Hi everyone! I’m new here. It’s been a little more than 3 and a half days since I decided to quit drinking. My relationship with alcohol wasn’t always as dangerous as it’s become. Certainly it was concerning. Underage drinking but the kind where I would drink alone, in my room with the aim of getting drunk for no purpose other than to be drunk. Once legal, I use to to occasionally get a bit lax and instead on having the one glass of wine I end up drink half the bottle or sometimes even the entire bottle while alone.
I stopped drinking easily for a few years there but then the relationship I was in with the guy who would eventually become my ex-husband turned abusive. As the abuse escalated so did my desire to get wasted. It didn’t help that I’m a very defiant person especially when someone is telling me what to do just to be controlling. My ex forbade me from drinking at all as well as seeing my friends. Getting alcohol while he was at work was easier than sneaking out to see my friends and it gave me a rush and relaxed my severe anxiety to get drunk while he was gone. It was my way of being defiant. Once I finally left him, drinking was a thing I did to “take back my life” since he never let me and I wanted to experience what I though of, at 26, as a sophisticated adult recreational activity. Unfortunately, PTSD was a little parting gift I got from him and I was dealing with the stress of my beloved dog’s lymphoma and 8 month prognosis. I also felt deep shame which worsened the PTSD and my already existing GAD at what I perceived to be utter failure and stupidity on my part for falling for my abuser in the first place and then marrying him even after people told me not to and then burdening them with helping me put my life back together.
So I drank and I mostly did so alone. And it was now a nightly habit of 2 or 3 glasses of wine a night (about half the bottle the way I would pour). I showed up to work hungover or called out due to hangover more than once. I also started dating my soon to be husband at this time and on the weekends I’d go to his place and we would rink. He would drink a moderate amount and remain buzzed to kind of drunk. I would down a 1/4 of a band new 750ml bottle of tequila and end up wasted (I’m small enough and sensitive enough to alcohol that a single drink gets me buzzed - drunk and more than that gets me wasted).
My fiancé cares very much about me and he always gently tried to restrict my drinking by asking how much I’d had, did I drink any water, do I think I should have more but never telling me no I’m not allowed. This helped but I still was drinking a lot all of the time.
I should mention, my father was an alcoholic who drank nightly and got wasted at parties when I was little and it lowered his seizure threshold to the point where he had a seizure at work and almost died when I was 11. This has always been in the back of my mind and I knew drinking was a gamble for me and one day I’d probably have to quit all together. Problem is I never thought I was an alcoholic even though I’ve pretty much been one since high school with random periods of recovery peppered though. Each time I’ve relapsed from these recovery periods the addiction gets worse. I decided to quote this time because I’d decided (for some reason) that 3 or 4 drinks a night was close to being an alcoholic but only drinking some days was not. So I switched to drinking only a few days of the week. Problem is it went from 3 drinks on those night to starting almost as soon as I’d wake up around noon and continuing until 2 am with a total of 5 or more drinks (I always got so drunk I’d lose count). I knew it was time to stop the night I started drinking at about 10pm (I’d waited to drink until I’d finished my sewing projects as incentive). I decided that since I’d been so good at waiting and getting so much work done I deserved to let loose a little. I intended to only have 3 drinks and go to bed at midnight. I think I had 6 or more drinks and didn’t sleep until I passed out by accident on the couch at 6:30 in the morning. This was only after taking my dog (the one who did not die from cancer) for a very intoxicated walk around my neighborhood in my pajamas. If nothing else my neighbors probably saw me and I don’t want anyone to ever remember me as the raggedy looking woman in pajamas who was drunk at 6 in the morning.
The hangover from this was not the worst I’ve had but it was enough that I knew I wasn’t being good to my body. Add to that the fact that my drinking was starting to strain my relationship with my fiancé and the fact that I was quickly working towards being drunk all the time and never getting any work done and I knew I had to stop. I didn’t want to be my Dad, embarrassing my kids at block parties and almost dying from what the alcohol would do to me. I also have a family predisposition for late onset schizophrenia that has been brought on by substance abuse followed by sudden withdrawal (my grandma had her break at 32 after having her Valium revoked by the doctors and going in to sudden withdrawal with no medical support).
This time of being sober is proving to be a lot harder than any other time I’ve been in recovery. Maybe it’s because I’m doing it on purpose or my alcoholism really has been worse than I realize but I’m hoping the support from others who are going through the same thing will help me stay in recovery. It’s especially important because my fiancé and I want to try for a baby in about a year as soon as we are married. Any advice is welcome, especially for riding or cravings. I’m finding that since I can’t drink there is a real pull to abuse the prescription medications I have (Adderall and a Migraine medication with a barbiturate and Codine in it) or to smoke a lot of pot. I don’t think it’s a good idea to replace one vice with another so advice on how to ride out the cravings when impulse control is not my strong suit is much appreciated. Thanks for reading. I know it was long.