Alcoholism

[badaids]

Me too. I got the feeling I'd walked into a cult. I'm sure for some people it does work, but substituting alcohol for religion was a no-no from me. I was hoping it would have been something different as support is half the battle.

This is something I've often wondered with AA.  It's always struck me as sinister.  Do you have to 'accept' God as part of the deal to participate?  Or are their atheistic AA groups?

[paruses]

You have to work out a Higher Power.  But like Apu on the citizenship test being told "just say slavery" as th answer to the cause of the American civil war the impression I got from everyone was you just say God. It was certainly founded on that whole Christian understanding of things.

Like science eel I probably miss the whole ritual and aesthetic of booze a lot more than drinking it.

[druss]

The most important thing for your friend in the early days is to detox safely. Their doctor will be able to direct them to their local alcohol service who can offer a detox/home detox although with Tory cuts in recent years, this often requires attending a few groups and showing some motivation as there is no longer the funds to offer a detox to everyone. Once the detox is out of the way then the really hard work begins.

When you give up booze you have to replace it with something. For someone who has been drinking alcoholically then it has become a big part of their life, probably for a significant amount of time.

For some people AA plugs this gap. In the short term it is still probably the best free place where you can find a support network of people who have suffered similar issues.

But AA is not for everyone and some people (as already evidenced in this thread) are put off after the first meeting. If AA isn't for you then it's important to ensure that you are getting what AA offers in your life somehow i.e. a good network of people who understand your problem and are supportive ("just have the one mate, you'll be fine" friends either need to be educated or let go). You also need some sort of structure and something to keep yourself busy. If you are at an AA meeting then you aren't having a drink, so if you decide not to go to AA (or SMART recovery or other support group) then you need to find something to do.

What works for one person might not work for someone else. Some people might find joining a walking group helpful, getting out with nature and mixing with people whose leisure time is not primarily spent at the pub. Other people might think nature is shit and prefer to join the gym, or a basketball team, or a chess club, or dancing... the list is endless.

It's important to note that whatever you try, you probably won't enjoy anything much at first. Your reward system is fucked which means that your brain is wired to seek out the drink (or drug, or behaviour, depending on the addiction) ahead of anything else, which is why alcoholics and addicts put the drink/drug above their family, friends food and jobs etc. The good news is that it repairs over time, but relapse is very common in the early days due to this reward circuitry in your brain still repairing itself.

I've worked in the field for a few years and am in recovery myself, happy to answer any questions. Either way I wish your friend all the best. It is hard but the end result is a far happier and contented life, even if it can take some time.

[paruses]

And not to be really down on AA - I found that the whole thing still meant that alcohol ruled your life albeit avoiding alcohol and talking a out avoiding alcohol. There are whole cruises you can go on with AA. That if anything would start me up again.

[The Ombudsman]

This is something I've often wondered with AA.  It's always struck me as sinister.  Do you have to 'accept' God as part of the deal to participate?  Or are their atheistic AA groups?

I think they push religion hard. I know they talk about submitting to a higher power, whatever that means to you. When folks were speaking they would often say how the power of Jesus kept them from going back. There was a prayer at some stage that I didn't partake in, it was one of the high-energy type prayers were people were rocking and really giving it their all. I don't remember anyone saying anything to me about conversion at any stage and no one made me feel awkward. I just couldn't go with it being an atheist as I felt ignoring a large part of what they were preaching wouldn't be going into the program with an open mind.

I've looked for an atheist alternative and not found anything with the reach of standard AA. I'd definitely attend one even today if there was such a thing. For those trying to stop I think having people who 'were there' and can talk to you because they too know what it's like can be immensely helpful. I pretty much did it alone, with support from my few friends but I don't feel I've had proper guidance as such on ways to cope. Not from people who have experience. Also I'd like to know how to properly engage with someone who does ask me for advice about drinking. I want to be helpful but I don't know the best ways to convey that.

I find myself more worried these days of someone spiking a drink or mistakenly taking a sip from someone else's glass. I still get massive anxiety dreams where I realise I'm drinking and feel deep shame, enough to wake up in a sweat. And that's 15 years after having stopped. I find it easy enough to tell people why I'm not drinking, just come out with it. Not sure how you treat the subject but it often goes one of three ways, 1) people are mostly cool and understand, some even ask if I'd rather they didn't drink in my company, 2) People sidle up afterwards and ask I if think they are an alcoholic, then go into their drinking habits and 3) people get the right arse and call me a killjoy or say I'm bringing the mood down. I expect it's this group that likely do have some sort of problem.

Talking does help massively and that's why part of the reason I'm open about it. It helps me steer clear of temptation as the more people know the it feels like I couldn't have a drink and get away with it and also, as above, people do speak to me and seek some sort of guidance. I'm very reticent to promote AA but feel if it's all we have then it's worth going to at least one meeting.

