My alcohol consumption is down 90+% from where it was 5-6 years ago, but I think it's mostly just a result of getting older + married (to someone who barely drinks). Never had a conscious "damn, I need to cut back" moment or anything.

That is what 'normal' drinkers do as they get older. Alcoholics drink more (both frequency and quantity) and start to do it by themselves as they get older.

How do end up with alcoholic decompsated cirrhosis.....

I didn't really drink at all in high school.

The first two years of university I drank but not really much more than an average undergrad engineer. Maybe to the point of vomiting 3 or 4 times.

A little more alcohol the last three years of school . (5 year program with a year internship). More than average student but certainly not an alcoholic. Would still routinely not drink at all for weeks at a time.

Increased alcohol consumption once a started a career and was living alone. Still not really an alcoholic and would not drank every week but was starting to drink alone and more than I should when out with people. This lasted about 10 years slowly adding more and more alcohol. Started to gain weight and was not exercising enough with increasing blood pressure. Towards end of this period started playing online poker routinely drunk when previously most of my play was sober and winning. Though I was still winning drunk at midstakes at this time.

Next 5 years drinking increased even more. 3 or 4 times a week was drunk with an amount increased to more than 10. By then I stoped counting drinks and had moved from mostly beer to rum. My drinks were at least doubles probably more like quadruples. I was alternating days being drunk and days hung over. Played highstakes drunk online poker up to 300/600 FL. Now down lifetime poker despite being up several hundred thousand earlier. I used the responsible gambling features to stop playing poker. I still was a functional alcoholic in terms of my actual job (A engineer at a nuclear plant)

Saw a family doctor for first time since childhood. Didn't tell him about the extent my alcohol abuse. He did start me on a hyper tension medication. He probably would have eventually tested my liver enzymes but he lost his license after some indiscretions with female patients. Because that happened fairly quickly there was no doctor arranged to take his patients. I didn't put effort into getting a new doctor. I renewed my blood medication at clinics with a different doctor each time and never routinely saw a doctor.

At some point I "graduated" from a every other day drunk to every night drunk. This lasted about 5 years. Gained more weight. Liver probably was with compensated cirrhosis at some point around then but I didn't have any symptoms until the end of this 5 year period.

The first two symptoms were daily withdrawals and appetite loss. I was not drinking in morning or at work and by 5 pm I was getting tremors. I also wasn't eating breakfast or lunch. I am sure I was still consuming a ton of calories but more than half in alcohol.

Next I started having adding a few drinks for "breakfast" before work. This pushed back the tremors from starting until I was home. By this point I was basically drinking all the time I wasn't at work. This went about 1.5 years. Including 2019 and into 2020.
With covid came work from home. And work from home became drinking at work and even more alcohol.

This lasted 6 months and the isolation didn't help. Someone otherwise likely would have noticed the now visible symptoms. During the time I put on a ton of water weight. My blood was very slow to clot and I had uncontrollable nose bleeds. I probably had jaundice. I developed two large stomach bruises. I finally went to the hospital in June 2020. Was quickly admitted.

After a few days of ultrasounds and bloodtests the internal medicine doctor told me I had decompsated cirrhosis and weeks to live if I keep drinking. 2 years at most if a quit. I might be eligible for a transplant if I demonstrate soberity for a period of time. He referred me to a heptologist. He was more optimistic and said it could be a lot longer than 2 years if you change now. They gave me Valium for a few weeks which definitely worked. I never had withdrawals/tremors after stopping alcohol.

They also prescribed some direutics which basically made me piss out the water weight in a month. I didn't need a procedure to drain the fluid which I understand is common for acute cirrhosis. The upper endoscopy they gave me also was somewhat positive and that damage observed was relatively minor.

