Alcoholism Support Thread - Down the hatch

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

I think i had a taste of this when i went down to only 2 shots a night. I had vivid dreams of people breaking into my house

Melatonin helps. Maybe a few Benadryl for the first 2 nights, but that's it because you'll just get hooked on that instead

 

[world of shit]

I'm having one last hurrah tonight after putting in another 14hr day on 4 hours of sleep, then plan on sleeping late tomorrow and going to an AA group.

Going forth, I'll be doing only 2 shots a night max while I hit this deadline, then bite the bullet over the holidays.
I've whiteknuckled 2 pack a day cigarettes, and many different flavors of opiates, so I'm okay with pain, but the dangers of physical WDs from alcohol have me a little worried. But i think if i keep at 2 shots max a night (no more benders), it shouldn't be too bad or dangerous by xmas. Or maybe i'm just overthinking it all.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

I'm having one last hurrah tonight after putting in another 14hr day on 4 hours of sleep, then plan on sleeping late tomorrow and going to an AA group.

Going forth, I'll be doing only 2 shots a night max while I hit this deadline, then bite the bullet over the holidays.
I've whiteknuckled 2 pack a day cigarettes, and many different flavors of opiates, so I'm okay with pain, but the dangers of physical WDs from alcohol have me a little worried. But i think if i keep at 2 shots max a night (no more benders), it shouldn't be too bad or dangerous by xmas. Or maybe i'm just overthinking it all.

Don't try to negotiate with your habits.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I drank my usual amount some weeks ago and spent the sunday throwing up 4-5 times, being practically empty after 2. It was enough to keep me from drinking for a few weeks but now the interest is back. I've had an unusually rough week and the weekend feels earned, yet I sit here on my ass freezing, bored, having browsed reddit meme pages for 2 hours. I won't be booting anything up for the next 3 hours and then I'll go to bed.

Alternatively: Alcohol, some random game, feel like I've got interest in gaming for once and then crash. It's the fact I can wake up completely devoid of hangover that makes me consider it, but I also know that if I actively drink a lot of water to combat it, chances are I end up sitting at 9:30pm halfway sober and then just going to bed out of boredom. It really just straight-up is fucking boredom. And I got enough things I wanna do and play but lack the energy to click that fucking .exe.

And you feel so fucking basic and dumb. I am sitting here, fine going to bed early every single day EXCEPT fri/saturday. Why? Well, 12 years ago, I-

 

[dick brain]

I drank my usual amount some weeks ago and spent the sunday throwing up 4-5 times, being practically empty after 2. It was enough to keep me from drinking for a few weeks but now the interest is back. I've had an unusually rough week and the weekend feels earned, yet I sit here on my ass freezing, bored, having browsed reddit meme pages for 2 hours. I won't be booting anything up for the next 3 hours and then I'll go to bed.

Alternatively: Alcohol, some random game, feel like I've got interest in gaming for once and then crash. It's the fact I can wake up completely devoid of hangover that makes me consider it, but I also know that if I actively drink a lot of water to combat it, chances are I end up sitting at 9:30pm halfway sober and then just going to bed out of boredom. It really just straight-up is fucking boredom. And I got enough things I wanna do and play but lack the energy to click that fucking .exe.

And you feel so fucking basic and dumb. I am sitting here, fine going to bed early every single day EXCEPT fri/saturday. Why? Well, 12 years ago, I-

My dude you need a fucking hobby.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

My dude you need a fucking hobby.

It'd solve most of my issues but the easy way of finding a new game or group is long gone with how dogshit anti social the online world has gone.

Sports I'd love to do, but they're primarily for kids and pensioners around here. I don't care about 40k nor knitting or drawing, so I've not many options. I biked a metric fuckton but after a few years of the same scenery it became repetitious training instead of exploring. I've been inching so close to feeling that genuine desire to play and practice fighting games but then the devs decided to implode Tekken and I ain't playing all those south american brazilian hoo-ha KOF ass games.

 

[dick brain]

It'd solve most of my issues but the easy way of finding a new game or group is long gone with how dogshit anti social the online world has gone.

