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how serious is my compulsive drinking and what can I do?
by estrelagal, Apr 04, 2007 12:00AM
Hello.
I am male, 33, 5’10”, 155lbs.
I began weekend binge drinking at 17 around the age of 21. It caused me moderate hangovers and regular cases of memory loss and regret over drunken behaviour. Later, while living alone for two years, I began to drink alone when lonely or depressed. After getting married I continued as before and began to seize any opportunity (e.g. on business trips) to go out alone and get blind drunk. I’ve also started drinking too much at family gatherings, and drinking alone beforehand.
A typical Saturday: 3 beers before lunch, ˝ bottle of wine with lunch and a couple of shots; a couple of afternoon beers, in the evening more wine and beer. I get an extra beer when nobody’s looking.
I now only get memory loss on the solo outings. Hangovers involve shaking (I have essential tremor), insecurity and poor concentration (not headaches or bad stomach).
Booze hits me very suddenly. One minute I'm fine, the next I'm slurring and uncoordinated.
I lead a healthy lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise. My annual company medical shows no liver problems. I don’t drink every day, but associate it with weekends and social occasions.
I’ve often tried to moderate, but to no avail. I bought a book on “safe social drinking” which I found useless.
By now I've probably done myself some physical damage, gained a reputation as a drunkard and alienated my wife.
Quitting sounds sensible, but I don't want to. I enjoy a glass of good wine with a meal, or a cold beer with a friend. I would become miserable and tend to avoid situations I associate with drinking, i.e. my social life.
Limiting it seems like a good solution, but I'm not sure how long I'll keep it up before the inevitable relapse.
So, anyway, I'd appreciate any comments and advice.
I am male, 33, 5’10”, 155lbs.
I began weekend binge drinking at 17 around the age of 21. It caused me moderate hangovers and regular cases of memory loss and regret over drunken behaviour. Later, while living alone for two years, I began to drink alone when lonely or depressed. After getting married I continued as before and began to seize any opportunity (e.g. on business trips) to go out alone and get blind drunk. I’ve also started drinking too much at family gatherings, and drinking alone beforehand.
A typical Saturday: 3 beers before lunch, ˝ bottle of wine with lunch and a couple of shots; a couple of afternoon beers, in the evening more wine and beer. I get an extra beer when nobody’s looking.
I now only get memory loss on the solo outings. Hangovers involve shaking (I have essential tremor), insecurity and poor concentration (not headaches or bad stomach).
Booze hits me very suddenly. One minute I'm fine, the next I'm slurring and uncoordinated.
I lead a healthy lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise. My annual company medical shows no liver problems. I don’t drink every day, but associate it with weekends and social occasions.
I’ve often tried to moderate, but to no avail. I bought a book on “safe social drinking” which I found useless.
By now I've probably done myself some physical damage, gained a reputation as a drunkard and alienated my wife.
Quitting sounds sensible, but I don't want to. I enjoy a glass of good wine with a meal, or a cold beer with a friend. I would become miserable and tend to avoid situations I associate with drinking, i.e. my social life.
Limiting it seems like a good solution, but I'm not sure how long I'll keep it up before the inevitable relapse.
So, anyway, I'd appreciate any comments and advice.
Post Comment
are you wanting to stop or are you asking if you can continue drinking but with "control"?
Like Lizzie Lou said, read your post. It's very revealing to us and should be to you also. And keep in mind, that even binge drinking does serious damage to your liver.
If you want to quit, this is one of the places to come to and we will help you. We are all addicts or recovering addicts from various addictions.
Good luck,
Yoda
and also, don't dis 12-Step programs until you've given them a try. In 2000, AA was touted as one of the top five most profound spiritual movements of the 20th Century--or something like that. i don't know you, and perhaps this sounds like a horrible honor, but i find it quite amazing. Good Luck to you. i hope we can help you in some way here.
--athena
Here's a bit from Chapter 3 of AA's Big Book:
==========================
Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals usually brief were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing a making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.
Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self- deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right-about- face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows, we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people!
Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums we could increase the list ad infinitum.
We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself, step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of jitters if you get a full knowledge of your condition.
====================================
The Big Book is available on-line at http://www.recovery.org/aa/bigbook/ww/index.html
Sure, my ideal solution would be to continue drinking with “control”, i.e. enjoy a drink, pace myself, stop when in danger of getting drunk.
I already do this to some extent. I’m not trying to make excuses, but to try to explain my situation, because I am somewhat mystified by it.
I live in a country where alcohol is cheap and widely available, people drink a lot but don’t often get drunk (pace themselves). I grew up in a country where booze was expensive and of limited availability.
I feel no urge to drink during the week. If I do it’s just an occasional beer with friends, and absolutely no urge to continue afterwards.
Then the weekend comes. I associate relaxation and the weekend with drinking. Saturday, 2–3 beers while out shopping and cooking, another couple (or ˝ bottle wine) with lunch, 3–4 late afternoon with friends, 2–3 (or wine) with dinner, and if I go out at night (once a month) a whole lot more. Same on Sunday.
I rarely get totally blitzed. Even those solo business trip sessions are never that extreme. This may be to do with only really drinking beer.
The blackouts take the form of not really remembering, then someone mentioning something and me thinking “Oh yeah, that sounds familiar”.
I think I may have low tolerance. After 4–5 beers my wife notices in my speech/movements.
I know this can’t be doing my liver and brain much good. I feel paranoid and unable to concentrate on Mondays, with a tight feeling under my ribs.
I’m wary of subscribing to AA’s description of an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink for a week now, and never felt more than a slight urge to have one, despite being in the company of drinkers, as I’ve decided not to drink at all this month and see what happens. I certainly didn’t get any adverse cold turkey symptoms. Quite the opposite – I feel good.
I guess I just want to know why I feel the need to do what I do at weekends and when I’m away on trips, and just how much damage I’m doing myself.