[jc]

im really curious about my drink dilemma,i was doing fine staying off the booze but then my eldest sister phoned me up and said that siane(a girl i met off the internet)was coming to see me,well i gave my sister a bollocking and said that she shouldnt get involved,but this girl came down from london and i felt guilty so siane arranged to stay at my sisters house saturday night...well my nervous system went into overdrive and i told myself that i would have just 2 bottles of beer to calm down,and it worked like a treat,i met siane at my sisters house we talked and had a really good time,i then said goodbye and came home while siane talked to my sister as we both met on the same website and i let the women get on with there gas bagging...
then it all started i had this immense confidence and warm glow surrounding me,no-one could stop me i thought,i hadnt had a drink for a week and it was time for fun,i visited two local pubs met a girl in one of the pubs that had a dj playing,had a little tonsil tennis with the girl in question,then blank nothing cant remember a thing,this happens to me all of the time,but anyway i wake up saturday morning and the usual thing happens,i feel like crap cant recall anything and wait till about 4pm then hit the pub again to top up the tank,and now im on that rioller coaster again,this morning i woke up at 5am feeling like crap anxious all the works,,,,so i slept in and guess what,its 2pm and ive just had to buy some more beers to lift my spirits....im not so worried about the drinking i get more worried about making a tit of myself,i usually get people telling me that i was smashed out of my brains,i dont drink strong beer and i dont drink everyday but i drink like a fish,i drink way too fast,i dont think im an alcoholic but i seem to use the method of drinking more to cure the hangover

 

[jc]

i should add also that drinking does take me out of this introspective bubble that i seem to live in

 

[gem]

jc, I hope you do not mind me commenting on your post. It is sad to think that you needed alcohol to try and be yourself. I have a question, if you know you lose memory when you drink then why add more stress to your life? Wouldn't it be better to have struggled through a situation knowing you are in control even if you feel anxious than to drink and lose the memory of who you are. I would think you would be adding alot more stress when you lose memory and try to figure out what you did and did not do the night before. I know it is hard at times to cope, I myself would much rather face this illness being the real me than the me that a drink might change.

gem.

 

[jc]

drink just makes me loosen up and feel real

 

[Guest]

yes

 

[dreamcatcher]

obviously drink helps u relax, just try do it in moderation, the illness has already taken u dont let it take the things u enjoy aswell, just slow it down a bit and no you limit

 

[gem]

jc, I understand I guess I too would probably drink at one time or another if I thought I could feel real for a moment. I do not drink so I did not know that it helped you in some way. Thank you for letting me express my thoughts to you.

gem.

 

[dalailama15]

I started drinking a lot when this first started happening. It was always in bars, or with people, and was mostly about sex. It was, I thought, the only way I could imagine getting that close to someone, and the only way I could imagine I wasn't too repulsive for a woman to want to be with me, and the only way, I thought I could have any friends. I thought of myself as kind of a hedonist, and thought that since my life was essentially over anyway, it didn't matter, and I would waste away but at least have some fun.

It was a tremendous waste of time and money and energy, and I don't and can never know if I could have had any kind of real social and erotic life without alcohol. I do know that now, thirty years later, I have no social or erotic life anyway.

I can't really think of all that hanging out and drinking and dong nothing for most of my life without real self contempt and disgust.

For me the drinking was all about hanging out some where and trying to meet some woman (which mostly was getting to the point where I could recognize when some woman would be trying to meet me, try in some meager way to encourge this, and then be able to respond in some way.)

I would hang out drinking, I would think, when my self hatred got to be too much while sober, and drink for a while until my self hatred got to be too much while drunk.

For me, looking back, 30 years later, I think I gave up too easy, and pushing through without the alcohol would have been better.

Alcoholism is not even a term used in most diagnostic criteria, I believe, but rather there are two categories: Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol Dependence. The first one is easy and we both are guilty. The criteria for the second, I believe are something like tolerance, withdrawal, and inability to control amounts consumed.

Dependence is a really bad place to be and most probably will cause much more pain than DP related stuff ever could. I don't know what to say, jc, but I know that blacking out is a very bad sign. My thoughts are to try to nip this in bud.

