Alcoholism

I am not an alcoholic.My problem was crack; for almost 4 years. But I got clean in AA. I used to believe that AA was the ONLY way to get sober (or clean) and the only way to STAY sober. I also believed that once you cross the line from drinking heavily to being an alcoholic, that you could never drink successfully again. I believed (and I MAY be correct about a couple of these things) that once you’re an alcoholic that you can not control your drinking. Once you had that first drink, you could not stop. And once you start drinking again that you actually are right back where you were when you were drinking before. That you pick up right where you left off, that you don’t have a choice. My sponsor, The Big Book, and many,many, alcoholics verified these things for me. If I am wrong about any of this, it would be my first sentence. I guess rehab helps with alcoholism. And though I did not believe this for years, it MAY be possible for an alcoholic to quit drinking on his own. But I think this is a very small minority. There are also a small minority who can get clean by alternative methods. Possibly with a psychiatrists help or a drug counselor, or anti-buse, or other ways. When drinking disrupts your life, then you need to stop. If every time you drink it causes problems you should simply not be drinking. AA has a good track reciord. It has helped MANY so-called “hopeless alcoholics” stop drinking, and stay stopped. It has helped people who have lost everything to recover, and enjoy a better quality of life. It has helped people who dropped out of society to re-integrate into being productive members of society. It has helped people from all walks of life all over the world to get sober. I can’t say everything I want to say here, there’s not enough room. I am kind of directing this at you, obviously, Mortimer. But if ANYONE thinks they have a problem with alcohol, and want to quit, I think reading the basic text of AA ( “The Big Book”) would be the best start. It’s an easy read. It can answer a lot of questions about alcoholism and about how AA works and how it can help.

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The strange thing about me was that I was that minority- i detoxed at home over the summer last year and didnt go to AA. I just gritted my teeth and endured withdrawal.

It was ugly.

My evaluator said that I had one of the worst cases of paranoid schizophrenia he had seen, but that I had very strong positive symptoms and low negative symptoms. He said my ego was very strong and that my ego was the reason I was functioning, working out and doing well in college.

I am egotistical. It’s how I function, and apparently it does pretty ■■■■■■■ well, because lots of the people on this forum have a jealousy problem with me. It is a fact that I am a class 1 powerlifter, i weight 165 and my three lifts total is 1105lbs, just 55lbs away from Master rank and that my GPA is a 3.96. I am pretty tired of people calling me out as a liar or a megalomaniac- I have numbers to back up what I say.

I just have strong discipline. As a teenager I went to an international high school and made a 3.9 and was headed towards ROTC, everyone respected me for being a martial artist and a great student. Schizophrenia struck me halfway through my senior year and I bitched and moaned but I stayed highly functioning.

This isnt directed at you, @77nick77, you’re one of the most put-together people on these forums. I just dont take disrespect well. No one who personally knows me insults me in the slightest, I am known as dangerous because I have 4 belts in Krav Maga, am a competitive powerlifter and am clinically insane. Before meds, I just challeged people to fights if they had a problem with me. No one ever accepted. I just don’t like when people who are in no place to talk down to me take the liberty to do so. If they have freedom of speech to talk ■■■■, I have freedom on speech to tell them to get a life and quit chomping at disability check’s tits and go to school while psychotic and make a 3.5 like I did.

Im not in a good mood. I have two finals back to back tomorrow morning and someone on this site insulted me.

Mortimer, I admit I got a little bugged when you said words to the effect that you were the highest functioning person on here. But that was my own insecurity. I personally don’t like to say my recovery is any better or superior to anyone else. But like they say in AA. “If you talk the talk, then, you’ve got to walk the walk”. And you walk the walk. And back up your claims. So good luck. In real life, I wouldn’t be able to hang with you. I couldn’t keep up. But whether you are egotistical or not, I read a lot of your posts with interest. Anyway, I had three days to complete an assignment and it is due tonight by 11:00 pm. I put it off and I am just getting ready to start from scratch this minute! I have two and a half hours!

I know you are stressed with finals and a relapse lately, but you have no right to judge others and tell them to “quit chomping at disability check’s tits.” You don’t know everyone’s full story and are looking at things through the rose-tinted glasses of a teenager who hasn’t lived life yet.

The first time around in college when I got my BA I was also psychotic, I just wasn’t aware of it at the time but looking back I can say I was. I did well at school and went on to run my family’s business. Then psychosis and being un-medicated for years caught up with me. I am not able to work at this time and need the disability check to live, although I am returning to school in hopes that I can work at another occupation in the future. I do not have a full ride to school, live with mom and dad, or have them support me. I’m not lazy, I just can’t work right now.

