I'm an alcoholic

plain water i would not pay for but anything else -- even water with lime -- i tip a dollar at least. someone has to wash that glass and it beats paying $8 for a beer.

otm

good luck / strength re smoking, flambo!

Thank you! I have a craving every minute or so, and then a “what could be wrong with just one” subroutine, followed by a “no, no, you are so happy right now without them”, and then a dopamine rush of self-righteousness

grab that rush, it’s how I quit smoking

sleeve, you may like this article. It's about a master somm who has been sober for 25 years. He does a lot of current work on the physiology and cultural differences of tasting.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhuyghe/2017/08/09/alcoholism-and-addiction-in-the-wine-industry-a-candid-perspective-from-a-master-of-wine/#3e8f46b76ce7

derp, he's a master of wine not master somm.

haha like I would know the difference

thanks :)

This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibx8JpIIq28

this is gonna start with a bunch of whining but it gets positive by the end!

my sad little journey started two and a half years ago, with a bar calling an ambulance on me for my violently excessive drinking, which brought me to the hospital and helped me delude myself that quitting my then-quality job was somehow a good idea, i believe it is outlined above. ended up going through 30-day treatment which eventually made me pretty cynical about the recovery industry in the united states, it was basically a month of barely-facilitated AA meetings dominated by racist electricians from iowa (but with once a week access to hot tubs!). it also stuck me with a massive bill of $xx,xxx (won't say precise amount). after treatment i supported myself via multiple minimum-wage jobs with terrible hours which only increased my misery, was waffling between months of sobriety and weeks of benders. tried many AA meetings but they alternately depressed me or alienated me. but due to some perseverance, my previous work background, and some major luck i scored an extremely quality position a year or so ago which massively helped me, healthwise. it's almost as if your means and life situation are contributing factors to your mental health?

even with this new job i did need some 1:1 therapy and tried to do that as best i could (then got stuck with another multi-thousand bill under the tutelage of an ex drunk who would actually interrupt me while i was trying to share my thoughts! apparently to be a LADC in my state doesn't really require much, i think he was using his role to maintain his own sobriety).

anyway, even with severe debt and after trying a lot of the typically suggested conventional recovery things i started taking naltrexone via the sinclair method. naltrexone is an inhibitor which suppresses your brain's reward system towards booze and slowly deprograms your love for alcohol. it has done wonders for me, i still drink a little too much, but i wake up early every morning, and am doing quite well in most parts of my life even through COVID and quarantine which honestly would have killed me before. my drinking dropped by 50% almost instantly, and it continues to slowly drop. my life has never been better career, work, or relationship-wise. also you can fucking die from going cold turkey and from my on and off the wagon approach (look up kindling) and i am sure i was on that path... in fact at one point i did have auditory and visual hallucinations and was very close to a seizure. i don't want to evangelize but this has helped me so much and if anyone out there is looking for a different way to recover in your own way please DM me!

also, fuck the USA, our healthcare system, and our doctrinaire approach to 'recovery' and beyond. even bill w was okay with psychedelics

glad you’re alive and doing better!

six months without a drink felt hard towards the end so i gave myself two nice strong belgian beers but I didn’t enjoy the experience at all. I think i may have finally programmed myself off of alcohol for good. pot, luck, somewhat fanatical exercise, love were helpful in my case.

pot, luck

lol

any time i've quit for an extended period of time beer totally resumes its original vile profile for me. it's like "oh i taught myself this was good"

<3 to you global tetrahedon, glad you're doing better

The recovery industry in the US is so incredibly uneven, it makes me crazy. I had the kind of rehab experience that everyone should have--including people who don't have a substance use problem! Top-notch staff with actual graduate degrees, strong medical support, plenty of fresh air and opportunities for exercise (this is important), excellent and nourishing food (this is also important!), emphasis on getting good sleep and enough rest overall (very important!). No 12-stepping; lots of informed, evidence-based psychoeducation and individual/family counseling. Seriously, everyone should get to go do this. Oh and it was covered by my insurance (which I was lucky enough to have).

I have no idea what the ratio of high-quality rehabs to crap rehabs may be, but my guess is dismal.

Pro tip: avoid rehabs in Florida. That place seems to be a total recovery shitshow.

Good luck, global.

I've a buddy who's a therapist at a Palm Beach County rehab. He's said you wouldn't believe the four or five celebrities who've passed through (and returned).

I know someone who blabbed about the celebrities in his AA group. Seemed shitty.