The idea of "getting help" for something like this is not attractive. Alcohol treatment is a cottage industry and, it seems to me, is rife with crap. Much of it depends on AA, which will tell you you have an incurable disease, and if you say otherwise you are "in denial" and the only cure for this disease is having a "spiritual awakening," surrendering your will and your life to god and having him remove your defects.

Blacking out, losing time on a regular basis when one is drunk, is not good, and may indicate that things have gone far enough, may indicate that things could get worse and that one might bury one set of problems with a larger and worse one, albeit one that is not as confusing since it is so anesthetizing.

It made me feel real. That's the truth. But the more real person was more pathetic than the less real person. And I hate the kind of cognitive and emotional impairment the more real person had. The kind of cooked up emotions this person had were not real, even though they seemed so at the time. The kind of hysterical "feelings" the intoxicated me had are nothing but embarrassing, childish and beneath me.

I'm kind of rambling here, and am afraid I don't have much helpful to say. I do think that getting drunk to help anxiety and DP and such. . . for me, looking back, I would rather have had the anxiety and DP and such along with some hope of improving. The drinking, for me, as innocuous as it seemed at the time, was just giving up.

My thoughts are that one might want to try to trade it, the alcohol, for something a little more positive Even it entails some loneliness at least that loneliness has some integrity.

And if this is truly dependence, then some intervention may be necessary. If not . . . I don't know, this sounds asinine coming from someone like me, but maybe just buck up and opt for something else.

The blacking out worries me, though. This is one of the core symptoms that people who talk about alcoholism as a disease point at as a watershed in ones drinking career, the point where everything on one side was kind of OK, but everything on the other side slides toward the horrific. At the least, statistically, this is probably true.

I haven't had a drink for about a year and a half; this was no accomplishment and I haven?t missed it at all. Since I am now under sanctions for a third drunk driving convicion it is currently against the law (or at least a violation of my probation) to consume any alcohol at all.

And this is the other thing. It has been extremely expensive and a horrible burden, making any other choices and plans impossible. And now, if I get one more driving offense I will be in prison for a substantial period of time.

A last piece of advice is to at least not underestimate the problems, actual and potential, with alcohol. Time slips by, and in the end, I think it matters what drugs you chose to fuck with, and what consequences they will have.

This is not a well thought through and edited discourse, and so take it as you will, jc. I do wish for you the best.

 

[jc]

thanks folks
3 drink driving convictions i can now see why you gave up,i wouldnt say i was dependant on drink,and also im quite a well functioning drinker,i dont get abusive and i dont get into fights and all the other bad stuff that people get upto,im not making excuses for my drinking as we are all in charge of our own destinys in the end,i do however use it when i feel the need to go out and be sociable,im guilty of using drink as a crutch this i know but its the only way i know how to stamp out this illness on a tempory level

 

[Kelson12]

JC,

Though you are using it as a crutch, I still think that everytime you drink even a little bit, it stalls your recovery process. Since alcohol is a depressant everytime you drink you then withdraw from it the next day your depression/DP is increased and your chemicals are thrown out of wack even more. This is what my doctor explained to me numerous times and I am just now getting it to sink in.
I used alcohol as a crutch for the longest time. But you know what? When you use alcohol to socialize, you are masking your real self. So when people come up to talk to you or when you are having a "little tonsil tennis" with a girl, they aren't seeing the real JC, they are seeing the one masked by alcohol. Well, you can't be masked by alcohol every second of your life, so eventually you are gonna have to show people the real you, the one who suffers from DP/Anxiety/Depression and ya know what? If they cant accept you or don't talk to you, then they aren't really your friends or anyone you want to associate with.
JC...you seem like a good guy, but you need to learn to try to go about life without alcohol. You need to get yourelf out of the house, find a little job, learn to do some different things, without alcohol. Just my two cents, as I am working on some of the same things. Take care.

Kelson

 

[jc]

cheers kelson
im just in a really 'cant give a toss' kinnda mood lately,i suppose its just a phase but to be honest im just bored and frustrated,i certainly dont drink like i used to but i do have a nasty habit of using the 'hair of the dog' method...
how long were you drinking for kelson and what were your drinking habits like,you seem quite young to have used drink heavily

 

[person3]

Dude...who DOESNT need a few beers to talk to an internet stranger?

