Problem With Aa... Advise Please

[philo]

IMHO someone who binge drinks, and when he is on a binge, drinks to excess and gets into problems, is just as much an alcoholic as those who drink every day.

Most alcoholics can stop drinking for days and weeks at a time, but will eventually start drinking again without proper treatment of one kind or another.

I think binge drinkers slowly get worse, and the time between binges shortens, and eventually they will be drinking every day. Alcoholism is a progressive disease, and as you get older, you drink more, and you are less able to cope.

I have been an alcoholic since my early twenties, but it is only in the past 2 years that I have been unable to control my life. I had several serious motor accidents, got into fights and became,e progressively more and more sick, and unable to recover from the previous day's session.

So I have been trying to quit. I quit for 9 months last year, and this year, I was in my 5th month.

2 Nights ago I fell off the wagon, and got very drunk, very quickly. I was so drunk that I couldn't walk, and when I tried to walk around my garden I fell into my fish pond. I went in head first, and I was under the water. I would have drowned if two Thais hadn't been there and pulled me out. This was 2 a.m. and I was very lucky they were they. I have scratches and bruises all over my body, it is very painfull to walk, and I ruined 2 mobile phones, amonsgt other things. All from a few hours booze.

My friend who runs an AA meeting in another country has told me many times that it is always worse if you quit and then go back to drinking. It looks like is is right.

I now know I can't do this alone and will go to AA today.

As said above, your honesty will serve you well.

My wife has left me - and taken my 2 children with her. Yesterday I had to eat something (haven't been eating for days), so I went to get some food. I cannot remember how I got the car home. I don't wash it anymore - I just make sure that the trunk is filled with beer cans. I cannot sleep more than 3-6 hours - the rest of the night is cold shivering, sweating, puking and diarrhea. The morning coffee is not important anymore. A beer (even if it is as hot as your showering water) is the first thing that gets in to my sick brain when I wake up 2-5AM.

I am so sick now that I don't want to stop drinking - I feel that death is the only way out of this dark pit.

So to anyone who wants to know where the limit is: Don't try to find it.

To AA or not to AA - each person her/his choice. But to those who hasn't fallen this deep yet: Be aware.

[CqK]

IMHO someone who binge drinks, and when he is on a binge, drinks to excess and gets into problems, is just as much an alcoholic as those who drink every day.

Absolutely! No argument there! My rational was if I didn't drink every day, I wasn't an alcoholic. Had I known then what I know now, I would have drank every day.

I may be out of line here or not. I'm not an alcoholic, least not in my opinion. You tell me what you think. On the subject of AA, well if it works go for it. I was hooked on drugs about 15 years ago and went to an AA meeting followed by an NA (narcotics anonymous) meeting and decided that I, #1 wasn't going to be like those religious freaks and #2 that it just wasn't the place for me. I quit cold turkey the next morning without a second thought and have never done any type of drug again. (I was hooked on Crack Cocaine, Meth and Pot)

As far as drinking goes, I know about binge drinking. If I don't drink for 3-4 days, when I do drink I go way overboard! What I have to admit here, (like I said you be the judge, ie; alcoholic or not) is that I drink everyday. I have at least 2-3 beers every evening. I'm drinking a Chang beer right now as a matter of fact. I work alot, when I finish I like to relax. I come home with my wife, eat dinner and usually go buy 3 bottles of Chang at the local store. Then I sit and drink while playing on the computer or watching a movie, or even sometimes with the neighboors, depending on how tired I am. So my confession is this, I drink every day. Am I an alcoholic? My drinking does not affect my work. I never miss a day or have a hangover. My family does not complain, there are no arguments with my wife. It is a regular thing.

So now I ask you. Are you really an alcoholic, or do you just try to quit too hard. Would it not be better to moderate your drinking urges than to try and force yourself into meetings etc;? And above all don't forget the topic of this forum was about drinking too much not alcoholicism. So, if you're drinking too much you need to ask yourself, is the problem alcoholicisim or moderation?