My friend mentioned no names.

i agree that everyone (including non addicts!) should do some kind of (quality) rehab

the one i was at seemed to be fueled by union types. i guess they have the good insurance and the construction industry is rife with substance problems. but this often made sessions feel like one was out at the job site

naltrexone (and its injectable, vivitrol) is great, i recommend it (and the sinclair method) all the time

good for you, global, and good luck

glad to hear things are going well, global

yes, loved reading your post

agree that everyone (including non addicts!) should do some kind of (quality) rehab

if only there were some kind of effective rehab program for addiction to wealth in excess of one's basic needs.

my favourite uncle died yesterday at 60 years old. of my mum's 3 brothers, all younger than her, he lived the longest. the oldest died at 50 of a heart attack 12 years ago. the youngest died at 56 of a stroke 2 years ago, he had been suffering from throat cancer and an aggressive prostate cancer, both of which were terminal and inoperable. all 3 of them were drinkers. the youngest was a classic alcoholic archetype and chain-smoker. the other two were respectable, successful men, never drank to the stage of foolishness, didn't drink at home, and didn't drink spirits, just pints, but were in the pub every day of their lives that it was at all possible. you might also call them alcoholics. we have no familial predisposition towards heart disease.

i quit drinking in september. i sort of hate sobriety. i think about drink a lot. when i think about my uncle who passed away yesterday and the way he drank - for fun, socially, having a good laugh, with a pleasant meal, really enjoying life, knowing everyone who drank in the local pub and being part of a community, i find it hard to say it would be better if he had lived a sober life and not died yesterday. it would've been an utterly different life, devoid of many of its chief pleasures. but i know my own propensity for drinking like my other uncle, the alcoholic, who would drink mainly in the pub, but until absolutely obliterated, and would drink at home alone when the pub closed, and was asking my grandmother for money as a middle-aged man, because he'd spent all his perfectly respectable wage packet from working as a joiner on booze.

i wish i hadn't grown up somewhere where the pub was the agora. if id been viennese instead of glasgwegian would this even by an issue?

Tell me about it, jim.

One of my uncle's died last year of prostate cancer. He was one of the few ones who'd stopped drinking and wasn't an alcoholic. The NHS couldn't help him because his kidneys were gone and he had left his condition untreated until it got terminal. I had to explain to mum that although he'd been teetotal for years, he was still chain-smoking rollups and also often buying speed off old dodgy smackhead friends of mine, it's amazing he lived as long as he did taking that shit.

Good exploration of the cultural continuum of alcohol dependency jim

The mother's side have/had it bad (two from six nonfunctional, one functional, one married a fuckin *worldie*) but culturally it's very notable how it has seriously dwindled into the next generation. Quick mental survey of the forty cousins i know of on that side we have only one who would compare and he got it from his father rather than my aunt

Materfamilias herself was, and i forget the exact multiplier, four or five times over the old driving limit the night she burned the house down, and had been out of her mind riddled for at least the decade before that but likelier closer to twice that tbh (my memories of extreme parental drunkenness and the ensuing mess rank among my earliest)

The aul fellas side are very respectable, would drink more like the "better" version you describe- especially the men, fishermen/businessmen who've progressed to a bottle of chardonnay a night (every night) rather than brawling twice a week after vodka binges. The aulfella himself the worst of them tbh.

Of us four boys one cannot/shouldnt drink and took twenty years to know it, one took almost as long to learn how he could and couldnt, one doesnt socialise at all and one never drank, very pointedly so.

Im the one who has learned how i can drink, but thats in the irish context tbf- its not like im the one holding back at a fap or anything.

So yeah, its complicated

And sympathies on yr uncle and luck with the drinking yrself

thanks, deems

Wow.

I'm as steady as she goes (every night), fairly high functioning as things go, and unlikely to make changes. I wish jim and others in this thread the best with their decisions and say that they are probably the correct ones.

Jim fwiw just about everyone I've ever known says that the not drinking thing gets easier and less suckish over time, which has been my experience as well. I no longer think about drinking very much, and when I do it is more a wistful thing, nothing like an actual craving. I sometimes have FOMO but then I remember that because I am only one person living my one life I am going to miss out on most things anyway, so why get too worked up about it.

It's pretty nuts how incredibly drinky western culture is. To be outside of that takes getting used to, for sure.

Hi folks,

Currently 122 days into Not Drinking Ever Again. Long story; details posted els7whe7re.

I had reason to look at my posts itt from, gah, 2015. Honestly, I was kinda dreading reading them, because I have generally been an enthusiastic drinker and, in some ways, a cheerleader for booze:

Personally, I love drinking. I sincerely and unapologetically love it (sorry not sorry). The beverages are tasty, the sensation of a mild buzz is quite nice, and booze has rich and varied cultural and aesthetic surrounds. But I also really really really don't want alcohol to fuck up my marriage, family, job, or life. That takes vigilance.

But upon re-reading, my posts probably weren't that bad or dangerous to others; they just seem... glib. Self-interested and self-exonerating. I wasn't wrong, mostly, just overly confident and a trifle naive. My apologies.

A brush with actual death (robe-wearing, scythe-bearing Death) has subtly changed my thinking on this.

I think it's fine to change one's attitude to alcohol.

