Drunk by Choice?

[RedThread12]

Drunk by Choice?

Thanks, See, for the striking visual of what was, but is no longer, my greatest fear: "Loathsome Tosser turning up on my doorstep the next day with his baseball bat and knuckledusters...with a skull fucking hangover."

Well done, JD! I've been watching you blaze your bac path, but due to skull fucking, knuckleduster life circumstances, haven't been around to post much. Ne, Kronk, See and Bleep have pretty much described my own relationship with AL at a maintenance dose of eighty to one hundred twenty mg bac/day. (Zero key is on strike, along with, I just discovered, the closing parenthesis key, which is it's capital . . . lolol

So I guess I have good news and bad news. The good news is that AL is no longer an issue, one way or the other. The bad news is that life is still full-on demanding at times, with or without intoxicants.

For example - after spending a couple of weeks after my step-father's death dealing with military and government agencies on my mother's behalf; discovering the extent of greed, manipulation and misappropriation of finances planned and carried through by her step-children that I could never have even thought of; AND essential records missing not only from personal files, but also from the freaking county court house!!!! -I got to spend a long day on Friday packing, hauling, un-packing and installing furniture.

At the end of that, I went to dinner with my friend who was helping me. Mind you, this is the friend who gave up alcohol completely for several years, on my behalf; and in whose bed I lay for a long, long time as I was getting sober - pre-bac - because if I got out of bed, I would drink. It has only been recently, well into my third year with bac, that we have ever had a drink together. I went into the restaurant having decided that I would have one cold, tap beer, and one glass of red wine. Between eating, returning phone calls and emails, I still had beer in my glass when the dishes were removed from the table. I finished it. I did not have a glass of wine.

Ahhh . . . the irony. I used to make a plan to NOT drink, which always failed, miserably. Now I make a plan TO drink, and I can't even stick to that :H:H I have no impulse to titrate further down. I did quit taking an anti-depressant that I had been on for some time, quite easily, early on. I truly think this is just the right med for my personal make-up. And I just had extensive med tests - everything is spot on - so, even though these are early days for long-term HDB, so far, it looks as if it's quite doable, from my body's point of view.

A little more information regarding life after drinking against your will, for your arsenal. So happy that you are finding your way out. I promise, with enough knowledge and follow-through, you NEVER have to drink like THAT, again! Awesomeness!!!

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

RedThread12;1517643 wrote:
Ahhh . . . the irony. I used to make a plan to NOT drink, which always failed, miserably. Now I make a plan TO drink, and I can't even stick to that :H:H

I TOTALLY relate to that!!! It is nice. I have seen some posts about (I think it was Bleep) about people stopping Baclofen because they were not having as much fun as they used to. I am the polar opposite. I am finally getting to do all the things I have always wanted. I went last night to this burger joint I really like. They have a tap wall of local brews. I quit going there because I would never be able to eat and always got real drunk, then would get blow on the way home and stay up all night (sometimes up the next night as well) and be a nervous wreck for days. Anyways, I was able to go back there. I had one beer, then iced tea. I had a great burger and stopped to check out this new park on the way home... which was a hair different than stopping for blow . I was completely locked in my house in alcohol/cocaine depression. Now I can go do all of these things. I don't want that euphoric bar scene feeling. I want to lead a normal life. I almost died accidentally and purposefully in the journey to get this normal life. It is infinitely cooler than I had ever imagined possible. Normies don't realize how damn lucky they are.

[skullbabyland]

Drunk by Choice?

JDizzle... it's AWESOME that you are enjoying life more now! It sounds like your experience with bac has been really quick and really dramatic. That's so cool! Glad you're getting out in the world and enjoying it (and, that hangovers have been lessened). Awesome stuff.

I really relate to the words in posts by Red, Ne, bleep... about how life is still hard, and habits are still hard to break. There's still a lot of mental work and focus, and vigilance needed every day. As well as healthy "coping mechanisms", or enjoyable and relaxing activities to replace drinking.

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

I think I should note last night for anyone following this and not talking. I had 4 drinks. I went out with a friend and we watched the basketball game. After we left, we was mentioning this new bar in town and I really wanted to go try it out. I didn't want the night to end. There was a point where I had to make a decision. That is the difference... I can exercise my will power now. This medication doesn't like alleviate my responsibility to my actions. I knew if I went I was pushing it, and that I would drive. I was rational and thought there might be a chance that there is a point I can reach where I cannot say no again. I really didn't want to find out. So I told him I needed to go home. I came home, worked a bit, and watched Game of Thrones. So it ended well, but I am fully aware now that I still have to make the right decisions with my newly rational mind.

