I am new and really need advice!!!

[corinne628]

so this is my first post here. Not sure how i even came upon this page. HOwever, After my daughter passed away i started to have a drink every night to help me sleep. this was 5 years ago. Well that one drink now has turned into 5 drinks each night before i sleep. I just cannot sleep unless i drink something. I tried to not drink and take sleeping pills instead and it worked. But I still find that i have these drinks every night. Not sure if i have a problem and not sure if i can even stop unless i take something else. I never get drunk, i dont really have any signs except my stress level seems to be brutal and always an excuse. Does anyone have any advice. I dont know what to do at this point. do I have a problem or purhaps i am fine and this is common. any advice would be great. Thankyou.

[LVT25]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Hi Corinne.

I'm so sorry about your daughter. I've often thought if anything every happened to one of my kids I would just crawl under a blanket and stay drunk forever.

Have you had any counseling? IMO and I'm no expert it would be wise for you to quit using alcohol and sleep meds and try to heal yourself. This is a great program. Read the book, and go from there. The forums are great for advise and support.
:welcome:

[Ringing Cedars]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Hi Corinne. Glad you found MWO. I still consider myself fairly new here but wanted to jump in with a welcome and pass some of what I know on.

Only you can decide how much is enough to drink, if any. You came here to learn something and I'm sure you will. You can download the MWO book and start reading that right away. There is a Toolbox somewhere. I'm sure someone will post a link if you ask them to.

It is highly recommended to abstain for a 30 day period at least when you are concerned about your drinking. I did this--well almost--29 days and found it very helpful to break the habit my drinking had become and gain some perspective on going forward. I think just seeing how you struggle with 30 days gives you an idea of where you are at in your relationship with alcohol.

I think that's all I can really start with. Well of course keep reading and posting your questions. Oh and some have found it helpful to start their own thread so they can journal their progress and it helps others get to know you. And their is a tool called drink tracker that I used to help me be accountable in my 30 abstinence. All the best Corinne. )

[spuddleduck]

I am new and really need advice!!!

hi and welcome. im sure you will get the help and advice you need here. i agree that it wouild be good if you could try and abstain for a while to see how you feel. i had terrible trouble sleeping for the first couple of weeks without alcohol, i found taking an anti histamine helped. eventually when my body got free of alcohol i have found i am sleeping better than ever before. its a slippery slope using alcohol to self medicate for anything, sleeping included. i wish you all the best.

[Guest]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Hello corinne. It's pretty normal to have a few drinks. You don't seem to be being wildly excessive about it, and I wouldn't think you should be too concerned just yet.
There is a 'but' though, and the 'but' is that this is the way it starts.
If you are here it is because there is an alarm sounding.
Try going off it for a while. If you start having trouble with that, then it's time to do something. The usual protocol is to stop for 30 days. Read as many posts as you can and that will help clear your mind.
You know what they say about illness in general...the sooner you get onto it, the easier it is to fix.
Good luck.

[dancelot]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Blue Heeler;884690 wrote: Hello corinne. It's pretty normal to have a few drinks. You don't seem to be being wildly excessive about it, and I wouldn't think you should be too concerned just yet.
There is a 'but' though, and the 'but' is that this is the way it starts.
If you are here it is because there is an alarm sounding.
Try going off it for a while. If you start having trouble with that, then it's time to do something. The usual protocol is to stop for 30 days. Read as many posts as you can and that will help clear your mind.
You know what they say about illness in general...the sooner you get onto it, the easier it is to fix.
Good luck.

5 drinks may not have been much for you, but for a woman it is way over the limit. Add in the fact of every night. It is really how we abuse rather than any specific amount. If I drink 5 a night and someone else drinks 10, that does not make my consumption "normal".

Women process alcohol differently, and can do a lot more damage on less. Also consider that we tend to escalate as it problem progresses.

Also, welcome Corinne! Keep reading, check out the tool box in the Monthly Abs section, and ask questions. You've made a great first step coming here. I have been sober for over 10 months now with the help of this site - and I was a heavy drinker for 36 years! I wish you the best on your journey - you will never regret it!

[hippie37]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Hi Corinne.

I think it's great that you're aware you have a problem with self medicating and that this is something that needs addressing. There are many people that don't actually have a problem with alcohol to the degree of it being an addiction.

