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Alcoholism

Started by Gwen Taylor on ITV, October 24, 2017, 09:32:17 PM

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Repeater

And btw as much as they might deny, this is a cry for help from the OP.

ASFTSN

Funny to see this thread come up, I'm trying a month off for the first time since I started legally drinking.

One thing I've noticed when I've gone a week or so without booze in the past is that the past seems clearer.  Books I've read, films I've seen, experiences I've had, mental pictures seem to all bubble up in better clarity and free association from sensory input seems more natural.  Which I'm sure sounds like a living nightmare for some.


idunnosomename

Quote from: Repeater on October 25, 2017, 08:12:00 AM
5 years sober in January, ask me anything.

Actually, is it 6? Fuck knows.

This calls for a celebration

*collapses in garden shed, shits pants*

metaltax

Quote from: biggytitbo on October 24, 2017, 10:24:59 PM



Sean Hughes' death has really made me think more about my drinking and how it's started to spiral in the last year or so for all the wrong reasons. This picture sums up all the physical reasons why I'm taking a break and trying to recalibrate my booze intake. I caught myself in the mirror in the toilets at work the other day and my face looked like me wearing a fat suit. This whole thread is amazingly prescient for me and seeing that picture pop up just cemented the fact that I'm doing the right thing.

pancreas

Quote from: Repeater on October 25, 2017, 08:12:00 AM
5 years sober in January, ask me anything.

Repeater: how can I get a consistently majestic rise in my Yorkshire puddings?

phes

#65
Quote from: Gwen Taylor on ITV on October 13, 1974, 10:20:08 AMIn effect you could hide that your lateness was due to booze and no one batted an eyelid.

Usually it's the drinker who doesn't realise it's obvious to people around them. Certainly anyone with any experience of alcoholism will recognise the signs

I like a bit of a binge. Once a month, twice a week, it goes up or down according to other priorities, stress, boredom, social needs, quality of beer available etc.  I think I have a fairly denial free, functional relationship with the stuff on account of many years working in substance misuse, 15 years chronic weed abuse ending a decade ago and a sober partner, all of which contributes to me regularly checking my motivations and priorities.

Repeater

stop quoting that picture of sean, fuck, his bloated jowls. Yuck.

ASFTSN

Quote from: Repeater on October 25, 2017, 08:12:00 AM
5 years sober in January, ask me anything.

I'm presuming a lot based entirely on your username here but:  Do you think being a fan of Fugazi/yer boy Ian/hardcore music influenced your decision to stop drinking?

doppelkorn


Repeater

Och nah man, I love Fugazi and that but they didn't influence my drinking at all :)

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Gwen Taylor on ITV on October 24, 2017, 10:29:53 PM
Well my self esteem comes from non drinking avenues I guess, but also until recently I've been very much a social drinker so the drinking came as part of the package of seeing friends. Now I'm questioning it because I'm in a new town so I don't have the excuse of drinking to see friends.

For me the definition of alcoholism is drinking everyday. Not once a week or twice a week but everyday. Everyday for a year would qualify. Everyday for 10 years is a nailed on, bolted down, absolute 100% certainty.

Repeater

Aye, for me self-esteem and alcohol dependancy go hand in hand. Or did.

finnquark

My father used to neck a bottle of vodka or whisky every day, whilst holding onto various jobs for short periods (he'd lose them through lateness or being drunk on the job).

I remember one of the endless methods of treating his alcoholism that we tried very vividly. It came down to the fact that he was so physically dependent on alcohol that to consume zero units in a day could be deadly, so he had to be weened off. The first day he was to drink 8 cans of lager. He necked them all in the garden and his personality didn't change a jot. That's when i realised he was fucked. We went through the rigmarole until he had 1 can, then no cans. I think he did about 5 days dry after that before going back to the spirits.


Paul Calf

The post-acute period is critical. The heroic struggle of acute withdrawal is over and the newly-sober psychonaut has to face the grind of life without the sparkling veneer of their favourite rose-tint. That's where heroes are made - in the PAWS.

It's enough to drive you to drink/smoke/spike/CWE your favourite OTC opioids.

Sebastian Cobb

Prior to benzo's being commonplace hospitals used to stock beers to keep alkies from withdrawing if they needed unrelated medical treatment.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 25, 2017, 11:07:52 AM
For me the definition of alcoholism is drinking everyday. Not once a week or twice a week but everyday. Everyday for a year would qualify. Everyday for 10 years is a nailed on, bolted down, absolute 100% certainty.

It can really depend, some people can drink monstrously and to the outside observer be seen as alkies, other people can drink less but have a dependence on it. Ultimately though its a personal relationship with it that defines it.

I guess that's part of the difference between dipsomania and alcoholism though.