I did have one particularly scary episode a few months after leaving the hospital of hepatic encephalopathy. This is when toxins in the blood, most notably ammonia, are insufficiently filtered by the liver. When the unfiltered blood passes through the brain it results in confusion and basically inability to perform basic tasks. I didn't know my name. This can eventually progress to coma and then death. However the medication was effective and it has not repeated.

Anyways that is was my story. It was therapeutic to write it all. I am doing much better, feel great and according to the doctor things are going about as good as they reasonably could.

I might even fire up some online poker and try playing sober for the first time in years!

When stars started spreading the 200bb tables I think we played together on them. If that was you, you were always the most fun player at the table.

It's great to read your story, thanks for sharing it. Glad to hear you're doing better.

Good luck jjj. Good to hear that you are doing better.

Cirrhosis is always one of my big fears, I'm constantly paranoid I'm going yellow!

Wrote earlier about a friend I lost to it (he did have Hep too). He turned bright yellow and massively bloated - looked like a Homer Simpson cosplay. Was going to the hospital regularly to get 'drained' out his stomach. Really grim stuff.

Anyway, all the best man! Sounds like you're doing well.

That was definitely me! The deep ante games were advantagous to my "style"at that time! I certainly spewed but I certainly had fun. I think that was around 2009 to 2011. 2010 PCA was definitely the high water mark for me pokerwise. Made supernova elite in 2009 and ran great in the Bahamas live cash games on my free trip.

Hi! You know, your focus shifts, and haven't logged in for a while. I'm close to five years sober now, much better so than drinking. NA beer is still my hobby, works for some but not all. Nice to be free from the chains of alcohol, was on a dangerous and uncomfortable path back then. Staying permanently away from the bottle is the way.

<3

sounds awfully familiar :-)

10 years sober today!

My personal experience in sobriety:

Years 1-2: Basically dust settling. Elated to no longer be a secret drug addict. Brain healing from the benzo abuse. Just happy that things were a little bit better.
Years 3-5: Getting back into life, “waking up” for real.
Years 6-7: My feet firmly under me, but starting to feel like “Is this it?” Sober and productive, but definitely not happy, joyous, and free. Going to meetings, being of service, but not really working the program of AA as outlined in the Big Book.
Years 8-10: Working a daily program, just a completely different perspective. Legitimately less concerned about what I’m getting from the world and the people in it than what I’m giving.

There are people who get sober without AA at all, there are people who get sober in AA by just showing up here and there, and there are the die-hard program workers. My experience so far is that I am much better off as the latter than either of the former. It’s not easy but man it is so much better than the other options. Most importantly, I can guarantee that the experience of being around me has been better for other people in the last several years. You can truly see the results in my kids and my family. So my intention is to stick with it, one day at a time.

Keep it up

Congrats LFS, that's a huge milestone.

Nice one LFS! While, as you said, it's one day at time, ten years is an amazing achievement.

I think living one day at a time is a beautiful way to live.

Way to go LFS! #ProudOfYou

Seems like you've stopped counting the days in terms of how long since you drank and started counting how many good days you still have to go.

Huge accomplishment and keep it up!

Well done LFS!

Congratulations on 10 years! That's amazing!

Hey guys, i haven't posted here in some time. Ending up pulling the plug on that relationship. 5 years go poof. Just couldn't envision building a family/future with someone who refused to recognize problems and wouldn't get help and it was really becoming a problem. There were other major things as well so alcohol was just a single facet of it. Was also very worried me leaving would be a catalyst for her to go deeper into self-destruction and it saddens me that was indeed the case.

She still sends a barrage of texts occasionally at like 3 am telling me to come back to her because she's now sober. This is despite that the timing and nature of the messages clearly demonstrate she isn't. If I see them live then I just ignore them and will only respond in the morning because I don't want to enable her drunken texting and if she wants to talk about anything she can do it sober at normal hours.

I have no interest in getting back together with her regardless of her sobriety or lack thereof (like I said there were other issues) but still care about her and hope she gets out of this on her own someday.

