I’m on day 104 sober today. Last night was hard: I craved a drink so bad. I called my boyfriend and he asked me why I wanted to drink. I told him I felt like shit. He told me it wasn’t a good reason. I know it isn’t. I also love the taste of alcohol… I miss it. I started drinking at 16, when all my friends were smoking weed and I was too afraid of trying because there’s schizophrenia in my family. I started drinking alone. Then, I remember I started loving going to parties so I would get an excuse to get drunk. Gosh I loved the feeling. I would feel more like myself then I ever did, simply free. I continued drinking alone. 1, 2, 3, 4 glasses of wine every other day. I always have been able not to drink. But the thing is alcohol would often cross my mind when I would have a difficult day, telling myself it’s fine, I’ll drink later. When I start drinking, I always find myself pouring myself another glass of wine, and another, and another. I would never go past 5 glasses alone: I had a limit. I also live at my parents house, so I think it forced me to be more careful, fearing they would find out about my drinking. I’ve been reading a lot of the posts here and now I’m questionning my alcoholism: I’ve never been blackout drunk and I didn’t drink everyday. I have the imposter syndrom here…
But anyways. Yesterday, I wanted to drink to numb myself. I have so many thoughts going through my mind… I’ve been replaying over and over again 2 toxic relationships I had in the past, one while I was 14 to 16yo and one from 20 to 23yo. Both of them were friendships with men that ended in sexual abuse. I don’t know how to act around men anymore. I feel like when I build new frienships, I can never tell if the friendship is enough for the person or if I have to expect the person is going to want more from me, even knowing I have a boyfriend. I feel like I have a lot of repressed trauma surrounding sexuality. I don’t know myself and my pleasure. I only know myself in the eye of the men who wanted to take my body even if I didn’t want to.
The point of this post was to get some kind of emotional support. I feel so lonely. I used to write a lot to get things off my chest: I don’t anymore. It feels too hard to sit down with myself and write.
Do you think ANY of us here started drinking by getting blackout drunk? Or do you think it’s more likely we started by getting drunk at parties, then drinking on our own, then creating rules to limit that drinking… like no more than 5 drinks, for instance? Alcoholism is a continuum and we are all somewhere along it. If you can stop it before you get to the blackout stage, I would advise you to.
I don’t think the term “alcoholic” is particularly useful actually. I’ve come to think about alcohol differently, and given it is an addictive poison that gradually shuts off our brain’s pleasure receptors I’d argue that absolutely anyone could become ensnared by it. Very simply, I had come to prefer the days when I could drink to those when I could not, and that, to me, is an alcoholic. Nothing was as fun or exciting sober as it was with alcohol involved, and what sort of life is that? Not one which I want any part of any more. Sobriety has set me free to enjoy everything in life for what it is.
As to your point about your prior relationships, I’m sorry to hear that. Everyone deserves love, affection and to be treated kindly and it sounds like you were not. My heart goes out to you.
You don’t need to be an alcoholic to want to stop drinking. I try not to label people as alcoholic or not, but from what I read it seems that your relationship with alcohol is highly problematic. You’re in the right place
Welcome Isabelle.
Congratulations on your 104 days of sobriety.
I like to do a little bit, ok a lot, of gratitude work for my sobriety. I start every morning right here on the gratitude thread.
It’s been my strongest tool in my toolbox. Instead of all the romanticizing and thinking about the past and all the chaos drinking caused in my life. I like to do a gratitude type of journal. And list what I’m grateful for each morning.
Coffee. Not being hungover. My cat. The lovely support I get here. My list can go on. Even on days I struggle to find gratitude. And I do struggle some days. A lot. I’ve retrained my brain. And I know a lot of grateful sober people on that thread that have also retrained their brain. Come check us out if you like. Lights are always on over there. Got to bring your own coffee though.
Great job reaching out.
I hope to see you over there.
Hey @Isabelle1 This kinda made me chuckle as i went through the “well am i really an alcoholic if…” but your comment above says it all. You are reaching for alcohol to cope and numb, thats not ideal and i dont think normies think like that.
I just wanna say it was good of you to phone someone when you had cravings. It helped you to get the edge off.
You can use this place for it too. Come here when you are uncomfortable and vent about it. There is always someone around to talk to. When you have more sober time cravings will be less.
Congratulations with the more then 3 months sober!
Wow. Thank you so much for your input. It took me time to answer because it made me think so much. (In a good way) I needed time to let your comment sink in. Especially the first part. It makes so much more sense to me now, seeing alcoholism as a continuum!
