Author Topic: Battling the bottle.  (Read 62596 times)

Tiger

Battling the bottle.
« on: 11 August, 2008, 12:40:31 pm »
Giving up fags was easy compared to taking on the drink.
It has snuck up on me over the years and  now I am in its power.
Don't even want to admit it.
Never again in the morning becomes 'what I need' in the evening...
 

Wascally Weasel

  • Slayer of Dragons and killer of threads.
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #1 on: 11 August, 2008, 12:58:16 pm »
You're a far braver man than me for even trying.

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #2 on: 11 August, 2008, 01:11:59 pm »
We keep agreeing that we'll cut out mid-week drinking. Then my lass has a stressful day at work, and out comes the beer.

It's very very easy to become used to having alcohol to relax, and very hard to find a substitute.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #3 on: 11 August, 2008, 01:22:46 pm »
Giving up fags was easy compared to taking on the drink.
It has snuck up on me over the years and  now I am in its power.
Don't even want to admit it.
Never again in the morning becomes 'what I need' in the evening...
 

Admitting it's the most important step. If you really want to stop, there's lots of help available, and don't be afraid to ask for it. It can be very difficult - alcohol is such an ingrained part of our culture and "we" struggle with how to react when someone says they want to stop.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Tiger

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #4 on: 11 August, 2008, 01:41:25 pm »
I am not even sure I want to stop!
But I do need to get it back under control - it has increased over the last year through. Usually I give myself some sort of physical goal each year which enables me to focus and put booze in its place in life.
Since the PBP crashed out last year I have not had the focus and drink seems to have increased.

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #5 on: 11 August, 2008, 03:02:35 pm »
I am not even sure I want to stop!
But I do need to get it back under control - it has increased over the last year through. Usually I give myself some sort of physical goal each year which enables me to focus and put booze in its place in life.
Since the PBP crashed out last year I have not had the focus and drink seems to have increased.

Personally I found that there was no happy medium - or at least none that was not occasionally interrupted by excesses that affected my well-being. I feel a lot better in many ways since stopping 2 years ago. I'm not saying it is forever, I don't think of it in that way, but for now there is no doubt that I feel better mentally and physically.

Jacomus

  • My favourite gender neutral pronoun is comrade
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #6 on: 11 August, 2008, 05:15:44 pm »
I have also failed to find a happy medium, it's all or nothing - and nothing it is.

Once its all out of your system, if you can go cold turkey for a sustained time, you will be amazed at the change in your body. Amazed and fascinated, and horrified at the effect just a few beers will have on your system for days afterwards, once you know what 'clean' feels like.

Try it and see, what can go wrong? Its not like trying to live without clothes or anything mad like that, its just alcohol.
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." Amelia Earhart

Gandalf

  • Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #7 on: 12 August, 2008, 10:30:17 am »
My Mrs thinks I'm an Alchoholic because I drink 'every week' and 'can't stop'.

I don't drink at all during the week but over the course of the weekend I get through a bottle of wine and a couple of beers.

I do it because I enjoy it and on balance I don't think I'm harming myself.  It's the only stain on my otherwise monk like existence.  I always make sure I pay in full with interest for the extra calories consumed.

If it got to the stage where I was drinking every night of the week I might be slightly concerned though.


Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #8 on: 12 August, 2008, 10:43:46 am »
I am not even sure I want to stop!

That is a classic example of someone who does want to stop. Be it fags, booze, smack, whatever.....

Just stay off the stuff for a week or so. It's easier than you might think....
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

Jezza

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #9 on: 12 August, 2008, 11:40:57 am »
I stopped 8 years ago - in fact my eighth anniversary was 10 days ago (who's counting though?). It's all or nothing for me - I'm either sober or falling down drunk, and when I was the latter for most of the time I realised I had to stop completely. I tried to limit my intake, only took a tenner out to the pub, but that only put off the inevitable binge by a couple of days, and when it came it was worse than ever.

