As I’ve taken so much from this forum I feel that its fair to tell my story.
I’m a 33 year old bloke from the UK and begun drinking at about 16, not due to family or problems, just due to normal peer pressure and the fact it took the anxiety and embarrassment away from adolescence. I never thought much about my drinking at the time as everyone did it.
Then came University. At this point I entered a world where everyone drank to excess, for any event there was an excuse to drink, and I did. This in retrospect is where things got started.
Instead of a night out once or twice a week I begun embracing drinking everyday, I worked in the student union bar so I was always there and even when I was working then we stayed behind afterwards so I was always drinking. By the time I (just) finished my course I’d drink everyday, it was normal, surely? I guess that I knew at this time that not everyone else was doing this but I was just having more fun than them – wasn’t I?
When I first started work at 22 I got into a habit. 6 beers and a bottle of wine every night (more if I went to a pub), except of course, at weekends when it was far greater. At this point everything was good; I could handle the abuse and never got hangovers. I could never understand people that only had 4 beers when they went out, where was the fun in that? The whole point in drinking was to do it to excess, get drunk. This is when I also started to plan outings and days out around bars and pubs.
Things carried on for some time (looking back at the broken relationships and failures in my life, most of it was caused by me being drunk, but at the time this never occurred to me) but what I did start to notice was shakes in the morning after my huge weekend binges, this is when (I realise now) things were getting serious. But I started to realise that I could solve this with a beer or 2, so no problem, although this meant drinking in the morning…
The shakes begun to get increasingly bad until one Sunday morning when I had a fit in the shower, lost consciousness and ended up with 6 stitches in my chin after falling, I still didn’t have a problem (I really believed this!)
So things carried on until about a year later when I had a grand mal seizure on a Monday morning coming down from a typical weekend binge. This was so serious I was admitted to hospital for a week and was off work for nearly a month. During this time I actually experienced DT’s and hallucinations for the first and only time. I was diagnosed with epilepsy (great excuse for alcoholic fits huh?) what I realised then is that my drinking caused this. I lost the plot for a week or two then.
I knew myself by this point that it was all down to my drinking, but was too scared to admit this to anyone (even myself really) but decided that drinking all week long wasn’t a great idea so cut down to binge drinking on Fridays and Saturdays and special occasions. I controlled this for a while (controlled that is all).
It was the bank holiday weekends or holidays that caused problems. This brings me pretty much up to date till a holiday a month ago when I was drinking all day long everyday, when I got back home I was seriously under the grip of a binge. I ended up in hospital and finally admitted to my girlfriend and my doctors that I was an alcoholic. Its getting better now, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to moderate or just try to stay alcohol free for the rest of my life. Its hard but MWO helps enormously and I feel better today then I’ve felt in over 5 years.
I’m a 33 year old bloke from the UK and begun drinking at about 16, not due to family or problems, just due to normal peer pressure and the fact it took the anxiety and embarrassment away from adolescence. I never thought much about my drinking at the time as everyone did it.
Then came University. At this point I entered a world where everyone drank to excess, for any event there was an excuse to drink, and I did. This in retrospect is where things got started.
Instead of a night out once or twice a week I begun embracing drinking everyday, I worked in the student union bar so I was always there and even when I was working then we stayed behind afterwards so I was always drinking. By the time I (just) finished my course I’d drink everyday, it was normal, surely? I guess that I knew at this time that not everyone else was doing this but I was just having more fun than them – wasn’t I?
When I first started work at 22 I got into a habit. 6 beers and a bottle of wine every night (more if I went to a pub), except of course, at weekends when it was far greater. At this point everything was good; I could handle the abuse and never got hangovers. I could never understand people that only had 4 beers when they went out, where was the fun in that? The whole point in drinking was to do it to excess, get drunk. This is when I also started to plan outings and days out around bars and pubs.
Things carried on for some time (looking back at the broken relationships and failures in my life, most of it was caused by me being drunk, but at the time this never occurred to me) but what I did start to notice was shakes in the morning after my huge weekend binges, this is when (I realise now) things were getting serious. But I started to realise that I could solve this with a beer or 2, so no problem, although this meant drinking in the morning…
The shakes begun to get increasingly bad until one Sunday morning when I had a fit in the shower, lost consciousness and ended up with 6 stitches in my chin after falling, I still didn’t have a problem (I really believed this!)
So things carried on until about a year later when I had a grand mal seizure on a Monday morning coming down from a typical weekend binge. This was so serious I was admitted to hospital for a week and was off work for nearly a month. During this time I actually experienced DT’s and hallucinations for the first and only time. I was diagnosed with epilepsy (great excuse for alcoholic fits huh?) what I realised then is that my drinking caused this. I lost the plot for a week or two then.
I knew myself by this point that it was all down to my drinking, but was too scared to admit this to anyone (even myself really) but decided that drinking all week long wasn’t a great idea so cut down to binge drinking on Fridays and Saturdays and special occasions. I controlled this for a while (controlled that is all).
It was the bank holiday weekends or holidays that caused problems. This brings me pretty much up to date till a holiday a month ago when I was drinking all day long everyday, when I got back home I was seriously under the grip of a binge. I ended up in hospital and finally admitted to my girlfriend and my doctors that I was an alcoholic. Its getting better now, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to moderate or just try to stay alcohol free for the rest of my life. Its hard but MWO helps enormously and I feel better today then I’ve felt in over 5 years.
c: :heart:
:H
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