Sorry, that's a big disjointed mess. And probably my longest post ever.

EDIT to say druss's reply is spot on and much more cohesive than my attempt.

[The Ombudsman]

And not to be really down on AA - I found that the whole thing still meant that alcohol ruled your life albeit avoiding alcohol and talking a out avoiding alcohol. There are whole cruises you can go on with AA. That if anything would start me up again.

For me, I think this aspect does have merit. If it's a problem, it will still be a problem 10 years down the road. Keeping this in mind is an important part of recovery. I know for myself, there can never be that 'one drink'. But I totally understand everyone is different and what works for me won't work for everybody.

[Kankurette]

Mum was in AA for a bit and she's an atheist so she took all the higher power stuff with a grain of salt. It did take her a while to find a group where she clicked, but that was more to do with the people than the religious stuff. And while it did work for her, I would add the caveat that it is NOT FOR EVERYONE.

[the science eel]

The pseudo-religious (or real? I was never sure) aspect of AA is one thing, but the thing I really didn't like was the absolute conviction members have to seeing their pasts as dark times to be left behind. I mean, that's understandable in order for recovery to work, but I didn't think the 'night/day' thing was honest. I had some great times on booze, so do all of us, right? but any of THAT kind of talk was right out! It was HELL and nothing else.

My mate goes to AA meetings. He lived in Barcelona for a while and said a few old rockers would appear sometimes, especially if they were on the road. Depeche Mode (all of them) came two or three times.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

And not to be really down on AA - I found that the whole thing still meant that alcohol ruled your life.

Yep well said.

[paruses]

EDIT to say druss's reply is spot on and much more cohesive than my attempt.

Agreed. You need to find what works for you. I don't want anyone to think I'm making pronouncements in any posts - sorry if they read that way.

I find myself more worried these days of someone spiking a drink or mistakenly taking a sip from someone else's glass. I still get massive anxiety dreams where I realise I'm drinking and feel deep shame, enough to wake up in a sweat. And that's 15 years after having stopped. I find it easy enough to tell people why I'm not drinking, just come out with it. Not sure how you treat the subject but it often goes one of three ways, 1) people are mostly cool and understand, some even ask if I'd rather they didn't drink in my company, 2) People sidle up afterwards and ask I if think they are an alcoholic, then go into their drinking habits and 3) people get the right arse and call me a killjoy or say I'm bringing the mood down. I expect it's this group that likely do have some sort of problem.

Talking does help massively and that's why part of the reason I'm open about it. It helps me steer clear of temptation as the more people know the it feels like I couldn't have a drink and get away with it and also, as above, people do speak to me and seek some sort of guidance. I'm very reticent to promote AA but feel if it's all we have then it's worth going to at least one meeting.

Not a spiked drink but a couple of years ago I did drink a ready mixed can of what I thought was alcohol free G&T but turned out to be a full strength one. Amazingly I did got away with it but I was pretty anxious for a while. 

I could talk about this for hours sometimes - despite what I said about the cruise - and I could probably only really talk about it with people who've experienced it or people with a professional interest. I don't really experience the 1) and 3) types but I experience a variation of the 2) types a lot and find them looking more for reassurance/validation about their own drinking that I can't give them or they don't want to hear. I totally agree that it's worth going to one meeting if you've got nothing else. They can be uplifting and encouraging - it was just not for me. One thing I did find was that you tended to get the same shares (anecdotes) spun out with favourite and established members rather than any sort of discussion and insight.

I did have an anxiety dream about the middle of last year that I got hammered. Sorry to hear you have them often because they really mess you up. The upside I look for is that when you come round and have stopped panicking  that you're pissed you realise you're not which for me is just great.

[Twit 2]

The whole of this routine is gold, but the section on AA meetings slays me in particular:

https://youtu.be/D24zYQcnqKs

[Mortimer]

Functional alcoholic reporting for duty sir.

My job pays well and is people-facing and advisory. When I can still be making detailed presentations at 9am to a bunch of business people without them having any clue that I'd had ten pints the night before - and the night before that, and so on - it's difficult to convince myself that it's harming me.

It is though.

Some great posts on here, Bernice and Ham Bap stand out but plenty of others.

It's starting to look like there are more alcys than bald phimotics on CAB. Who'd have thought it?

[steve98]

... panicking  that you're pissed you realise you're not which for me is just great.

You wake up with that  indescribably foul mouth (O christ no) then realize it's just cat shit (O thank god.)

[Avril Lavigne]

I am an alcoholic, but I only dislike it about 40% of the time.

[idunnosomename]

"you're only an alcoholic if you put whisky on your cornflakes"
- my father, a borderline alcoholic, and an idiot

[The Ombudsman]

Agreed. You need to find what works for you. I don't want anyone to think I'm making pronouncements in any posts - sorry if they read that way.

