Help - at rock bottom. Alcohol has ruined my life and health

A lot of what you sat i can relate to. Well done by the way for coming on to the forum and being so honest. Physically, your body is telling you to either cut down or stop. Personally when i had that shaky feeling i knew it was just time to stop. I was drinknig raw vodka most of the time. There is nothing worse to be honest in terms of feeling that way. It scared me so much at the time as my whole body seemed to feel so different and weird. The secret drinking is someting i have also done and hid drink everywhere. But maybe this is the time for things to change, in your mind and body.

What do you want to do? Are you thinking of medication? I can honestly say that your husband doesnt understand fully because its hard for him to see things through your eyes. At the end of the day you have been secretly drinking and all of us secret drinkers know how that feels, horribly guilty and ashamed etc... It is going to be hard either giving up so to speak or cutting down all by yourself. You will need some kind of support. There are people on this forum who can give you massive amounts of help in terms of medication. We are always here too just to talk if you get what i mean. Its very hard and sometimes, i do know this. Just keep in touch. There is a lot of support here, it does help even just to come on to it at the times when you feel like things are getting too hard. I recently read Allen Carrs book and found it to be amazing. It teaches you how to see drink and drinking in a totally different way. While im not saying that things are perfect as i have myself been under massive amounts of stress, i would be surprised if it didnt help you. If you were to contact your gp again, they wiill be able to also point you in the direction of local help such as an addictions clinic and various groups. They are not  always AA, there are other groups out there as well. Take care and keep in touch.

Vicky, you wouldn't believe how common this is. People get told time and time again to "just stop drinking". Well, if you can, fine, but most people can't. If you find yourself relapsing, then there's another approach that I used quite successfully, one that works for about 80% of those that try it:

https://patient.info/health/sinclair-method-for-alcohol-use-disorder

I'll PM you a link to a video you can watch that explains the method too. 

In the UK, there are a couple of ways of going about this. NHS will cover Nalmefene for a time, or Naltrexone if you detox first. You can also go to a private clinic and use Naltrexone from the start, but that's out of pocket and can be a bit expensive. I'll include some info in the PM that will help put you in touch with a C3 Europe. They can often give you more info on the particulars of getting this treatment in your specific neck of the woods.

What you write, is very common and you are not alone.

The reason you feel shaky is your central nervous system goes a bit haywire without the alcohol. Alcohol changes the brain and the CNS is connected to the brain. Alcohol calms the CNS down, much the same way that drugs like Valium do and when you come off of it, it starts to get a bit uncontrollable.

Alcohol over time has changed your brain and the way it thinks, plus the triggers.

There are three sides to giving up alcohol, the physical side (shakes, physical dependency) brain dependency and the psychological side.

Your detox would have taken care of the first one - physical. And there is a honeymoon period after that, where we feel good about ourselves, a bit of euphoria and promise that we won't go back to our old ways.

Unfortunately, either the brain dependency or the psychological side - some triggering event, stress, anxiety, boredom etc., happens and we are right back where we began, in fact usually with a vengence, worse than before (kindling).

The amount of people that are heavy daily drinkers that manage to give up, you can count on one hand, with four fingers chopped off. And even then, they have a daily fight with not drinking and it rules their lives, so their brain can never be at rest.

For most people, the only and best option, is medication, that will help reduce their dependency (want) on alcohol and let their brain readjust to how it used to be. If you want to take that route, it can be explained to you.

I do understand

I am in the same boat, I had quit for 6 months then back at it and I do know the first week is the worse, just have to get back and not find a reason to do it again. For some stupid reason after a period of time I think I can just have a couple but before I know it I am right back at it again. You can beat this just the same as me

I am 46 and lost my job through drinking I just couldn't stop at a couple I saw an addiction worker who tried to help me do controlled drinking eventually I was hospitalised fir 9 months then was put in a care home I believe you can only get through it by removing every temptation there are times when I'm tempted but I have to remember the path I took alcohol is a crutch that needs to be replaced with something