Lee

The definition of an alcoholic is anyone who knows their drinking is causing problems in his or her life and he or she continues to drink.

[Mobi]

Hi Mobi;

All the best mate.

I understand how you must be feeling as I have been in your position many times in the past 3 years.

It's just a slip mate, if you can get back to meetings quickly you should be ok.

An important thing is not to beat yourself up too much.

Did you get to a meeting today?

Thanks LIE, and also thanks Philo.

Yes, Philo it can get that bad, I know. Many times when I have tried to stop I have felt so ill that the only way I can feel a bit better is to 'wean' myself off. It seems to work. I drink just enough to feel better and then stop. And then I take a sleeping pill and sleep all night. The next day I feel better and I can really stop. I've done this quite a few times and it works for me. But you have to be careful to stop when you know you've had enough but not too much, otherwise the same cycle will continue.

I was fully intending to go to a meeting yesterday. I told my wife, and she said you can't go today because it's your birthday, and some people are coming round.

Well a lot of people came round, and the party started with loads of beer, whisky etc. After a couple of hours, I weakened and started on the whisky. Probably drank a bottle, and slept in the small hours.

I shall try again today. Doubt I will go to a meeting - feeling too bad, but will try tomorrow.

It's a battle but I haven't given up. If I give up I'm dead. But I know I can't do it alone.

[sagaris]

IMHO someone who binge drinks, and when he is on a binge, drinks to excess and gets into problems, is just as much an alcoholic as those who drink every day.

Most alcoholics can stop drinking for days and weeks at a time, but will eventually start drinking again without proper treatment of one kind or another.

I think binge drinkers slowly get worse, and the time between binges shortens, and eventually they will be drinking every day. Alcoholism is a progressive disease, and as you get older, you drink more, and you are less able to cope.

I have been an alcoholic since my early twenties, but it is only in the past 2 years that I have been unable to control my life. I had several serious motor accidents, got into fights and became,e progressively more and more sick, and unable to recover from the previous day's session.

So I have been trying to quit. I quit for 9 months last year, and this year, I was in my 5th month.

2 Nights ago I fell off the wagon, and got very drunk, very quickly. I was so drunk that I couldn't walk, and when I tried to walk around my garden I fell into my fish pond. I went in head first, and I was under the water. I would have drowned if two Thais hadn't been there and pulled me out. This was 2 a.m. and I was very lucky they were they. I have scratches and bruises all over my body, it is very painfull to walk, and I ruined 2 mobile phones, amonsgt other things. All from a few hours booze.

My friend who runs an AA meeting in another country has told me many times that it is always worse if you quit and then go back to drinking. It looks like is is right.

I now know I can't do this alone and will go to AA today.

As said above, your honesty will serve you well.

My wife has left me - and taken my 2 children with her. Yesterday I had to eat something (haven't been eating for days), so I went to get some food. I cannot remember how I got the car home. I don't wash it anymore - I just make sure that the trunk is filled with beer cans. I cannot sleep more than 3-6 hours - the rest of the night is cold shivering, sweating, puking and diarrhea. The morning coffee is not important anymore. A beer (even if it is as hot as your showering water) is the first thing that gets in to my sick brain when I wake up 2-5AM.

I am so sick now that I don't want to stop drinking - I feel that death is the only way out of this dark pit.

So to anyone who wants to know where the limit is: Don't try to find it.

To AA or not to AA - each person her/his choice. But to those who hasn't fallen this deep yet: Be aware.

Philo. Very very upsetting to read that mate. You are obviously an intelligent man. How old are you and how old are your kids. I lost my dad to alcohol when he and I were too young. He never acknowledged he had a problem. YOU HAVE DONE.YOU CAN DO something about it. The alcoholic death is so awful for the alcoholic and their families. Its not the way. Try not to drink today.Where are you? PM me if you can Id love to talk to you.

Doit for yourself first.

Please other readers of this get off the pros and cons of AA. If it works for you, great. and use your experiences to help PHILO.

