I can't do this to myself any longer and I have to tell someone because I can't live this double life anymore. I was sooo glad when I found this site and reading some of your stories made me decide to share a bit of mine. When it's out there I will have to commit to staying sobre and not give in every Wednesday. I have to warn you though: to normal people this might sound......not normal and that I need a huge amount of therapy. Here goes anyway.....
I HAVE A HUGE, HUMONGOUS, GIGANTIC DRINKING PROBLEM!!!!! AND I CAN NO LONGER DRINK ANYMORE WHATSOEVER!!! I specifically don't use the word alcoholic because I just can't stomach it. Maybe I'm in denial, but I kind of associate it with people lying in dumpsters who drink when they wake up in the morning. I don't do that. Drinking kind of rules my life though and doesn't leave any space for much else. If I don't drink, I think about how much I drank the night before or what I'm going to drink tonight or how I must stop drinking so much or how I'm ruining my life or ?
Even as I'm writing this I feel this reluctance at having to stop. It feels as though a friend is dying. One of only a few left actually, because I have long since alienated most of them ? through drink, I might add. You know how it goes: You're a bit shy and in uni you realise that drinking totally gets rid of that, so you start drinking more often because you love people's reaction to your newfound confidence. After a while you start to embarrass yourself because you just don't know when to stop. Then you begin to dislike yourself a bit because you have to drink to be liked. Then you start drinking alone to get the feeling of liking yourself and you start living this double life and have to pretend all the time, which is very exhausting. Then you develop really low self-esteem, you start hating yourself, you drink more to forget that you hate yourself, you hate yourself more the next morning, you lose interest in other things (because you think about yourself and your unstableness and your depression all the time and search the internet to find help for your emotional problems) so you don't have anything to talk about anymore (except your emotional problems which other people do not want to discuss) and you avoid people because you don't know what to say to them etc. etc. A VERY vicious circle!!! (This might be just me)
I'm kind of lucky though because I have two sisters and a brother and parents who still love me even though I have disappointed them with the lifestyle choices I have made in the past. (They know that I still drink more than I should, but what they do not know is that I have secret drinking sessions almost every night ? so they are not clued up on the standing situation.) Although, whenever I visit my parents, my dad hides his whisky in his safe because I drink it when no one looks. And every time he hides the whisky it hurts my feelings and I feel mad at him for being so selfish because I would totally share my whisky with him, I'm a grown woman for Pete's sake. Then I start feeling embarrassed again and don't talk to people for a while because I think they discuss my "alcoholicness" behind my back. Ok, maybe they are more clued up on second thought, but like I said, they still love me because I am family and they are stuck with me.
The thing about my family though, is that we think if we ignore something it doesn't exist. My mom once caught me smoking and she never said anything to me. She just closed her eyes and walked away. She did ignore me for a few days, but she never said a word. I still have a scar (physical one) left from that day. When she walked into the room I dropped the cigarette and put my foot over it. Don't know why I did that because the room was filled with smoke anyway and only someone really stupid wouldn't have noticed. (in my current inattentive, in-my-own-head-state I might not have noticed.) The point is though that we ignore stuff and that has probably not helped my cause much.
Anyway, this started about 15 years ago when I went to university. I have stopped a million times, but could only ever stick it out for about three days. I even once went for some therapy-thing that cost me ?700 for just one session. The success rate is apparently 99% and I gave in after just four days. I had to invent some kind of story of why I have to travel to London and lie about what I spent so much money on. In the end it left me feeling way lower than before: being part of the weak 1%.
I'm not as erratic as I used to be and don't drink every night, (I always stop on a Monday and give in on a Wednesday) but the other five nights I drink way too much though and do it mostly by downing stuff in the kitchen.
Now, this I have not mentioned yet, but I have a husband and a ridiculously beautiful three-year-old boy and we live in England, which is a totally different country from my family. This contributes to my state of blueness and is linked to my drinking and my ability to make friends at the moment is non-existent. I do convince myself though that that is the way that I am and that I like a book more than some stupid English people yapping in my ears all the time. Plus I don't have time for that. I have a family and my studies (which I have not mentioned yet and which is taking a bit longer than it should because of my inability to concentrate due to an excess of alcohol and deterioration of brain cells.) Being from another country and not English also makes me a bit slow when it comes to the English humour. To be honest I've never been quick with a joke anyway and incapable of chit-chat too. So my chances of making lovely friends out here: very slim indeed. There have been the off occasion where people invited me to stuff, but those people have been ignored and so have not contacted me again.
My husband forced me to take my little boy to Mother and baby mornings at the community centre after he was born. Now that was torture for you. Some days less than others. There were the standard questions you could ask: How old is she? "It's a boy ? he's two months." Is he sleeping through? Are you breast feeding? But after a while you know all that stuff and just smile. " Ooh, he's lovely." Smile???..unease?????.horror??..?..run!!!! I know, I am sick in the head. That is not to be debated. See what I have to cope with? No wonder I drink.
