harsh, man. Hope you do ok.

Don't want to be a wet blanket but I really think a bit of "help" as in therapy to talk about your history and drinking patterns/experience may be a good idea. You may just want to cold turkey it but professional help would be a good move imo.

That said i've only dealt with mental health issues, not with outside agents like alcohol. gl in any case.

Non-existent. She doesn't drink because of a medication she takes.

In the sense that I'd quit for several-month spans many times, yes. On a day-to-day basis, no. "Taking some time off" was always easy. Not drinking on a random Tuesday night when I had a business dinner, very difficult. Overall, though, it's been more-or-less clear to me for a long, long, time that I probably shouldn't drink alcohol, but I did anyway. So in the grander sense, I think it's clear I was not in control.

Good luck LFS

Not to be an a-hole, but that isn't exactly what I asked.

I truly am very sorry to hear about your drinkingproblem and i hope that you will overcome this period of your life.

Good to hear that you have taken the initiative to solve your problem by your self!

Good luck!

What do you (or anybody) suppose produces the urge to self medicate chemically? I'm surely as Aspie/autie as any of you guys, my father + his whole family are drunks to varying degrees of functionality, and I've never really even felt tempted to anything beyond moderate recreational usage. Even at my most ****ed up I never dreamed of a drug problem, and I don't see what makes me any different from several people itt.

LFS, you should consider joining a gym and going on a low carb diet. The times you would drink, go lift some weights instead. Alcohol causes all kinds of weirdness with insulin sensitivity so a low carb diet will get your blood sugar real smooth physically, plus the pyschological side of that if you drink you will be breaking the diet. The weight will come off real fast.
Also then if someone offers you a drink just say you are on a diet if its that kind of situation.
I would think the hardest part of quitting is the social aspect and that you probly have friends that you have nothing in common with other than drinking. Harsh, but I would completely cut them out of your life..You wouldn't have known them probly anyway if it wasn't for drinking.

Yeah, didn't answer the other part. No alcohol or drug issues on her side of the family. They're crazy, but not drunk or on drugs.

Also since it keeps coming up, I have no problem telling people I don't drink anymore.

Was this like a family party or just a party with peers? I never have a problem not drinking with family but with peers its just seems even if I say Im not gonna drink I end up drinking pretty quickly.

LFS, obviously I don't know anything about your parenting, but most alcoholic parents believe the above statement. Just something to think about.

I suggest you read the Allen Carr book about easyway to stop drinking. I read it early 2008, worked miracles.

Before I read the book, I had successfully 'quit drinking' for weeks/months at a time, up until a Vegas trip, bachelor party, baseball game, etc. Then I would go right back to drinking most everyday. One drink would pretty much set me off.

Post reading, I've figured out alcohol. Very exciting and liberating. I go out after every softball game, go to strip clubs, casinos, you name it. I have no craving for a drink. I have had a case of beer in my fridge for months. I could walk down there right now and drink one of them, and have no worries about falling off the wagon. But, I dont want to.

As for the word 'alcoholic' - I consider that someone who can't control their alcohol addiction. I'm sure I'll be flamed when I say: if you drink alcohol on any type of consistent basis (>2/week?), alcohol has some sort of addictive control over you. You might not be an alcoholic, but you're addicted.

I have no idea.

I read his book about quitting smoking and it actually worked. Haven't had a cigarette in over 4 years.

addiction is one of those things i don't "get", much like pop culture. what i mean is i don't get it on a personal level, but i can clearly see how others are addicted to stuff. it's very interesting to me. gl

I'm interested to know how the other problem drinkers itt first got into it. I have a few interesting tidbits to recount:

- while it seems slightly absurd to me that a predilection for drugs could be genetically determined, given that there's really nothing in nature that acts as an anologue, I feel like that was the case for me. I distinctly remember being infatuated with the smell of solvents as a young child. I was kicked out of class once at the age of 5 for sniffing pens with the girl sat next to me. When my parents pulled in to fill up the car I would wind down the window to enjoy the smell of petrol.

- I think I was 12 or 13 the first time I got drunk. It was the first time my parents had gone out and left me at home without a babysitter. After a couple of laps around the house being nosy, I had the bright idea to drink some whiskey and lemonade. I put myself to bed, but when they returned home I was lying unconscious on the sofa downstairs. Kind of a template for my relationship with the stuff from then on.

- you've probably heard about how creatures imprint things during certain vulnerable phases of their development. For example goslings imprinted a ping-pong ball as being their mother, and later would try to mate with ping-pong balls. I sometimes wonder if I imprinted alcohol in a kind of sexual way in my early adolescence. I definitely had less than my share of getting laid during college years despite being confident and not fugly, because when I went out my primary objective was to get ****ed up beyond recognition.

- I got addicted to alcohol entirely on purpose. I was depressed to the point of being suicidal between the ages of 15 and 18, and pretty much assumed that I'd end up going the whole way at some point. I had a turning point of sorts when my father died when I was 18; I realised that no way could I put my family through another death, so I mentally committed suicide instead, by deciding to do whatever it took to get through each day from then on. Which basically meant getting blotto. By five or so years later I had got all sorts of better, but was still stuck with the good old booze addiction. Those circuits in your brain don't atrophy like muscles do, the only option you have is to build alternatives.

