Need advice.....
Posted , 8 users are following.
If this is in the wrong place, maybe someone can delete or move. I haven't drank any alcohol/liquor for over 2 years & didn't have any major problems quitting. No one in my immediate family drinks & I have questions & don't know who to ask. I was a HEAVY drinker of mostly liquor (whiskey) but if it wasn't sweet, I'd drink it. I never felt as if I were an alcoholic but who does, right? "Social drinking" wasn't in my vocabulary. I drank every day but had to get drunk. I wouldn't drink until I had an adequate supply to get drunk. I was drinking more & started having what I was later told were blackouts. I sobered up in jail one weekend in trouble. It was enough to shock me into quitting, which I did. The court ordered me to have treatment on my probation, which I did. I never have urges that I "HAVE" to have a drink or even that I "need" to get drunk.....but I feel more & more that I want to drink & I know if I take one drink, I won't stop til it's gone. At the risk of others thinking immediately I'm an alcoholic, which I never thought I was & still don't, I will describe how I drank. I have a high tolerance & 24-48 beers or a fifth (or more) in one drinking session was the norm. My family don't understand & I really have no one to talk to. I don't feel a great impulse to drink but I know I couldn't take one drink without finishing the bottle or one beer without finishing the case. Are these urges common even after 2 years of drinking nothing? If you have experience in this please tell me anything........the good, the bad, & the ugly. Thanks!!
1 like, 9 replies
hope4cure Coped
Posted
Please go to a alcohol counselor who can help direct you for treatment and detox.There are many paths to take to unlearn this drinking pattern your brain has been trained to crave and now your dependent on alcohol.
The question is are you ready to learn about AUD ??? And actively find what helps you.
Naltrexone / Nalmefene are only two drugs that can taken only on days set aside for drinking and taken 2 hours before drinking. These medications works well for drinking less and or cutting down the amount of alcohol that lead to the dependent cycle or the addiction cycle. These meds are capable of accessing the unconscious neural pathways responsible for the compulsion that seems to override conscious desire to control or quit drinking.
Naltrexone and many other drugs designed to shut down the opiate receptors breaks the connection between the pleasure you feel from drinking and the unconscious memory of that pleasure. The end result is that one becomes neutral about the thought of alcohol, rather than alcohol controlling every thought and every aspect of life in general.
This is a fair and reasonable description of how the opiate receptors
in the brain are disrupted and redirect the thought process thru use of the opiate blocking drugs used on a consistent basis.
No one can do this alone you are not alone! Many do not need to feel ashamed or embarrassed to ask for help from any professional trained to treat alcohol addiction. Alcohol Use Addiction it is called today due to much scientific evidence that this is a physical and mental illness. Just as a diabetic need medication so does anyone with AUD.
HOPE4CURE👍
Robin2015 Coped
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JulieAnne101 Coped
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Hi coped watch 'one little pill' available on youtube, by Claudia Christian of Babylon 5 fame. My Husband is going to try nalfamene or naltrexone soon. He has had AUD all of his adult life. He is now 57. It is never too late. Good luck
h1954 Coped
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Hi Coped. You've come to the right place. Well done on your two years alcohol free. If you know that when it comes to drinking booze you don't have a stop button, you can't take it or leave it like social drinkers can then you have a problem with alcohol. And you're in good company on this site. Like most of us here you have an alcohol use disorder. It's a disorder, not a weakness or a lifestyle choice. You can google it for more information. There's plenty of peole here with experience of beong sober for a good long time, and I'm sure they will share their experiences. Have you tried to find out if you have any alcohol services locally where you could find someone to talk to? Meanwhile I wish you well. And take notice of what seems to be your gut feeling of not drinking.
Coped
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THANKS to everyone who responded. Yes there are programs available in my area but I'm not into public arenas. I'll just do my best to "keep on keeping on."
JulieAnne101 Coped
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ADEfree Coped
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Coped, since you've managed to stay away from alcohol, I'd suggest you simply keep on that course.
Some here have mentioned TSM (The Sinclair Method) which one can use in the privacy of their own home, but for those that don't have a history of Alcohol Use Disorder in the family and who don't like sweet drinks, TSM tends to be markedly less effective. That's not to say it wouldn't work for you, this is just my understanding about the method. It's also the method that I used to kill my 30+ year addiction to alcohol and it worked quite well for me. It's fairly inexpensive if you live in the US and is approved on NHS for reducing drinking, but rather more difficult to qualify for. You can read more about it here:
https://patient.info/health/sinclair-method-for-alcohol-use-disorder
The drinking pattern that you describe is known as "binge drinking". Drinking everything in the house, blacking out, days, week or months of not drinking at all, then when you do drink there are no limits until you pass out (which probably happens some time after you "black out". Does that sound familiar?
Again, if you're ok with just staying away from drinking, please do. If you can't manage that, then talk to a doctor that is familiar with Medication Assisted Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder. Aside from TSM, there are indeed other medications that can be used to "reign in" out of control drinking. Do take pains to find a doctor that knows about the various medications and knows how to use them successfully. If they don't lay these options out for you and discuss them with you and simply want you to joing a 12-Step program, then scratch that doctor off your list as you don't need to pay hundreds of dollars to find a 12-Step program, you can find that for free literally any day of the week. What you do with respect to talk therapy is another matter, I'm talking about MD's that should be discussing medical options with you as this is most likely a medical problem. But you'd need a MD to help you determine that and I'm most certainly not any kind of medical professional whatsoever.
Anyway, that's what I have to say on the subject. I hope you'll stick around and keep us up on how things are going for you. I understand it's getting a bit tricky for you and we're here to help the best we can.
ADEfree
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Sorry for the "smiley face" there, I forget that this message board does odd things to punctuation at times and there's no way to go back and edit...
Robin2015 ADEfree
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