You might think how is it possible for me to look after a child being in this state? The answer is that I do the day-to-day stuff that I have to do. I don't drink during the day and I don't get paralatic because for some reason I can hold my liquer very well these days. My disorganised-ness and incompetence in my house is getting worse though and that makes me incapable of giving my family the attention they deserve. It also increases my feelings of guilt, which leads to depression and less ability or will to be attentive. The vicious circle once more. Needless to say, my relationship with my husband is sometimes a bit on the rocky side. On weekends he wants to see his friends. He likes people around him. We visit his friends maybe three weekends a month. I usually enjoy myself then because I drink a bottle of wine and talk a lot but I do not want to be there the next morning to make sober chit-chat. My husband on the other hand stretches the visits as long as he possibly can and we always end up fighting.
I don't really know if my husband knows how much I drink or if he's just looking the other way. When he gets home from work in the evening I've at least drunk a glass of wine already. (I sometimes think he has hidden cameras in the house to catch me out so he can divorce me and get full custody of my boy because I am an unfit mother.) Yes, I am paranoid as well?or maybe not?
So now you know my current state and situation. There is just one opened bottle of whiskey left in this house because I have drunk all the rest: All my husband's other whisky and brandy that he got as gifts. (For a while I filled it up with stuff that I bought, but that just got too expensive because I'd just drink it again). My husband almost never drinks, so he doesn't care about the alcohol. One of these days he might just ask where it is and what shall I say?
Anyway, I also drank the wine I bought my husband in Italy when I went there with my brother and his wife. I drank the wine that my boy's kindergarten gave my husband with my boy's face on the front and the bottle of Wild Africa cream that I bought husband for his birthday. I drank all the wine that I buy every second day and the two bottles I bought earlier in the week with which I was going to start a collection. The last straw though was when I drank my husband's irreplacable bottle of beer he bought in Venezuela. That and the fact that I am afraid that I am going to do my lovely child permanent damage with my inattentiveness and all his TV-watching. There is also the fact that I love my husband and want to make him happy. And last but not the least. I want to be happy!!! (and able to integrate with society)
To conclude: I have to stop drinking. For good!! I felt really happy and confident when I was pregnant and not drinking. I want to feel that way again and I want another baby. I don't want to scar my kids for life with my neuroses!!!
That's enough
Ps. Any advice will be much appreciated
I HAVE A HUGE, HUMONGOUS, GIGANTIC DRINKING PROBLEM!!!!! AND I CAN NO LONGER DRINK ANYMORE WHATSOEVER!!! I specifically don't use the word alcoholic because I just can't stomach it. Maybe I'm in denial, but I kind of associate it with people lying in dumpsters who drink when they wake up in the morning. I don't do that. Drinking kind of rules my life though and doesn't leave any space for much else. If I don't drink, I think about how much I drank the night before or what I'm going to drink tonight or how I must stop drinking so much or how I'm ruining my life or ?
Even as I'm writing this I feel this reluctance at having to stop. It feels as though a friend is dying. One of only a few left actually, because I have long since alienated most of them ? through drink, I might add. You know how it goes: You're a bit shy and in uni you realise that drinking totally gets rid of that, so you start drinking more often because you love people's reaction to your newfound confidence. After a while you start to embarrass yourself because you just don't know when to stop. Then you begin to dislike yourself a bit because you have to drink to be liked. Then you start drinking alone to get the feeling of liking yourself and you start living this double life and have to pretend all the time, which is very exhausting. Then you develop really low self-esteem, you start hating yourself, you drink more to forget that you hate yourself, you hate yourself more the next morning, you lose interest in other things (because you think about yourself and your unstableness and your depression all the time and search the internet to find help for your emotional problems) so you don't have anything to talk about anymore (except your emotional problems which other people do not want to discuss) and you avoid people because you don't know what to say to them etc. etc. A VERY vicious circle!!! (This might be just me)
I'm kind of lucky though because I have two sisters and a brother and parents who still love me even though I have disappointed them with the lifestyle choices I have made in the past. (They know that I still drink more than I should, but what they do not know is that I have secret drinking sessions almost every night ? so they are not clued up on the standing situation.) Although, whenever I visit my parents, my dad hides his whisky in his safe because I drink it when no one looks. And every time he hides the whisky it hurts my feelings and I feel mad at him for being so selfish because I would totally share my whisky with him, I'm a grown woman for Pete's sake. Then I start feeling embarrassed again and don't talk to people for a while because I think they discuss my "alcoholicness" behind my back. Ok, maybe they are more clued up on second thought, but like I said, they still love me because I am family and they are stuck with me.
