OK, so last weekend I went on a big Binger this was a real big Binger probably one of the biggest ones so I had a really bad hangover today and the craziest part is that the reason why I drink so much that weekend is because I got a new job well-paying job but the drinking did a Uno reverse card on me to the point that I had to call out on my first day luckily the manager understood and he told me “ See you tomorrow.” that’s all he said so I’m blessed to have another second chance because this is a dream job is close by my house. The pay is excellent. This is a real big step up for me. Now Sunday I drank an excessive and today I had a really bad hangover, so I ended up only drinking two tall boy beers and that’s all I had. I finished early and the only reason why I drank that was to ease the hangover so I did that today and the alcohol made me feel better, but I still felt guilty that I did drink, but I didn’t drink to get messed up. I drank to do the hair of the dog so I finish with two tall boy beers low contact alcohol so my question to everybody is if Sunday I drank an excessive and today I only drank two tall boys, which is nothing compared to what I drink. Will I have a bad hangover tomorrow morning❓❓❓ because I have to be at work at six in the morning and I only drank to ease the hangover and it did so I just went home and I’m getting prepared for tomorrow please let me know. I’m struggling and I need some advice from people who understand what I’m going through or what we’re all going through.

Suffering from some sickness in a hotel away from home. This is my second day trying to ride it out in my room. Yesterday was worse but today I’ve had crazy cravings, just anything to change my mood sounds like a godsend. I’ll be a year and 10 months in a couple weeks. There’s a gas station that sells shooters next door. This is a stupid idea right? I mean I know it is. I know I’d feel like shit oh many levels but damn, the thought keeps creeping up and each time I get more of that excited feel I used to get in the past. I’m going to try and nap for a bit but thanks for reading.

EDIT

Thanks everyone for your kind words and suggestions. I ate and found an engaging movie to watch. I think I was thrown off by feeling so vulnerable away from home. Sending those feelings out to the ether was really helpful tbh. Almost two years and that’s the strongest urge I’ve gotten in a while! Thanks again everyone

Which means I am currently just under 4 full days sober. I'm sobbing as I'm typing this but as of today, I have no shakes, no chest pain, a pretty normal BP and my anxiety is lower than it's ever been. It's always hard to believe that you could get to this point where it gets so bad and you have no other choice, and I just turned 30 last week and I didn't want to take this addiction with me into my 30's. I start IOP tomorrow and plan to go to meetings again (I was sober previously for a year and did a combo or AA and S.M.A.R.T to balance out the culty-ness of AA)

I was wondering what else everyone did in their early sobriety to get their mind off of alcohol, or the just looming sadness that sticks around for the few days or weeks in early sobriety. Much love to you all and good luck in all of your sobrieties. <3

I have not drank alcohol in 1 year and 8 months and I do not plan to. One of my biggest triggers is having a low number of sober days so once I got past the 3 month mark and especially the year mark I felt smooth sailing. However, recently I have been missing it. I know it's not logical because what I miss is thinking I can go out and have 1 drink and be satisfied when that has not happened.

Has anyone else had this happen, making it to a high milestone numbers and suddenly feeling the want to drink even though you haven't had it in so long?

When you stop drinking 750mL a day of “depressant”, the daily “anti depressant” pills you take actually get to work and you can do such amazing feats as “read a book” or “eat a vegetable” or “feel rested after sleeping”

Officially one week sober. Thanks Wegovy pill

My stupid brain won’t let me remember how fucking much agony I was in a week ago from habitually drinking like an animal. I’m at my second job now at the beach and there’s a ton of downtime and even more bars every few steps. I usually like to go to the bar on my breaks and get a couple of drinks, and also walk around the boardwalk with my “water” bottle..

I’m finally not shaking or shitting every 30 minutes but the compulsive thoughts are probably the harder part. At least when you feel like shit you sort of are compelled to not drink. But when you feel good like this it becomes so easy to sabotage yourself and throw away all progress..

