Giving Up/Cutting Down Alcohol Thread part 18

ManPants · 16 November 2024 at 4:29PM

My Goodness!

I feel like a returning hero! Thank you all for the lovely welcome back! I can remember all of your names now I see them all over again!

So I am now 16/30 for November & 93 days straight through.

In January this year, I went through alcohol withdrawal in hospital as I came out of theatre following emergency surgery. It was 24 hours since I had last ingested alcohol or c*c*ine. (I wasn't a drunk or drugged driver btw!)

Rigours, hallucinations, itching & you are literally uncontrollable. You get medications injected to stop seizures from the withdrawal. I was in hospital for 3 weeks then got out & remained alcohol - free for a few more weeks then caved after a provocation by my former partners family. In August of 2023, I had got a phone call from a virtual stranger to tell me that my partner of some 20 years had been having an affair with one of our friends - for 2 years. I'd sat in groups where everyone had known apart from me.
To leave meant I lost everything, to stay meant feeling crushed inside forever.
I left.
I drank solidly for 6 months and started c*c*ine almost daily too until hospital happened. I'm now in a position where I can't drink at all. I pushed it those last steps too far & I now I can't go back.

So, from someone on the other side of drinking (and this is not meant preachy at all or that I think I'm Angelina Jolie) please be mindful of achieving your goals, of checking in daily, of offloading with people who understand. It is a strange new word you will have to inhibit. You have to learn "who" & "what" your triggers for drinking alcohol are. Imagine watching the Euros at home, on your own as you know if you're with your male buddies you'll just want to feel like a normal man having a beer & cheering your country on.
For me I now know that non alcoholic beers are great but after 2/3 it is an easy transition in my head to jump to an ACTUAL beer. The jump from Coffee or Soda is much greater so I don't do the "pretend" alcohol drinks anymore.

I tried AA which didn't really work for me............................I listen to a "One Year No Beer" video or a podcast. AA meetings become more of a "thing" so therefore alcohol then becomes more of a thing and a focus. This forum likewise is something that is manageable within your day without it becoming a focus and therefore alcohol a focus.

It does get easier though. In the early days it really was just hour by hour I was trying to get through and going to bed at 7.30pm at night. An almost "witching hour" for going out i found!

Maybe some of this may help one of you tonight think "I don't want to push it too far" and put the bottle of wine back down. You're all in a really fortunate position that you can still go to a wedding and do the toast with champagne or get on a business class flight and have a beer in your hand before the plane is even fully loaded. I envy you but i now know i can't be that person anymore.

Cheers to sober successes to all of you!

Man Pants! X

cathybird · 16 November 2024 at 10:02PM

November AFD challenge

7 days =

14 days =

21 days =

28 days =

Target reached =

Target beaten =

Entire month =

November targets

cathybird 17/21

dustydigger 24

lantanna 2/15

leftatthetrafficlights 17/24

maggiem 10

maman 8/10

marahouti 16/25

oceandreamer 14/12

PriceySOS 8/24

RobM99 14/29

satchmo1 13/20

Season of Mist 27

Shaggydoo

Shrewbie 16/28

sukeyboo 8/10

tiddles 10

Watty1 12/23

WBF 8/14

🌞 🌞 Newcomers welcome! 🌞 🌞

cathybird · 16 November 2024 at 10:03PM

November results updated here

Season_of_Mist · 16 November 2024 at 11:27PM

ManPants, thanks so much for sharing, what a story you have been and still are part of. Really very inspiring. Please keep going and if it helps, please keep checking in on here.

Alcohol is a very dangerous substance and it is just incredibly effective in how it can re-wire the pathways in the brain. I have heard alcohol compared almost to a parasite that can take over its host so completely, that in the end they exist only in order to continue drinking. That is probably a little over-dramatic, apologies, but that analogy did sort of make some sense to me when I first read it (this is just thinking out loud on how quickly alcohol can take over and definitely not directed at anyone on here BTW).

I have only had one non-AF day so far in November and remain on course for my target of 27 alcohol free days this month. This might sound a bit feeble but sometimes I find it helps me to try and replace a little bit of the ritual around drinking, in particular on Friday and Saturday nights, so this evening I got out my nice tea pot for one and made a proper hot brew with the really good tin of loose tea from Harrods that my mum got me in the summer. I got 3 decent mugs out of the pot, made sure I really appreciated them, and because I’d turned it into a little bit of an event, it sort of distracted the urge to drink. Bit sad really - most of the time I seem to get by okay through iron will alone 🙂

Marahouti, I was sorry to hear your news. Sending best wishes.

oceandreamer · 17 November 2024 at 12:26AM

Sorry to hear your news too Marahouti, stay strong.
ManPants I haven't been on the forum long enough to remember you but as Season_of_mist says, your story is inspiring.
13/12 today please Cathybird.