I'm an alcoholic

Recent interview-based research indicated that tobacco was the most common gateway for alcohol and other addictions. I found that quitting cigs made quitting booze much easier. Did go more or less cold turkey re both, but not simultaneously. But, booze-wise, I was pretty much a weekend warrior/fule anyway. As indicated upthread, v. dangerous to go cold turkey on your own, in many cases (Townes Van Zandt died of a heart attack that way).

"useful pints" made my day

Somebody pointed me to SMART Recovery, and that's given me just the kind of framework I'm looking for--I've got a plan now that's gonna lead me to a period of sobriety starting in September. To, through & from there I'll figure out how to deal with the things that make me drink. Once I've made that something I can control confidently, no matter how long that takes, I might welcome myself to a beer again.

This is an excerpt from an article on James Taylor that I've kept around to help me with my own demons:

"Well, when I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible inside my own skin for about six months," Taylor says. "And the only thing that gave me any real relief was - was strenuous physical activity. It made me feel good for a while. Maybe it's endorphins, or whatever. I sort of swapped addictions and got into...physical exercise."

Today he at least appears to be a poster boy for the 12-step road to recovery.

"When you say I - I seem like a, you know, a - a sort of solid, rock-solid image of sanity, you know, it doesn't feel that way to me, especially when I wake up at, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning, you know, you know, anxious," Taylor reveals.

He describes his anxiety: "It doesn't seem to - to matter what it is."

"(Itseems to be, yeah, free-floating anxiety that'll attach to anything," Taylor explains."The difference, essentially, is that I know that it doesn't last forever."

Echoing the good wishes for hoos (though, just sayin, it might be easier if your name didn't rhyme with booze).

From what I read lately, the current wisdom does seem to be shifting, allowing greater space for tapering and moderation as possibilities (vs. the all-or-nothing MUSTness and in-yo-face religiosity of AA).
This recent Atlantic piece is an example.

Yeah I read that great article a while ago, it's part of why I sought out other approaches.

Big Booze AKA The Harddrinker

Sorry

you could atone w/ a good 'designated driver' hoosjoke

thanks for linking that article xps

The Finns are famously private

lol

haaaaaaaa

Big Booze AKA The Harddrinker

― supreme problematics (D-40), Wednesday, June 17, 2015 5:28 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Does hoos really rhyme with booze or have I been saying one of those wrong for awhile

gl btw hoos

how else would u say hooz

Hoose, like a Scottish house

or hoh-uhs like noos

(best wishes hoos)

hoos like the gow

^^^ the correct way, based on Hoos's explanation of its origin.

if you say it with the Spanish s it is soft, like "hooss" instead of "hooze"

a hoos by any other name

go get em hoos; i quit drinking a few years ago and am happier for it.

I've been through the desert on a hoos with no name

fie, xpost

hoos, your're gonna turn into forks, do with that knowledge what you will

celebrate and live happily ime/imo

hey hoos, how do u feel abt pottery

wouldn't trust it as far as he could throw it

teeehee

best of luck, hoos.

hey hoos, how do u feel abt pottery

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, June 18, 2015 3:35 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um i dunno...its cool to put stuff in?

that's the spirit

or, you know, lack thereof

haa

today I spent an hour driving my dad around Baltimore, helping him look for his car, which he misplaced while blackout drunk. he hasn't had a drink in 2 days, this was the thing that finally shook him up about how bad his drinking had gotten. he quit cigars successfully a few months ago so i have hope. trying to get him to consider going to AA. i really have no idea where his car could be, though.

hopefully it gets towed eventually? I'd just keep calling the police's towed vehicles phone # or w/e and be hopeful

Sorry to be flippant about an actual serious situation, but: some dude, where's my car

http://imallvirtual.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dude-Wheres-My-Car.jpg

I had a pal who called the police to report his car stolen, but when they found it 'abandoned in a diner parking lot,' the friend pieced together a narrative from stuff he had found (like a matchbook from the diner in his jacket pocket at home) and realized in some horror that he had parked it there during a full drunken blackout where he drove to the diner. It freaked him out enough to clean him up for a while, and he never got that bad again.

yeah sounds pretty similar to my dad's situation. he woke up the next morning with an uneaten pizza in the kitchen (from a place that doesn't deliver), so that's the only real indication of what he did that night, he remembers nothing.

he's called the towing yards and no dice...i guess you can tell the police about a missing vehicle even if it's not stolen or towed, right?

that sucks man. and yeah, if you let the cops know it's been "Stolen", you always have the out of saying dad simply misplaced it later. worst case scenario, you have to pay to get it out of police impound.