[Whiplash]

Drunk by Choice?

JDizzle--

My opinion is that if one is a true alcoholic, and has the good fortune to become "normal" at all, that it is treading a dangerous path to get back into drinking. I realize that some people are able to normalize their drinking habits but statistically, they are the great minority. I actually was an alcoholic already at age 19 and I woke up in the hospital one Christmas Eve, from alcohol poisoning. I decided drinking was probably going to kill me so at the age of 22, I just quit cold turkey. It's amazing when youth is on your side what you can do sometimes.

Well, I didn't know anything about addiction really. I just knew that if I didn't quit drinking, I was probably going to kill myself with it so I spent that whole year completely sober. Alcohol-free, tobacco-free, drug-free, and even meat-free. I exercised almost every single day. I have never felt better in my whole life than that year. But as I said, I really wasn't educated much about the nature of addiction so next Christmas, I thought it'd be nice to relax in front of the tree with a couple drinks. 2-3 weeks later I was already binging just as before and I've spent the better part of the last DECADE trying to quit again. This time, it has been nearly impossible for me to do so and now my liver is not in good shape.

Moral of the story is I was completely sober and could have never taken another drink in my life, and led a happy and prosperous one. Those first few drinks led to over ten more years of binge drinking, and it's STILL not over. I'm struggling to this day to get a grip on this. If I don't pretty soon, my liver will be pretty much destroyed and I'll die of liver failure. So while everybody is different, I hope this illustrates what can happen to a true addict if they recover and then use just once. It can snowball right back to where you started, or worse.

[Colin]

Drunk by Choice?

Whiplash;1518130 wrote:
So while everybody is different, I hope this illustrates what can happen to a true addict if they recover and then use just once. It can snowball right back to where you started, or worse.

Before baclofen you would have been quite correct in this warning. Ever since Olivier Ameisen's great experiment with baclofen began, a small but increasing group is trying to discover exactly how far baclofen has invalidated your warning.

Most of the threads in this section are related to individual experiments with baclofen.

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

Awesome comments!!! I completely understand what you are saying. That is exactly how I understood alcoholism from AA and personal experience. I was sober 2 years around the same age you went cold turkey, only I did it through AA. I had the thought ... you know I really never had any goals in life, I'm young, maybe I'm not an alcoholic. I drank normally one or two times, then it was down hill. Since then, I have been able to drink normally 0 times. I rarely go out to get drunk. I always went out to have a couple and it never worked. The fact that I have done it around 6 times now with zero failures tells me I am good. My alcoholism at 37 has progressed to the point that I am incapable of regulating my drinks... even if it is to prove a point to myself or my family one time.... I cannot do it one time.

I met with my sponsor the other day and he was like.... You know this flies in the face of everything we know about alcoholism from the disease perspective. We have always thought complete abstinence is the only way. What Dr. A figured out is that you don't have to suppress the disease. If you suppress the symptoms, you have, in effect, suppressed the disease. It is a really baffling concept, but we have to start looking at this is a completely different way than we ever have. I no longer have symptoms of alcoholism and therefore am no longer an alcoholic.... so long as I take my medication.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Drunk by Choice?

JDizzle;1518220 wrote: You know this flies in the face of everything we know about alcoholism from the disease perspective. We have always thought complete abstinence is the only way. What Dr. A figured out is that you don't have to suppress the disease. If you suppress the symptoms, you have, in effect, suppressed the disease. It is a really baffling concept, but we have to start looking at this is a completely different way than we ever have. I no longer have symptoms of alcoholism and therefore am no longer an alcoholic.... so long as I take my medication.

Wait. That doesn't make sense to me. Isn't the point that baclofen is the first (only) thing that treats the disease, the chemical imbalance, itself? It doesn't inhibit the pleasure receptors, the way naltrexone (purportedly) does. It doesn't curb craving the way campral (again, purportedly) does. It doesn't substitute for alcohol, the way a benzo might. And it doesn't attempt (and most of us don't attempt) to alter the symptoms (the symptoms being the physical, emotional, and jeez, even the social manifestation) of the disease. That's what AA attempts to do.

