Giday R90, and first up welcome to our little group. There is plenty of experience and opinion here so hopefully you will get some understanding for yourself.

As far as your question goes for abusing booze, only you can answer that. Though if you are asking the question you may already know the answer.

One of my little justifications in my cups was to say things like, 'I do not drink like them so I can't be a drunk', 'they can't handle their grog so I don't have a problem', 'if i drank like them i would quit'. Whilst these statements sound good the truth is none of them stand up to self examination.

I drank 2-3 time a week, but I drank to the point to obliteration, I would say things like he drinks every night so I am not as bad as him. The truth that person had one glass of wine with dinner no more. So in one night I drank more than him for the whole week.

As for being an alcoholic again here only you can make that decision. But again for me what makes me an alcoholic is once I put alcohol in I can not control how much I drink. The amount I drank, how often I drank was not the issue, it was pure and simple when I put drink in I could not control how much I drank. If this only happens once then to the best of my knowledge that if I kept drinking then the progression would make it much worse.

Hope this helps you and wishing you well G8

You are on the right track my friend, and glad you are taking action now before it escalates any further. A lot of us carried over some of the bad college habits like drinking and smoking into our marriages, but after time we realized the toll it was taking on our health and relationship.

There are a lot of resources available to you to support your decision including AA, SMART Recovery, counseling and alternatives such as meditation. SMART Recovery has a free app you can download called a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) which guides you through an outline of the advantages and disadvantages something like alcohol has on your life. I have this app on my iPhone and it serves as a constant reminder of the disadvantages that alcohol brought into my life.

I also meditate with the goal of always being mindful of my actions to myself and others. I know you already feel bad about exposing your wife to alcohol and seeing her suffer as a result of trying to keep up. Sounds like you have a great companion and a career you like now, so your timing couldn't be better.

Feel free to contact me if I can ever be of help and congrats on your decision!

Peace,

Robert

Thanks for the replies. I love how everyone is so supportive here. It is very refreshing and the positive atmosphere makes me feel better about what i am doing. I will take a look at that app you are talking about, that sounds interesting. Speaking of cost benefit..i know spending 20+ dollars a week on alchohol is expensive. I need to start putting the money i would spend on booze into a safe or something. Could be a good motivating tool for me.

I am an alcoholic and I maybe only drink 2 times a week.

The danger sign is the "I need a drink" mentality in good times and bad.

Whether this is all about your wife or not, the bottom line is alcohol is having a destructive impact on your marriage.

The best thing is that your wife doesn't seem to enjoy the alcohol, which makes it easier for her to stop. If she liked it, and could handle it better, you guys might be off to the races towards alcoholism.

I wish I stopped earlier. I stopped just after turning 41.

Here was the alcohol thought plain I was on.

Yeah I drink a lot, but I'm a college student.
Yeah I party hard, but I have a great job, deserve it, can handle it.
I'll drink less when I'm married.
I'll drink less when I have a child.
I'll drink less now that I have a second child.
I'll drink less now that I have a third child and my kids are old enough to understand.

The great thing if you stop now, you will avoid some real potential pitfalls.

My wife was a frequent drinker, liked to have 2-3 drinks a night. I was a binge drinker. I liked to put down 10,12-25. If I was going, I was going heavy. But sadly our lifestyles both just made us drink more.

She needed a drink and I was glad it was "her." I had a shitty day so I said lets get hammered, and she was glad it was "me."

We made friends based on drinking. We attended things based on drinking. We complained when we went to something where there wasn't alcohol. We would attend events and pre party so hard, we'd be drunk before the party began.

I had alcoholism. My wife got a hold of it just in time. She has a glass of wine every now and then (like one ever 6-8 weeks.)

I won't try to tell you, "I wish I stopped at 25." But I can tell you I wish in stopped much earlier than 41.

Going a month AF is a start, but surviving that doesn't mean you don't have a problem. I had fatty liver around 36 or 37 because i drank a lot and eat like crap. I didn't drink for 6 months. As soon as I was healthy, I picked up right where I left off.

I'd get hammered and my wife would cry and tell her I wouldn't get hammered again. Sure enough, it happened. I used to justify and say "well six times a year isn't too bad to be absolutely shitfaced."

Too many excuses, rationalizations and lies to myself.

I drank when I had a bad day, and I drank when I had a great day.

And I could sit down and have two beers right now and walk away. But tomorrow, or next week, or next month Id have 30 and have an epic implosion.

I couldn't control it and I obsessed about it.

Now I don't even think about drinking. I'm around it. I can smell it. And I just know it's not right for me.

I wish you the best. Feel free to friend me or message me any questions you have that you don't feel comfortable asking the group.

Nobody can say if your alcoholic but you. And relaxing "alcoholic" with the words "drinks too much" or "drinking problem" doesn't change the fact that alcohol is not a positive influence on your life.

I'm glad you're here.

Thanks for the insight Jeff. I am trying to be prevenative now and stop drinking. I know that if i keep it up that my "ive been drinking 2 years" will turn into "ive been drinking for 10 years" . My mom has a drinking problem so im not sure if something like that is passed down. I saw my parents drinking my whole life.

But i think most of all i dont want my wife to be affected by my actions. she never buys the booze it is only me. So i need to be the one to take control of the situation.

Hello Righttrack90,

You are very welcome to the group. There is a clear pattern to your drinking that you may not be aware of and it is a path that can quickly lead to a downward spiral. I can see the similarities as I look back on my own drinking but it is only with hindsight that these things become obvious. I will go through some points you have raised and will view them from a different angle, that of an alcoholic. I am not judging or criticising you as I have nothing to gain by doing that. What I would like you to do is to look at where you are but from a different perspective.

