Some advice please
Posted , 10 users are following.
For a few years now I have drank wine every evening. I've gone from drinking half a bottle, to a bottle and a half each night. The weight has piled on. Every morning I wake up feeling ashamed of myself. My self esteem is low. The horrendous thing is that I feel good at the time when I'm drinking, and find it hard to imagine not having a drink again. i feel as though I'm caught in a viscious circle and I even question if I can enjoy life without alcohol. I know that sounds awful. I need some help, but don't want to go to my gp.
1 like, 25 replies
derek93163 sailawaywithme
Posted
Your story is very similar to mine. My drinking gradually had increased over the years and had progressed to the worst it's ever been over this past year. The cycle is torture. But like you I continued to drink it out. And yes, I enjoyed the drinking part of it all. And yes, It's very difficult to come to terms or even think about never drinking again. At my worst I was drinking two bottles of wine a night and sometimes more.
The more I feared, the more I drank. I knew something was wrong with me but I was terrified of going to the doctor. Terrified of what they might tell me, what might be wrong with me. They'd surely tell me I needed to stop drinking.
It wasn't until the end of last year that I started feeling physical health problems due to my drinking. Bloated all the time, pains under my ribs, generally feeling ill. I continued to drink and self medicated myself to make the pain go away. But it wasn't going away. This went on for months. Then finally, for the first time in my drinking history I felt backed into a corner and had to figure out what was going on with me.
I had to go see the doc. This was hard for me because I'm dealing constantly with anxiety issues (brought on by alcohol withdraw I'm sure) and was afraid I'd have a panic attack right there in the doctors lobby. I finally made an appointment about a week out and started to taper off the booze by slowly reducing the amount of alcohol each day. It wasn't easy but having the appointment was like a goal to me and I carried on.
I made it to the appointment. After not finding anything abnormal by poking around at me they did blood work. I was of course scared out of my mind of the results. They weren't good, but they weren't horrible either. I just had the test done a week or so ago. I'm also convined that they're still elevated due to the fact that I had still been drinking up to the night before (I had tapered down to 5 drinks from about 12)
Just need to stop drinking and re test in about 30 or so days I suppose. I guess it was the wake up call I needed. Scared straight so to speak. But after reading through these forums, stories, and so on. I'm convinced for the first time in my life that I can and want to do this.
I continued to taper off the booze slowly and now am 90 plus hours sober with little to no side withdraw effects. I think the tapering really worked for me. Look up HAMS reduction if you're interested.
Since tapering off I already feel the bloating in my stomach is already gone within weeks. And my face isn't puffy no more. I feel as though the weight willl just start melting away now (imagining all the empty calories we put in our bellies)
It took so long to just get to this point and it's still so early for me. However, I feel so much better already. I only wish I would have done this sooner. It's scary to think about I know. But try not think about the fact that somehow life cannot be enjoyable without alcohol. It belive it really can now.