Alcoholism Support Thread - Down the hatch

[neger psykolog]

All I can do is take it one day at a time. I figure even if I relapse on day 101, it's still worth doing this. Hell, even if I fail, it's still worth trying.

That's the attitude to have.

GO! @Clem Fandango! GO OUT AND ZAP TO THE EXTREME!

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

But that's the ultimate goal for me - I used to love going out for a couple of pints after work with my missus. It was so much fun, and it didn't turn into an all evening bender. We'd go home after and cook our dinner together. I want to get back to that level.

Going to a pub on a Sunday with your 3-year-old so you aren't drinking alone is in "I should probably quit drinking altogether" territory. You say now that you want to go back to drinking like a gentleman, but the odds of you getting depressed and going on this merry-go-round again are non-zero. Why even risk it?

I hope you make it to your 100 days sober and realize how much better your life is without alcohol.

 

[Jerk Sausage]

I personally know several people (including myself) who have taken breaks from alcohol and/or successfully lowered their alcohol intake without completely stopping

Good for you, legitimately. But are you the rule, or the exception to the rule? Would you say that the majority of addicts seem to pick up right where they left off when they relapse, or do they all successfully "drink normally" after a good long break?

Yes, this idea comes from AA, and yes I subscribe to the idea.

"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."
(Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th ed., pp. 31-32)

If you can consistently and honestly control yourself when drinking and do so in a way that is not destructive to yourself and those important to you, then great. You are cured.

 

[Clem Fandango]

One last thing for a while (I don't want to monopolize the thread). I want to document what a piece of shit I am, and why I needed to do something this time. I want to come back and read this in case I forget.

It'll be a rambly story, and not an exciting "whoa I got shitfaced and ate a kebab and threw up" story, but the boring, gritty, grinding reality of just eventually realising you're an alkie. I'll put it in a spoiler tag, but feel free to read if you want.

Spoiler: Miserable story

So it's a Sunday afternoon. Playing football in the garden with my lad. Weather's not too bad so I say why don't we walk to the park. He's so excited, we take a little fishing net. He wants to catch a fish in the stream. So off we go. And we get to the stream. But we keep going. A little further, a little further. It's a nice day. Until we're so far from home that it seems like a long way to walk all the way back.

So I say to him "I've got a great idea. Why don't we cross over the river and go to the pub. Then mum can pick us up in the car!". And because I'm his dad and I can do no wrong he says "Yay sounds great!". Like, I actually put it to him like that so it would be like it was his suggestion to go to the pub. He's three.

But by the time we get there he's not so keen any more. "Daddy, I prefer parks to pubs". He really says that. But nah I say forget about the park we'll have a great time. I we go.

I get him a fruit shoot and crisps, and I have a pint. I get three bar mats and scratch an X on one, and show that game where you mix them around and he has to guess which one has the X. See? He's having a great time! I'll get him some more crisps, and another pint. I show him how to put bar mats on the edge of the table and flip them. I'm such a great dad, playing with him properly and not just showing him youtube videos on my phone.

Then the missus comes to pick us up. Well you may as well have one while you're here. Oh and I'll have a pint of Schneider Weiss while you're up there. What a great afternoon.

Then we get home and it's a bit later. We're having dinner but we get into an argument. She's criticising me. You know I work five days a week, and then I'm still putting in a shift looking after him? So what if it was the fucking pub. You know everyrhing in this room, I pay for all that. I had to go down to London last week for work? I'm tired, and I'm putting in so much effort and, and, and.

I go too far. She chokes up like she's about to cry. Then she runs off upstairs. I can hear her crying, she never cries. My son looks at me, then goes off upstairs after her. I don't. I get my coat. Fuck all this.

I walk to the pub. A different pub, a shitty cheap one. Plonk myself at the bar. Pint, pint, pint, pint. Four, at least. Five? I dunno. It's Sunday and they close pretty early. I walk home, no texts or calls at least.

I get in, all the lights are off. Make some dry toast and fill a pint glass with water. Working tomorrow but no problem, I'll just sober up a bit. But theres an open bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. Fuck it, big glass of red.