I stopped by doing it a day at a time. Every day I wake up without a hangover I am grateful for. It's hard at first but mentally you need to rediscover why life is worth living. When I was drinking I had no life, and I nearly threw it away a dozen times or more. So over the last 8 years I have learned to live again. Gosh that sounds melodramatic.  :D 

Seriously - you know you need to stop. So don't drink today. Chuck it out, pour it down the sink. Go for a walk, bike ride, eat something, do something else. Stay busy until you tire yourself out. But whatever you do don't open another drink that day. And when you wake up clear headed tomorrow, enjoy your sobriety. And don't drink again that day. It gets easier.

I will never drink again. When I first gave up I thought I'd never laugh again, or feel happy, or do anything at all. Little did I know how much I was missing out on by being constantly drunk. Now I don't ever want to drink again. Anyway, maybe this will help:   

Jezza

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #10 on: 12 August, 2008, 11:41:21 am »
You wouldn't believe the problems I've had with the stuff. A combination of genetics and culture bestowed upon me an Irish inclination towards inebriation coupled with a misspent youth growing up in Southern Africa where you were a bit of a wuss if you couldn't down 10 beers and then drive home. Relocating to the UK should have been the perfect opportunity to deal with it; if anything it got worse. I drank like a maniac, incessantly pouring it in, and became increasingly dissipated, washed up on the tide of life in a small English town populated by eccentrics and other refugees from reality. I convinced myself that writing was my salvation and then found I couldn't write unless I'd had a few drinks to unlock the treasure chest of memories. Then darker stuff began to surface; walking into a burning village and finding a blood trail that led into the trees; children who had been disfigured by Renamo with faces twisted into permanent snarls betrayed by their pleading eyes as they proffered limbless stumps; a friend walking into a minefield that replayed over and over again in my head. Terrible things.

I started to drink more, and was sometimes too drunk to hold a pen; frequently I couldn't even hold a conversation - people wandering within range got fragments of an endless, increasingly slurred rant. People were very kind, and very confused by it; why did someone with so much potential, still so young, choose to destroy themselves in this way? I was becoming an embarrassment in such a small town, so I moved to a nearby city. Some of you may have seen me - I was the one sitting on the bench by the market, or slumped in the doorway on Prince of Wales road watching the clubbers vomit up their kebabs. I'd be alright for a few days, stay off the stuff, but the tension would build and build, culminating in one explosive binge that could go on for days. I went 4 days without food, my sister sent me £10 to keep me from starving and I went and drank it. I lost count of the places I got barred from. I ended up in the gutter.

But I could still write. Whatever punishments I was meteing out to my beleagered brain, the bloody thing kept ticking along. I was attacked one night and got kicked in the head so hard some of my teeth came out - I was saved by the owner of a Pizza place who came running into the road brandishing a knife and scared off my assailants. I lost the sight of my left eye for a few days but was all the while keeping up a commentary in my head, utterly detached from proceedings - this is not me, this is not my life, I've ended up in the wrong scene by mistake.

By this time I knew it was the alcohol that was doing it - it may seem extraordinary, but it was hard to admit it to myself, and there were many reasons I was as screwed up as I was. I went to my GP and asked for help. He gave me a phone number which I lost. I knocked on the door of a police station one night wanting to be taken into custody so I couldn't go and drink any more, and the (incredibly patient) duty sergeant told me to go home and sleep it off. I rang the Samaritans, and one of them must have given me a phone number I didn't lose, because I woke up on the floor of my flat, a dropped bottle of wine on the floor, with the phone off the hook and a number scrawled next to it. I dialled it without knowing what I was doing, and got through to Alcoholics Anonymous.   

