Reading through posts today things are coming back to me that ive buried. I have realised at times i feel im not bad enough to be labelled an alcoholic however looking back there are times that i was. My own mum had commented when i was early 20s.
So this thread is for me to add my life with alcohol as i think of it.
I started drinking at the age of around 14 in bars in spain it was social and i loved the feel it gave me and the confidence it gave me i guess thats really where it started. I was in that bar every single day up to the age of 16 when i then moved back to the uk. When i moved back i studied for my career at the time and also worked full time on an apprenticeship. I used to hang around with groups and i would boast on how i could drink so much ans drink men under the table etc i was proud of this fact i look back now and im horrified! I did so many stupid things whilst like that too. I went to work hungover so many times but functioned well so never lost my job.
I would buy a crate of lager every friday usually one of the big packs which i would keep under my bed at home. I also drank spirits neat. I used alcohol to be confident and a laugh in reality i made myself look so stupid so many times but its only now i have realised this.
Thats i guess the start to it all there is alot more which ill add as i go.
My worst period of drinking in my life was when i moved miles away from family.
I was in a relationship too and i hid alot of it from him but it ultimately did break our relationship as it made me a horrible paranoid person to be with.
I had no job and no friends and he was at work 10 hours a day which left me lots of drinking hours. He found me at home one day passed out on the floor after drinking half a bottle of whiskey (that i found in a cupboard as i was desperate to drink anything)
I think he knew really he started to hide alcohol away from me but i always found it. I never know why he didnt tell me though or try to get me help.
Them years i would say were my worst drinking days when id drink in the morning then all day long.
Thanks for sharing. It’s interesting how much perspectives and people change, something can be totally normal when you’re going through it then horrifying when you look back later on. For most of the time I’ve had a drinking problem, I knew it and plain didn’t care enough to do what it takes to get better. But at the beginning I was so oblivious. I’d have two drinks in an evening to socialize and wind down with roommates, but it wasn’t just one or two nights a week anymore, it was getting to be 4-7 nights a week and I would get upset if someone talked about how often I drank. I started drinking in my room instead so I wouldn’t have to deal with it, but that led to me starting earlier in the night and drinking more, and it spiralled from there. It’s really obvious now that I had an obsession I wasn’t in control of, but at the time I would have just done whatever I could to have the subject dropped and stay ignorant.
Yep i became a lone drinker further down the line so that no body would know i had a problem and most people have no idea still now!
Wow. I hear my story in bits of this. For me it started before I left where I’d spent 30 years growing up but got so much worse once I moved out on my own. I had a good job but no one around.
Things came to a head after I offered to roommate with a friend who wanted to come out west. With someone sharing the flat I found myself at the bars more when I “needed space.” Some backwards drunk thinking since I’d been so excited to have an old friend around.
Eventually the drinking out wasn’t enough. The distance between us grew. I’d drink at our apartment, hiding booze in my room. Maybe not as well as I thought. She never confronted me openly about it, but after inevitably moving away a gift package from her included a small bottle of my drink of choice. It was a bittersweet thing I still owe her thanks for…
Even then it didn’t sink in. Tried to get help after getting her package but didn’t take it seriously enough. I relapsed hard, going on to be an isolating drunk for a solid year or two. Pregaming in public before drinking myself to sleep alone at home every night. Now I’m 100% sure I could have another drink in me, but I may not have another recovery.
Oof. Thank you for sharing this.