- finally, what is your craving like? I've been trying to quit for years and finally this year making good progress, though still with blips. The thing is, I rarely crave alcohol at all. I don't imagine it's going to feel good or that I'll have fun, in fact I know full well that I'll have zero memory and simply erase a day from my life. My primary reason for caving in is just that the gnawing/nagging gets too annoying and I (somewhat rationally) choose to reset the clock and get back to dealing with it another time. I have no idea if this is typical or not.

sorry don't have time to read this right now. my quick thoughts on quitting drinking. it's probably not a bad idea. i myself am at a stage since august where i've barely being drinking at all. but i still have a couple beers here and there because i can't stand to just completely rule it out. yes, it's hard to control sometimes. i used to drink often, and when i drank i drank alot, to the point of blackout and stupidness almost every time. yes alot of the time it was fun, but there was obviously lots of downside with health, other risks.
the times i did try to say i wouldn't drink alot and just have a couple never worked. i'd always end up back in the regular routine after having too many.

i almost think it's harder to be able to continue to 'socially' drink. ie. 1 or 2, than it is to just quit cold turkey.

that's the point i'm at. i had 6 beers on halloween. that's the most i've had at any point since august. i definitely wanted more and it was a mental challenge not to.

those are just my quick thoughts. i didn't read the thread yet and won't be able to until later. maybe you find it impossible if you don't just quit altogether.

best of luck and hope it works out!

This pretty much sums up how I feel right now. I should just quit alcohol for good but feel if I can give it up for a few months I will be able to "control it" next time, and have done that a few times in the past. Eventually you just end up falling down the same slippery slopes.

Good Luck LFS!

I always remember my dad telling me how he stopped smoking for my sister and I because he watched his parents die from smoking and didn't want to put us through that. Stay strong!

No issues over Thanksgiving, featuring fifteen people at my house including my wife's annoying family. Used wine in several of the things I cooked. The concept of having a glass was mildly intriguing, but there is a very strong resistance inside of me, I can't really explain it. It would be nice if this compulsion to NOT drink never goes away, but we'll see.

definitely think i have a problem, but I'm not too concerned at this point because I am still in college. I am graduating in December and getting out of my current city. I go on a lot of binges with friends and see the way my parents behave (they are drinkers) so I am always around drinking.

I've stopped for periods of about 10-12 weeks to get into shape and just to see if I could do it. I was a lot happier but constantly had urges and couldn't even be around it. I stayed home on the weekends, and quite frankly, that is really no way to "fight" alcohol is to be completely anti-social.

My parents NEVER drank when me and my brother were growing up. Ever since I went off to college (4 years ago) and my brother was old enough to take care of himself my parents have been drinking about 4-5 nights a week (dad especially). I'm really freaked out cause my dad's father had diabetes and was a drinking and basically didn't take any medication or change his diet and he basically killed himself. My dad was extremely angry at him and I'm still sure hasn't forgiven him. My mom even called him out saying you are killing yourself just like your father.

I've pleaded for him to stop because I want him to be able to play catch and run around with my kids and not be dead and/or unable to.

He even made a comment to my mother last week about how me and my brother "don't even need him anymore" and blah blah.

The only success I've had with not drinking is being 100% dedicated to working out and eating healthy. These past few months have been really hard on me. I've been drinking a lot. I've said numerous times to my mom I think I have a drinking problem. I don't really know when to stop or how to control it, but this is when I'm out with my friends.

Someone else stated it in this thread but I can easily go a weekend without drinking, but its almost like I must do it the next weekend. If I see people I haven't seen in a while I'm right there crushin beers and buying shots.

I'm ready to tone it down. I'm hoping that when I start my career I get serious about only becoming a casual drinker, and I can stop this bingeing nonsense.

I will definitely keep checking this thread and maybe post some progress of my own. I'm currently in tonight because I still feel like **** from last night and this thread is really hitting home.

Good luck LFS, and just know you are not alone, a lot of people are battling this and there are people out there that understand what you are attempting to go through.

Im kinda new to here but the OP's post kinda got my eyes watering because I see a lot of what he said in myself.

I know that I need to sober up...I just don't know when that time will come.

One of the things my extra time is going to is thinking a lot about life. My past, my present, my future. Especially my past. Who I am, who I want to be, etc. I'm pretty sure that drinking was a way to distract myself from thinking all the time. I guess that's pretty standard. I've been spending a lot of time dwelling on some pretty heavy stuff, which isn't really pleasant and probably doesn't make me a breeze to be around. These thoughts and tendencies are probably something I should keep examining. I've always known that alcohol was more a symptom than the actual problem itself. I think I'm starting to see the problem.

The good news is that I've noticed I'm procrastinating less and have a lot more patience in general. I'm unquestionably sharper than I've been in quite some time. My focus on work and my volunteer stuff is more consistent than maybe ever. I still have the sense of resolve that started this, but I'm also getting a sense of purpose.

I'm definitely a more serious person than I was a few months ago. That's probably a function of a number of things, but mostly not drinking. My feelings about this are a little mixed, but I'm also legitimately excited to see what I'm capable of when I'm actually trying.

Yeah I know what you mean - painful self-examination hurts and is no fun but it's a very good thing. Turning 40 did that for me.

Supposedly more patience is a big one when you get clean off anything. I'm seriously thinking about taking the plunge next year - somewhat inspired by you. I can't just go drink and have fun w/o a high probability of doing something dumb by the end of the night. Then again I can't imagine going out and mingling at all w/o alcohol. Ugh. I can have fun sober with good friends. But trying to talk to strangers or people I barely know at a party or bar sober seems impossible. Kinda hard to meet someone special if you aren't out there mingling.

Sorry to make my reply all about me. But your thread is making me think about myself a lot.

I mostly lurk in OOT, but I just wanted to pop in and congratulate you on taking this step. It takes so much strength to beat an addiction and I've seen alcoholism almost destroy my fiance's family. Stay strong and in a year you'll be able to pop this thread back up, read through it and smile.

grunch: gl dude, i need this in my life but i doubt happnes anytime soon

http://www.smartrecovery.org/

is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to quit drinking.