I think it is in societies best interests and its responsibility to look after and take care of those that cannot do so for themselves. It is human nature and ethically the right thing to do. You may not agree and have every right to think so and voice your opinion. But there is no need to lower yourself and speak of it in such terms. You are an educated young man and I’m sure you can express yourself as such.

In regards to alcoholism… I worked in the alcohol industry for years as a liquor store owner. So, I’ve seen all sides to this disease (oh, the stories I could tell!). Personally for me AA was unhelpful because it was too triggering. I quit drinking on my own because I’m a better person without it. One of the reasons I sold my business (SZA relapse aside) was the more I learned about alcoholism the more I decided I could not take part in its progression in others. It morally wore me down and added to my stress and subsequent relapse. I have a copy of the Big Book and found that parts of it were helpful. I’ll get off my soapbox now. Cheers!

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I know I needed it. When I was trying to get off the streets and stop being homeless, I NEEDED the disability check. It got the roof over my head and place to get stable. Then it got me vocational training and off drugs and alcohol.

As far as AA? It did help me, but just like with my Sz, I also needed therapy and rehab and family on my side. My parents love me, but at the they were in NO position to be able to help me financially or with permanent living.

Disability kept me from being homeless again and helped me afford to get to help so I could get this job so I could get off disability and start paying in so anyone who is on my same path, but a little ways behind me, has a chance to change their life too.

I see it as I took from the well when I was in need of water… Now that I have water, I put into the well so that others who are in need can get help. Then when they have water, they will put back into the well… for me, in that sense… life is like a circle.

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Im gonna be 21 in a month, i was psychotic for over 2 years, molested as a child, bullied all my life and sent to catholic schools. I am not a teenager and I have lived life, I have more of a life than virtually everyone on this forum.

Im getting fed up with the jealousy of my recovery. Recovery happens to 20% of us, and all I get is talked down to, not a word of encouragement.

I earned my full ride to school and I was very psychotic and knew it and still functioned very highly. I quit drinking on my own practically cold turkey. I understand that you are ill, im not insulting you, I just don’t react well to people insulting me when they have no right to talk down to someone on a higher tier.

And by a higher tier I mean I am fully recovered and functioning more highly than the vast majority of normal people. Normal people dont all earn full scholarships and become competitve athletes and have a social life as well.

@anon40540444 is also recovered and he and I are friends outside of this site. People dont like recovered people for some reason.

For the record, because we are sort of on the topic. I’ve been working since I was 12 (selling blueberries) and paying into Social security since I was 19. I feel fine with collecting a check (and you should too, if you do), if I can suppress my nature to take on a second job. I’ve been too busy to call them…

People as a rule should try to be uplifting here. Everyone is on a different level, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is always an up to go to from where you are.

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Ive been stressed and having personal problems lately. I have some aggression problems, I apologize for being insulting.

I am narcissistic, I take too much pride in being mentally ill. Just because I functioned without meds doesnt mean other people should be expected to. I was headed towards applying to a naval academy or ROTC when I had my break, I have extreme discipline skills and am fortunate to be pretty bright. I just get frustrated with people and expect them to be like me. That’s not right.

I spent my teenage years as a straight edge and martial artist and went to an international school. My aggression overcame my psychosis, I relied on being angry to function. That’s not healthy and I am still scarred and troubled. It’s better for some to live off of disability than to be like I was.

Again, I am sleep deprived right now and suffered a psychotic break due to stress earlier this week. I get aggressive when I feel pressure, it’s fight or flight and I end up picking a fight with anyone and everyone. I’ve been surrounded by seven cops before for assault and pulling a weapon on someone, but that was before I was diagnosed, and I was incredibly drunk, I even pissed my pants. I had psychosis NOS at the time and was taken to a crisis assessment center instead of jail, and let go politely when I was sober and coherent the next morning.

I just get angry very easily and to get back to the point of this thread, I am usually a happy drunk, (was) i dont remember what all happened that night but someone must have insulted me or else I would have just gone to sleep. I’ve been drunk hundreds of times and only that one time was I mean.

Today I still have problems with aggression, obviously. I lay awake in bed blasting slipknot on my ipod a fair number of nights. I get it out constructively in the gym but I struggle with some vicious demons. Im sorry to rant, I slept 3 hours the past two days and feel troubled. I havent worked out since sunday and Im scheduled to meet on old buddy from grade school who is in ROTC now to workout tomorrow.

I understand. I once peed in my now sister-in-law’s bed after drinking a bottle of wine at a notorious school block party. The peeing happened after the party.
I’m having a hard time right now with my finals too. I haven’t read what I’m supposed to for Saturday’s final. I need to go over my lines for tomorrow. It sucks.

I don’t know about others, but back in my drinking days… just after I lost lucid control and just before I passed out was the window of Ugly.