Like all things, if drinking works for you and you can temper it and it's not adversely affecting your life, there's nothing wrong with enjoying it.

And then if it stops working for you, it's a very fine idea to renege on that, step back and do exactly what you're doing.

Keep it up YMP, this is great work. It takes strength to cut out something you previously loved in life. Massive respect!

I've gone 5 days without booze now. It wasn't like I was in any kind of crisis, more like a bit skint and was thinking, shit, I can't afford a grocery shop and I'm skint until next wednesday. But then I had a radical rethink and realised I could afford a more than adequate grocery shop if I skipped out the red wine and beer. Crazy idea but it's working out ok.

The insomnia is a pain but I'm not feeling as tired and am getting more housework done, it's the rare novelty value of feeling normally healthy that I'm appreciating. But I predict at some point in the next month I will fall off this wagon (again).

I was up at 2am last night, cleaning the cooker. Absolutely insane sober behaviour!

I am getting better all the time at managing my drinking, albeit with the occasional slip, and albeit every minor hangover is a lot in my dotage

Thing is, when I'm mindful and managing my mental health and not binge drinking, I still find the melancholy loneliness which is probably gonna be my base state for life, and sometimes going to the pub is the only step away from that place I can find

YMPs post from 2015 nails how I feel about booze. Love it and the paraphernalia which surrounds it, but aware how toxic it can be. My uncle was an alcoholic and died in grim circumstances so am fully aware of where it can lead. Fortunately I can take it or leave it.

it's the late night sadness that I don't notice as much or feel as intensely saddening when fortified half pished.

The thing I keep avoiding is that the medical evidence now skews firmly to the “any level of alcohol consumption carries health risks” instead of the comforting “it’s fine in moderation” messaging of previous decades. Non obvious risks too, primarily a range of cancers. It hasn’t stopped me, but I am cutting back slowly.

But then I had a radical rethink and realised I could afford a more than adequate grocery shop if I skipped out the red wine and beer. Crazy idea but it's working out ok.

lol, love u calz

It's been almost two years since I stopped drinking. I always thought, even after I stopped drinking, that I wasn't an alcoholic but I just liked drinking. And it was relatively easy to stop.

I started rethinking that when I found a near-beer that is actually really good. I noticed that I will drink one and stop. It tastes good and I especially like them when I'm eating food that I previously had with beer. With alcohol after I got near the end of a drink this little debate would start up in my head: "One more?" "Sure! One more!" and later "Another?" "Oh, I don't know, maybe...." and it was always a THING. A small issue to think about or avoid thinking about. But I would always want another.

With the fake beer it's just another fluid, like orange juice or water. It helped me see the pull that alcohol exerted on me.

there are some really good fake beers these days, it's great

I wouldn't say alcoholism is something I'm aware of in my family, but once when I went to an extended family hang out at a Chicago restaurant on the south side and my cousins were all having Brandy at 11:00 a.m., my aunt was having red wine served over ice (in December?), everyone else was drinking whiskey, and it really nailed something fundamental about how certain wings of my family live their lives. I was just in Ireland and felt like I was drinking a lot more, and maybe I was, but having two Guinness every other night for a couple of weeks didn't strike me as going in particularly hard. I'm currently disinclined to drink much at all really, I had a period in the oughts when I was definitely drinking way too much to the detriment of a lot. But now I'm staring at a bottle of wine that was gifted to me a couple of months ago and wondering if it'll get finished before 2025. I'm enjoying a lot of the non-alcoholic options that are out there these days and coming up with cocktails that avoid including alcohol. I don't think I'm going to ever go cold turkey, but having one small drink per month or every other month, maybe that would be a good way to go. And maybe at some point I'll just fully quit. Maybe that point will come sooner rather than later.

I've also noticed that when I do find myself in social circles where I expect people to be drinking, they are usually not drinking. A big part of this is being upper-middle aged people with kids and associating with the same.

But it does make me ask myself: are they not drinking because they know I don't drink? I don't care if they drink. I might even feel more comfortable if they did drink a little because in my head that's what hanging out is supposed to look like.

OR: is part of the reason people where always drinking around me before is because I made sure there was always alcohol there?

Sometimes getting sober is like rewatching a movie with a twist ending (Sixth Sense) and looking for all of the clues that had been there all along.

I was just in Ireland

;_;

If it wasn't the most hectic extended family trip I've been on, I think I would have posted fair warning about my visit, but as it is it was kind of crazy. My father's last hurrah over there -- fun but heavy let's say. Dublin --> Galway --> Dingle --> Kinsale --> Cork --> Kilkenny --> Trim

I should probably post all about it on a more relevant thread.

Reading this thread after nearly two years in AA is quite sad. I have found an amazing community willing to help each other and seemingly I’m incredibly lucky with that compared to a lot of other people’s experiences ITT.