The meeting was in one of those churches that inhabit the industrial wastelands of so many British cities. An elderly priest was just opening up as I arrived, going round and switching on dim energy saving bulbs. "Ah, you're here for the meeting", he said. "Do come in." I was such a basket case of raw emotion I had to go outside again and lit a cigarette to calm down. A figure emerged from the shadows. "You're first time here? he asked in a strong Northern Irish accent. I nodded. "You'll be fine", he said. "You've done the right thing by coming along."   I had the shakes as I'd been off the drink for 48 hours and it was starting to get bad. I sat there dripping with sweat as people took turns to read out of a large book. Everythign they said, every line that they read, was like a bomb going off. "That's me", I kept thinking. "They are talking about me." It was such a relief to hear these strangers describe things that I felt each day and which shut me off from the rest of society. They were of all ages, from an 18-year-old through to a  very elegant lady in her seventies, and all had different stories, some unbelievably harrowing, others quite mundane, but we all had the same thing in common - we were all alcoholics.

I left that evening trying to get to grips with the truth of what they all said, and which I knew to be true; I could never drink again. I knew that if I did, I would be straight back in the gutter and face the long, agonising crawl back to sobriety again. It's like playing chess against yourself - you are always trying to convince yourself why you should have another drink. But you can't. It's not an option. One drink is too many and a thousand wouldn't be enough.  I wished I could drink like normal people, but I can't, and that's all there is to it.

My last drink was on August 2nd 2000. I've been doing alright - I'll never go back to it. Today we had a staff party in the local pub, and I found it pretty heavy going; it's probably what prompted this confession, which is the first time I've tried to describe what happened to me. It was difficult in the pub, and a few people asked me what was wrong, but I got through it. I'll ride it out.   

spindrift

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #11 on: 12 August, 2008, 11:50:45 am »
Blimey Jezza, that's harrowing and inspiring at the same time. Was that a Norwich reference?

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #12 on: 12 August, 2008, 11:56:37 am »
Bloody hell, Jezza!

That made a great read and top effort for getting off the stuff.

I'm just "A bit of a piss head" in comparison to that!

Well done  :thumbsup:
Those wonderful norks are never far from my thoughts, oh yeah!

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #13 on: 12 August, 2008, 12:01:27 pm »
Bloody Hell indeed!  Sober for 8 years and 10 days. Add another day to that, Jezza.
The old Legion hand told the recruit, "When things are bad, bleu, try not to make them worse, because it is very likely that they are bad enough already." -- Robert Ruark

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #14 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:04:16 pm »
Jezza, fantastic achievement staying off the booze, and well written.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #15 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:09:19 pm »
Thankyou for writing that Jezza. I have just been scrabbling round my desk for a tissue.

It puts the petty struggles of my mundane existence into some perspective.

..d
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #16 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:24:22 pm »
I am not even sure I want to stop!
But I do need to get it back under control - it has increased over the last year through. Usually I give myself some sort of physical goal each year which enables me to focus and put booze in its place in life.
Since the PBP crashed out last year I have not had the focus and drink seems to have increased.

I don't drink,never have so I can't imagine your addiction because that's what it is. Alcohol is the most widely abused drug and what's more it's legal and the Govt. makes money out of it. Can you set goals for yourself? How much are you spending per week/month/year on alcohol.? Is your weight/health affected? Since you are on this site you must be a keen rider so what about a dream bike that you can aim for, using the money from alcohol towards that. It could be a Pinarello, a Serotta, a custom audax bike which you could take on a dream trip(s) - Etape/Marmotte/Roscoff-NiceRaid Pyrennean etc. Then there is all the kit you could buy, lights, wheels,dyno hub etc. You could aim to be a point scorer for AUK, no way you'll achieve that if you are drinking

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #17 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:37:30 pm »
Every day I wake up without a hangover I am grateful for

Ditto. Looking back now, I don't know how I did it.

When I was drinking I had no life...So over the last 8 years I have learned to live again

I feel as if I am in the early stages of that learning process. Unfortunately I am already 42 but anyway. Spending my twenties and most of my thirties largely out of it in one way or another means that when you stop there is a steep learning curve. On the other hand I've had a lot of experiences that I hope are of value to me and those I know.