Sports I'd love to do, but they're primarily for kids and pensioners around here. I don't care about 40k nor knitting or drawing, so I've not many options. I biked a metric fuckton but after a few years of the same scenery it became repetitious training instead of exploring. I've been inching so close to feeling that genuine desire to play and practice fighting games but then the devs decided to implode Tekken and I ain't playing all those south american brazilian hoo-ha KOF ass games.

Playing video games is not a hobby. Consuming media in any form isn't a hobby. A hobby is something that exercises your generative drive and which you come away from richer for having done.

Even if cardio is boring, it's a much better use of your time and you'll both feel better and be better for it than indulging the behavioral equivalent of junk food -- especially if that behavior carries a high risk of substance abuse. Cardio in nature is even better. Same goes for lifting.

Pick up an instrument, much like video games it's free to use after the initial investment and mistakes cost nothing, but unlike a video game you will still be able to play it in five years and the time you spend getting good at it won't have been wasted. Or pick up a skill/craft, literally anything that will still be around in a few years.

It also sounds like you need friends tbh.

 

[Nique la mere de Macron]

I think i had a taste of this when i went down to only 2 shots a night. I had vivid dreams of people breaking into my house

I don't know about withdrawals but I can tell you that there are online AA meetings 24/7. That's what I do bc I'm an expat and I prefer an English-language meeting. Download the Everything AA app, which has a link to every online meeting worldwide. Mine is called the Crazy Monkeys group (ha ha) and those folks saved my life. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk.

 

[Manwithamask2]

Been a while, touched grass, had a long work trip and a long vacation just camping in the woods and fishing. I had some time away from the normal drudgery and i found out my major malfunction. My like for the vine aside. I don't actually want to get better, i quit AA because of that not because of some philosophical, religious or moral reasons (even though i had those). I could have made it all work. But i do not think i deserve to be sober or happy for that matter. Even though i can get more enjoyment out of gaming, reading books, watching movies etc. All the peer pressure crap and the ideas in the vein "well i have to get shitfaced drunk now" are just smoke. I could easily treat boredom, loneliness and all that without opening a bottle, but i am afraid to do so. TLDR Asking for help, confessing to being weak, and hoping someone would just ask "hey buddy how are you doing" is hard to admit. But when pride is all you have, well what are going to do.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

I drank my usual amount some weeks ago and spent the sunday throwing up 4-5 times, being practically empty after 2.

The things alcoholics consider "normal" to continue their habit...

I put up with much, much worse. Some guys puke blood on the regular.

ut i do not think i deserve to be sober or happy for that matter. Even though i can get more enjoyment out of gaming, reading books, watching movies etc. All the peer pressure crap and the ideas in the vein "well i have to get shitfaced drunk now" are just smoke. I could easily treat boredom, loneliness and all that without opening a bottle, but i am afraid to do so. TLDR Asking for help, confessing to being weak, and hoping someone would just ask "hey buddy how are you doing" is hard to admit. But when pride is all you have, well what are going to do.

How ya doing, buddy?

Grasp onto this moment of clarity. If you go to a local AA group, raise your hand, and say everything you wrote here, someone will help you.

 

[Manwithamask2]

How ya doing, buddy?

Doing ok now and headspace is stable . Sometimes you just got to put the crap rattling around your head on paper, or on screen. Simple trick, but it works for me even if i write stuff on notepad and delete it afterwards. Going to call buddy of mine tomorrow who is knowledgeable about all this stuff and meet for a coffee and a chat.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Doing ok now and headspace is stable . Sometimes you just got to put the crap rattling around your head on paper, or on screen. Simple trick, but it works for me even if i write stuff on notepad and delete it afterwards. Going to call buddy of mine tomorrow who is knowledgeable about all this stuff and meet for a coffee and a chat.

I think this whole post sounds great. You never wanna do what I (and others) call "going up in the attic." Getting stuck in your own head is never good and having someone to talk to always helps.

Hey guys, figured I'd drop in and kinda introduce myself and shoot the shit since God knows I will frequent this thread.

I am two days sober and this is my first time trying to moderate my drinking for my own health. I plan on not drinking anything until a couple of beers on Thanksgiving and then at most have two beers on Friday and the weekend rather than drinking a bunch of hard liquor everyday. I wouldn't say I am an alcoholic in the traditional sense since I had always thought of myself as a high functioning alcoholic but I don't think I have a chemical dependency since I feel fine right now. Then again maybe it will hit me like a ton of bricks tomorrow. Regardless, I realize that I will become one if I don't cut back and learn to control myself.