Anyway, I just wanted to write to you guys again anyway saying that I think you've built a really good support network here and I only wish more people would take advantage of the time and positivity you guys are willing to give to total strangers in order to help them on their journey.

Been waiting for that moment of mental clarity, but it’s not really the “ah ha!” effect I was hoping for. Or, it simply hasn’t been long enough. Or, maybe I just love drinking too much.

Doing dry January here, so this is day 23. Hoping to push this well beyond into the months to come, but I realistically can’t see myself going forever. I’m definitely beyond the fear that I’ll suddenly dash to the store and down a bottle, so I guess that’s something. Dreams are finally becoming less vivid (that **** sucks). I keep having dreams where I get drunk and feel super guilty about it.

I don’t know how people live life stone cold sober, but I guess that’s sort of the problem for me.

One day at a time, I suppose.

i used to think that, “how tf do people live life sober alllll the time?”.

now, i genuinely wonder how tf it took me so long to get tired of being drunk every day.

I relate so much to this and can remember feeling this way. Like if you look back at my posts about 6 months after making this thread I was like "ok well I guess life is just a colorless, drab, grinding of days until the sweet release of death, but by God I'm going to keep doing this".

That did not work out for me! And it won't work out for me today. If I go back to living that way again I'll end up killing myself.

The program I work today is not easy. It's a daily commitment. But life actually has some meaning, which it never did back then. I actually think about other people before myself most of the time. On top of that, the other choices (drinking/using and/or dying) are so much worse than my worst day the way my life is now.

For someone like me, things had to get really bad before I'd consider doing the stuff I do today. Believe me, if I thought there was anything left in the tank I'd be out there burning it.

LFS, describe your program. please

never really got into AA past like 15-20 meetings, i guess i kinda felt like getting a sponsor/doing the steps was too personal. i’m not that big on sharing my life’s details with people, especially on a daily basis, which is what most people wanted whenever i inquired.

luckily i haven’t needed it. though it seems we rode the same waves, prob took about 18 months (and quitting all the depression/mood meds) before the sun started shining again. guess i’m curious how much shorter it would have been had i gotten into AA more.

It's hard to get into my practice without breaking the whole thing down piece by piece, which would take pages and I don't want to do anyway. The whole point of it is to get me thinking about other people rather than myself. I am a really, really, selfish person. When I am focused on me me me, I am miserable and make other people miserable. For me to not focus on myself required/requires a really radical change of perspective. "Selfish" is almost two small of a word for how I used to be.

I 100% get that AA isn't for everyone, and if somebody can get sober and lead a productive life with some degree of comfort without it, then they should do that. My experience has been that even while sober I've tried what I call "AA light" (going to meetings etc without doing any actual recovery work) and I get miserable and start shopping for RVs on Craigslist so I can go live in the desert with my dog and never have any contact with any humans ever again. And mind you I am married with kids.

Like I said, I would never be doing this to the degree I do it now if I weren't pretty convinced that my other choices suck super hard.

I just hit 6 years sober a few weeks ago. Things are going good for me I'd say. Sure beats poisoning myself!

Although I got sober thru an online sobriety forum, I now go to face-to-face AA meetings 1-2 times a week. I like it and get a lot out of it, but I doubt I ever formally work the steps with a sponsor. Now in my next life, I'll either not become a drunk in the first place or, failing that, head straight to a face-to-face AA meeting on Day 1. Btw I don't think AA Zoom meetings are the real AA thing but then again, it's not really my place to say.

I found a neat group by me that turned to online meetings during COVID and now run a zoom meeting and a live meeting in the morning. Partly because a few old timers who moved out of town with 20+ years sobriety started going to these zoom meetings because they started at this group back in the 80s and 90s.

It is before work, so it is a nice way to start my day, but getting to it in person with kids and stuff is difficult, so during the week I do the zoom and on weekends I go in person. A lot of the online people end up going in person on the weekend so its like the best of both worlds!