alcoholism jane so i realized today why i'm an alcoholic. i divided my time into sober life and drunk life. now during my sober life i try to be optimistic & calm & it takes a lot to get me angry. when i get drunk i get quiet. i get cynical & bitter. it was not always this way. i think not showing anger has something to do with my father but that requires more psychoanalyzation. whatever, no one is reading this anyway 040328 ... sameolme I am, and and I'm glad you opened this blather window, maybe we can air out some of the fumes. I'm really suprised that this page has just been started, considering the plethora of drunks around here. I'm a recovering alcoholic (among other things), thanks 040328 ... deathofarose yep 040329 ... friend of an alcoholic i'm not one. but my best friend is. do you have any words of advice, sameolme? 040329 ... sameolme A drunk will use you in ways that enables them to drink. Refuse to be used. Be honest, both to yourself and with them, as to how their drinking affects you. If your relationship to the drunk is more than a casual friendship you have probably been ensnared by the disease, get help. Al Anon is a support group for people involved with drunks. I've heard its helpful. If you are capable of being honest, be prepared for rejection. A practicing drunk will tend to avoid people who threaten their drinking. If you can, try to be compasionately honest, rather than brutally honest, hey, one of the reasons we self medicate is that we're a tad over sensitive. Be responsible for your own well being first. Good luck to both of you. 040330 ... Doar Well, I'm in AA now, have been for awhile. I did slip up a few times, but the days without the drink are definitely better than the days after the drink. Another 24 to you sameoleme. 040621 ... sameolme hey, welcome to relative freedom! Good luck and keep coming back to blather also. 040621 ... sameolme o hell, I want to give you all kinds of wise advice(comes with being 50). I'll limit myself to the two principles that help me continue. rigorous honesty remembering that the world is not totally cocerned with making my life nice. You've embarked on an adventure 040621 ... sameolme sobriety doesn't neccessarily improve your spelling. 040621 ... Death of a Rose Well, all that mental destruction by the forces of evil alcohol will do some permanent damage to the spelling facililites. All you have to do is read a lot of my blathes. I'd say cheers, but I can't do that anymore. 040621 ... misstree never consciously thought i'd end up identifying meself as an alcoholic, much less taking steps to change it. AA here as well, and though the God part chafes, it's doing well, the support is incredible... and if the majority of their gods are old dudes in white robes, well, bringing eris in there is just a fox in the chicken coop... you should have seen her eyes sparkle when i told her to have at it and play with all the little personal dieties... they claim sons and daughters of the Creator... i figger i'm a second neice or so, somewhere higher in the branches of the family tree... there's lots more that i have to say and have said (yay wordpad on the other 'puter!), but i'm still a little silent, a little scared, and trying real real hard. each choice, and 11 days now i've made sober choices. i *will* make it 90, day by day by day. any advice is appreciated, if you want to talk off-blather then it's misstree at chaosmagic dot com. 050319 ... sameolme Oh misstree, you've made my day! Be gentle with yourself, and I'll pray for you to any little godlet that will listen. 050319 ... sameolme O.K., advice I already said to be gentle, you're probably kind of frayed as well as afraid. Don't worry about the god talk, it"s a subculture thing. Encourage yourself, and honestly confront any devious thinking that subverts your sobriety. Try to go to many different meetings at the begining so that you can find people that you can relate to. Go to meetings a lot, you'll get support. Good Luck, Good Luck, Good Luck, Good Luck, Good Luck, and (fill in the blank) bless you. 050319 ... Doar holy shit misstree. if anyone has the will and inner means to remain sober it is you. this is probably blather's way of telling me to get to some meetings. *yes blather, I will blather, okay blather enough already* . 050726 ... stork daddy i'm only a tippler. 