Not at all, as you say, find what works for you.

[The Ombudsman]

One thing I did find was that you tended to get the same shares (anecdotes) spun out with favourite and established members rather than any sort of discussion and insight.

I did have an anxiety dream about the middle of last year that I got hammered. Sorry to hear you have them often because they really mess you up. The upside I look for is that when you come round and have stopped panicking  that you're pissed you realise you're not which for me is just great.

I'd forgotten this bit, but yeah. The person leading the group I felt enjoyed telling his tales. It appeared to be a well crafted routine, almost like a sales pitch. Nothing wrong with that at such, but I did wonder if it was off-putting for others who wanted to speak but felt their delivery wouldn't match his. As always I was over analysing everything going on.

Talking does help and I too can go on about it for ages. That's why I feel something like an AAA would be great for me. I suffer from anxiety so I guess the dreams are just my brain finding something for me to get upset about. Perhaps if I had a group I could talk through these feelings it might improve. Maybe I'm lacking skills to tackle this aspect.

[Blue Jam]

The whole of this routine is gold, but the section on AA meetings slays me in particular:

https://youtu.be/D24zYQcnqKs

That's great, thanks for that.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I'm not but my ex is. A wonderful caring person who I've remained good friends with but the most Jekyl and Hyde transformation you'll ever see in a person after a certain point of drinking, verbally and sometimes physically abusive to anyone in the vicinity. A functioning alcoholic though. She drinks 2 bottles of wine every night but then is up bright and early (she doesn't get hangovers) to counsel people in the LGBT community for the whole day.

I'm kind of the opposite. I can take or leave alcohol (only drink socially) and it  just makes me happier. more friendly and chatty, but I also always get stinking hangovers.

[Kankurette]

Apparently they always have to open with 'my name is blah blah and I'm an alcoholic'. Every time Mum wanted to say something she had to start with 'my name is Kankurette's Mum and I'm an alcoholic'.

Mum's also been in rehab twice, one NHS, one private. The private one was in Newmarket and it had a lot of jockeys - apparently alcoholism is rife among them. And one former celebrity wife who most of the other people couldn't stand because she was a nutcase. I can't remember if it was alcohol or coke she was in for there were all sorts of addictions. One of the saddest things about the Newmarket place was that practically everyone there had either been raped, sexually abused and/or abused as a child. There was one Muslim guy there who'd been abused by an imam when he was a kid, for instance. Some of the guys Mum met in the NHS one had been in and out of prison and/or homeless. Not all alcoholics come from troubled backgrounds or have underlying mental illnesses, but a hell of a lot do. And one of the biggest demographics is middle-aged, middle-class women. Mum wasn't the only alkie who worked at M&S, I think there was one woman who was so bad she'd drink on the job.

For those of you who are clean now, what was it that made you stop? I know exactly what made Mum stop: it was the night my brother came to visit, and my stepdad had to pick him up from the station because Mum had been on a bender and was in bed, and when he told my brother why she couldn't come, my brother got angry and went straight back home on the next train. That was the moment Mum realised she had to stop and started taking AA seriously, rather than just going through the motions.

[Dannyhood91]

I was a terrible alcoholic for around four years (probably more) I was off the juice from 31st of August 2018 and relapsed again in early March. I'm sober again now but I now regularly attend AA meetings. 

[The Ombudsman]

For those of you who are clean now, what was it that made you stop? I know exactly what made Mum stop: it was the night my brother came to visit, and my stepdad had to pick him up from the station because Mum had been on a bender and was in bed, and when he told my brother why she couldn't come, my brother got angry and went straight back home on the next train. That was the moment Mum realised she had to stop and started taking AA seriously, rather than just going through the motions.

I'd known for a long time it was a problem. Once Christmas it came to a head when I ran out of booze and had a full on panic attack. I couldn't let it dominate my life like that so I stopped. I'd also drank the most I'd ever drunk in the space of three days or so and didn't feel much the worse from it. It was beginning to affect work where as it hadn't before. I saw it as a no going back point as I knew if I continued things would get worse and faster.

[The Ombudsman]

I was a terrible alcoholic for around four years (probably more) I was off the juice from 31st of August 2018 and relapsed again in early March. I'm sober again now but I now regularly attend AA meetings.

That's great to hear. I wish you all the best and am glad you have found a group that works for you.

[checkoutgirl]

I like these threads but they're just not the same without dukedemondo talking about wanking in front of his parents and jumping out of ambulances while smoking crack.

[checkoutgirl]

always get stinking hangovers.

I reckon a lot of people give it up for this reason, you're basically poisoning yourself and the hangover is the poisoning bit.