Great post Jezza and well done.

velocipede

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #18 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:41:51 pm »
Addiction is known only to the sufferer, and ultimately only Tiger can know if that is what it is.
Nutkin makes some very good points in my opinion.

You will always have ambivalence about quitting a habit that is very pleasureable.
Our society creates ambivalence around the consumption of alcohol with words such as 'sociable', 'pleasureable' with respect to it.
It is also a big depressant and can lead to big problems

If you seriously think that alcohol is becoming a problem in your life (and only you can really decide this, Tiger), then you could do worse than visit this site with an open mind.http://www.rational.org/

It will certainly help explain the inevitable ambivalence associated with giving up addictive substances, and if AA does not appeal, this is another method to be used.

Some people just have to quit for good, without half measures.

Cheers!


Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #19 on: 12 August, 2008, 01:51:41 pm »
Phew! Jezza. That's some pretty mind blowing stuff.
Once in a while someone says or writes something that makes you call into question some aspects of your life and this is such an occassion. 
I drink around 20 - 25 units a week and Monday is my 'dry' day (although it's not written in stone!). I very rarely get drunk but the fact that I am counting and having Monday 'off' is worrying in itself.
Perhaps time to re-assess. Thanks Jezza.

Tiger

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #20 on: 12 August, 2008, 05:25:51 pm »
That Rational Recovery stuff is very good - really does describe the ambivalence of the addiction! I am in a battle between my rational self and my beast - and the beast has been winning lately. I really don't buy all that 'disease' language around drink addiction - I don't have a disease at all - I have an irresistable desire to drink which I fail to control.
I also like the RR take on AA - inclined to agree that the only person involved in taking control of myself must be me. 

Tiger

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #21 on: 12 August, 2008, 05:27:31 pm »
And I am writing this on the site as a way of raising the stakes on myself so that I might take action.

Jezza

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #22 on: 12 August, 2008, 05:34:40 pm »
That Rational Recovery stuff is very good - really does describe the ambivalence of the addiction! I am in a battle between my rational self and my beast - and the beast has been winning lately. I really don't buy all that 'disease' language around drink addiction - I don't have a disease at all - I have an irresistable desire to drink which I fail to control.
I also like the RR take on AA - inclined to agree that the only person involved in taking control of myself must be me. 

Whatever works for you. I only ever went to one AA meeting. It told me what I already knew but didn't want to admit, so it was invaluable from that perspective. Others find it helps to keep going to them on a regular basis.

But I agree 100% that you are the only one who can take control of yourself. You can do it.

Chris S

Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #23 on: 12 August, 2008, 07:27:50 pm »
What constitutes a problem is a tricky thing. I sometimes find myself wracked with guilt about how much I drink; but it never impinges on my life. I don't get drunk, it doesn't affect my work, I can afford it, and it doesn't affect my marriage - but I can regularly put in a 50 unit week, which is dangerous by all accounts.

Conversely, we had a family member who definitely had a destructive relationship with booze; he lost his driving license, job, wife and kids, and pancreas through it. I have no idea how much he drank - though it was a lot - a bottle of vodka in a day, several times a week is my vague recollection. He was also a lying conniving so and so because of it, and would drink secretly.

Heavy drinking doesn't necessarily mean problem drinking; though health problems down the line might well turn it into a problem.

So - rather like the OP - I'm not sure if I need to "do anything about it" or not. It was much more clear-cut when it was about smoking...

frankly frankie

  • I kid you not
    • Fuchsiaphile
Re: Battling the bottle.
« Reply #24 on: 12 August, 2008, 07:49:37 pm »
My parents were not great drinkers.
One year, I visited them for Christmas lunch.  They brought out a bottle of white wine and we had a glass each.  Then I asked for, and got, another glass - though the atmosphere was a little frosty while I drank it.

Next year, I visited them for Christmas lunch again.  The same bottle of white wine (now half-empty) was produced ...
when you're dead you're done, so let the good times roll