[Sheryl]

It's a battle but I haven't given up. If I give up I'm dead. But I know I can't do it alone.

True.

But you alone can reach out for the help that is available.

Even when you can't get to a meeting, you can call someone. that's what the meeting phone lists are for.

The reason for the first step is that self-will can be a pernicious obstacle, and it's a hard habit to break even when it is obvious that it isn't working. It is necessary to give up the self-will approach in order to lreceive help. I suspect that is true regardless of whether it is 12 step help or any other type of program.

Forgive me if I intrude on your personal affairs, but a wife who encourages you not to go to a meeting under the circumstances described (and in favor of entertaining guests in a setting with alcohol, at that!) does not sound like someone whom it is constructive for you to be with at this time.

Along with grasping the hands that are outstretched to you, you may also need to protect yourself from people whose actions are, whether intentionally or through ignorance, harmful to you at this vulnerable stage. By definition that includes anyone who discourages you from getting help/following your program and anyone who exposes you to alcohol or encourages you to be in places where that exposure will take place.

Of course at some point you will need and be able to be in social settings where others are drinking. But not right now.

As you said yourself, your life is on the line.

[Mobi]

Forgive me if I intrude on your personal affairs, but a wife who encourages you not to go to a meeting under the circumstances described (and in favor of entertaining guests in a setting with alcohol, at that!) does not sound like someone whom it is constructive for you to be with at this time.

Along with grasping the hands that are outstretched to you, you may also need to protect yourself from people whose actions are, whether intentionally or through ignorance, harmful to you at this vulnerable stage. By definition that includes anyone who discourages you from getting help/following your program and anyone who exposes you to alcohol or encourages you to be in places where that exposure will take place.

All very true, but it was well intentioned.

I'm afraid that most Thais, including my wife, do not accept that alcoholism is something that needs to be taken too seriously, and they certainly find the whole idea of going to meetings as just a quaint farang idiosyncrasy.

She really didn't mean any harm - just trying to give me a good day with my friends, who are all, unfortunately, heavy drinkers, and some are clearly alcoholics.

Another thread on this forum mentions how difficult it is to stop drinking in Thailand, and this is one of the many reasons why that is so. At least in the west most people accept the concept of alcoholism and recognise that AA or some other kind of therapy is a good thing. Here there is no such general acceptance.

So if I want to stay in Thailand, I will have to learn to deal with it - yet another battle to be won.

As for the meeting phone lists - well I really do not have a lot of faith in that. In any case they don't know me, and it would be difficult for anyone who doesn't know my circumstances to give good advice. When you join AA, you are supposed to have a sponsor\, and although I can see the value of AA, I have not met anyone so far who could come even close to being my sponsor, but I will still go and see how I get on.

[sagaris]

It's a battle but I haven't given up. If I give up I'm dead. But I know I can't do it alone.

True.

But you alone can reach out for the help that is available.

Even when you can't get to a meeting, you can call someone. that's what the meeting phone lists are for.

The reason for the first step is that self-will can be a pernicious obstacle, and it's a hard habit to break even when it is obvious that it isn't working. It is necessary to give up the self-will approach in order to lreceive help. I suspect that is true regardless of whether it is 12 step help or any other type of program.

Forgive me if I intrude on your personal affairs, but a wife who encourages you not to go to a meeting under the circumstances described (and in favor of entertaining guests in a setting with alcohol, at that!) does not sound like someone whom it is constructive for you to be with at this time.

Along with grasping the hands that are outstretched to you, you may also need to protect yourself from people whose actions are, whether intentionally or through ignorance, harmful to you at this vulnerable stage. By definition that includes anyone who discourages you from getting help/following your program and anyone who exposes you to alcohol or encourages you to be in places where that exposure will take place.

Of course at some point you will need and be able to be in social settings where others are drinking. But not right now.

As you said yourself, your life is on the line.

yeah my wife could not believe that i would want to talk to strangers about my personal stuff. I could become a monk for a few months though!!!