Quite often it's just a manifestation of an underlying mental problem though; it used to be thought that alcoholics always had to maintain abstinence but a lot of veterans from the vietnam war that were seen as alcoholics later got treatment for their PTSD and were able to drink in moderation again.

checkoutgirl

#76
Quote from: Paul Calf on October 25, 2017, 02:39:51 AM
I just think alcohol is a boring drug that's good for loosening up tight social situations but that doesn't teach you anything when taken in large quantities except that you never want to have your stomach pumped again.

There's a sweet spot with drink, you have a couple of glasses of wine, maybe three glasses in a short space of time and you hit a euphoria but that passes after about an hour and you're chasing that same thing after that and you end up plastered sometimes. It's like most drugs in that way.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Repeater on October 25, 2017, 08:12:00 AM
5 years sober in January, ask me anything.

Why are you such a dick?

checkoutgirl

Quote from: ASFTSN on October 25, 2017, 08:26:54 AM
Funny to see this thread come up

Not really, Noodle Lizard did a very similar one a few weeks ago. There's been loads of them.

ASFTSN

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 25, 2017, 12:01:49 PM
Not really, Noodle Lizard did a very similar one a few weeks ago. There's been loads of them.

I know it's a CaB classic.  I just meant in relation to my own attempt at sobriety.

Repeater

Quote from: checkoutgirl on October 25, 2017, 12:00:48 PM
Why are you such a dick?

I mean, I don't know who you are or give a fuck about you but I don't want people to think I was posting "5 years aff it" to be a dick. I wasn't, I was for real offering my perspective to anyone who might want it.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on October 25, 2017, 11:38:38 AM
It can really depend

I know it can depend, it's as complicated and varied as peoples personalities and behaviours. But for me, if you drink everyday you either work in a pub/brewery 7 days a week and 365 days a year or you are somehow getting your hands on drink everyday. Presumably you're buying it yourself. By hook or by crook you have some drink there every single day. That's no accident. That's alcoholism in my eyes. I mean, think about it, drinking every single day, that's not happening by itself. Something is driving you to it. Something's compelling you. It's a bit of a massive coincidence to be drinking everyday isn't it? Alcoholism by its very definition is drinking everyday for a sustained period of time, years probably.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Repeater on October 25, 2017, 12:08:31 PM
I mean, I don't know who you are or give a fuck about you but I don't want people to think I was posting "5 years aff it" to be a dick.

No it's just you are consistently a bellend, that's probably the one post where you weren't.

Repeater


ASFTSN

Not seeing someone for a while and then when you see them they've got a giant fuckin' wide face - that's alcoholism.

Shay Chaise

This thread made me shudder reading it. I probably only get pissed once a month, maybe even less, but I probably have a drink of some sort almost every day and have done for the past nine months or so. When I've not had access to it or whatever, I've not struggled but if I know there's no beers in the fridge, I'll pick some up 'just in case I fancy one', and I inevitably do. Time to break the habit.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: ASFTSN on October 25, 2017, 12:20:00 PM
Not seeing someone for a while and then when you see them they've got a giant fuckin' wide face - that's alcoholism.

Never having to apologise, that's alcoholism.

gilbertharding

And along comes Gilbert Harding Poster with his trivial problems...

I think my Dad was an alcoholic - he literally drank (beer) every day. I don't know how he felt about this because he was, in my memory of him, almost completely mute, drunk or sober. He also smoked. He is still alive (aged 78) but is quite frail, as a result of a series of strokes he had in the early 2000s.

I used to like to get a bit drunk every weekend when I was in my 20s... nowadays I have a bottle or three of beer most, but not all, Fridays or Saturdays. I look forward to it... is that dependency?

If I go to a function (eg a work networking thing) and there's drink, I like to have *A* drink, because I always think one drink is enough to make me that bit more sociable. Funnier. Is that dependency?

I'm always driving though, so never have more than that - and in any case I'm also aware that there are diminishing returns: two drinks and I start becoming less funny, too sociable.

I was unemployed for a few years a while ago, and when I did a week's shopping, used to have a definite internal monologue when passing the drink aisle of the supermarket: "No drinks this week - you haven't earned them."

Also had a game I played in my head, where if my wife said "Do you want beer?" as we passed the drink aisle, I would always answer "No." whether I did or not. If she didn't ask, the answer might have been 'yes', but as soon as she asked, the answer was 'no'.

I obviously have a weird relationship with drink... like most people, I guess.

It would be trivialising alcoholism to call it that, but I think I'm dependent on it in any case. Are my coping strategies -if that's what they are- designed to prevent me being anything like my Dad (a fate I've internalised as being the worst thing ever)?

ASFTSN

QuoteNever having to apologise, that's alcoholism.

I think that's probably a good one, yeah.  When a person's behaviour that would have been met with absolute horror and shock in anyone else is met simply with resigned eyerolling, tutting or headshaking.

slapasoldier

Quote from: ASFTSN on October 25, 2017, 12:20:00 PM
Not seeing someone for a while and then when you see them they've got a giant fuckin' wide face - that's alcoholism amore.