The next day I feel like shit. The computer monitor is bright like looking at the sun. I realise I can't do this any more.

 

[Fallen Preacher]

I recommend liver failure and vomiting up blood from internal bleeding from esophageal varices to help quit drinking.

 

[dick brain]

These are totally not true and to be frank fucking retarded. This is a totally bizarre thing to claim and I believe comes from the AA school of thought were only totally abstaining forever is seen as the only option and although my words may sound heated, I think this mindset is frankly fucking stupid because it basically says to people directly or indirectly: "improving yourself doesn't count unless you totally stop doing [bad thing], even if you cut it down by 80% and only do it on weekends you're a total failure unless you cut it off 100% - you may as well not even bother unless you're going for 100%"

You can feel free to believe that but there are other schools of thought out there that do not work on this basis and I personally know several people (including myself) who have taken breaks from alcohol and/or successfully lowered their alcohol intake without completely stopping and at least found some better balance from doing so.

On top of that many people who aren't completely out of control alcoholics take successful breaks from alcohol for reasons of mental health, diet and general health/wellbeing or just plain discipline and some of them drink less or stop drinking after doing so.

"you will revert to failure" or "Even if you do manage" is a totally absurd position to take or even tell someone - you're basically saying "don't even try" with that stance so I really don't understand it. You don't know if they will revert or if they won't.

It is up to an individual person to be able to measure the problem and how it relates to their life and set goals on how to try and fix it and to also develop a relationship/better understanding of what they get and don't get out of alcohol.

Farbeit from me to agree with AA, but I think you're talking about two different things.

I think it's important, like I think you're saying, to appreciate harm reduction as progress rather than equating it to failure. A little bit better is still better. Especially because substance abuse is a coping mechanism, and the more you beat yourself up the more you'll want to turn to it for relief.

That said, the people who can drink responsibly don't end up in this meeting thread. I don't think I know a single person in recovery who hasn't tried to drink like they used to when it was fun. It does not work, because the people that that strategy works for don't find themselves in a recovery group. If you're able to do it, you're able to do it without help.

I don't want to monopolize the thread

This is what it's for.

Do your hundred days. Don't worry about what you're going to do afterward. Focus on paying attention to how you feel when you're not drinking. See if it changes, if it gets better or worse. Where your time goes, what you do instead. Then go from there.

 

[neger psykolog]

That said, the people who can drink responsibly don't end up in this meeting thread. I don't think I know a single person in recovery who hasn't tried to drink like they used to when it was fun. It does not work, because the people that that strategy works for don't find themselves in a recovery group. If you're able to do it, you're able to do it without help.

Unless I'm just being a word nigger here ..."in recovery" and "recovery group" is kind of connotated with AA specifically to begin with though and therefore there is at least some implication here that it is the only tried, true, tested and proven method and that there is simply nothing else that will work whatsoever...

It's a system/program that may work for some people but may not work for others and there has been plenty of brain science and other shit done since AA first materialized.

 

[dick brain]

Unless I'm just being a word nigger here ..."in recovery" and "recovery group" is kind of connotated with AA specifically to begin with though and therefore there is at least some implication here that it is the only tried, true, tested and proven method and that there is simply nothing else that will work whatsoever...

It's a system/program that may work for some people but may not work for others and there has been plenty of brain science and other shit done since AA first materialized.

You are being a word nigger. The recovery terminology is shared by SMART Recovery, a secular model based in CBT and DBT, and probably by other programs I'm not aware of because I like SMART and haven't felt the need to look into anything else. It is about as antithetical to AA as you can get, which is precisely why I like it, and I'd appreciate it if you stopped insinuating that I'm a cultist over your personal hangups with words.

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

Last night I came home and there was a drunk dude in the lobby of my building. He locked himself out and needed a master key to let him in.

"Hey, I know you!" he said. "You are at the meetings"

"Sorry, I've seen hundreds of people come and go. I don't remember you" I said.

"Yeah, I know you! You say some really good stuff!"

It made me kind of feel good but at the same time, you can't help anyone who doesn't want to change. At least I know I'm making an impact.