The Drinking Too Much Thread

Lurker Good luck dude. I'll be posting in here soon enough

Blue_Mike YOU LEFT THE OVEN ON

After waking up just before six and legging it to the bathroom with the boiling shits, I checked and was pleasantly surprised to discover I hadn't burned the kitchen down.

looks like our kitchen after our lad nips down to make a snack late at night...

Good luck dude. Had a heavy weekend, had friends over Sat night for dinner, they left at 2.30am. I Got through nearly 2 bottles of wine plus a couple of beers. Yesterday was a struggle.

This may sound daft but when I was getting my alcohol shit sorted, I used a drink counter app for a while, utterly simple , just hit the button when you get another drink, helped make you conscience of how many and helped stop me going over the "too many" threshold.
Maybe worth a shout?

I just accidentally added milk (which was destined for a tea) to my Pimm's, it curdled, I drank it anyway. I'm not proud.

Well my mum's dead, I fear Mrs Mercury may not see the funny side.

Apologies if that seemed crass. It was meant to be a reference to your post on page 1 of the thread.

Fun fact. September 29th last year was my first day sober, so today marks 180 days alcohol free.

Well, I had some Christmas Pudding that tasted strongly of brandy and also a lemon sorbet in February that tasted strongly of Limoncello.

But other than that, nada.

About to get up for work on a Monday, and all I feel is lazy and sleepy. Once upon a time I would have been hanging out of my ass.

Still, had a few moments recently where the urge to drink and get drunk was almost overwhelming. I bought a pack of cigarettes to help. Am ok.

That's great, really well done!

I don't suppose you mind me asking how long it took until you "felt better"?

Since I posted here it's been 50 days (I've only drank on 3 days total prior to that this year). I still struggle with sleep problems & I feel like absolute dog shit all the time. I felt better before I quit as I was still active, but now I'm feeling seriously fatigued all the time (I never drank coffee but now I need it just to get me through work). So far, no fun.

I should add that at this point, what's keeping me sober is the doctor's orders to completely quit, for life, straight away, which he again underlined even more forcefully with the ultrasound results recently.

One of the biggest "positive feels" rewards was the relief I felt when he told me this, because I know myself and the way I am, and I knew that this is the only way I'd ever quit for good, not for good feelings, although that's a nice side effect of course.

Thanks mate.

Yeah doc was stern, but he did also give me huge props for sticking with it.

I guess with clear headedness and better memory, came a slightly clearer knowledge of what has been going on the past 25 years. A bit like remembering something really embarrassing or inappropriate from "the night before". Which initially feels undermining and a drink trigger, but if you weather the storm of thoughts for a bit, you look to the future and strengthen your resolve to stay sober. Think of all the positive things that staying sober will surely bring for your career, social, family life etc, and think about the small changes that you are already seeing, and try to focus on those.

I dunno about you but yeah, I can lose my temper severely and drink and hangovers never helped this. I was listening to a yoga teacher the other day and he was talking about words that people say that make you angry, imagine they are talking a different language, then you wouldn't understand what they were saying and it's not real, it's their problem and you are a unified divine being and not reactive and if people make you react then they essentially control you and you can take control back by not reacting and distancing yourself, and if you see them trying to create these reactions in you then really you should feel sorry for them or just ignore them.

Maybe for us middle aged recovering alcoholics, the "feeling much better" phase comes later, and the reward we have now and what we need to focus on is not wasting any more time that life might still have left for us and making the best of it.

We're all different though. For example, I don't have any problem going to a pub on my own or with other people and drinking soft drinks. I also went to a house party last month with lots of alcohol but I was fine with the 0% stuff the host graciously provided, but I would have bought my own if he said he couldn't. I was one of the first to get there and I spoke to my friend the host about it and to the other guy that was there, and left it up to them to tell the others the reasons if they wanted to tactfully when I wasn't in the room. I didn't make a fuss about it and no-one gave a shit, I guess it's like that one vegan eco warrior who gives everyone shit for getting a KFC on the way home, don't be that guy lol.

Maybe lockdown has actually helped in that respect. Like, I remember being sober around drunk people used to be awkward, but now I'm just grateful for the novelty of being out of the house and around other people.

You’re really lucky to have friends that don’t make a fuss for not drinking. I ended up not going out with my usual crowd a few weeks ago as they insisted that I drink, the amount of shit I got was unreal.

It’s almost as if I’d said I’d banged their wives or something the way they acted!

I don’t really care if they want to get smashed and equally they should just let me be and it ended up with me thinking I can’t drink around them now because they’ll say “ahh, I knew you’d drink again you wanker!”

I’ve got other sets of friends and family events lined up over the coming months. My wife hardly drinks and certain groups of those always try to pressure her, so no doubt they’ll be worse with me.

I should be looking forward to seeing people again but I’m not because of the pressure to drink.

I have noticed since I stopped drinking I’m not putting up with as much shit and I seem to get very agitated. I never used to get annoyed but now I have less patience especially at work. A few people have asked if I’m feeling ok as they say I’m usually very diplomatic and manage to handle everything so easy (I get all the shit projects because of that) but they said of late I’m coming across negative and abrupt.

In reality doing 10-12 hour days and getting every piece of shit project thrown at you should be the answer in itself, but I guess I used to made jokes and cracked on with it as I know at the end of the day I’d block it out with alcohol and collapse in bed!

I guess this is back to what you said earlier about other things affecting your mood, cause of fatigue, lack of sleep, etc.

What I have realised in all of this is that our country has a seriously bad obsession with alcohol.