The pros outweigh the cons, booze has a drag effect on all your organs and it's basically sugar so gives you a beer belly. I'm 42 now and all my life could eat and drink what I want and stay the same. Not now, I have 11 or 12 cans and my belly just expands comically. Jimmy 5 bellies.

I've resolved to abstain for July and I regret it because the football is on and I've just been made redundant. Bad timing but I'm sticking to it. I'm experimenting to see if giving up booze will reduce my paunch.

Also booze makes the weekly shop go from 135 quid down to nearer 100 so that's a saving right there. Also the odd occasion when I have a meal out without booze I'm surprised at how cheap it is. You can get a nice meal for 2 for around €70/£50 without booze, with booze and you pay twice as much nearly.

[who cares]

I'd forgotten this bit, but yeah. The person leading the group I felt enjoyed telling his tales. It appeared to be a well crafted routine, almost like a sales pitch. Nothing wrong with that at such, but I did wonder if it was off-putting for others who wanted to speak but felt their delivery wouldn't match his. As always I was over analysing everything going on.

I did find this sort of thing off-putting. The group seemed to be a bunch of pals who were jollying along, having been sober for years. I was desperate, needed to stop, 'cause I was fucking dying. It was no help to me, alcohol services were no help, in the end I quit alone, entirely alone, 'cause it was either quit or die.

I wonder if AA is more help when you've got past the stage of desperation, where you have a loose-knit community offering support.

I didn't want to give the impression in my previous post that I can just take or leave booze now. It's more that the consequences of drinking are so unpleasant, it acts as a prophylactic. It's like you were listening to a record on vinyl, and you switch it off at the plug; the music fades and dies, the records stops. If you switch it back on at the plug later, it doesn't start the album again- you're back where you left off. "Oh I remember this tune, it's the one where my liver bursts. It's the swan-song of my internal organs." 

[Blue Jam]

Also the odd occasion when I have a meal out without booze I'm surprised at how cheap it is. You can get a nice meal for 2 for around €70/£50 without booze, with booze and you pay twice as much nearly.

BYOB job's a good 'un

[kngen]

The best explanation I could give my outgoing, very social partner is that I - a naturally introverted, and often socially anxious heap of compounded neuroses - have been cursed with being two pints short of being able to interact with other people normally without a feeling of rising panic never far away. This, helpfully, is often exponentially exacerbated by being mildly hungover from a previous social engagement, or self-medicating to recover from the shame and paranoia of getting a bit too pissed while being social in the first place. A wondrously efficient vicious circle.

The shame and paranoia is residual, because I'm not getting completely cunted and shitting in people's gardens or trying to fight taxi drivers (any more). I might have mispronounced someone's name, but my brain - the enemy within - will gleefully inform me that such a minor faux pas is just as bad as any of the horrors from my lost 20s. Shit, remember the look on that woman's face when I made a joke about ISIS? Fuck. I'm a social fucking pariah. Is there still a can left in the fridge? When do the pubs open?

I am - and have been - able to stop drinking for significant lengths of time, but I have to become a hermit to do so. In fact, it's been a week since I touched a drop (I got a bottle of wine in because fuck it), but had to nix attending two big social gatherings over the weekend as a result. It gets a bit wearing on my wife, as she's understandably getting tired of saying 'oh, he's working' when asked about my absences[nb]Ironically, those that know us best probably think I'm too hungover to leave the house, given my history, although it's been a fair old while since I've had an all-day-in-bed, boak my ring hangover, which were regular occurrences in the bad old days.[/nb]. It gets a bit wearing on me, too, as - even though I'm mostly happy to be free of most forms of human interaction - I do have friends, and I do occasionally want to hang out with them, preferably getting mildly pissed and talking bollocks. So I have a choice of being sober, mostly sad, bored and a bit lonely, or basking in the warmth of social transactions for a few hours, then being filled with remorse, dragging myself under the harrow of almost entirely imagined public embarrassments, and ready to plunge into the drink-regret-drink downwards spiral.

Trying to navigate this best I can without getting back on the anti-depressants (I've yet to find anything that doesn't make me feel completely neutral and checked out), but I'm starting to think this is less of a drinking problem than a 'me' problem.

[The Ombudsman]

If anyone is interested in a CaB AA via zoom I'm sure we could arrange such a thing.

Seems there are people here (myself included) that might get some benefit. I don't think anyone will have the answers but talking is good.

Just an idea.

[JaDanketies]

Did ya know that if you're a parent, anything you say to the GP gets shared with other 'frontline care staff' such as the social services, so if a parent expressed concern about their drug and alcohol intake to their GP, it's functionally the equivalent of phoning up social services and saying the same thing to them?

anyway I'll tell CaB the same thing I tell the doctor - 14 units a week or thereabouts. Oh you just don't have time to drink when there's a wee'un underfoot.