Anyway, do you guys find that looking at lolcows who struggle with this kind of stuff helps motivate you or is it just me? Ngl learning more about Nick Rekieta (however the fuck you spell his name), Josh Block, and others was what motivated me to try to cut back.

Hope you all are doing well and keeping up the good fight.

Welcome. I got sober before I started frequenting Kiwi Farms, so seeing people like Nick Rekieta devolve is more sad than motivating. You understand how a guy like that can give up everything in favor of booze and drugs. Going to meetings is helpful because you hear from people who are in the thick of it, and people who were in the thick of it and got their lives on track. You get to hear how bad it can really get, as well as hear messages of hope.

I never lost everything, but I was lucky, and I know that it can still happen. It's kinda gay and retarded, but I (and other guys in my home group) anthropomorphize our addiction as a dude who's always in the corner, he's training, and he's always got his eyes on you.

If you're past 24 hours with absolutely no booze and don't feel sick, or you felt sick and are feeling better, then chances are that you do not have a chemical addiction. However, I am not a doctor, and if you start to feel worse, go to the emergency room. Alcohol withdrawals are a medical emergency.

Other than that, my advice is to quit while you are ahead. Seriously. I have been chemically addicted to booze and the withdrawals are miserable. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My suggestion is always to go stone cold sober and not attempt to moderate, because people who moderate tend to fall back into their old, unhealthy habits. See how long you can go sober and try to manage any issues that come up without alcohol. One of the tough things people learn in sobriety is how to manage stressful situations without substances.

Just my two cents. Stay strong out there, buddy.

 

[Terfatron]

It'd solve most of my issues but the easy way of finding a new game or group is long gone with how dogshit anti social the online world has gone.

Sports I'd love to do, but they're primarily for kids and pensioners around here. I don't care about 40k nor knitting or drawing, so I've not many options. I biked a metric fuckton but after a few years of the same scenery it became repetitious training instead of exploring. I've been inching so close to feeling that genuine desire to play and practice fighting games but then the devs decided to implode Tekken and I ain't playing all those south american brazilian hoo-ha KOF ass games.

learn to code. No joke
it keeps you thinking, you have to solve problems and you will feel accomplished after solving a issue/figured out what needs fixing.

Dude, just try it because its not like you have anything keeping you.
Or just do whatever but you gotta do something and get out of that basement dweller rhythm. Its doable

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

So I drink a lot less than I used to. Enough so that I don't generally worry about it, mostly white wine and beer in safe quantities and maybe once a week? I stopped tracking this stuff a while ago.

On Friday I made the stupid decision of buying vodka, though. I know, even as I'm doing it, that it's retarded, because it's rationalized as "celebrating," but it isn't celebrating anything to get drunk and have a hangover by myself.

What was odd this time was that, well, I may have poisoned myself? So I suck down a large amount of the vodka, if you're an alcoholic you know what that's like, what you have on hand you will drink and you don't stop once you start. So pretty typical night as far as that goes. The next day, I'm hungover, but it's not too bad. I feel sick, basically, that's what being hungover is, but I don't really have a headache, I can function normally. I go about my day. I go out to eat (Chinese buffet). I take a long walk on a hiking/mountain bike trail. I come home.

As the night carries on I get to feeling more of a pressure, I suppose you may say, in my stomach, and late at night my mouth suddenly starts watering all over, and I know what this is. I rarely vomit. I think I vomited from alcohol twice before in my whole life, once after a party where I massively overdid it (also on vodka, which I rarely drink) and one other time somewhat more recently. Seems like alcohol tolerance has gone down, which I understand is a really bad sign if you're still a heavy drinker (you're killing yourself) but a good sign if you've been cutting back. At any rate, I rush to my sink (wish I had picked the toilet) and I upheave the undigested contents of dinner, spraying through the nose too, over and over. I feel an immediate sense of relief in the stomach (not in the throat and nose, of course). When I go to drink more water, I find that any water I put in quickly comes back up with more globs of vomit mush. Like I'd expelled the liquid without working out all of the solid, and I had to "refuel." I just kind of run cycles like that until it's gone. Then I fall into what's like a fever without a fever, I clean up as well as I can my bathroom and go to bed (making sure to sip gently some liquid). My thoughts run in circles, like a fever dream, one of those nights where you come in and out of sleep but it's like the mind is stuck playing a script (since I'd been playing Days Gone a lot lately, it revolved around that).

