I need help

Liz, I appreciate your honesty and straight-forward no holds barred... I have been reading your posts, and believe I will need to re-read them each day to remind me.  I am not good at writing or journalling, or posting every day.  It is all I can do just to get through the day the last couple of days.  I go to bed early just to not have to sit there wishing I could have a drink.  I am so very proud for your month of sobriety, and look at it as inspiration.  Thank you for your posts, thoughts, and prayers.

Sandy

Hi Sandy! Welcome to the forum. I'm a straight shooter, so I'll give you my story straight. By 15 I was drinking a tall glass of rum with a splash of coke. I didn't have more for a year. When I did, I had a quart bottle of Anisette...to this day, black licorice makes me sick.  Waited another year, and would drink every weekend with my boyfriend who looked old enough to buy. This went on for years. One night at a club, I drank 12 black russians and then had the bad fortune of driving h ome. I got very lucky and made it safely, but looking back, I was such a fool. I'd have a little here and there, a glass of wine with dinner, a drink at a bar.  When I married my husband, we got a gift of a magnum of champagne which became my drug of choice. I must've had most of it and we both passed out on our wedding night.  About the time our daughter was 3, I was drinking daily. Making sure to buy Sunday's bottle on Saturday as Mass. had 'blue laws' at the time. My rock bottom was hearing my sister tell me she didn't want  Christine to be afraid to bring friends home from school "because her mothers' a drunk". That hit me RIGHT between the eyes.  I'm obsessive/compulsive (like we all are here) and when work sucked and my life seemed to also, I turned to wine and champagne to numb my life away. When she said that to me, it really made me admit to myself that I was an alcoholic. I'd put a 3 y.o. in hte car to drive to the packie (package store in Mass.) to buy another bottle since I plowed thru that one. To this day I am mortifiied that I put her life in danger for a drink. Shes' the only child I could have due to complications of type 1 diabetes and I can't believe I took such a risk with such a precous gift.   I didn't do meetings religiously, but did get the Big Book, I did every step too. I even tried skipping around on them and realized you can't. You have to get through them in order to fully grasp the next one. In my 21 years of sobriety I've gone to 5 or 6 meetings. Yesterday hubby and I went to an NA meeting. I'ts not my thing, I actually liked the women's meeting I found and plan to go tomorrow night.  The best advice I can give uou is join a meeting...get a sponsor...get dry, clean and sober. There is NOTHING SO FINE AS SOBRIETY...Because of that, I can enjoy my life, my adult married daughter, planning life and a retirement someday.  If you don't stop drinking, you m,ay not get to experience the future you think you have.  Take care,  Marie www.aa.org/bigbookonline. The first

Marie, I am glad to read your story as well as others who have been sober for so long now.  It is good to see there can be fun and life without having to anesthetize it one way or another.  I just need to keep reminding myself that right now because all I can think/feel at the moment is that I want another drink.  I need to find a meeting, you are correct.  Thank you for your reply and support. Sandy

Wow.  I had my WLS in March 00 and before that time, I rarely drank alcohol.  Maybe a glass or two of wine every now and then.  I met my husband in July 01 and started drinking with him.  We went out a few times a week and I loved the way the alcohol got in my system so fast!  I was a cheap date.  By Oct 02, I was pretty much drinking every day, and not just drinking, but drinking to get drunk.  I started blacking out and not remembering anything about Dec 02 and I have been drinking like that since I got pregnant in May...and then I stopped.  I still want it though.  My dad was a functional alcoholic and my mom was a T totaller.  I have seriously thought I have a problem and looked into AA, but the thing is, I don't believe in god, and I'm not all about the prayer thing.  Have I really traded one addiction for another?  Why can't I say I've had enough?  It's nice to know I'm not alone. Jenn