I’m finding so much comfort already just reading through the threads. I posted once already in a new topic and got some great advice and encouragement so, thank you to those who I’ve already met :).
Anyway, I’m Alex and I’m 30 years old. I’ve been debating quitting drinking for a few years and have been drinking heavily for around 10 years. I’ve blacked out an infinite number of times and routinely would throw up for hours from 6 am until at least noon after a night of drinking (with or without blackouts). I’ve had too many embarrassing conversations to count and gotten violent on more than one occasion. Sometimes I’ll end up just sobbing all night over the most trivial things.
It’s like forest gump, I never know what I’m going to get in my box of drunk chocolates.
The tricky thing for me was coming to a realization that this is even a problem since many days I could just have one drink and be fine. I never know when I’m going to fall down the rabbit hole, so to speak.
The unpredictability of what’s going to happen after the first drink along with a recent diagnosis of mild fatty liver has led me here. I’m honestly just glad that at this point I haven’t done more damage to my body and can create a new, healthy lifestyle for myself one step at a time.
I know in time the embarrassment over the things I’ve done will fade. I just never ever want to feel that horrible regret of " what the fffff did I do/ say last night"? again.
Looking forward to staying clean with all you lovely people.
<3
Alex
I’m Julie and I am 37 going on 38. I have 3 children and fixing to be nanna. I have a fantastic boyfriend which we have been together 6 months as of April 11. I have been clean since June of 2012. I got clean and said no more for me because my ex fiance tried to choke me out because he was fiening for dope. Methamphetamines was my drug of choice and is my weakness. I make it a point to surround myself with sober people and I don’t go trying to find it. It’s a long hard road to get where I am at, but I have done it one day at a time since 2012. I have been through so many instances where I could use that instance as an excuse to do dope but I look at children and the length of my sobriety time and ask myself is it worth losing all of that. I struggled many times to get clean often with fail. I have my using dreams and they are horrible but I manage. Thank you for letting me introduce myself to you all!
Hi, this is tough.I was first aware of my propensity to addiction at about the age of 18. I drank heavily every day and had done since about 16. I was able, I thought, to control it but spending £45 in an afternoon of drinking on a Bank Holiday Monday in 1989 was no mean feat and it alerted me to the extremes I was headed. Month after month when my salary ran out before my next pay day I would borrow from friends, get advances on my salary from work and not pay my board at my parents house. One day, shortly before pay-day, I ran out of options and had to concede that I was not able to go out drinking that evening. Believing I was in control of my situation, I merely stayed at home, suffering slight anxiety and shakes but nothing notable. The same cannot be said for the following morning. Waking earlier than my alarm, I started in a real panic, suffering sweaty palms and a shortness of breath, desperate for a pint of cold lager to take the edge off. This was a terrifying moment but was the alarm call I needed. I immediately stopped drinking alcohol for exactly one year, paid off my debts and began cycling to and from work, lost some weight and generally felt better about myself.
On resuming my relationship with drinking I began slowly and sensibly to measure what I was consuming and generally kept a lid on the excessive drunkenness until 2005 when I started university. Although there were periods of excess at Uni, I only really hit rock bottom in the autumn of 2016 when lectures and seminars became drunken heckling shows and I was thrown out of a couple and warned by my tutor to get help or face expulsion. Again, I was able to sort myself out and get back on track and eventually got a disappointing 2:2 grade.
Up to this point my family life had been difficult. My father was a violent thug, my blessed mother a meek and caring lady. My relationship with my father had always been fractious but interestingly - looking back now - my heavy drinking started after he had beaten me senseless after a frank discussion about a rather trivial matter. Equally, my parents split and eventual divorce happened during my years at university when my mother began drinking heavily, again mirroring my heavy drinking time. My younger brother had also descended into being a paranoid schizophrenic through his use of cannabis and crack cocaine and eventually heroin and had been in prison for two years for possession with intent to supply. My cousin had also died of a heroin overdose while staying with my brother in my mother’s house in 2000.