You say that you dont need to stop drinking but you may not realize just how much you do need to stop. The reason I say that is because you drinking is progressing and will continue to do so unless you quit. It is affecting your wife but it may also be affecting you a lot more than you think.

You drank after college because of a job that made you feel miserable. That is approximately where many alcoholics start off and alcohol works at that point it takes the edge off the harsher aspect of living. Now you have a job that makes you happier but you still want to drink. A subtle shift has occurred here and your attitude to alcohol has changed. Drinking has become a norm for you but that sort of drinking is not normal for most people. You are obviously concerned , otherwise you would not be here, but at the same time you are trying to normalise something that is not normal when you say that in your mind you are not abusing it.

You know your limit and you stop when you have had enough. I can tell you that I had perfected that to a fine art and had almost a scientific approach to drinking. The trouble was that the amount that it took to have enough kept increasing. By the time that I stopped drinking I was spending the equivalent of about $260 per week on alcohol and the amount was rising fast. I had considered re-mortgaging the house in order to pay for it but of course, I justified that as needing money to put the kids through college, while in truth it was for drinking. Therefore, the $20 per week that you were spending could rise to a lot more if you keep drinking.

When people drink normally it makes them dizzy and sick, just like your wife so she is a normal drinker. When an alcoholic drinks, he can handle it and instead of getting sick he will want to drink more.

You are quitting in order to help your wife and to save money and that is good motivation. What I would say to you is to look more closely at the reasons why you should quit for YOU.

And mine turned into "I've been drinking for 45 years". Every drink you take reinforces your addiction. I started in college too, and never really stopped until about 5 months ago. I got a good look at myself and I realized (finally) that alcohol was totally integrated into my lifestyle and starting to take a big toll on my happiness (and the happiness of my wife). Cheers to you for looking closely at yourself and your wife in regards to your drinking habits. Consider why it is that you even drink alcohol and what it would be like to live a sober lifestyle. It has proven to be a much happier lifestyle for me (and my wife).

Thanks PJ54. You are correct. What it boils down to is i need to do it for myself. Ive never really had to go through something like this before so i'm not sure how i will react to it.

Going from 'okay 3 gulps of liquor will get me feeling good' to now its 'okay 5 gulps of liquor will get me feeling good' is scary. I see now that it takes more shots to start feeling 'good'. Im just scared of quitting for awhile and coming back. I hope through reading on the internet and forums like this that i will gain the will to stop.

I liked the effect that alcohol produced. I came to rely on the booze as a filter. I had to have it and before I knew it, it had me. Daily drinking and some benders on the w/e.

The need to have others drinking lots was my mo as well

Find out there are other more constructive things to do

Sober is good

1is2many

Welcome to the group!

I can relate to a few things you are going through. My parents were both alcoholics but my mother never drank until my dad wanted a drinking partner. So he started buying it for her and pouring her a glass even when she said she didn't want it. Of course she could have dumped it, I suppose, but my dad was the only parent working and paying all the bills so maybe she thought she had to be my dad's drinking buddy to appease him. I don't know for sure but it didn't matter because she was dead at the age of 52 from alcoholic liver sirosis. I was just a kid and I was devastated.

When I got older, I turned down a couple of good jobs and took a shitty one that was very physically and mentally demanding....That's the thing! It was like I had this secret desire to punish myself for allowing my mother to commit a slow suicide with the bottle. I never realized that I was carrying so much guilt for 30 plus years, until I was treated for my own addiction in an outpatient treatment program! In the IOP, I learned lots of things about myself and my disease.

I learned that I was blaming my job and anything and everyone else, for my drinking instead of taking responsibility for my own actions!

Anyway, thats my story in a nutshell. Only you can decide if you have a problem and if you do, there are lots of people willing to help so don't be afraid to ask!

God Bless!

Welcome!

Here's a thought... you say that after about 2 years of drinking 4-5 days a week you know this will be hard.

Why? It might not be. It might be easy. You should be able to see where this might be headed if you keep drinking -- your wife not able to control her drinking, you becoming more and more dependent on it, your marriage suffering, and one or both of you becoming raging alcoholics.

What if instead of this being difficult for you, you enjoy every day of sobriety with your wife and not being f-ed up, whether that's sloshy drunk or plain ol' buzzed?

What a great holiday gift you are giving her and yourself! And that gift is you. Clearheaded and there for her. And allowing her to give the same to you.

Enjoy the month. Hopefully after the holidays you will continue on this path.

And if you are at any holiday parties, keep a glass of club soda in your hand at all times. and stay away from wine, champagne toasts, beer, eggnog, etc.

Thanks buddha and exjersey.

Last night was rough. i really wanted a drink but i didnt get one. i cooked dinner for my wife and stayed sober. tonight is night 3.

When does the want of a drink start to fade? I know in the beggining this will be tough but i know with a focused mind i can stop the urges.

Many of us found some good answers in a book titled "Stop Drinking Now" by Allen Carr. I read the book twice and it took hold for me. I lost my urge to drink once I realized that the physical addiction was actually a very weak force. It really was not hard to quit, even after 45 years of nearly daily use. Experiencing a "re-birth" in a sober world has been quite a wonderful experience for me.

Hi
I got sober at your age and it took:) I went to AA and with that I got support and began to understand the long view if someone drinks to excess often and with that the consequences it causes!! They say it does not matter How much you drink , when you d rink, or where you drink butt what happens to you when drink helps you to understand your problem better ! I also found therapy and meditation a liberating factor as I moved along in soooobriety....butt in the beginning more than anything else a sincere desire to not want to pick a drink A day at a time was crucial to begin building a new life for yourself:)

Billy

Living just for today right now limits the expectations and pressure you put on yourself which is a much needed relief!!:)))