Baclofen treats the chemistry in the brain. It treats the disease. The symptoms go away because the disease is...in remission. Antidepressant for depression...Baclofen for addiction. (Have you seen the youtube of baclofen in action? I think it's been posted recently. Very cool stuff. As is the research being done on rats, and now chimps...Humans, too of course. )

Your sponsor sounds like a very cool guy. I'm a little bit jealous and wish I had someone who knew. Or perhaps it's your enthusiasm that's got me all nostalgic...It's a lovely thing, isn't it? Glorious. Un-effin'-believable is what it is.

btw, I love what Redthread said about thinking about drinking...and not really being able to do it. It's a family joke around here that they don't make bottles (or cans for that matter) small enough. We end up cooking with some really good (but very stale) wine. Needless to say, the bottles used to be so small I bought my cheap wine by the case. Or two.

Cheers, JDizz

[Whiplash]

Drunk by Choice?

Colin;1518167 wrote: Before baclofen you would have been quite correct in this warning. Ever since Olivier Ameisen's great experiment with baclofen began, a small but increasing group is trying to discover exactly how far baclofen has invalidated your warning.

Most of the threads in this section are related to individual experiments with baclofen.

I was told this about naltrexone and although my hopes were very high, it really didn't work out for me. I am the eternal optimist, believe me. But don't ever put your hopes into "rabbit in hat" solutions until they have really run their course in trials.

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

I'm just gonna put my hopes into a glass of grey goose :H.

Neva... He is awesome. Used to be an addiction counselor so he is all for any cure. He is a professor now... Bet his classes r cool. I think what he meant is that it flies in the face of abstinence being the only way to combat an allergy. If ur allergic to strawberries, u don't eat them. I totally get what ur sayin though.... It is the first thing to treat the disease.

Whiplash.... Get on this shit here dude!!!!

[Whiplash]

Drunk by Choice?

JDizzle;1518255 wrote: I'm just gonna put my hopes into a glass of grey goose :H.

Neva... He is awesome. Used to be an addiction counselor so he is all for any cure. He is a professor now... Bet his classes r cool. I think what he meant is that it flies in the face of abstinence being the only way to combat an allergy. If ur allergic to strawberries, u don't eat them. I totally get what ur sayin though.... It is the first thing to treat the disease.

Whiplash.... Get on this shit here dude!!!!

What..... the hell...... are you talking about?

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

Seems to make sense. R u talking about the part that I was responding to Neva?

[JDizzle]

Drunk by Choice?

PS neva, I'm so bummed I didn't get on here long ago. I have been reading about bac for years. I thought I had to wait until it became approved for addiction. Only recently life got so bad that I just engulfed myself in google and found MWO.

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Drunk by Choice?

I realized that I have again contributed to a misunderstanding. Because I use words completely differently than they're used in AA. For instance, earlier I said I was sober. In AA that means abstinent, doesn't it? But I AM sober. Right now. But also the vast majority of the time. (The last time I had too much to drink was last year, I think? And it was still less than what I used to drink daily. Or maybe it was this year. Whatever.) You see how it gets confusing?

The other thing that can get confusing is that down here, in the meds threads, the people who are taking baclofen sometimes talk about drinking with impunity. And that not only flies in the face of everything we've ever heard about addiction, it can really ruffle feathers. Particularly of people who are trying their very hardest not to pick up a bottle. I try to be very gentle with those people, because I have been there time and time again.

There are two other things that I think are misconceptions. The first is that because we (baclofentists) often feel like we can drink with impunity, we begin to think we have an immunity. The second is that this is an allergy.

It's a disease. Not an allergy. And we are not immune. Baclofen is not a vaccine. If a diabetic who takes insulin eats too much sugar, they need more insulin. If they continue to eat things that make them even more sick, insulin itself isn't going to work.

Back to the main point...

Ne/Neva Eva;1517307 wrote:
The reason I don't much talk about drinking around here is because I figure that most of the people around here are trying really, really, really hard not to drink. And most of them aren't taking baclofen.

What's more, most of them don't want to take baclofen. And suggesting that it's a license to drink, and that THAT is the reason to take the medication, doesn't help them. Plus, I didn't take baclofen so I could drink. I took it so I didn't HAVE to drink. What about you?

[Ne/Neva Eva]

Drunk by Choice?

JDizzle;1518283 wrote: PS neva, I'm so bummed I didn't get on here long ago. I have been reading about bac for years. I thought I had to wait until it became approved for addiction. Only recently life got so bad that I just engulfed myself in google and found MWO.

I understand that completely. And I've heard it a lot. It's a shame, isn't it? I can't wait until people truly understand the freedom of not wanting/desiring/craving/needing something that obliterates the life in life.

Hope it's a good day, J.