This recent Atlantic piece🔗 is an example.

Enjoying this so far, thanks for sharing

we found out where my dad's car was towed! now on with that whole sobriety thing.

yay! and best of luck

Im up to 3 beers a night. They are my primary source of carbs.

If you believe "A History of the World in Six Glasses," beer started out as liquid bread. Indeed, the origins of agriculture, bread, and beer are so intertwined (or so goes this theory) that the first breads were basically just a way to store the ingredients of beer - then someone figured out that it would be a decent foodstuff on its own. So anthropologically speaking, bread is just a solid form of beer and beer is just a liquid form of bread.

Of course, this is probably complete hooey (as so many of those "history seen through the lens of X" books are). I know a guy who got through a semester abroad by realizing that his meal plan could get him either a paltry meal, or a decent amount of stout - and he almost always chose the stout as both more filling and more caloric than the food.

Exactly three drinks a day will not kill you - it's probably not enough to get you drunk (unless you weigh like 90 pounds). The problem is that no alcoholic can always stop at exactly three.

My own drinking, historically, is not far off from that - almost never drinking to drunkenness, but having a couple drinks almost every day. Do this for 25 years and the result is Olympic-level tolerance.

*Perhaps* it's better to drink three beers every night than nothing all week, and then a 21-drink Saturday night binge. But those aren't the only two choices, and I am pretty sure neither of those patterns is very healthy.

Exactly three drinks a day will not kill you - it's probably not enough to get you drunk (unless you weigh like 90 pounds).

If I drink 3 beers I feel kind of fucked up and won't drive, and I weigh 220 or so. My wife who weighs substantially less can drink more and be fine which neither of us understand.

The problem is that no alcoholic can always stop at exactly three.

This is the thing that I didn't really get until a family member got sober and I talked to him about it. To me it's so easy, like at some point I know that if I have another drink I'm going to feel shitty tonight and hungover all day tomorrow and there's no point in doing so and I call it a night. He was incapable of NOT continuing to drink until he passed out or there was nothing left, at which time he would try to find more or do dumber things like cocaine.

He is an incredibly smart, incredibly well read guy with a PhD in philosophy and is also a militant atheist who knows more about religion than most people I know, and he did AA and was fine with it. I think a lot depends on where you are, and he was in a big enough city that he was able to find meetings attended by a bunch of musicians, DJs, skateboarders, tattoo artists, crust punks, metalheads, and so on so he didn't feel out of place or self conscious about not being religious. He, and most of the others, equated the "higher power" with whatever it was that they were unable to control or understand that drove them to drink.

It really did wonders for him, and he was pretty hardcore into it for a couple of years (I went to a meeting with him once which was kind of fascinating), almost like a replacement addiction, but I think only goes to meetings once in a while if he's stressed out or feeling low.

I guess what I'm saying is that if he can get past or rationalize the "higher power" thing, anyone probably can because I know few people who are as actively hostile to the idea of the supernatural as he is. And again, in big cities there are definitely meetings that cater to particular groups of more like-minded people.

Good luck though, whatever you do.

Sure but be careful: what "drove them to drink" can be a red herring, as I understand current received wisdom on addiction.

People frequently point to the shit they've been through as if it explains why they drink or take drugs or whatever. But plenty of people go through the same amount of shit (even, in some cases, lots more shit) without chemical dependency becoming a problem for them.

Indeed, you can drink quite a lot and not be an alcoholic. There's traditionally a distinction between a heavy drinker/problem drinker (who may down heroic amounts of hooch, and then do stupid things, but who is not chemically dependent) and an alcoholic (who may drink less, but whose body needs it more).

If AA feels right for your relative, great. If a different person prefers a different approach, that's great too.

Hey SD, best of luck to your dad. If you ever need to talk about being an adult kid of an alcoholic, well, I have way more experience than I'd like.

thanks

i blacked out for the first time ever like two weeks ago :\