What would the actual benefit/point be in me reducing my drinking?

Advice & Questions
45

From what i am reading - i see that you really don’t want to quit drinking - you are looking for someone here to convince you to stop. You would rather want to live but a short happy life rather than a possibly long and healthy one.
I’m not sure anyone here can convince you to stop. That decision has to come from you and you need to quit for yourself. We can be here for you if you choose to quit as the journey is not one that can be done alone. It takes a lot more than willpower.
Alcohol is a poison that slowly eats away at your insides causing multiple organ failures and diseases that are not very carefree and fun to endure. If you think that when you are older in age that you would be able to go through the remainder in your life with such pain and ailments then i guess go on drinking. Many of us have over many years built up our tolerances and drank excessively while still “functioning” in society - it did take a huge toll on our insides, our nerves, our quality of life, our relationships etc.
You are still young at 33 and your body can still endure a lot. Do you really want to continue the way you are and find out in a few years that you are at the point of no return? I personally am dealing with so much shit and wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I know many others have it way worse.

Again - not trying to convince you one way or the other. We each have our own lives to live and our own paths to choose - just wanted you to be aware that your “golden years” of 60 or 70 might be not be easy going. I am now 7 months alcohol free and fighting for my health to return. Fighting for a chance to live a “normal” life - I am 45.

Wishing you the best in whatever you decide. We are here for you if you decide sobriety is what you prefer. I think the possibilities in life and in one self are endless if we give ourselves a chance - i believe you have so much to live for and experience and really hope that you don’t give up on yourself. I do hope that we see you around.

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46

I have read your original post and your replies. Quite honestly you don’t actually sound like you are truly happy in your life. Things may be better now than they were before but you fully admit that you are essentially using alcohol to escape the negatives in your life.

WE HAVE ALL BEEN IN THAT PLACE!!

Absolutely, 100%. So when people say you haven’t hit rick bottom “yet” they know what they are saying.

I don’t think anyone can really give you a list of why you shouldn’t drink (though @MrCade did a pretty damn good job at it) I bet if you spent some time on here reading posts you will find lots of reasons.

No one will tell you you shouldn’t drink because we all know that the only person that can do that is yourself. So I hope you take some time to truly ponder this. I want you to make a well thought out choice and not just look for the reasons to continue.

YOU CAN DO IT!!

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47

You got a lot of responses and I don’t really have anything new to add, so all I can do is reiterate the truth about alcohol and alcoholism as I know it.

First, if you question your drinking and/or feel you need help to moderate or quit, you have a problem.

Second, “high functioning alcoholic” is a bullshit term. It means you haven’t gotten caught yet. Keep at it and you will get caught, we always do.

Third, Alcohol is more deadly than your giving credit. I’ve lost friends who were just like you. One was 33, one was 39, and one was 19.

There’s nothing wrong with moderation, if you can do it. There’s also nothing wrong with being sober.

I’ve lived both as an active alcoholic and a sober alcoholic, I much like living sober better, but thats me.

I was where you are at your age and I only wish I took the advice very few people offered; I feel I squandered my 30s; but no sense in lamenting the past, it is what it is.

Anyhow, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Perhaps go a month sober, see how it feels, go from there.

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48

Thank you for writing this very good explanation of what happens.

I concur 100%!!

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49

The benefit is saving your liver :grin: it might crash sooner than in your 60s… Have a blood test

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50

I SO appreciate reading what you and @MrCade had to offer on this thread especially. Thank you guys for chiming in. And thank you for pointing out that stark reality, I’ve lost many WAY too young to this addiction. Most never made it to their 60’s and if so, it was a long miserable way and they didn’t make it far into them if they were drinking. Daily drinkers never made it there and they suffered a long time prior.

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51

By your own admission you are defining alcoholism, and based on your posts you accept that reality.

Yes I understand the idea of at Least dying in your youth, and not living long enough to suffer through some debilitating diseases that often onset with old age,

But in my family I had two uncles, both suffered from addiction. One died at 38 and the other 36, all from the repercussions of substance abuse, and their last years were horrific. My uncle Don started with cirrhosis and quit drinking picked up a heroin addiction to substitute and ended up with AIDS, it slowly wilted him away till a 6’4 36 year old man, died 86lbs, and so much of a shell of himself you didn’t even recognize him

My uncle bill was just a drinker, maybe some pot every now and again but his thing was booze. He ended up in the same boat, liver disease his last two years he was constanty swollen up, looked like a banana, and was too high risk for a liver transplant even though he stopped drinking, he was miserable and in pain all the time, always in and out of the hospital with various ailments.

Like most people. I believed i was invisible and it wouldn’t get me. And it did, I almost died at 37, right there with them,

To be honest if you understand alcoholism, you’ll understand there is no moderation, curbing your drinking, it’s complete abstinence or nothing.

If you decide to remain an active alcoholic, that’s your choice,

But I hear the it helps curb the sorrows of everyday life, the stressors, rhe feeling of being empty inside, I been there,

But it will linger and remain until we make decisions to change it. We are in control of one thing, that’s ourselves; don’t like your life change it, it’s like getting a shitty haircut, your unhappy with it, you start over or shave it off nothing is permanent except death

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52

Alcohol has already cost you whatever fullfilment you would have gotten in life for all these years had you never gone down this path. Do you also want it to take you to an early grave? Is alcohol and selfish overuse of it really what you want for yourself? You are worth more than alcohol…

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53

Spot on. I read your check in. Congrats on your proud work moment and I hope you have a good vacation. Always appreciate your thoughtful posts.