I’d be happy, until I hit that window. Then I would be vile and horrid and scary. Then I would pass out.

It turns out that NONE of the men in my family are happy or lovey drunks. We’re all angry, hurtful drunks.

I do know of some people who didn’t use AA, but they did have a therapist and other means of outside reality check. AA is a very popular option with a high success rate, but it’s not the only option out there.

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I just wanted to say that I started drinking heavily in 1994 and stopped drinking in february 2010. I went to AA. They helped me a lot. After two years I felt I could stand on my own legs. I’ve had non alcoholic beer to food. It tastes great but it does not make me crave for alcohol. I don’t drink anything with alcohol and I feel so much better. No hangovers. No regrets. And all the money I save!

I’ve been thinking about going back to visit my old AA-group just to say hi and show them I’m still okay. I still have the books. I will keep them just in case.

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Haha. I texted my sponsor and said I was okay. He was very happy to hear from me and welcomed me to church this sunday to join them in a meating. I think I will go there. It will be nice to see if my old friends are still there.

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I had a doctor tell me I was a binge drinker, not an alcoholic. I went to a few AA meetings when I was 18. they said I was an alcoholic then. I quit on my own.
I never had the “pick up and your’re right back where you left off.” problem. In other words, if i had a drink it didn’t mean i would go on a binge for days or weeks at a time.
If i wanted to have one drink that’s what i would have. they say an alcoholic will just keep drinking. I would only keep drinking more drinks if that’s what I originally had planned to do, to get drunk.
I also found when I was 18 AA was actually a trigger. I had been sober for 4 months on my own. The last AA meeting I had gone to there was a guy who talked about going camping and bringing a keg of beer, and all the funny and stupid things that happened. Spent a half hour on his stories then about 5 minutes on how AA helped him and keep coming to meetings…Well, camping and keg parties had been my thing for a couple of years and it really tempted me…and I drank.
Most of my adult life has been sober, there have been binges and drunks, and I can get stupid…but there have also been times where I’d only have 1 or 2 drinks/beers and that’s all…
But I don’t drink at all now.

Well, the unspoken rule in AA, NA, and CA, meetings is not to glorify alcohol or drugs. It is often the newcomers who get detailed about their drug or alcohol use because they are new and don’t know any better. SOME sharing about their experiences are appropriate. Old-timers will share stories but I found that most old-timers are more into talking about recovery and don’t talk about their exploits while drunk or high. But lots of newcomers tend to brag about their ‘using’. So maybe the guy who told the keg story was a newcomer. Maybe. And in your case (the trigger) that is EXACTLY why telling war stories of ‘using’ days is frowned upon and discouraged. I’m sorry you had that bad experience at the meeting that sent you out drinking. That one guy does not represent ALL members of AA. And that doesn’t happen at every meeting or at all meetings.

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@77nick77 - This was 1979, and EVERYONE who got up to speak did that ! maybe they have changed their policy since then. I also went a couple times in the 80s and was same, but we’re talking 30 years ago.
I noticed the same trend in some forms of Christianity in the 80s. Everyone wanted to hear your “testimony” and how bad you were in a sinful lifestyle. There was one book allegedly by a Satanist that was mostly made up just to grab a readers attention. It was more about satanism than Jesus!
I also know from a couple people who went in rehab programs that rehabs don’t allow war stories at all…it’s forbidden.

Good to hear of the change.

Sometimes it depends on what meeting you go to. But you’re right, I made it seem black and white. Each meeting has it’s own personality. Old timers tell stories too. But it does seem like in certain meetings that the more time someone has, the more they put the emphasis on recovery. Wow, 1979!! That’s going waaaay back. Did they even have cocaine that long ago? Lol.

LOL! yes, they had Cocaine even before the 1920s and it was in Coca Cola… But yes, it was around in 79. I messed with it a few times. first time was summer of 1980. there was no crack though, unless that stuff they called "freebase’ was like crack. It was mainly white powder that was around.

I’ve considered AA but not sure if I’m ready to go yet, I’m 26, I seem to have started up again though. I’m not sure AA would solve it as I need to come to terms with myself to beat it

I guess I haven’t crossed the line to where I can’t control my drinking, I still plan on drinking once or twice a month since I am giving up weed. I have to have some kind of release for my addicted mind. It’s already in the budget book. I have a friend that is a raging alcoholic and can’t get through the morning without a beer or two before work. That’s an alcoholic.

@jukebox

for me I dont drink casually , i never have,

if i drink it is minimum 6 to 20 , thats how i know i have problem with it, guess its just the cards i was drawn

i understand the release idea. which is why i do it. i need something, i cant smoke pot it just makes me psychotic so i avoid it

im hoping one day i grow out of it or maybe a woman comes along and sets me straight for my own good