An example being. I was taking a strong anti-depressant for years known as seroxat. I found that when I wanted to stop taking it, I couldn't do it. I slowly had to ween myself of it, reducing gradually with the liquid form. I wasn't addicted to the substance, I wasn't obsessed with taking it either. I was just fearful that if I didn't take it I would suddenly feel worse. I did happen to go through a bit of a slump after I came off it but I gradually levelled out again. The episode was over.

The same can be said of alcohol I believe that many people are not obsessed and addicted to alcohol but use it to self medicate themselves through difficult times. This may be the case with yourself, I don't know as I can only go by what you've written in your post. So stopping drinking may bring about many fears that need to be addressed in the meantime. Grief, I guess is one of them.

Alcohol is of course a highly addictive substance so as Blue mentioned the sooner you start addressing the real issues then the easier this will be for you in the long run.

I found that when the actual pain of not drinking was the same as the pain I felt whilst drinking was when the real problems started to occur.

Many Blessings and welcome to MWO
Phil

[sk8punk]

I am new and really need advice!!!

What Hippie said is very good advice. I was one of the ones who used alcohol to self medicate. To the point where it was becoming an addiction. I have social anxiety and dysthymia (chronic depression). I used alcohol to deal with everyday situations or large get togethers. I was hiding from the real problems. Now that I'm on anti depressent and going to weekly counsuling I'm dealing with things alot better. My life isn't perfect but it's alot better than when I drank.

I agree stop drinking for 30 days. See if you can do that. Maybe seek out counsuling to deal with any emotional issues that come up. Best of luck to you.

[kslc2001]

I am new and really need advice!!!

I'm new here too and am using the suggestions in the MYO book. I cut down from a bottle a night to 2 glasses of wine (I'm a small female) but my doc wanted me to abstain for 2 months. I wanted Topa and he gave it to me on the condition I abstained. The hypnotherapy cd's help me sleep with the supplements. I'm 8 day AF so far! Yes the cds and supplements are expensive, but so is a bottle of wine a night. You can do this

[Guest]

I am new and really need advice!!!

You are right dancelot. I do tend to forget that women are less tolerant to alcohol than men. I will bear it in mind in future and leave the replies to the women here.

[patrice]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Hi Corrine and welcome.. I am new too and have had so much good advice and support, its very encouraging.. I'm not sure if 5 drinks is too much or not, but sounds like it could be.
I agree with Dancelot it depends a lot on your size and food intake etc. For me, I have been drinking much more than 5 drinks a night but I'm quite small and weigh 50kgs.. WAY too MUCH!!! I have been conveniently forgetting the size ratio and drinking or the quanties so when I drank a 'bottle' of wine the other night on little food, I thought OK just a bottle... the next morning I looked at the empty bottle and saw that it was a 33% extra meaning it was a 1 litre bottle... I turned the bottle over to look at the standard units... 11 standard drinks!!! No food!!! 50kgs!!! My poor liver

[corinne628]

I am new and really need advice!!!

Thankyou everyone for your replies. Stopping for 30 days i guess is the best thing right now. This could be very interesting. See i started so many years ago because everytime i could go to sleep my dreams would relive the death of my daughter. I just could not take it anymore and the drinks helped to stop it. I CANNOT relive that again i will loose it. We had lots of support to help us with her before she passed but pretty much at the moment she died that was it. No more help, no counselling, just left us to deal with it. I really hope i can do this. Not sure when i will start yet but hopefully this week. I will let you know how it goes.

[Doggygirl]

I am new and really need advice!!!

I am so sorry to read about the loss of your daughter. I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose a child.

There are so very many kinds of bad circumstances that we try to fix or erase or medicate with alcohol. Problem is, alcohol doesn't really fix anything. It just adds one more problem to the mix. Or a multitude of additional problems if you are facing consequences with your drinking. (spouse mad at you, drunk dialing / texting to fix, hangovers, missing work, not being fully present for your family or life, or the obvious ones like DUI's, etc.)

It sounds like some counseling would be beneficial, but that it wasn't available to the degree you needed it? Is it possible to somehow access counseling?

It is very normal for someone with a drinking problem to suffer from some insomnia early on in sobriety. It usually goes away after a few days to a few weeks. There are some natural sleep aids like Melatonin that can help. I personally prefer Valerian Root to Melatonin.

IMO, alcohol is never a good solution to anything - sleep problems or anything else.

Strength to you,

DG