Closet Alkies Reveal Yourselves!

[kankaroo]

Is it just me or is it unbeilevable that out of so many members on this board there is less than two dozen posts on this subject. That means that there is only a handful of people on this board that drink too much

OK I will step up "Hello my name is kankaroo, and I am a ....." LOL, not quite but I can relate to this post.I will share with you my drinking habits.

Right now I am sitting at my computer with a cup of coffee at 4pm on a saturday afternoon, tommorrow it might be the same or it could well be a bottle of beer at 9am cos I feel like s### after a night on the tiles. I hail from Scotland where I began drinking at the age of 12. My Father is an alcoholic and all my friends bar a couple drink everyday/night to excess. It was the culture I grew up with. Now in my late twenties I feel it would be impossible to quit drinking altogether. I say this for two reasons. One, I like to drink :-) I like the taste and I like the feeling. Two, after say about 8pm of an evening I don't feel quite normal or myself unless I have a couple of drinks. I think that is because I have conditioned myself over the years. I could not EVER imagine a night out - even for a meal with friends etc without at least a couple of drinks and I know that I have never done it before.

However I realise that my problem is sometimes not knowing when to stop. Most weeks go by and I rarely get steaming drunk but then all of a sudden one night partying/drinking leads to two, leads to over a week of being pissed out of my head. When everything is over I have to take days to recover feeling like I hate drink and more often than not I have caused a few problems along the way IE: falling out with my GF getting into trouble, fights, losing posesions etc etc. Thing is I rarely remeber doing ANY of these things, which is not good to say the least. I have a large capacity for drink and never vomit/fall down while drinking. I can be "black out drunk" and still function normally. Kind of like being on auto pilot

Anyway to this forum's question I would have to answer "yes" and anybody who wakes up feeling under par frequently, or whose life is affected -to whatever degree through alcohol, drinks too much. And I am positive there is more people on this board who could also answer yes but are maybe too embarrased to admit personal weakness. That is my 2 pence on the matter.

For now my methods of staying in control of my life are the following :

Always try and wait till evening or at least dinner time before my first drink.

Never drink spirits (too dangerous )

Try and ration how many beers I will have so I will feel OK next day (this however is the hardest one as even after a couple your willpower is way down) and avoid late night runs to the 711 for more.

Hope some of this helps someone (or somnething LOL)

Cheers

[OneeyedJohn]

Thanks Kangaroo,

Honesty always helps, and I can equate to your behaviour, coffee or beer at 4 pm either way I wouldn't call it alcoholism. There are people here who are giving up drinking for the Thai Buddhist Lent called Khao Pansaa, and it will last for 3 months.

For me this abstinence is a test of my willpower, but my feelings about it are summed up in my signature.

[kankaroo]

Well all I can say is best of luck for the next 3 months. ######, 3 days would be hard enough,

hats off 2 ya I'm off for a cold one!

[kgncc]

Thanks Kangaroo,

Honesty always helps, and I can equate to your behaviour, coffee or beer at 4 pm either way I wouldn't call it alcoholism. There are people here who are giving up drinking for the Thai Buddhist Lent called Khao Pansaa, and it will last for 3 months.

For me this abstinence is a test of my willpower, but my feelings about it are summed up in my signature.

yes i can relate to your drinking characteristics, for my 2 pence, i am the opposite. I hate the taste of alcohol and don't enjoy the feeling of just 1 beer at 3pm or 11am. However if at a party or meeting with friends i will tend to binge, and then totally go for it, losing possesions, forgetting the night out and feeling a total wreck putting me off even further. The only advangtage i get is that i normally use this opportunity to stop smoking, even its only for 3 days because of the nasea. I'm not a big build, so 3-4 beers is enough of that taste and then i'll move onto spirits and shots. I can drink any alcohol buts its purely only to get drunk and have fun. I will usually thow up at least once while getting drunk and continue to drink the evening out. I often ask how can someone drink during the day at odd hours, the answer is always "i like the taste and the feeling". I must be "fortunate" or obviuosly have not aquired the taste to enjoy beer or any other. I enjoy a soft drink/tea/water at any time for the preferred taste, especially here in the thai heat. My earlier days 15-28 years i did binge more regularly but now just binge once or twice a month. I also just cannot function, ie: working and concentration while drinking or after a drink is just a no no and a hangover day is just even worse. All in all, its a waste of money, i would hate to think my bill over the past 20 years has been just on binging, never mind the regular drinkers bills. It smells awfull and its dangerous. If you think about it "how did i get home last night?" or "that was a close call" brings back the thoughts of what could have happened. Ive done some outrageous things like everyone else when lunatically drunk and its always been regrettable. I consider myself fortunate not to be in the daily drinking habit, god knows what would happen to me. good luck.

[Nam Kao]

Guys i quit cold turkey 5 months ago and feel great. The last 2 weekends i am starting to

drink again, last weekend 2 gin and tonics, last night 1 beer and 3 gin and tonics.

i hope i am not sliding back into it. I saved a ton of $$ and feel alot better. If someone can

PM me some words of strength i would appreciate.

Thanks

nam

[bergerac]

Guys i quit cold turkey 5 months ago and feel great. The last 2 weekends i am starting to

drink again, last weekend 2 gin and tonics, last night 1 beer and 3 gin and tonics.

i hope i am not sliding back into it. I saved a ton of $$ and feel alot better. If someone can

PM me some words of strength i would appreciate.

