I'm back.
I
posted here very early on, back in 2010, when i was trying to quit
drinking and this board and the people on it really helped me.
To
tell you a bit about myself. I'm in my forties and i live in Toronto.
My dad was a heavy drinker and so was his mother. My dad quit about
twenty-five years ago and has been sober since. There's a similar
pattern of addiction on my mother's side, several of her brothers drank.
Two of them had terrible accidents while under the influence. My mum is
anti-drinking, and a very caring person but am convinced she is a
workaholic.
I
never drank, not a drop, having seen the damage it did to my father. At
its worst his drinking got so bad he was having paranoid hallucinations
and his doctor told my mother he would be dead within six weeks if he
didn't check into a secluded rehab facility. He'd tried so many times to
quit but failed. Partly because my family is so good at addiction: My
dad, the drinker, married my mum, the enabler and had three
control-freaky children, me, my sister and my brother.
"I
never drank, not a drop, " is really a lie. Not a lie exactly, more of a
forgetfulness. I had forgotten the first time i got drunk was the first
time i had something to drink. It was at Christmas, at home. I think i
was around 17. I drank so much i gave myself a hang over that lasted,
with full intensity for three days. I should have known i was an
alcoholic then because 1) right from the get-go, i had no interest in
having just one glass of anything. I wanted all of it and 2) after the
first sociable, ' christmas' drink, i knew, probably from having seen my
dad all those years, how to sneakily imbibe the additional. I was
drinking like an alcoholic right out of the drinking gate.
I
felt so awful, physically, after my first time, i wasn't tempted to
drink again for years. I was a total teetotaller through two undergrad
degrees and many job and life-changes in my twenties and early thirties.
In
my mid thirties i went back to school to get my masters. This was
about the time news came out that scientists thought a glass of red wine
a day would be a good thing. I found school stressful. (In truth i have
always found life to be stressful.) and i found it relaxing and
pleasurable to drink a glass of good red on a Friday evening and
for many months it really was only one glass once a week. But by the end
of the school year it had increased, maybe a bottle a week.
it
still seemed manageable although once in a while, out of the blue i
would binge. It was like i almost needed to, like the restraint was a
leash that was choking me and i had rip it off me.
Long
story short i steadily drank wine and beer for the next six years. I
knew, from watching my dad i had a problem. when i started to feel
helpless about my ability to stop (even ONE day no alcohol was
impossible for me) i went to an AA meeting. This was the time Stefanie was appearing on talk shows, talking about her decision to quit. She was
so easy to listen to i found myself paying attention. Here was someone
witty, sweet, balanced (not a rabid anti-drinker on a mission) just a
mum, wife, friend and someone who if i saw in my life, id probably want
to be friends with her.
I was able, through AA, my sponsor, Stefanie's blog and this board to stop drinking for one year, three months and several days.
Now,
sadly, i am in relapse and my lack of ability to stop drinking is
frightening me again. Worse than this is that i am drinking and trying
to be a single mother to my eighteen month old little boy. I hate myself
for doing this but i can't stop. I'm crying as i write this.
I
want to stop for good this time but i don't know if i can. I don't know
if anyone is still reading to the end of this extremely long post but
thanks if you are.
