Hi Everyone,
I have never posted anything before but here it goes. I am a 48 year old emergency medicine physician. I remember the days when I did not drink alcohol almost everyday, but that has been a very long time, about 10 years. I have never had a DUI, have never been under any kind of influence while working, have never missed work due to my drinking. I am successful financially, and professionally, and I am very happy in my 24 year marriage. However, over the last 10 years of so, my alcohol consumption has become a daily event. When we moved here, I became friends with many of the parents of my children as they progressed through parochial school. Unfortunately, this has been an environment that tends to support, and facilitate the fusion of alcohol consumption with social activities. This started out just being a one night a week "Thirsty Thursday" with the "boys". I have a stressful job, as anyone can imagine, so this was a good way to have male camraderie and blow off steam. Before I knew it, it was "Freaky Friday", "Sleazy Sundays", "Margarita Mondays" etc etc you get the idea. At times, this led to risky behavior, such as driving home with questionable sobriety among other things. Every party, cookout, fish fry.. you name it, alcohol was an integral part of it. What pains me to think about now is that all this is done in the presence of impressionable children whom we love dearly. Thus, my kids have grown up watching this. (My parents, and my wifes parents did not raise us in that atmosphere.. ). When my kids were in grade school, they would see me sit, watching TV most evenings and drink rum and coke until, many time, I spilled it on myself nodding off. (This is painful for me to say, I am very embarrassed about things like that). Despite all this, my kids are wonderful, and, thank god, they have not yet given me one ounce of problems other than typical teenage experimentation, and I've never seen them drunk or on drugs (and I would know most likely). I will say that I have never, until recently considered myself to have a "drinking problem". What really shocked me into realizing this, was when I tried to stop drinking after some elevation of my liver enzymes was picked up on routine lab screening. I am a little overweight, and this is probably due to a fatty liver, however, I have continued to drink for the last two years despite this, even though it could progress to cirrhosis (And, I fully know, and have treated many patients with end stage liver disease). I think I mangaged to not drink alcohol for three months at the most. Then a vacation came.. Boom! Back to the rum. My wife also has become wrapped up in this behavior as well, she herself drinks with me in the evenings and on weekends, at parties and social events etc. She NEVER did this before, and this is also something for which I at least partially blame myself.
You can imagine the stigma that is attached to any physician with any kind of percieved or actual problem drinking.. notice I have not been using the term "alcoholic". Usually the only way this would come into play is if a physician were drunk at work, or had problems with missed work due to hangovers etc, or had a DUI or other crimes. I will say that those flagrant alcohol abusers are in the minority. Most are like me. Highly functioning, problem drinkers that will never be identified or treated unless they have an "event" occur. Thus, I would never seek any kind of treatment for my problem drinking because of the ramifications it would entail, coupled with the archaic views of this problem (notice not using the term disease here). In my opinion leukemia is a disease. Problem drinking is a behavioral disorder that can result in disease (cirrhosis, liver failure, motor vehicle trauma etc).
I am a firm adherent to evidence based treatment for any problem. I am not really interested in anything that involves self deprecation, or looking to a "Higher Power". As such, I have gravitated to doing alot of research about the Sinclair Method. Basically, the method involves the model that problem drinking results not from a disease, or moral weakness, but is a learned behavior based on neural pathways that have been established over time that alcohol produces a "reward" in the brain in the form of natural substances called endorphins. The drug Naltrexone blocks this reward, so that, over time, the brain "unlearns" the drive for alcohol consumption.
I ordered a 90 day supply from canada (because I want no record of recieving that medicine in my profession), and just started taking it yesterday. I am planning on posting to the Sinclair thread periodically with updates. Last night, I only drank two glasses of wine and had no desire for any more. Normally, I would have drank at least half to three quarters of a bottle (with my wife drinking the balance). We would probably then switch to rum and cokes with "heavy pours" of the rum in mine, and a large glass. (I used to drink Bacardi 151, worried about the "calories" in beer). Imagine, I switched to hard liquor to be healthy. (HA HA). I did have some irritability after taking the medicine and a felt foggy headed, and a little nauseated, but this subsided largely as the evening progressed. Usually my pavlov's bell doesn't go off until 5 p.m., so we'll see what happens . I plan on only taking the medicine when I plan on consuming alcohol, otherwise I am not going to take it at all.