[CqK]

My wife has left me - and taken my 2 children with her. Yesterday I had to eat something (haven't been eating for days), so I went to get some food. I cannot remember how I got the car home. I don't wash it anymore - I just make sure that the trunk is filled with beer cans. I cannot sleep more than 3-6 hours - the rest of the night is cold shivering, sweating, puking and diarrhea. The morning coffee is not important anymore. A beer (even if it is as hot as your showering water) is the first thing that gets in to my sick brain when I wake up 2-5AM.

I am so sick now that I don't want to stop drinking - I feel that death is the only way out of this dark pit.

So to anyone who wants to know where the limit is: Don't try to find it.

To AA or not to AA - each person her/his choice. But to those who hasn't fallen this deep yet: Be aware.

My 'bottom' was just the opposite of this. For the first time in my life all the "if only's" (that would make me complete) had come true. I was married to a decent, caring man, lived in a fantastic old house, had a relatively stress free job that paid adequately and I wanted to die.

The depression was overwhelming. I'd been treated for depression off and on for years and the thought of more treatment was too much work. The numerous "board of directors" that lived in my head (and many still do!) had many voices. In addition to the strong vote for suicide, there was another I always heard that said, "Why?"

"Why do I want to die when I now have all the things I've always wanted". Invariably the 'voice' that followed that one was, "It's the booze. Knock off the booze. Quit drinking." and that thought always "fit", it was the solution. So I'd be hopeful again, knowing all I had to do was quit drinking. I was ready for the new day. Enthused about it as a matter of fact.

If it was a Saturday morning I'd begin cleaning or running errands or grocery shopping or whatever regular people did on Saturday mornings. The more I did, the better I felt. Then I'd plop down in a chair to soak up all my good feelings about all I'd accomplished . . . I felt so great, surely one drink wouldn't hurt as long as I knew I needed to stop after the one drink . . .

If it was a workday, I'd do a mental run through of what I'd do first once I got to work. "Staying in the now" was totally foreign to me. I thought that one was real strange when I first heard it in AA too.

Anyway, I'd finish my good day at work and if it was a Friday, there was no reason not to stop and wait for my husband at a bar not far from our house . . . as if my husband stopped at that bar every Friday night. He didn't. Eventually he would show up there . . . looking for me.

One of the many times I was being treated for depression, the psychiatrist interrupted what I was saying to tell me I should not be drinking while taking anti-depressants. He reminded me quite sternly that alcohol is a depressant. I left his office that day knowing I'd never go back. All I had to do was finish the prescription and then quit drinking and there'd be no more depression.

I really never knew how great a depressant alcohol was until months after I'd quit drinking and I can honestly say, I have never had that deep depression and desire to die since. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it. I've been depressed since, but nothing like the depression that accompanied drinking. Nothing like it at all. Plus since I've quit the booze, I know when I'm depressed. The depression I had while drinking had me believing that was just life . . . or certainly my life, anyway. Talk about cunning, baffling and powerful.

I hear a lot of talk about will-power. I remember how mad my dad was when he heard I was in a 28-day program. He didn't say it to me but he did tell my sister something like she (meaning me) couldn't control her drinking. He, of course, could. My dad could be in a blackout all weekend, he could crawl across the floor vomiting toward the jon, he could kill the family pet in front of his kids but he wasn't an alcoholic as long as he got up every morning and went to work.

In my opinion, I don't think there is a human being on earth with greater will power than a drunk . . . drinking or abstinent. Alcoholics put themselves through countless hel_l-realms and still keep going. Some of us manage to ditch alcohol, statistics claim most of us don't (and those statistics apply to ALL alcoholics regardless of what programs, treatments, medicines, doctrines, etc. they tried or didn't try). I'm trying to say that I think, given our great will powers, our determinations to do it our way for god only knows how many years, that in reaching outside ourselves, we can "click" over in our brains and go the opposite way, a way away from the drug that's killing us ever so slowly.

