I have to change this before I end up ruining my life!

YOU are indeed a very brave person, you have made the the first move to helping yourself, i am not going to tell you what you should do because, i think you know that anyway you say you had a difficult childhood, this can come out in so many ways,i to did not have a good childhood,it came out in me with alcohol, your friends and family will come back to you when they see that you are trying, dont worry if you slip, get back up again and again, the people who you hurt will stand by you i am sure. all the ones i hurt turned out to be my biggest crutch you have allready made yourself a better person by writing it down,carry on and be nice but dont expect things to change overnight i am a recovering alcholic it has taken me 2yrs to gain peoples trust, dont try and mend things to quickly. so head up say( this is me watch this space ) i am going to do this, dont be scared of the journey ahead, think of it as an adventure, i wish you so much luck so go out there and say BRING IT ON i am here to help and talk if you want  

Hey newstart121

How brave you are to have taken this first step. There are many services out there to support you, maybe start at the GP and ask for help, ask to see a doctor of your choice too, one you feel saf to talk to, ask the receptionist to allow a double appointment so you get more time...one step at a time and I wish you all the luck to take that step......Hugs 

 

Firstly - well done for acknowledging the problem, I made the same choice today and share many of your sentiments.

I'm in my mid thirties and have been always been surrounded by alcohol - grandpa ran a brewery, mum was a wine merchant and there's a long history of alcoholism in the family - indeed it killed my father at 42. You'd think the warning signs were there but..... Thanks to a decade in the licensed trade I've been an extremely heavy drinker since 18, which I left due to realising it was running my health down.

Sadly it didn't stop me drinking, and I continued to ignore the warning signs. Until last year I'd kept this mainly to the evenings but I realised soon after starting a new job that I could easily get away with drinking in the daytime - usually in the toilets before I started. My job was lone working desk based, and I was careful never to go too far - but a bottle of wine (followed by another one or two at home) was the standard back then.

Before I new it I'd moved onto at least a full bottle of vodka every day, kept in my satchel that I would use to top up my water bottle. This was every day - and no colleagues, family or even my partner suspected a thing - the only person who knew was the corner shop owner tucked away, and happily served my my daily fix at 8am each morning.

The only difficult part was getting rid of the bottles, which I dumped into the hedge of our local wood at convenient times, usually. Dozen or so at the time. 

I have been off work since Christmas with an unrelated illness that has allowed me to up to sometimes two bottles a day, but my tolerance is so high I manage to get away with this. Despite being told not to drink because of my medication, that was never an option - yet remarkably, my liver function tests have come back not too bad.

Guess what I'm getting is that for years I've hated the web of deceit I've spun to engage compulsively in an activity that will inevitably soon kill me. So today it ends.

I'd read up a great deal about coming off booze, rehab isnt an option - the guilt would be too much, and I'm aware that cold turkey is potentially lethal, so I'm going to gradually ease myself off with beer in the evenings - hopefully. Missed my morning treble, and have been in cold sweats, with diahorrea, shakes and now nausea since lunchtime. My partner thinks its the flu, and I've a feeling this is going to. E much harder than I thought.

Newstart121, firstly, I want to say that I am sorry to hear that you were treated so badly as a child. That will always have some effect and, it appears that alcohol and drugs are how you have attempted to deal with the trauma you still feel.

You say that counselling didn't work for you. I wonder if that was because the approach that the counsellor used wasn't right for you. That doesn't mean that somebody else with a different approach wouldn't help you. However, being the person I am, I understand totally that it can be very difficult when your background and feelings are probed and you feel like you are experiencing those awful things all over again as you talk about them.

You at least have insight into the fact that you do have positive things going on in your life and that they could be at risk if you don't stop doing things which are destructive. That is the first crucial step in moving forward more positively.

Basically  you need to work out why you do the things you do. I know you say that you want to blank out the bad memories but you have been able to gain all these good things in your life during your more positive times. What triggers a session on drugs or alcohol? What could you do instead to take your mind off things? How would you like the people close to you to help you? Do any of those people even know what you have gone through?

The jouney ahead will not be easy but you are looking at starting it from a good place, one in which you still have the good things around you. It would be a lot harder if you arrived at a point where you had lost those things so the timing is important and now is that time to get together a plan for yourself.

You didn't say how much you are drinking, you may need an alcohol detox if you are physically dependent on alcohol. If you find yourself with any wuthdrawal symptoms when you don't have a drink, don't try and stop drinking without medical help. Send me a private message if you want to chat further. If we don't communicate again, I wish you all the luck in the world with sorting out things. You have a LOT of positives in your life, keep reminding yourself of that