i will do my first post on the MWO forum in this topic to introduce myself a bit and do my story, I don’t know if anyone is interested in these kind of story’s but here we go.
First i want to apologize me for my bad English, I'm from Belgium so i try to do my best but there will be a lot of mistakes but i hope u'll all understand me.
I'm Louis, I’m 23y old and i'm from Belgium (Ghent). This year i finished my studies for dentist so I’m a dentist now, but i'm studying also medicine now, i go to my 3th year. I want to become a maxillo-facial surgeon.
I'm very impulsive, I have adhd and I'm taking rilatin (methylfenidaat) about 40mg a day, I'm always a happy man, I'm very active and social en don’t need many sleep.
I'll explain short what my "drinking history" is. I began drinking when i was 15, and i drunk a lot between my 16-18, i did the same thing afterwards, but for me the part between 16-18 is very important now because I strongly believe that this (and also a genetic part) is the mean reason for my alcoholism. I think (know) i ruined my prefrontal cortex on this age because that part of the brain is in fully development than. Badly enough i didn't knew this when i was 16.
I drank a lot, but only in the evening, i had a great time between ma 16-19, than drinking was normal in my eyes en never thought about it. I had a lot of friends, i went out every evening, had a good girlfriend and was really living a good en happy life (I thought).
But it became worse and worse. I'll save u the whole story it's just the "typical" thing, drinking too much, losing friends, losing girlfriend, disappointing my parents, be aggressive when I was drunk, accidents, police, ..
2 years ago I start realizing that I drank too much. I noticed that there hasn’t been a day in the last 3 years I didn’t drink alcohol. I was drinking the whole week with friends, in the weekends I worked at a bar where I was drinking the whole time, and when I was at home and there wasn’t anything to do I went to the night shop to get some alcohol. I realized there was something wrong, I’ve always told myself in all those years “it’s normal that I drink that much, I'm a student, when I finish my studies I will drink less, …”. But after all the troubles I had I start thinking and these were my most important findings that I noticed 2years ago when I first wanted to quit drinking or drink less:
- I always drank until I was drunk, I couldn’t stop after a few beers
- I always had blackouts, especially the last 2 years, every night I had a blackout
- During the day I sometimes suddenly began to sweat and my hands were shaking a bit during the day
- I always said to myself I wasn’t goin to drink this evening because my hangover was to strong, but I always start drinking again.
- I began to drink stronger beers en strong alcohol to get drunk faster
- I wasn’t having fun when there was a thing to do without alcohol and I couldn’t sleep when I didn’t drink enough
- I was drinking when I was alone, and I also drunk “around the corner” when no one saw it because they didn’t drink fast enough for me and I was ashamed to order 5 beers in half an hour when they drank one.
- I was always looking for alcohol and linked everything with drinking. When I asked a friend to watch a movie, I bought a bottle of alcohol etc. When I went to a party or reception the first thing I looked for was the bar.
- …
So 2 years ago I start searching on the internet en really knew a drank to much. I went to a psychiatrist and did my story and he told me I had to quit drinking for 3 months to start with. But I said to him “no way I can do this”, I’ll never have fun when I don’t drink alcohol etc…
To make this part of the story short: I went to psychiatrists, psychologists, AA, read about 20 books, and now I'm here.
I’ve quit drinking like 4 times in 2 years, it always worked for like 3 months but then I had a relapse and drank even more. I read allen car, I talked to many people that quit drinking but it seems that nothings works. The craving doesn’t go away …
I have a lot of respect for the people who succeed quiting just by motivation but for me it doesn’t work. My vision on alcoholism is very “medical” maybe because I study medicine and that I'm very interested in the human body and the brains and effects and … I remember that after reading allen car (they sad I must read this book to quit) I turned on the last page and asked allen car in my mind “u indeed said all the positive things when you don’t drink, but u don’t say one word how I have to stop?!” And in my brain I really can’t make the click to stop drinking by just motivating myself and keep saying like the last 3 months that I can have fun without drinking, that drinking is not good, and all the stuff allen car says for example.
Now I am alcohol-free for 3 months, but then I read Olvier Ameisen his book and in the last 3 months I did a lot of research about baclofen. But now I'm going to write this story and ask some questions in the baclofen topic --> https://www.mywayout.org/community/f2...ml#post1371665
I really believe and know that my alcoholism is a disease and that I won’t make it AF with just motivation, I have the feeling I'm just postponing the relapse. I maybe can be AF for a couple of years but I don’t know if the craving will ever go away, maybe I have to wait longer than 3 months and just try with motivation and without pills, I don’t know to be honest..
I just hope I can do something to help me, and that I can help other people when I'm AF for a long period, and maybe in special people around my age, because it’s so difficult for young students to go and tell someone there story and find help. I don’t want that kids of 16-18y old will have all the troubels we suffer now.
Kind regards
Louis
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