[CqK]

Forgive me if I intrude on your personal affairs, but a wife who encourages you not to go to a meeting under the circumstances described (and in favor of entertaining guests in a setting with alcohol, at that!) does not sound like someone whom it is constructive for you to be with at this time.

Along with grasping the hands that are outstretched to you, you may also need to protect yourself from people whose actions are, whether intentionally or through ignorance, harmful to you at this vulnerable stage. By definition that includes anyone who discourages you from getting help/following your program and anyone who exposes you to alcohol or encourages you to be in places where that exposure will take place.

All very true, but it was well intentioned.

I'm afraid that most Thais, including my wife, do not accept that alcoholism is something that needs to be taken too seriously, and they certainly find the whole idea of going to meetings as just a quaint farang idiosyncrasy.

She really didn't mean any harm - just trying to give me a good day with my friends, who are all, unfortunately, heavy drinkers, and some are clearly alcoholics.

The first trip I made to Thailand I had 4 years of abstinence. The first comment I made at the first meeting I attended after getting back to the States was, "I want you all to know that alcoholism is alive and kicking in Thailand!" It is rampant here.

Keeping that in mind, take another look at the well-intentioned first post quoted herewith.

[CqK]

As for the meeting phone lists - well I really do not have a lot of faith in that. In any case they don't know me, and it would be difficult for anyone who doesn't know my circumstances to give good advice. When you join AA, you are supposed to have a sponsor\, and although I can see the value of AA, I have not met anyone so far who could come even close to being my sponsor, but I will still go and see how I get on.

My experience has been that circumstances and behaviours vary but the alcoholic's feelings inside are pretty much the same.

I hired and fired three sponsors my first year in AA . . . and none of them were crushed by my actions.

When I left drunk school (treatment), I was told to "look" for a sponsor, to take my time, to try and find someone who appeared to have what I wanted. I did take my time finding a sponsor but I did not dilly-dally when it came to meetings. Those I attended earnestly and frequently. By the end of my first year I had two weekly meetings that I never missed, three when work allowed, and a couple more that I called floating meetings; members suggestions of other meetings, support for new meetings, asked to speak somewhere, someone else speaking asking for support, etc.

I never liked going to meetings (still don't). I didn't look forward to meetings (still don't). But I know how healthy, settled and comfortable I feel when the meeting is going on and when it's all over I wonder what all my fuss about not going was for.

I got a sponsor in my third year when a really good friend of mine had been given a choice between a 28-day program or find a job somewhere else and he opted for the former. All of a sudden I wanted to be a good example for him so I got a sponsor. Now, 22 years later, my sponsor is one of my best friends and the friendship is reciprocal. She is, however, the only one person on earth who knows everything there is to know about me. That information has been mutually divulged through the years. It didn't happen at our first coffee together.

I wasn't one for phone calls, however, I lived in a city where there was an AA meeting going on 24/7 and it wasn't just one. I went to meetings. I haven't found that luxury in Thailand. Thailand's list is nowhere near the book of meetings I carried with me at all times in the States.

Good luck to you.

[philo]

Dearest CqK.

Thank you for your post. It is like honey and philosophy.

But I need to get out of the dark pit.

Bless you (it doesn't matter which god it it is).

philo

[cgit6]

PM me and I can assist in an alternative to AA.

Hmm... that sound spam-ish (LOL speak spamish?!!)? Synopsis for the group: there are many alternatives to AA and seeking wise counsel can be tricky, but there are a combination of disciplines that are all centered around neuro-psychology: nutrition, fitness, and meditation/hypnosis therapy (in some cases). All of which have made significant advances in the last few years.

I hate the phrase life coach, but that's what I think would work here- and I have a friend who is a hypnotist.

--tko

Edited June 7, 2009 by cgit6

[OxfordWill]

I have a good friend back in the uk who is started as a hynoptherapist and later ended up in the tv entertainment biz, but he treated several alcoholics before that and two of them are sober to this day to my knowledge after only a few sessions with him and no meetings. However, I think AA is a very good thing.