I get up today and still feel like shit. Stool kind of yellow/oily. Nibbling at my food (I considered not eating at all). Drained of energy.

I've never had that happen before, to have a two day hangover, unless the vomiting/illness was unrelated? I know that sounds absurd, it's not my go-to explanation, but it seemed odd for the effect to be so delayed.

I haven't gotten around to doing it yet - I have basically laid in my chair all day - but I need to go pour the rest of the vodka down the sink. I can't explain why I do this when I know that it's not even fun to be drunk, much less deal with the aftermath. It was a bad habit I was starting to lapse back into. But I hope my body goes back to normal tomorrow. I really don't think I drank enough to actually fuck up my organs, but it felt different than other occasions.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

So I drink a lot less than I used to. Enough so that I don't generally worry about it, mostly white wine and beer in safe quantities and maybe once a week? I stopped tracking this stuff a while ago...

Your stomach wasn't able to handle the liquor. It's irritated and your liver is creating excess bile to compensate for your less than stellar digestion.

I had a similar episode two weeks ago. This is your body telling you it can't handle that kind of drinking. Being unable to put it down is more or less you being unable to handle any kind of drinking.

You'll feel better in a few days. The first day after you didn't feel terrible because you were still drunk.

Hang in there buddy.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

You'll feel better in a few days. The first day after you didn't feel terrible because you were still drunk.

Hang in there buddy.

I didn't feel drunk, but I guess I could have been a sort of drunk? That actually makes me a little scared, because I was out driving, going to places. Body drunk but not mind drunk?

You're right, because I can't handle white wine and beer like I used to either. Sometime in between when I was regularly binge drinking (I don't have any tragic backstory, I just didn't have a frame of reference for what was too much and when I decided - got tired of hangovers - to stop, I found it difficult, and realized I had a problem) and now I'd have a bottle of wine or a large can of beer every other day, and it worked out to fit within FDA recommendations. But of late, if I have a bottle of white wine it feels like it just knocks me on my ass.

I think my problem is half chemical (family history of alcoholism) and half behavioral (indiscipline in general). I just know that I don't really like drinking. I like the taste of lager fairly and white wine/rose a lot, but drinking doesn't give me any pleasure anymore. Hasn't for a long time. I got a lot better about it this year, but was starting to get worse again.

I did pour my vodka down the sink.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

learn to code. No joke
it keeps you thinking, you have to solve problems and you will feel accomplished after solving a issue/figured out what needs fixing.

Dude, just try it because its not like you have anything keeping you.
Or just do whatever but you gotta do something and get out of that basement dweller rhythm. Its doable

Code /what/. The greatest artists and composers learned their trade to achieve something. Multi-instrument geniuses learned new shit to reach their goal. I've never heard of greatness from someone who went "I'll learn to drive before needing to drive somewhere". I like computers, I don't like how to make them.

I swear people can make programming relevant in all cases, even amidst pajeet takeover.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

I hope everyone's fighting the good fight and staying on the wagon. It's brutal to get through the holidays without drinking.

 

[Neighborhood Janny]

I hope everyone's fighting the good fight and staying on the wagon. It's brutal to get through the holidays without drinking.

As best I can every day, brother. Holidays are tough for sure. Winter is usually the worst time of year for me, so I'm anxiously awaiting for Spring to come and get me out of this cage. I've got plenty of zero sugar Dr. Pepper Cherry to keep me from hitting the bottle.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

As best I can every day, brother. Holidays are tough for sure. Winter is usually the worst time of year for me, so I'm anxiously awaiting for Spring to come and get me out of this cage. I've got plenty of zero sugar Dr. Pepper Cherry to keep me from hitting the bottle.

Winter can be real tough. I'm rooting for ya pal.