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54

This is like a master class on how the alcoholic mindset keeps folk drunk

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55

I can give you so many benefits to cutting out drinking as so many others have. It seems we share similarities with drinking as i was functioning as well. Didn’t consider myself to having a real problem as i grew up with parents that drank every night. To give you an idea(as i get asked this a lot)I drank on weekends as a teen, worked in bars as a young adult and drinking after shifts, weekends. Baby 1 - no drinking through pregnancy and nursing. Light drinking between kids no drinking during baby 2 pregnancy or nursing. Then it crept up slowly to drinking in the evenings (and weekends) regularly for 8 years; working, being a mom and wife. In 2020, i found myself in the ER with a bloated belly and in major pain. After being drained, having multiple cameras down my throat and being stung by a needle more than i can count now im still dealing with the diagnosis of End Stage Liver Disease (aka Cirrhosis) and will for the rest of my life. I’m 43.
You mention that you’re okay with leaving this life a little earlier than expected due to complications that drinking may have on you and your body. I can tell you it’s not fun. Especially now since both my gall bladder (now entirely collapsed) and spleen (enlarged due to all the heavy lifting) are now trying to compensate for my liver. There is also the Hepatic encephalopathy and the portal hypertension which i won’t get into. There are no nerves in your liver to cause pain, only the surrounding organs. My liver is scarred over 88% so no regeneration there. There is also the peripheral neuropathy that started as a slight itch in one foot but had now progressed to numbness, buzzing and muscle spasms in both legs from the knee down. I am unable to take any pain medication due to my liver. Even Tylenol can only be used sparingly. The worst part of it all? Not a contender for liver transplant anymore as I’ve managed to get my meld to a safe number to avoid such a complicated surgery. They won’t even take my gall bladder as my mortality risk goes up 30%.
I’ve been doing this for 3 years now and I’m absolutley exhausted. The thought of doing this for the rest of my life is so daunting and i know as time goes on, more things will come up. I’m constantly in pain, i have to watch everything i eat, exercise daily(even when i really really don’t want to), and still maintain a “normal life” so the kids don’t get too worried. Sober since i was diagnosed and if i only knew what i know now, things could have been so,so different for me. I really hope that brings in a perspective that you maybe hadn’t considered and helps you moving forward.

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56

Feel so so sorry for you Shans.
It’s heartbreaking to read.
Hugs :people_hugging:

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57

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I know it is eye opening for me. People really don’t seem to understand that alcohol is actually poison to our bodies. Prolonged use will not only eventually kill you, but will result in the pain and suffering you’ve described. Alcoholism is such a progressive disease. It gets worse never better in so many ways. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally and absolutely physically. Just because we can’t see the effects of prolonged drinking doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I also know that I believed I was functioning and living life fairly well while drinking. It was a lie. Alcohol prevents me from seeing clearly and truthfully what I am truly like. Sobriety had brought serenity, healing, friendships and a life so much more abundant than I thought it could. We don’t know what we’re missing when we’re drinking. Alcohol impacts our brains in such a way that our truth isn’t actual truth. I got sober at 47. I wish I would have done it sooner.

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59

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great '”

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60

Where is Derek when we need him?

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62

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great :+1:

63

I want to thank you so much for your honest share. You are amazing.

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64

I was 45, 47 now. I felt that too, but I know so many 60+ women who say the same about my age.

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65

Thank you, I appreciate it, one more work day till sabáticas,

On the plus side I got invited to a mudvane concert tomorrow

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66

For me, the benefit to getting sober…was that I finally had the opportunity to see my life and my choices more clearly. I really relate to that feeling of being empty and hollow inside, and using alcohol to numb that.

I would finish work in the evening, get in my car, and if I could make it to the liquor store before it closed and made sure that I had a few bottles of wine, some potato chips and other snacks, and a pack of cigarettes I was like “this is great! Now I can go “decompress from the day…get numb…and be in my own little cave”.

I was pretty sure, as a highly educated, high functioning individual, that I saw things for what they were.

Oh how I did NOT.

Sobriety brought me the gift of clear thinking and clear vision. The ability to see myself for who I am, others and my relationships with them for what they are, and most importantly a more accurate understanding of my tendencies, habitual patterns and thought patterns, actions and reactions.

Seeing myself and my world more clearly, I am capable of making better choices (even if I still screw up sometimes), and this has shifted my actual daily life in amazing ways.

I mean, the extra $50-$60,000 I’ve saved over the past 5.5 years helps tremendously. As does my ability to put myself through grad school in this time, gain better employment with great benefits, watch my own business grow and succeed. Get JOY from watching my business grow and succeed (where before I saw it as a hassle before), repair old and fortify new relationships that bring meaning to my life. Buy a car, buy a house, get married and have a child. Handle a few health scares and come out the other side.

This is just what’s coming to mind at 6am as I’m feeding my baby before I’ve had my coffee :joy:

And I know that the idea of getting married, buying a house and having a kid isn’t for everyone. A guy I know who got sober realized that his best life was running marathons and doing minimalist camping in remote areas of the world. Drinking…he was just an eye doctor who watched a lot of nature shows. In sobriety, he has the autonomy and gumption to enact what he WANTS in life

The tangible real life benefits of sobriety are too many to count honestly…because I’m finally the one living my life rather than being a passive entity in it, victim to circumstance, surviving however I can.

Bottom line: sobriety puts you back in the drivers seat of your life, no matter how much you were tricked into believing you were when you were drinking.

I hope you’re having a good today, and that you find what it is you’re looking for :heart:

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