have a house in UK and 1 in Spain and 1 in Portugal. It's too much and I am selling the 1 in Spain. Although if it was only about saving money I would be long dead.

masterthief

lewt - no offence/offense taken. perhaps I wasn't too clear, now that I read it back. my point was more that I've known people try to give up ther substances (from cigarettes upwards) and they say they're gonna stop, but the slightest blip/relapse really gets them down, they feel like they've failed and the blip becomes a serious relapse. or perhaps they're just using that as an excuse (possible). I just meant that if I do have a blip, I'm gonna try not to beat myself up about it too much, not gonna look at it like its some kind of 'proof' that quitting is impossible, y'know? but you're right about not having excuses.

I'm not blaming my mum for her stance - she rarely drinks more than one glass of anything, so really doesn't understand my situation. Its just that on one earlier occasion she hid the alcohol we had in the house on account of the volume I'd consumed, and criticises me when I consume a lot, but I keep explaining to her that my having one drink is just gonna lead to me having a lot. she knows this, she's seen it. but I guess what I feel is more about the general situation - its hard enough for meto sy "I'm an alcoholic, and I can't/wont drink alcohol" but when you try to say that and no one takes it seriously it gets even harder.


brodev - thanks also for your post. yeah, the money thing was just from reading earlier posts - one queried whether this thread should be on a money saving site, and I think we all know how much cash we've wasted on drinking and that we need support to quit drinking, so I think the thread fits the MSE criteria.

props for posting so quickly in response, btw.

Bogof_Babe

I just spotted a giving up smoking thread on the DFW board, so if that's okay then I'm sure this one is .

Hope you all have a temptation-free Saturday night. Nasty weather for going out, so I guess most of us will be around on here if anyone wants a natter.

lewt

i'll be around as long as im awake i onlyh got 3-4 hours sleep yesterday while i was at work...... hope everyone has a noce evening.

masterthief

no alcohol tonight, and I'm off early to sleep. hope everyone else on this thread had an easy evening too. 1.

lewt

morning all, i slept almost 12 hours las t night, bar the 2.30am wake up i was in bed at 10.30 and up again at 11.00 i needed it. i'm off to work again in an hour...