I kind of want to drink all the time now.

[leeroysphitz]

Whenever I'm out for a nice bike ride I always have to talk myself out of stopping at a bar. Beer turned into Gin. Friday and Saturday nights turned into any damn night I feel like it and I've given serious consideration to filling my 7/11 coffee mug with gin to make the evening commute a bit less challenging.

I don't hate my job anymore. I love my beautiful wife and wonderful little boys but I would still rather be buzzed at any given moment...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iWeyONoo7Y

[CreekDog]

1. don't fight this battle alone

:pals:

[rug]

2. The last time I wanted a drink I opened the door to the bar and literally walked out backwards.

It was that hard.

[Dappleganger]

3. Get to AA tomorrow morning.

Go every day. It's not just about you--it's about your kids' daddy.

One of our closest friends struggles w/this everyday and the only way he's allowed to stay in the house is with regular AA visits and proven sobriety. He knows he WILL LOSE EVERYTHING if he doesn't comply.

Will you choose your 'bottom' or will your 'bottom' choose you?

[Jamastiene]

4. I have gone through that.

What I tend to do is channel that into actively making a plan to take 2 days off, preferably over a weekend. On those 2 days off, I go to nature. I don't care if it is a trip boating or fishing or just sight seeing. I go to nature. I stop while I am in the woods somewhere and just take deep breaths until I feel a calmness inside. I try to absorb THAT feeling as much as I possibly can. So, I can remember it and call it back up later.

That works for me. For you, it may be some other coping mechanism. Either way, channel the urges into something positive and stick to it. You should be ok if you stick to the positive.

[Bossy Monkey]

5. Let me introduce you to my friend John Evans Elliott

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x7331940
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5864129
Oh wait, I can't; he's dead.

[leeroysphitz]

6. Don't do all the talking. Let love speak up it's self.

And it will not say good bye just like it didn't say hello.

[Droopy]

7. My friend Rick is on a similar path (that's not his real name)

This story is about an old friend of mine. I'll call him Rick, but of course, that's not his real name. Rick is basically a nice guy. I've known him for 17 years and he's the person who got me into trucking, and for that I will always be grateful to him. I didn't know who I was before I started driving a truck. Without Rick I would probably still be bouncing from job to job and struggling to make a modest rent payment.

Rick is two years younger than me and he got his CDL as soon as he turned 21. There was an immediate change in his personality when he got that first trucking job. He was proud of what he was doing and he was really proud of himself for perhaps the first time in his life. He looked the part, too. He started wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots to go along with his button down long sleeved shirts and jeans. He got a couple of tattoos on his forearms and would wear his shirt with the sleeves rolled up to make them visible. I thought he was cool as fuck.

On the weekends I would go over to Rick's house. We were next door neighbors at the time and we both still lived with our parents. We would sit in the basement drinking beer as Rick told me all about trucking and his adventures out on the road. It wasn't long after my 24th birthday that I entered truck driving school.

I saw less of Rick after I got my CDL. I signed on with a large over the road company and there were times when I would be gone for two months. But we would sometimes manage to catch each other on our home time and there would be Rick's basement and there would be beer and there would be stories. Then Rick moved and I saw even less of him.

Then one day about 6 years ago I heard through a mutual friend that Rick had gotten a DUI. That's real bad news if you want to drive a truck for a living. Basically, no one will hire you for the next five years. Rick was coming home from his brother's birthday celebration and he'd had too much to drink. For some reason he thought it was a good idea to put his car in park and take a nap while waiting for a red light. The cops rolled up on him and that was all for Rick in trucking for the next five years.

Instead of that being a wake up call about his drinking, Rick slid further and further into alcoholism. By then I had a local job and I would sometimes go over to visit Rick on the weekends. He always wanted me to bring more beer. I would sit there and talk to him for a while, but he was no longer the proud, happy person he had been. The more he got into the beer the more he would start singing the blues. He seems to look up to me now like I looked up to him when we were kids. He will always talk about how good I'm doing and he likes my stories, but by the end of the night he's always beating himself up.

One recent night while I was visiting he had about 15 beers in him and we were just shooting the breeze. Then he got really serious and he said to me, "To get anywhere in life you have to be a dick." I tried to tell him that wasn't true, but he insisted that it was.

Rick really is a nice guy, even when he's hammered and singing the blues. It breaks my heart to see him like he is now. Peace, Rick. I wish you the best.

[SoDesuKa]

14. You're Doing the Right Thing

You're doing the right thing in refusing to enable his denial. It's certainly not true that you have to be a dick to get anywhere in life. However, it is true that a drunk driving conviction makes it difficult to work as a truck driver. Rick already knows that.

You might just try some tough love. Get together with a few other people who are close to him and have an intervention. He will see it as group bullying, but it's not. In an intervention, everybody who's close to him, one by one, beats down his denial that he's not a problem drinker. The reality is that he's not going through a bad spell, he's a drunk.

AA people won't feed into an active alcoholic's denial. If he talks shit to them the way he talks shit to you, they'll just shrug. They'll tell him they'll be there when he reaches out for help, and they will. However, the window of opportunity doesn't stay open forever. The longer he continues down this self-destructive path, the more difficult it will be for him to see his situation as it actually is. He's already screwed up his driver's license with a DUI. What's the next thing that can happen to him? He'll be surprised at how quickly his life can completely nosedive. He still has friends that care about him, but after a point he'll only have other drunks. And he can end up lost for good.