The thing about my family though, is that we think if we ignore something it doesn't exist. My mom once caught me smoking and she never said anything to me. She just closed her eyes and walked away. She did ignore me for a few days, but she never said a word. I still have a scar (physical one) left from that day. When she walked into the room I dropped the cigarette and put my foot over it. Don't know why I did that because the room was filled with smoke anyway and only someone really stupid wouldn't have noticed. (in my current inattentive, in-my-own-head-state I might not have noticed.) The point is though that we ignore stuff and that has probably not helped my cause much.
Anyway, this started about 15 years ago when I went to university. I have stopped a million times, but could only ever stick it out for about three days. I even once went for some therapy-thing that cost me ?700 for just one session. The success rate is apparently 99% and I gave in after just four days. I had to invent some kind of story of why I have to travel to London and lie about what I spent so much money on. In the end it left me feeling way lower than before: being part of the weak 1%.
I'm not as erratic as I used to be and don't drink every night, (I always stop on a Monday and give in on a Wednesday) but the other five nights I drink way too much though and do it mostly by downing stuff in the kitchen.
Now, this I have not mentioned yet, but I have a husband and a ridiculously beautiful three-year-old boy and we live in England, which is a totally different country from my family. This contributes to my state of blueness and is linked to my drinking and my ability to make friends at the moment is non-existent. I do convince myself though that that is the way that I am and that I like a book more than some stupid English people yapping in my ears all the time. Plus I don't have time for that. I have a family and my studies (which I have not mentioned yet and which is taking a bit longer than it should because of my inability to concentrate due to an excess of alcohol and deterioration of brain cells.) Being from another country and not English also makes me a bit slow when it comes to the English humour. To be honest I've never been quick with a joke anyway and incapable of chit-chat too. So my chances of making lovely friends out here: very slim indeed. There have been the off occasion where people invited me to stuff, but those people have been ignored and so have not contacted me again.
My husband forced me to take my little boy to Mother and baby mornings at the community centre after he was born. Now that was torture for you. Some days less than others. There were the standard questions you could ask: How old is she? "It's a boy ? he's two months." Is he sleeping through? Are you breast feeding? But after a while you know all that stuff and just smile. " Ooh, he's lovely." Smile???..unease?????.horror??..?..run!!!! I know, I am sick in the head. That is not to be debated. See what I have to cope with? No wonder I drink.
You might think how is it possible for me to look after a child being in this state? The answer is that I do the day-to-day stuff that I have to do. I don't drink during the day and I don't get paralatic because for some reason I can hold my liquer very well these days. My disorganised-ness and incompetence in my house is getting worse though and that makes me incapable of giving my family the attention they deserve. It also increases my feelings of guilt, which leads to depression and less ability or will to be attentive. The vicious circle once more. Needless to say, my relationship with my husband is sometimes a bit on the rocky side. On weekends he wants to see his friends. He likes people around him. We visit his friends maybe three weekends a month. I usually enjoy myself then because I drink a bottle of wine and talk a lot but I do not want to be there the next morning to make sober chit-chat. My husband on the other hand stretches the visits as long as he possibly can and we always end up fighting.
I don't really know if my husband knows how much I drink or if he's just looking the other way. When he gets home from work in the evening I've at least drunk a glass of wine already. (I sometimes think he has hidden cameras in the house to catch me out so he can divorce me and get full custody of my boy because I am an unfit mother.) Yes, I am paranoid as well?or maybe not?
So now you know my current state and situation. There is just one opened bottle of whiskey left in this house because I have drunk all the rest: All my husband's other whisky and brandy that he got as gifts. (For a while I filled it up with stuff that I bought, but that just got too expensive because I'd just drink it again). My husband almost never drinks, so he doesn't care about the alcohol. One of these days he might just ask where it is and what shall I say?
Anyway, I also drank the wine I bought my husband in Italy when I went there with my brother and his wife. I drank the wine that my boy's kindergarten gave my husband with my boy's face on the front and the bottle of Wild Africa cream that I bought husband for his birthday. I drank all the wine that I buy every second day and the two bottles I bought earlier in the week with which I was going to start a collection. The last straw though was when I drank my husband's irreplacable bottle of beer he bought in Venezuela. That and the fact that I am afraid that I am going to do my lovely child permanent damage with my inattentiveness and all his TV-watching. There is also the fact that I love my husband and want to make him happy. And last but not the least. I want to be happy!!! (and able to integrate with society)
To conclude: I have to stop drinking. For good!! I felt really happy and confident when I was pregnant and not drinking. I want to feel that way again and I want another baby. I don't want to scar my kids for life with my neuroses!!!
That's enough
Ps. Any advice will be much appreciated
My situation is different but there are some similarities. I too tried various things and found I have to have two components, Campral, which though expensive if we think about how much we spend is still less than the booze and I don't know if your insurance might pay for it. And my hubby, our cases differ in that Joe drinks as much or more than I do. So if he doesn't bring alcohol into the house, I will not tempt him by buying it, especially while on Campral.
ray:
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