Come on...that's not alcoholism. You just needed to lay back and relax. It's more important for you to make connections with people (sober or not) than to sit and wait in total sobriety for a cure if you aren't going to be making those connections while sober.

We all need a little inebriation sometimes.

 

[Kelson12]

JC...I am 25. I started drinking when I was 18 and a freshman in college. I never, ever drank in high school. And never thought I would really drink in college. But once I got to college it was all downhill from there. I started drinking once a week or so. Then come sophmore year it was more like 2-3 times a week and then junior and senior year it was like 3-4 or sometimes 5 times a week and 95% of the times I was getting wasted/drunk. I graduated from college in 2002 and the summer of 2002 was still drinking 2-3 times a week. Then around September 2002 the DP hit alot harder, kinna like my mind was saying, "Whoa, we can't take this anymore!" So I went to see a doctor, who told me to stop drinking. I really didn't want to, so I continued to drink on weekends and MAYBE a time on the weekdays here and there. But on the weekends, I would still get pretty drunk. There were times here and there where I would stop drinking all together or have no more than one or two. This would last a couple weeks and then as I started feeling better, I would feel invinsible and drink to get drunk again.
I saw a new doctor in April 2003. Everytime we met she would infisize how important it is to stop drinking. I still contined to drink. Again, there would be like 2-3 week intervals I would go without it, but whenever I felt good, I would drink. It was weird cause I know alot of people that have these types of symptoms drink when they are feeling down. But not me. When I am down, I have NO desire to drink. But when I started feeling good, I would drink again. This would eventually lead to me withdrawing during the week and starting to feel like shit again. I continued to drink once and maybe twice a week. Starting to watch how much I drank. I wouldn't really drink to much before I went out and would watch how much I drank at the bar. But again, my doctor told me I should stop completely.
I was with that doctor until August 2004. I have cut back on my drinking drastically, but still drank as of October 2nd, 2004. That was weird cause I was feeling really out of it, but still drank alot. I was at a wedding and like you use it, I wanted to loosen up around my relatives so I drank to feel a little normal temporarily.
Now over the past week or so I am feeling HORRIBLE. Just so detached and down. And very scared in my mind that it will never go away. My concentration is horrible and I just can't think at all. So I am determined to go until the end of 2004 without drinking. That way I can see if it indeed helps. It can't hurt.
Yes, I use drink to loosen up, but I have slowly come to the realization that it is not the real me. I want people to like me for who I am, not say that I am only fun when drunk or drinking. I have found a girlfriend who accepts me for me and not because she met me when I was out and about, intoxicated. So I am determined to do it. You can do it to!
Take care.

Kelson

 

[jc]

thanks for that kelson,but to be honest you just sound like any normal bloke who started college and decided to have some fun,we all do it,doctors will tell everyone no matter what the situation to stop smoking and stop drinking,its in the doctors book of rules,they then proceed to go homw light up a big cigar and bring out the bourbon...
thanks person 3 its nice to have a view based on perspective and not health....thats not putting anyone down by the way i welcome all of your views

 

[sebastian]

jc,

i have no advice to impart...only to say that i can completely sympathize with your situation. i mean really...is there anything quite as heart-warming as that first sip of wine, or that first gulp of beer? I do believe that it promotes anxiety and these dp feelings, but i also know that it is the one thing in my life that i can depend on to alleviate my symptoms...if only temporarily. Well...that and really great sex (from what i can remember anyway )

in any case, it's good to know that i'm in good company...i think moderation is the key, or so i'm told...but one man's moderation is another's excess...so who's to tell...i think what we really need is some genius to invent a beer that actually produces some sort of anti-anxiety element on top of the bubbly feeling of intoxicating empowerment which alcohol seems to provide. I'd be an alcoholic for life.

s.

 

[jc]

thanks seb
i know you like your drop of wine,yes the morning anxiety is terrible sometimes,but it always passes,but it is a small price to pay for temporary relief,i have no life to speak of at the moment and i know im told to 'find a hobby' but what the hell can i do dp has limited me to a walking radious of about 5 miles and im not going to take up paint by numbers,and my life seems to be spent working on the garden and pleasing my parents,a four pack of beers then a walk up the pub to chat to friends is im afraid my only peace of mind and sense of freedom