Fast-forward to 2012 and you will find me happily married and trying for a baby with my wife. Early in 2013 we find we are pregnant but we lose our first child during pregnancy. A few weeks later a check-up reveals my wife’s hormone levels are still rising, indicating she may still be pregnant but scans revealed nothing. An operation then revealed that not only was there an ectopic pregnancy but also a bleeding cyst to her right ovary. Both removed, the cyst turns out to be stage 1c cancerous and leaking into her abdomen. In order to save her life my wife has to undergo a full hysterectomy at age just 38 ending our plans to have a family. Furthermore, she undergoes a course of chemotherapy to fight anything that remains of the disease in her body. Thankfully, she came thought it. Throughout this time I remained tee-total as caring for her and working took up all my time.
For a few years since my drinking maintained a steady pace. My wife never drinks and as such it always seemed odd to drink at home, limiting myself to a bottle of wine or a six-pack when the football’s on or a night out with old friends. Then last September my mother fell ill. In October she was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and in November she passed away in hospital.
Now, for a 46 year old guy with a decent job, loving wife, mortgage, car and a relaxed and dead-pan-jolly-ish-self-effacing personality I felt I’d had enough terrible things happen in my life and found it difficult to cope. My mother-in-law had left a large quantity of her heavy painkillers at our house and I began taking them as they induced a numbing high that blotted out my pain. I took about 8 a day and began secretly washing it down with vodka and gin miniatures. This started in October 2016 with my mum’s diagnosis and got steadily heavier until the pills ran out and I had a meltdown one morning on my way to work at the beginning of March 2017. Feeling the guilt of my secret I confided in a friend who had been through similar excesses who recommended talkingsober and getting an addiction app on my phone to track my progress. So here I am, day 25 - after a brief weekend relapse - of my sobriety. I hope with your help I can keep it up.
Sounds like quite an adventure, or Saga depending on your perception. This app definitely has the power of healing! The people, diversity of experiences and the common struggles we share can make this a great tool for sobriety.
I look forward to seeing your post and progress in the weeks to come.
Hey , that was very awesome sauce of u! I love the city so much but there is sI much boy up there . I also am an heroin addict and am from wisconsin so it’s nice to finally hear a story close by. It was a way of life to live and use . I’m 6 months sober and plan to keep it like that . I’ve been on probation 6 years and am done in October granted I pay off probation. But I’m here for support as much as I can be
Hi, im new. Alcohol is a very big part of my family. I seem conditioned to need it whenever I’m stressed or mad. I didn’t realize I had a problem until I tried to give it up several times and I just can’t. That scares me a bit and one drink will turn into 4 every night. So I’m trying this again but this time with this group and app. I don’t want my health to be compromised because I just can’t seem to drink in moderation anymore so I’m done drinking entirely. Here’s to day one… again.
Welcome! You’ve come to the right place! This app is great and you will find lots of info and support here. Congrats on the first day of your new sober life!!
I’m sorry, I present in Spanish but not in English:
Hello, my name is Julián (33 y old), I live in Andalucia, south of spain, I am a normal boy who in the last years of my life I had to spend the loss of my mother and my separation and I take a fatal year at night before going to sleep I drink vodka or Rum (Too), and I’m here to end this and fight for the most beautiful of my life my two girls.
I’ve been drinking for a week now and I’m great … very very happy.
Thanks to you, I do not feel alone.
Hello all, new to this app. 4 days clean from alcohol, the beginning days are always easy for me. (This is not my 1st time trying to quit alcohol) It gets hard for me after a couple weeks. Then the nagging to pop a bottle of anything really and feel the familiar burn in my ches the eventually leads to escape from life. I’ve been drinking, binging, blacking out for 15 of my 30 years on this planet. And doing what usual drunks do, leaving a path of destruction and embarrassment behind me. I’ve done AA, I have the big book, only ever got as far as the opening. So here I am, guna give this another go.
@thebearcbc I have the disease of addictions, there’s many different forms of addiction not just drinking or druging. There’s shopping eating, squeezing a bottle, sex, eating, abuse, among many other things. We could go through the alphabet and there’d be about 15 different letters in the ABC’s that would add on to my addictions. So don’t be a scared. You are welcome here! because we’re grateful to have you! I am so grateful for this group and I hope you find that they are as welcoming. As I have found I’m glad you’re here! Welcomed to all of my crazy addictions thank you for sharing!