050726 ... misstree the boy and i quit AA after a while, we're both too logical and deconstructionist... we were better about drinking for a while, but, well, other things exploded, and i turned to the bottle once more... heh... the second time i ended up in a hospital, the time that i almost actually did do myself in, it was all the alcohol... i would have been okay if i hadn't drank that night... i've been very good out here in the land of ports, not drinking too much, partially because of lack of funds, partially because i'm not running away from anything, i don't desperately need that oblivion... so very glad to have left that particular addiction behind... wish me luck in keeping it in its place... thanks muchly for all the support here, dahlinks... it's amazing how much strength just a few words can lend, 's mucho appreciated... and doar, get thee to a nunnery! er, a meeting! :) 050726 ... Death of a Rose YES MAAM/SIR....RIGHT AWAY SIR/MAAM. *runs for nearest nunnery....frantic screaming ensues.....runs for the nearest bunnery.....frantic chewing ensues......runs for the nearest complicated gunnery....frantic booming noises ensue.....runs into light pole....knocked unconcious* tweet tweet tweet 050726 ... Vulgar Alone tonight at 7:17 AM, so I guess alone this morning is more correct. I've been drinking since 9 PM. I have almost a case of beer and a fifth of scotch under my belt right now. And its starting to hit me, I'm not drunk. I've been drinking since around the 8th grade, and I'm currently in my 3rd year of college. I haven't been able to get drunk for the past couple years unless I'm pounding down massive amounts of liquor. And the worst part is I can see it destroying my life, but I don't care as long as I have enough funds for the week to get at least a buzz going every day. And this gets tight sometimes and I'll go without food to fund my booze. I want and don't want help. I'm very independent and it frustrates me when people tell me I should drink less because I feel they don't understand. I use to be able to cover up my DT's but they're starting to get uncontrollable sometimes. And thats what scares me because alcohol withdrawl could kill me possibly. I usually wake up around 1 in the afternoon and I can make it till about 5 feeling ok as long as I have coffee and cigarettes. But after that I start to become a wreck. I've even gotten up and left during my night classes to go to the bar because I feel like I'm going to scream or hurt someone if I stay any longer. And the worst part is I feel like it is not helped by my major in college. I'm in International Security and Intelligence. The thing is though, that I love it, but it causes me so much stress and despair reading about international conflict/genocide, and in certain cases, having to do case studies where I have to choose whether to kill 1,000 people, to save 10,000 people. Granted these people are fictional, but it kills me to think of people as nothing more than numbers. A lot of the people in my classes feel the same way, because I run into them in various bars drinking in the same self-destructive manner as I do. Fuck my life. 080218 ... stork daddy as someone not that far, and with any luck never that far, but understanding of the possibility, i hope you can find a way to beat your demons or make peace with them. 080218 ... someone you know i have been able to step back a bit from my consecutive nights of "binge drinking" (which i recently found out was 4-5 drinks in a row - i can't recall a time i drank without binge drinking)... and actually i have not been drinking and getting wasted the way i used to. this of course excluding a week ago when i had five drinks and a bump of cocaine. 080219 ... minnesota_chris suicide without all the messy death business 080219 ... stork daddy i don't drink at home or need one everyday, but it's the binge drinking that gets me. 4 or 5 is the base level. and blackouts aren't a strange phenomenon at this juncture. i'm on the verge of a cleanup though. i've been there before in analogous ways. 080219 ... megan i wish "i told you so" would clear things up, but those words rarely do you're not happy. don't lie to yourself. i know you. you're going to have to change yourself before it's too late. and those words aren't just empty angry promises. those are prophetic. change your surroundings, change your friends, change your mind. be a man for once. be INTENTIONAL. 080220 ... concerned megan, I know you are angry, I know you feel that the blame could be on this person. Living with one of us is terrible, and cold most times. If you have any love for this person that you want to confront, then confront them, but do it in an intervention. they are hurting much more than you. even any interactions you have with them cause hurt because they are retreating into themselves. they need to be brought back to a loving place, and you might be the catilyst to do that. it's very difficult to be that person who chooses to do so. offer your support, offer your help. but a word of caution, don't become the crutch that person relies upon, just become a person who can, while staying impersonal, can offer guidance. AA can be a starting point, but i cannot stress this enought, is only a starting point. Bring together everyone who gives a rat's ass about this person together and face them point blank with an intervention. also distance your self emotionally, and i only say this from experience. they will do what they will. you can do everything to help them, but it might not be enough. i wish you and this person many more days on the earth. 