Thanks

nam

Keep it up Nam if you can do 5 months you can do it forever.

I have a different problem.

I work 5 12 hour shifts as a Taxi driver and to my customers I am the model of sobriety.

But once the Sunday shift finishes at 0300 I drink till I fall asleep which is at least 2 bottles of good wine I then continue in the Pub on Monday followed by more wine.

Tuesday is always spent with a massive hangover and no drink is ever taken and it takes untill Wed to recover for work.

I have done this for 10 years plus now.

Help and suggestions needed please.

[lometogo]

Bergerac and Nam,

Oh, how I relate. My heart goes out to you. I used to drink somewhat like yourselves, careful, careful, careful, BINGE, BINGE, BINGE!!!!

Ah, the headaches, heartaches, embarassments, disappointments, and remorse. Unfortunately, once alcohol has gotten its teeth into us, it's a desparate struggle.

For me, the only way out was through total abstinence. Anything short of that was temporary and always doomed to eventual relapse into the same old habit eventually.

I joined Alcoholics Anonymous over 20 years ago and have lived a wonderful life since. Sure, I still have problems, situations, disappointments, and the like. But, the big difference is that I NEVER seek to try to lessen them or forget them with drink. It never worked anyway.

You may be like I was. You can't imagine life without ANY alcohol. Usually by the time you are where I was (and it seems you two are), drinking has become such a part of our lives that to put it out of our lives seems like we'd be WITHOUT a life.

Trust me, nothing could be further from the truth. Once I joined AA, I began to see that the friends and society I'd surrounded myself with was not truly a healthy society. Its main function many times was to drink and revolved so much around alcohol.

I found true community and friendship in AA. Now, don't get me wrong, AA has its share of eccentric and unusual people, myself for instance. The big difference, however, is that all of us in the program are there to support each other in releasing ourselves from the clutches of alcohol and its life-robbing, relentless hold on our lives.

I sincerely suggest you give AA a try. It may be just what you need. If it's not, you've done nothing more than waste one hour of your life.

All the best to both of you and everyone else on this board who's struggling with the pain, sadness, and regrets alcohol abuse gives us.

Terence

Guys i quit cold turkey 5 months ago and feel great. The last 2 weekends i am starting to

drink again, last weekend 2 gin and tonics, last night 1 beer and 3 gin and tonics.

i hope i am not sliding back into it. I saved a ton of $$ and feel alot better. If someone can

PM me some words of strength i would appreciate.

Thanks

nam

Keep it up Nam if you can do 5 months you can do it forever.

I have a different problem.

I work 5 12 hour shifts as a Taxi driver and to my customers I am the model of sobriety.

But once the Sunday shift finishes at 0300 I drink till I fall asleep which is at least 2 bottles of good wine I then continue in the Pub on Monday followed by more wine.

Tuesday is always spent with a massive hangover and no drink is ever taken and it takes untill Wed to recover for work.

I have done this for 10 years plus now.

Help and suggestions needed please.

[kmart]

I probably drink to excess and it has cost me more than money on a few occasions.

This year however, I have given up cigarettes (8 months) totally and feel great about that; so hopefully I can start to cut down on booze and binge drinking especially. The hardest part for me is to pay up and walk away from a group of friends who are having a laugh together in the pub after work. When you are the last one at the bar, after they have all gone, that in itself should be a sign...

I have quite a stressful job in an almost 100% Thai company, and though I speak the language very well after working here a long time; I relish the bonhomie and conversation of other Western friends in the pub after work; and this usually results in me drinking too much. Its quite a set pattern of behaviour that I have trouble breaking. But I'm giving it a go.

[sabaijai]

I probably drink to excess and it has cost me more than money on a few occasions.

This year however, I have given up cigarettes (8 months) totally and feel great about that; so hopefully I can start to cut down on booze and binge drinking especially. The hardest part for me is to pay up and walk away from a group of friends who are having a laugh together in the pub after work. When you are the last one at the bar, after they have all gone, that in itself should be a sign...

I have quite a stressful job in an almost 100% Thai company, and though I speak the language very well after working here a long time; I relish the bonhomie and conversation of other Western friends in the pub after work; and this usually results in me drinking too much. Its quite a set pattern of behaviour that I have trouble breaking. But I'm giving it a go.

Good luck, and good on you for making the effort.

[Mobi]

Guys i quit cold turkey 5 months ago and feel great. The last 2 weekends i am starting to

drink again, last weekend 2 gin and tonics, last night 1 beer and 3 gin and tonics.

i hope i am not sliding back into it. I saved a ton of $$ and feel alot better. If someone can

PM me some words of strength i would appreciate.

Thanks

nam

Hi Nam,

I cold turkeyed and stayed sober for 4 months. It's been pretty chequered since then - days even weeks of abstinance with 'social drinking', which developed into binge drinking, in between. Now I can't make more than 2 - 3 days without drinking again. For most of us it's impossible to keep it under control. It will creep back on you. Please watch it, and take care.

Mobi

[yoshiki]

i used to have the similiar problem as well but not that serious.. going to pubs and clubs to drink once every 2 days.. then i realised it was too taxing on my wallet.. and i reduced it to once a week.. and eventually now i only drink when my friends ask me out to the right place to drink..