alcoholism

[Mick N]

I am experiencing blackouts when drinking.  It has been happening over the last few years.  I do not drink every day and I do not crave alcohol.  I drink socially may two times a week on occasions three.  It is very rare when I drink that I dont have a blackout.  I need to know if this is early stage alcoholism?

[justlikeyou]

whatever it is exactly.......its not good.

why dont you try drinking less often or less quantity?

or both.

[fishmeal]

I was taught that there is use, abuse, and addiction.  Once you cross the addiction line few will ever be able to go back.  Maybe google, "Am I an Alcoholic," and see what comes up?

[beachtowel]

If you know that you black out when you drink why do you drink?

You say you just drink a couple of times socially, if it does not really
mean that much to you why would you risk something bad happening when
your blacked out........?

[CATUF]

Normal drinkers don't have blackouts.  Period.

It took me a long time to believe that.  I thought most people were just lying about not experiencing blackouts, since I had one the first time I drank more than just a little bit.

Usually I would go to sleep (or pass out) during the blackout, so I would just wake up with a number of missing hours from the night before.  I was quite used to that, so it was not that big a deal - figure out where the car was, who I had to apologize to and then get on with my (so called) life.  

Once I came to in the middle of a blackout.  I thought it was early morning and that I was being roused out of my sleep by an annoying and repetitive noise.  The noise just w-o-u-l-d  n-o-t  s-t-o-p and I slowly started becoming aware of my surroundings.  I thought I was in a DARK room and I was wondering where in the hell I was.  But, like the speading light just before sunrise, the room was slowly starting to lighten.  At first it was just a slight graying of the blackness (and STILL that annoying sound), but soon it was mostly gray and suddenly I could see.

I was quite suprised to find that I hadn't been asleep at all or even in a room.  I was walking across a HUGE empty parking lot.  I was missing my shirt, my right shoe and my wallet.  The sound which had so annoyed me had been my left shoe scuffing the pavement as I walked.  It was about 5:30 a.m. and the last thing I could even vaguely remember had been around midnight.

The only thing I ever figured out about that particular set of missing hours was that I had been seen and talked to by friends at about 2:00 am buying cigarettes.  They said I appeared "fine," like I had been doing some mild partying, but didn't seem sloppy drunk, etc.

As I look at it now I'm at a loss to explain why blackouts in general and the above-described wierd event in particular didn't scare the hell out of me.  But they didn't.  I drank like that for 12 years.  

Now I haven't had a blackout in 19 years.  I wish I could say that I've been clean and sober for that long, but 9 years into my abstinence from alcohol I had a serious injury that required opiate pain killers for a number of months.  Me being me, I turned opiates into a way of life - one that almost killed me.  

I used to think that my opiate addiction was really only bad because it was what lead to the final six months of active addiction, which had me smoking crack at record rates.  I now believe that the opiates were actually worse - at least the crack was so over-the-top and out of control that my secret came out and I got the treatment I needed.  This coming Thursday I'll have 2 years.

You are being warned by a HUGE red flag.  You can pay attention to it or not.  I would suggest that you quit drinking for 90 days and hit 90 AA meetings in the same period.  If it doesn't help you can always go back to what you're doing now.

Attempts at controlled drinking are said to be a good way to determine if you do or do not have a problem.  Many alcoholics can go for long periods with zero alcohol, it's just that when they do drink all bets are off.  If you're not willing to try the AA deal yet, try this:  Have one drink, and ONLY one drink, every day at about the same time (5:00 to 8:00 pm) every day for the next 30 days.  Never more, but never less -  you must have the one drink, but never more than one (no matter what).  They say that if you can strictly adhere to that schedule you probably are not an alcoholic.  

CATUF

[Mick N]

Thanks for your comments.  The question asked  - "if I know I have blackouts when I drink then why do I do it?  The answer is it didn't bother me massively up until recently when people have told me what my behaviour is like.  I like a drink socially with friends and when drinking i may feel tipsey, the confusing thing is one minute i am fine the next I wake up fully clothed and am told by friends that they could see me cross a certain line.  I never know when that line is coming up if i did quite honestly I wouldn't want to go past it. I always believe this time I will control it but unfortunately it quite often never works.  

[dogguy]

Are you trying to set some type of addiction record or something???  MAN!  You have done it all...pills...alc....whew!  I apologize for being rough on you earlier.  I did not know your history...I am new here and I thought I was a record setter.  You should change your ID to HARDCORE....again...sorry about that...you did need rehab, I was wrong.

[CATUF]

I left out all the crystal meth I snorted and smoked!

I didn't think you were hard on me.  I just assume that to you the notion of surrender not only sounds stupid, but EXACTLY the wrong thing too.  You statements about will power and determination remind me of myself when I was first figuring out that I was in trouble with Lortab.

I saw absolutely no reason why will power and determination would not beat the problem.  That is what I had used with everything that was a challenge in the past and I had never been defeated.  I didn't always win the first time, but I always came back, never gave up, no matter how hard it got.  I didn't quit and I always got what I was after -- many times only after I kept on fighting the good fight long after everyone else had thrown in the towel.  That kind of determination, refusal to say uncle, etc., served me well in the Marine Corps, in law school and in life generally.

I was SURE it would work with this addiction business too!!  I wasn't going to let a little white pill kick my ass, no sir!  I was going to show those little bastards what was what and who was it.

Only it didn't work,  I tried again, harder, and it didn't work.  I tried again, harder still, and it didn't work.  It didn't work and it didn't work and it didn't work and it didn't work and it didn't work.  I could always (well, usually) get clean, but sooner or later, usually as some sort of stress was building or I needed to really push at work, I went back.  I tried and I tried to STAY clean, but nothing worked.

Absolutely nothing worked . . . . . . until I gave up.  I quite fighting addiction.  I literally said "I give up, I can't do this." And then I started getting better.