Drinking too much - want to be normal

LegacyUser

I know there have probably been numerous threads about this but I didn't want to hijack them for my own ends.

I think I may be what is known as a "functioning alcoholic". I have a decent job but it is public sector and gives me the opportunity to turn up at 10am and do very little. I drink every day virtually. I am just back from the pub now, pissed yet drinking a can of carlsberg even still. This post may wander a wee bit. Please excuse me.

I have certain issues in my life concerning failure to fulfil my potential because of alcohol and I have tried to solve this by, well, drinking alcohol. I turn up to my job and I am certain people think I am a bollocks. I really should be wearing shirt and tie etc but I turn up wearing jeans and t shirt. I am usually f**ked for the first hour, trying to put contact lenses into my dried out eyes. I have spoken to my boss and thankfully he knows I am a problem drinker. The workplace has given me counselling which didn't work. I then went to my GP because I am fed up with this and I have been assigned a community addiction counsellor and I see her every week. It is helpful. I don't know if I am being too weak but I need to find strategies to guide me from the drink.

I will go into work tomorrow and be f**ked. I will not go on the coffee break with coleagues as I will have the "fear" and terrible paranoia and will just want to be alone. I have a meeting with my manager tomorrow where he will ask for evidence of my progress and I think I will become unstuck there. I have done nothing for ages. My job bores the hell out of me but it is fairly well paid. I have these issues and they get me down and I know I should cop on and get on with it etc but I cannot explain how the things are. I go into work feeling absolutely sh1te in the morning but by 3.30pm I am dying for a pint, and it is a temptation that I regularly succumb to. So I then drink with "friends" (read beer buddies) until way late and then arrive home with some auld fast food and sleep in my bed feeling wrecked. I then wake up in morning feeling bloody awful (sometimes having p1ssed the bed) and have 5 minutes to get ready for work. Then I go into work and I am crap at everything.

The counsellor I am seeing is helpful and recently I have had my first few drink free nights in a long while but I feel they have been token gestures because I have drink free nights and then the next night I think that because I have had a drink free night that gives me license to have a bellyful. I feel pathetic as I write this as I am a fairly clued in guy in all other respects and can see all the ways I am going wrong.

Drink has ruined the majority of my adult life so far and I want it to stop. I had such potential but I f**ked it up and that hurts me so much. All I want is to have a reasonably successful career and a nice wife and a few kids, but instead I have let my parents down. They, justifiably so, had such high hopes for me and although they have said that they would just be happy as long as I gave up drink I know they saw me as so much more. They are just settling for something less. There is nothing I want more than a job I enjoy, a wife/girlfriend/fiancee I love and some children and some security. Surely that is not a great deal to ask. Thing is I could have had that so so very easily but I f**ked it up because of drink, so what do I do to help me forget about this, well I drink.

I have no wish to quit alcohol altogether, I would just like to be like friends of mine who will enjoy the odd beer, occasionally get locked but that would be the end of it and could quite easily go a length of time without alcohol. Those guys go skiing, go to New York for the week, support a family. all of which I could potentially do but I drink.

I'd be grateful if anyone could try to give me strategies to help wean me off the abuse of drink. I know that my situation could be a lot worse but it is hellish to me. Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks in advance Boardsies.

Sorry for the big long post.

mynamesjay

You need to take a break from it to get your head together. Theres no easy way

Beetlebum

mynamesjay wrote: »

You need to take a break from it to get your head together. Theres no easy way

Well I think he's aware of that, no need to state the glaringly obvious.

Firstly, fair play to you for recognising that you have a problem and from what you've described, it's quite severe.
Your post is very open and honest and you're not in denial about your drinking or about the fact that alcohol is
preventing you from having a life that you'd be proud of.

I have a lot of experience with alcoholism. My mam died of acute alcohol posioning and my dad is an alcoholic.
Thankfully though, he hasn't had a drop of alcohol is over a year. I never thought I'd refer to hima s a recovered
alcoholic. He was a heavy drinker for almost 40 years. Even the death of his wife didn't stop him, in fact it made
him worse. I remember one day coming home and counting 40 cans beside his car. No joke. He ended up being
rushed to hospital last Christmas after drinking himself into such a state of panic that he wasn't making any sense
and was screaming his head off nonsensically. Frightening stuff. That was the truning point for him and if he can do
it, so can you. Prior to that incident he wouldn't even acknowledge that he had a problem. he was under the impression
that if he was drinking at home, not in the pub, then it's not really drinking. Crazy mentality but he believed that. It doesn't
count if you have a few cans at home.

He has never attended AA although I personnaly think he should have and that you should. It will help you to see that you're
not alone in your addiction and that there are plenty of success stories out there. It's really a case of taking it one day at a time.
Also, if you're eating take aways and not getting even nutrition then your mind will be polluted also. In addition to that you're not
getting proper quality sleep and that affects your mindset too. Stock up on loads of fruit and vegetables, brown rice, fish etc and even
that's a small step in the right direction.

have ameeting now so gotta go but will write again in a while. This subject is close to my heart and I really hope you can sort yourself out.