Ask yourself if you want to see this happen to your friend. If you don't want to watch him slowly kill himself, you should make that clear to him. Break off your friendship if you have to. That's actually the merciful thing to do.

[FloridaJudy]

8. We have a group of us here

Fighting the same problem. Jump on in - the water's fine (as are the diet coke, the coffee and the green tea).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=336

[leeroysphitz]

10. Gwenevere drrew pentigrams like yours, M'lady, like yours...

[RiffRandell]

9. Honestly, if I watched Yo-Gabba-Gabba, I would too.

Good luck.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. How are you feeling about your drinking?

Is it a problem for you?
For your family?
Is the progression you described bothering you?

Drinking run in the family?

[leeroysphitz]

12. I don't know. I have to get to bed now, though or I may be dragging ass for work tomorrow.

Thanx Dixiegrrril. :)

[SoDesuKa]

13. Am I an Alcoholic?

There's nothing special about being an alcoholic. You'd be amazed at the range of people whose drinking was a problem to them. If you go to AA, they'll encourage you to go to ninety meetings in ninety days. There are no requirements for membership - no dues, no fees, no contracts. You just have to want to stop drinking for that day.

Alcoholism isn't triggered by anything except itself. That's one of its paradoxes - how can I be an alcoholic if I'm so normal? Here's my advice. Don't wait until you get socked in the face with undeniable evidence of problem drinking. The fact that it already bothers you is enough of a reason to seek help. And help is available, the kind of help that a person who's been there, done that knows how to give.

After ninety days, the expression goes, your misery is cheerfully refunded ... that is, assuming you want it back. Only you can decide. Call your local Intergroup - they're in every phone book - and ask to be referred to a meeting. Go there, sit in the back if you like, and you don't have to say a word to anybody. The important thing is to come back.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bunny]

17. So, what's your solution?

[nomorenomore08]

24. I don't have one, really. That was kinda the point of my post.

:shrug:

[graywarrior]

18. .

This is a rude insult to everyone who uses AA to stop drinking. Knock it the fuck off!

[Nickster]

20. +1

[Bertha Venation]

26. +2

[nomorenomore08]

28. Hey, you do whatever works for you. And I wasn't picking on any one individual.

I realize that, although I am very skeptical toward the idea of 12-step programs and such, I was being rather uncharitable with my post. Sometimes I'm such a fatalist that I start thinking along the lines of "So what if so-and-so drinks himself to death?" But I have no right to project that onto others, especially if they think their lives would be better off without alcohol.

So yeah, I do somewhat regret the wording of my earlier post. And I think it reflects the mood I was in last night more than anything else.

[Justpat]

19. Here are some words from the head Zombie of AA:

"AA is not anybody's religion. It is a therapy group for alcoholics."

In this particular talk, Bill W went on to say that whether you practice a religion a not
before coming to AA - after getting sober, you would simply be a better person, religious or not.




Bill Wilson, founder of AA

[Dappleganger]

21. AA's success

is due to the ACCOUNTABILITY on a daily basis and being realistic with the disease.

Show me a program which is readily available for FREE to anyone and everyone regardless of situation that has it's success, and I'll happily recommend it. AA is meeting in our former church and they were very specific w/advertising that NO religion or religious talk would be tolerate (they meet Mon-Sat mornings when no one from church is around). Absolutely no proselytizing of any kind, and the only reason they're meeting there is because we have several from our church who needed it and the group in the next neighborhood over was so full (middle class white folks). Now this group has over 40 coming regularly and it's less than 6 months old.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

22. Ummmmmmmmmm

I'm in AA and neither drink green tea or am a Jesus freak.
Unless you are alcoholic, unless you investigate the AA program without prejudice we are free to ignore, we would never depsise, you for your opinion.
Peace!
:)

[FloridaJudy]

27. I'm in AA

And while I love green tea, you'd never mistake me for a Jesus Freak! I've just found that some situations in life are a lot easier to tackle with a lot of group support. Just having someone to hold your hand and say "I've been where you are now, and I know just how bad it sucks, but I got through it and you can too" is sometimes all you need.

I'll be the first to admit that AA is not for everyone, and there are times I find the slogans and the prayer annoying. But I urge anyone struggling with a drinking problem to get help somewhere. Smart Recovery and Rational Recovery are also options, and may be particularly useful for those who find AA's spiritual emphasis makes them uncomfortable.

Few of us would disparage others' ways of coping, as long as they don't involve destructive behavior. Please extend the same courtesy to us.

[no name no slogan]

29. Oh grow up already

Like others have said, if 12 steps don't work, then what else does? Maybe you should ask Audrey Kishline how good moderation works.

AA is not a cult. You don't have give money to them. You don't have to do anything, as a matter of fact. But keep on with your delusional romantic "pain and filth" routine, Hemingway, because it apparently it works for you.

[nomorenomore08]

30. I'm not a romantic. Quite the opposite in fact.

I tend to think that people who talk about beauty and hope are the delusional ones, so how could I be a romantic? :shrug:

[Bunny]

31. .

:thumbsup:

[RagAss]

16. "Long Misty Days ... once in a while is here to stay..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9qbNwxeqvQ

[rurallib]

23. Do whatever you can to stop drinking

I lost both my parents and most of my friends of youth to alcohol.
If AA works use it. If wearing mittens work then do it, but quit. Eventually you will lose bigtime.

[BikeWriter]

25. I'm a drunk. I don't have to go to the meetings.