080220 ... Chris M. CRACK ME OPEN ANOTHER COLD ONE BA BYYYYYY, YEAH!!!! 080221 ... angie i was at starbucks tonight studying... and there were some girls from AA there reading their blue books... i didn't want to stare at them... but i couldn't help but to think... is that me??? im not one hundred percent not sure... 080301 ... sameolme Pay attention to where your automatic pilot is taking you. 080302 ... vulgar Back again. My big problem now is the fact I'm trying to cut back, and have. I'm at 19-23 beers a day now, which may seem not like that much but for someone like me it is. But the problem is my DT's again. They are worse now. In class while writing notes I have to focus so hard to write clearly, and then when I have to take a quiz... The pressure plus withdrawal doesn't help. And the worst part is seeing people in my classes look at me like a freak because I can't sit still and write steadily. This just makes me want to go drink more. I know its my fault but its hard. 080401 ... unsympathetic nah, sounds like your life is done with until you quit. also sounds like you might be spoiled. start digging ditches. 080401 ... jane well, i am sympathetic. i'm not sure how you got into the hole to begin with, but there is always a way out. i think taking some time off school would be a good idea. checking into rehab. if you truly want to get out of the hole you will realize that putting "life" on hold is the necessary step to take. anyways, feel free to reach out to me. you shouldn't have to fight your battle alone. 080401 ... jane and it doesn't help to listen to people who are unsympathetic.... *ahem*.... because who the fuck cares what they think, if they don't care about you? 080401 ... vulgar My biggest problem is that with my major in school right now, we mostly all drink a lot. After classes I've gone to bars with my classmates and even my professor and TA. And we just talk about the things we have read about that are horrible and wrong in the world. And the depression that comes with it pushes us to drinking, and chain-smoking, a lot of the time. My major is international studies with a focus on global and national security and intelligence. So all we talk/read/write about is terrorism, genocide, WMDs, and other fun negative shit. The thing that sucks is I/we know the toll doing this major takes on people, but I love it in a way. Because I want to help, but it just depresses me how fucked up people can be. 080402 ... stree ball you sound like a smart person, check yourself into rehab and fight the habit man, don't let the shit of the world get you down. for every bad thing out there there are two good ones. 080403 ... Em vulgar, it sounds like school is just pushing you to drink even more. you need to get away from these things that are enabling you. rehab rehab rehab, we are all saying it. 080403 ... vulgar I just don't know what I would do though. Without school and alcohol. They're my release, savior, hell, and burden. And I just don't know life without the either. And am afraid of it frankly. I know everyone is screaming "rehab," but that is not something I want. I went 1 and 1/2 days a few days ago without drinking and felt awful. I yelled at my roommates and my girlfriend over nothing. Also I constantly felt pain throughout my body, and almost uncontrollable urges to cause damage to something. I just want someone to sit with me while I drink is what it is. I'm fine with dying I think. I just hate being alone while I do it. I just want someone to talk to and to listen. But no one does. 080411 ... vulgar I'm just afraid. I'm not one to be afraid, but I am. I am afraid of everything that comes with quitting. 080411 ... sameolme Living in fear is a kind of death. Sobriety is the adventure of life . You will learn to conquer fear . Get help, you can do it. 080411 ... megan holden, i'm here for you. i mean that. i know you don't think i am, and i know you would like to forget the embarrassing times we spent together, but i do care about you and always will. if i can do anything at all, let me know. seriously. i'm praying. 081220 ... jane three bottles of jameson, bye 090204 ... unhinged borderline, or maybe i'm just kidding myself when i say that. i could drink a six pack a day, or a bottle of wine. at the moment i am fervently avoiding any forms of liquor. and the only solution i see to this problem is to start smoking a pipe again, which is not much of a solution at all. at least it would give my genetically inferior liver a break. really and objectively, i_wonder what it is about myself i run from. the chemical betrayal my cells inflict on me at this time every year gets more and more difficult to deal with alone, sober. 090205 ... yoink yeah winter sucks everyone should move 090209 ... megan I'm so sorry holden. I wish I would have known to reach out sooner. 160801 what's it to you? who go blather from