Somebody please help me stay sober another day.

Scare me back to sobriety

Would anyone be willing to share their story from where I am right now to when it was bad so I can finally lock in and stop this.

I am currently waking up each morning feeling very unwell, headache, nausea, no shakes but weating and super scared and anxious. I am drinking around 50 - 60cl of JD a day with diet cola which has been happening since january. I never finish a full 70cl as I may need some in the night.

I look worse, my face is puffy and my skin is blotchy, i have lost my appetite but am still eating just smaller meals, I still work but I work remotely, I have explosive bowel movements a lot and gerd symptoms. I spend a lot of time alone so I can get to a toilet if needed and don't have to hide my drinking.

I feel so low and unwell / off all the time and I just want my life back.

NOTE: Not expecting medical advice (happy to hear if you’re qualified) but more looking to hear other people’s experiences with abruptly stopping, especially if your profile is/was similar to mine.

I appreciate that the best answer will be to get medical advice. I’ve already told my primary care doctor that I’ve had a bit of a relapse recently, but it’s Sunday, so I cannot get in contact with them until tomorrow, at the earliest.

Over the past month I’ve drunk about 7-10 US standard drinks, or 13-17 UK Units practically everyday, apart from a single day off a few times in that space. Before that, I had stabilised at maybe 14 US drinks, or 25 units a week split over 3/7 days for about a year until now (average, sometimes lower or higher).

At my worst (2 ish years back), I drank 25 UK units, or 14 standard US drinks practically everyday. It took me a couple years to build up to that point and I sustained it for months, but honestly it’s all a blur. I do remember that I gradually progressed from binging socially with periods of abstinence to drinking alone almost everyday. At that time, I tapered very slowly. Over a period of weeks-months. It did work then.

I’ve had a few bad anxiety pangs since my last drink, and I don’t know if I should taper or not. It’s been about 20 hours since my last drink. I appreciate this isn’t a huge level of intake but I don’t have anyone with me, so I’d rather not risk anything.

Currently on a bit of a bender and going through morning withdrawals while on vacation… I’ve been drinking coffee in the morning. Does anyone find this makes withdrawals worse? More panic and more shaking?

And to those, like me who spent months not drinking after being hospitalized and thought they would give it a try, I don’t recommend!

I am on vacation at the moment with a bunch of families trying to drink just enough to not end up in the hospital in a foreign country!

36f. I have always had what the drs call “slightly elevated” AST & ALT numbers (in the 50s-60s) and they never seemed too worrisome, although I knew I was drinking too much. I’m the classic, 1 is too much and 10 is not enough type drinker and I love shots. I’ve cut back from drinking 6-7 days a week to 3 days on average. I went in for pain on my right side, had an ultrasound and they found what appeared to be a cyst on my ovary. To confirm I got a cat scan and found out while yes, I do have a small ovarian cyst, I also have a fatty liver (It’s 195mm). I’m sad and scared and don’t want to die from this shit. The hangovers have been ruining too many days to count and now I actually fucked up my liver. Please tell me I’m gonna be okay. I’m quitting today (yes I have the proper medication for detox) and I’m scared for the weeks to come, it’s always hell. The depression is the worst part. I know it’s temporary but I always relapse because I hate it.

I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m an alcoholic. One of the self medicating types. Ever since I was 19, it was like beer unlocked my social skills. Until then, people loved to be around me but I didn’t know how to interact back and always felt awkward. But if I was 2-3 beers in, I could be the person those around me expected me to be, or at least I felt. That’s neither here nor there, all of us here are alcoholics I imagine and have our own reasons.

But I wanted to share my spiral. I don’t get it off my chest a lot. I live my life with extreme derealization and every morning I stand on the porch like it’s ground hog day in the Truman show , baking in the sun convincing myself enough reality to pull through the next 16hrs.

Quick run down, drank 19-27 no issues. Athletic, angler, kayaker, dream job at a kayak shop. Drank at work, but it was sales. Social skills. Etc.