Well that's about all for now. Tired fingers. (LOL):new:
I have never posted anything before but here it goes. I am a 48 year old emergency medicine physician. I remember the days when I did not drink alcohol almost everyday, but that has been a very long time, about 10 years. I have never had a DUI, have never been under any kind of influence while working, have never missed work due to my drinking. I am successful financially, and professionally, and I am very happy in my 24 year marriage. However, over the last 10 years of so, my alcohol consumption has become a daily event. When we moved here, I became friends with many of the parents of my children as they progressed through parochial school. Unfortunately, this has been an environment that tends to support, and facilitate the fusion of alcohol consumption with social activities. This started out just being a one night a week "Thirsty Thursday" with the "boys". I have a stressful job, as anyone can imagine, so this was a good way to have male camraderie and blow off steam. Before I knew it, it was "Freaky Friday", "Sleazy Sundays", "Margarita Mondays" etc etc you get the idea. At times, this led to risky behavior, such as driving home with questionable sobriety among other things. Every party, cookout, fish fry.. you name it, alcohol was an integral part of it. What pains me to think about now is that all this is done in the presence of impressionable children whom we love dearly. Thus, my kids have grown up watching this. (My parents, and my wifes parents did not raise us in that atmosphere.. ). When my kids were in grade school, they would see me sit, watching TV most evenings and drink rum and coke until, many time, I spilled it on myself nodding off. (This is painful for me to say, I am very embarrassed about things like that). Despite all this, my kids are wonderful, and, thank god, they have not yet given me one ounce of problems other than typical teenage experimentation, and I've never seen them drunk or on drugs (and I would know most likely). I will say that I have never, until recently considered myself to have a "drinking problem". What really shocked me into realizing this, was when I tried to stop drinking after some elevation of my liver enzymes was picked up on routine lab screening. I am a little overweight, and this is probably due to a fatty liver, however, I have continued to drink for the last two years despite this, even though it could progress to cirrhosis (And, I fully know, and have treated many patients with end stage liver disease). I think I mangaged to not drink alcohol for three months at the most. Then a vacation came.. Boom! Back to the rum. My wife also has become wrapped up in this behavior as well, she herself drinks with me in the evenings and on weekends, at parties and social events etc. She NEVER did this before, and this is also something for which I at least partially blame myself.
You can imagine the stigma that is attached to any physician with any kind of percieved or actual problem drinking.. notice I have not been using the term "alcoholic". Usually the only way this would come into play is if a physician were drunk at work, or had problems with missed work due to hangovers etc, or had a DUI or other crimes. I will say that those flagrant alcohol abusers are in the minority. Most are like me. Highly functioning, problem drinkers that will never be identified or treated unless they have an "event" occur. Thus, I would never seek any kind of treatment for my problem drinking because of the ramifications it would entail, coupled with the archaic views of this problem (notice not using the term disease here). In my opinion leukemia is a disease. Problem drinking is a behavioral disorder that can result in disease (cirrhosis, liver failure, motor vehicle trauma etc).
I am a firm adherent to evidence based treatment for any problem. I am not really interested in anything that involves self deprecation, or looking to a "Higher Power". As such, I have gravitated to doing alot of research about the Sinclair Method. Basically, the method involves the model that problem drinking results not from a disease, or moral weakness, but is a learned behavior based on neural pathways that have been established over time that alcohol produces a "reward" in the brain in the form of natural substances called endorphins. The drug Naltrexone blocks this reward, so that, over time, the brain "unlearns" the drive for alcohol consumption.
I ordered a 90 day supply from canada (because I want no record of recieving that medicine in my profession), and just started taking it yesterday. I am planning on posting to the Sinclair thread periodically with updates. Last night, I only drank two glasses of wine and had no desire for any more. Normally, I would have drank at least half to three quarters of a bottle (with my wife drinking the balance). We would probably then switch to rum and cokes with "heavy pours" of the rum in mine, and a large glass. (I used to drink Bacardi 151, worried about the "calories" in beer). Imagine, I switched to hard liquor to be healthy. (HA HA). I did have some irritability after taking the medicine and a felt foggy headed, and a little nauseated, but this subsided largely as the evening progressed. Usually my pavlov's bell doesn't go off until 5 p.m., so we'll see what happens . I plan on only taking the medicine when I plan on consuming alcohol, otherwise I am not going to take it at all.
Well that's about all for now. Tired fingers. (LOL):new:
ost Natal Depression), AL was how he helped me chill out! A an obvious result, I now seek it whenever I feel in need.
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