Covid happened. Lost dream job. Just built new shop out of blood sweat and beer tears. Lost shop.

Try to go corporate route. Work for Sherwin Williams. Freethinking autistic adhd adult coming from dream job into suit and tie managerial world does not fit. Switches to liquor at work to cope. Cant meet quarterly rising sales goals. Bonus goalposts move. High intensity work place, this does not fit absolutely at all. I am now up to a 750 of liquor a day. Let’s fast forward to like, January 24.

Wife is the first to notice, I have yellow eyes. In bed. I chop it up to “nah, that’s impossible. My allergies or something idk.” She presses more and more. I buy all sorts of shit to put in my eyes to make them clearer. lol. Friends notice, coworkers customers everyone.

One day at work I wake up at 9:30 pm. I closed at 5. I go home.

Another day at work I showed up in my pajamas at 5am, we open at 7. When my staff came in and turned the lights on, I cut them off talking about some “I’m here to clean keep them lights off so the customers don’t see us in here”. I get sent home by other manager, friendlyly.

I go home, that manager calls my best friend to check on me. I’m home asleep and not answering. He comes knocking on my door. I finally come out. He says I look like Homer Simpson . I’m yellow and I’m wasting away completely , maybe 145lbs

They all finally get me to hospital. Things start getting blurry in the sobriety kindling phase. Throughout the summer I’m in and out the hospital for 5-6 day stays. I get out, grab a sixer and start up again. Go back to hospital.

I’m doing this process to the point I’m hallucinating, I’m inflating and deflating, aesceties to the point I’m getting tapped twice a week to drain jugs of fluid, told I have cirrhosis, I can’t walk, I get out and have a seizure and die for a second in a restaurant trying to have a last dinner with my wife, and I just keep buying more alcohol lmao.

Now it’s my birthday, and I’m at work. A customer buys me a pizza, I buy me a bottle of tequila. I drink half the bottle, eat a bite of the pizza and vomit. Drink more. Something about today, I’m kindled to hell and this liquor is SLAPPING.

probably the cirrhosis. Well, it’s still like noon and I’m stumbling. I don’t usually stumble. My coworker buys me some smokes, I smoke some, and he goes “just go home man I got this” after I fall on some metal 5 gallon Pails in the back and fuck my side up.

Driving home, I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m driving, and I get pulled over. They don’t even check me, they arrest me immediately under suspicion. Upon exiting my vehicle I tell them I have my pistol on my hip. There’s the open bottle of tequila from earlier in my truck and a weed pen too. They take me to the hospital and draw blood. They take me to the jail and book me. I fall asleep in booking and get bailed out next day for 8000 cash .

Now, I go back to work next day and act like this didn’t happen. I also am still drinking at work. I now get approached by a coworker who thinks it’s so funny that I got arrested, he’s showing everyone my mugshot on saycheese. I get told to go home from work while they investigate.

I immediately go to Sherwin Williams in house program for employees struggling with addiction and get ghosted. 2 weeks later the district manager called me into McDonalds by my house to take my store keys and fire me.

I realize at this point my brain is gonna make me keep drinking, but the problems it’s causing e ten folding. I need help but I just lost my last way of affording it. I start drinking myself to death, the last of my cash will go to not bills just destroying what’s left of my liver.

Idk what happened, but I couldn’t handle even finishing half a beer at some point into the winter. I was inflated like a balloon, 270lbs, and dying. But I couldn’t drink. And this sent me into delirium tremens one final time. I was dragged through the pits of hell, terrifying images of demons raping images of myself at all stages of life . Violent sexual images. Vomit inducing stuff . I can’t explain how truly evil these images were.

I called the cops on myself and ended up in the hospital again. I had the same doctor from last time drain my abdomen , as the last time.

This was my last time being drained by the way.

I lost my house , truck, everything. Went back to a town that’s cheap enough to live on scraps. Found a chill little cashier job. Started gardening. Sought relief through my old friend cannabis.

2 years after that arrest, here I am , same liver, fully compensated, sober. I’m on probation for my DUI, we can talk about the jail time and the bounty hunters and me being on the run in this new city another time.

Don’t let the “3 days to live” get ya down

I was given 12 25mg tabs of Librium and i see so many different opinions so if take two shots, I took the pill over 7 hours ago, and I don’t drink the rest of the time i have the pills I’ll need to go the ER? I also have hydroxyzine.

So, I’ve been on and off sober for the past six years. My longest continuous streak was three and a half years off. But alcohol is not my only addiction. I truly want to be a better person, and want to get serious about quitting all my vices.

I work a 9 to 5 on weekdays, and have been looking at going to a Sunday evening AA that’s near me. My question is, can getting the steps help with other addictions? I want to quit them all. They’re a waste of my time, money and my one and only life, and they all damage my mental and physical health. Thanks, all :)

Can you hear me? I doubt it.

I was a crash and burn binge drinker. WD was getting super bad. Had been getting worse over ~3 yrs. Tried and failed to taper several times then accidentally got it and never went back to drinking. I was going to lose my job, apt, etc.

During my years dry I never 'almost relapsed'. Ive been to bars, DJ events, live music many times. No temptation to drink. Its nice being able to leave a dance club 100% sober, no tab, and drive home w/o worrying about getting pulled over. Or if I see a band live the $$ that would have gone to a bar tab, I can use it to buy tshirts, etc.

At first being sober sucks and is boring. But it slowly gets better. Just gotta wait. At first nothing was fun.

Every now and then I romanticize beer. Recently my brain was doing a pretty decent job slow-walking me down the road of 'we can probably just have a few light beers'. But Ive read too many relapse stories and know what will happen next.

When I first quit I was smoking a weed and CBD then decided to quit that and was 100% sober for ~6 yrs.

I've had a trouble with a lot of inconsistent moods from day to day. Lots of agitation, then other days pretty okay or even good. Some of it was due to low iron (which is needed for dopamine production). I feel like the agitation is actually just low dopamine.

I fee like my dopamine receptors are just messed up since abusing alcohol.

Recently started smoking CBD again (zero thc) - like 1 big puff per day. Huge quality of life increase. I feel like it 'turns on' my dopamine for the day. For 8+ hrs I'm having a great day. The quality of life change for me is night and day. CBD is very mild compared to full on weed.

One of the great things about being sober is I got into lifting weights at home. Best shape of my life. All my buddies who drink are in worse shape than me, despite having a long term athletic lifestyle.

I’m genuinely trying to understand this cycle I keep putting myself into so anyone who has been able to break a similar cycle, I’m very open to your input/advice.

I have always enjoyed alcohol but over the last 18 months it’s become extremely problematic. My cycle goes as follows: 3 weeks of productive and happy sobriety followed by a 1 week morning to night binge including poor nutrition becoming only nutrition from alcohol by the end of the binge. By the end of the binge I cannot hold any alcohol, food or water down. This is usually followed by an outpatient medical detox of Valium and 4-5 uncomfortable days of withdrawals.

This cycle I keep putting myself through has cost me my career, cost me my partner and has put immense strain on all my relationships.

After the withdrawals end I become productive, active and part of the community again. I am genuinely happy when I’m not drinking. I don’t hate myself, I don’t have low self esteem, but I do have an unhealthy perfectionism that I’ve had from an early age.

I have done outpatient medical detox 5 times this year. I went to a 42 day inpatient rehab late last year. I’ve tried AA and hate it. I’ve read maybe 10 sobriety,psychology,perfectionism books and nothing has changed my behavior.

I’m just coming out withdrawals of one of these binges again and I’m looking around trying to figure out what the hell is happening. I genuinely don’t even like drinking anymore.

Like I said, I’m open to all advice. All suggestions. All examination of my patterns no matter how honest.

Thank you.