Sobriety

Drunk "jennitalia" is more fun that her sober counterpart. Not that I'm boring or anything sober, just a lot more outgoing, particularly towards men. If I were an angry or sad drunk, I wouldn't indulge as often as I do, but since I have a good time and so do my friends, I see no problem.

 

I did the usual teen drinking and then turned 18 and did the usual late teen binge drinking. I was 20 when I woke up in my shower, with my apartment flooded, my roommate about to break down my door with an axe (don't ask), covered in vomit and inches away from drowning.

My body stopped playing along when I tried to drink again. I drank approximately 50 shots of Absolut citrus the night before the above incident and was coherent and reasonably stable getting home. I watched my dad put away a bottle of rum a night when I was a kid and not show any visible signs of being drunk - so I'd thought I just had the old mans iron constitution. It was humbling to be a two beer screamer after that. Humbling being another word for humiliating.

I went of drinking for a while, I was embarrassed. I drank lightly for about 6 months - felt more ill then pleasantly drunk - so I started doing recreational drugs. Mostly amphetamines - but anything I could do without a needle that wasn't cocaine really. I did that for about 2 years. Towards the end I was binge drinking and using at the same time.

I got to the point where speed or E on a Saturday night would give me a come down that would last till Thursday. I was having depression problems and sleep problems and anxiety problems. My memory had gone to shit. I had gone from a child prodigy who qualified for Mensa entry to border line retarded. I decided to quit.

I went cold turkey for a while. I had a few slips but I backed off enough that I eventually cleaned up. 6 years later - I'm on a handful of psycho actives every morning to manage the long term side effects and remaining employable. But my brain works now. Mostly.

I drink occasionally. All the prescription shit that I'm on means it's not terribly common. A couple of shots of vodka to celebrate new years, the occasional beer. I've drunk less alcohol in the last 2 years then I drank on an average weekend at the height of my attempts to party myself to death.

Honestly, my life isn't that much different in terms of the good times. I still party. I still relax and mellow out and have crazy fun when I go out. I just do it sober now, without slipping (as often) into the raging dickhead mode that characterized my one drink/one pill too many stage. Learning to go to my happy place because of the environment - the music and the people and the space, without the mental lubrication took a while. But quitting (well, drastically reducing and allowing my physician to supervise) intoxicants didn't change who I was or what I was like as a person, or where I was trying to get when I went out for a good time. I just had to decide if learning how to be myself without the intoxicants was worth the effort - and when the alternative was an asylum or an early grave - it wasn't a hard choice.

I'm still basically a junkie. Temptation is a bitch and the longer I've been sober, the harder it is to turn down a cone or a drink or a pill. I watch the visualizations on my 360 when it's being used as an mp3 player for parties and my hands shake thinking about hallucinogens. I watch the Pendulum live DVD or go to a rave and I want that tiny orgasm in the back of my brain every time I touch something soft and silky. A teenager's skin floating across my finger tips on a dance floor where I have no concerns about how the people around me see me. My jaws are chattering thinking about this shit.

But there's nothing important in my life that's not better now then it was in those days. The things when I was raving that were better then they are now are mostly long term side effects of drug use and binge drinking. I'm not at all opposed to drug use or drinking - but I'm a pretty good example of what can go wrong when you don't do it in moderation.

 

I'm an alcoholic, not a drunk. I do other things on occasion that I really shouldn't do (for professional reasons), but not all scary-like. In honest terms, I'm not really sure what "sober" means. If your 50% sober 90% of the time and hammer-toothed the other 10%, is that just as bad as being "not sober" 100% of the time. So yeah, that's how I'm rockin' it. So in no-uncertain terms, this guy ain't going to be "sober" until...who knows? A kid might do the trick, not really sure though.

Don't smoke cigarettes kids.

 

Despite smoking pot, meth, ketamine and GHB laced pot, I never smoked cigarettes. That shit'll kill ya.

 

I really wish someone would have stapled that statement into my forehead when I was 13 riding around burning pot with all the older kids trying to look cool. Fuck cigarettes.

 

As a few others have said, blacking out is the major downside to alcohol for me. I started drinking when I was 18, I'm 22 now, and I already notice that my memory cuts out way more. I never got the whole "if you don't remember last night, you must have had a good time!" thing; if I don't remember last night, I assume the worst and worry about if I did anything seriously fucked up. And I don't know if it's a chemical thing, or if I just worry about the stupid things I may have done, but I always feels depressed--like, actually depressed--the next day. It's part of my hangover.

Anti-focus: Marijuana! I love it. It affects everybody a little differently, but for me it just makes everything better. I watched Robocop last night after smoking a joint and it was fucking hilarious! (I would love to have seen the audition for the part of Robocop... it would just be a bunch of dudes who are really good at doing the robot. No other skills would matter at all.)

The only downside of pot, for me, is that I get paranoid really easily. If I go to a movie high, for example, I'm always paranoid that some hardcore conservative is going to smell it on me and try to get me kicked out of the theatre or something (which is ridiculous, especially since I live in fucking Vancouver).

 

I was the average drinker in college, but whereas my buddies slowed down, I continued. Sometimes alone. I needed something to take the edge off as I always felt I was running 24/7. I could never just relax. Although exercise helped with the physical aspect, my mind was still racing.

About 2 years ago my doctor prescribed an SSRI which I was hesitant about. It's helped some, but I feel the effectiveness wearing off. Instead of going back for the doc to experiment a new pill on me, which I want no part of, I started smoking pot.

Now I smoke a few days a week and I finally get the balance I've craved. It's gotten to the point I'm looking to quit my prescription.

When pot is eventually legalized, I'll switch to thc pills or something similar that doesn't have the carcinogenic effects of combustion. My drinking which used to be a few 12 packs a week has gone down to maybe one 12 pack a week.

 

This thread came at the perfect time because I was thinking of taking a break from drinking in another failing attempt to quit smoking. I managed for four months last spring, but had a couple when I was drunk and it was all over. 3 the first day, 5 second, and so on until I was smoking a full pack per day again. I have little doubt that smoking is what's going to kill me if I don't manage to permanently let it go. Which uh, will hopefully be many years down the road.

I'm a heavy drinker and won't usually take part in a party that doesn't have large quantities of booze. What really annoys me though is people who think it's better to do everything high. I used to smoke hash and weed (still do on rare occasions) so I understand the appeal, but it drives me nuts when someone is stoned 24/7. You want to rent jetskis when we go to beach today? Yeah dude, I have to get baked for that. Want to go to a football game? That's so fun to watch when you're stoned.

Plus, it's impossible to organize anything with these people. Remember that 'but then I got high' song. Yeah, that's pretty much what happens. I used to hang out with a lot of pot smokers, but have had to shift and find new friends because it got so damn annoying.

Edit: I skipped over this before I posted. QED.

And for the record I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting to get high often. I'm just saying that for a sober person being around stoners is difficult.

 

I was a weird kid. I didn't touch a thing until age 18, when I started drinking. I had a few bad experiences with a few different substances and have since learned to recognize and respect my limitations. I have issues up to my eyeballs, but alcohol abuse isn't one of them.

Someone smarter than me once said, "It's a problem when you can no longer accept or recognize the consequences of your actions." I can and do. When that changes, so will I. Know thyself, motherfuckers.

 

After seeing the damage my alcoholic, drug-addicted, gambling uncle did I made a conscious decision to keep everything in moderation. I remember being a kid and my uncle crashing with my family because he had nowhere else to go. At the time he was just a drunk who owed a lot of people a lot of money. My dad told him he needed to join AA or move along. With two small kids in the house he wasn't going to enable a drunk. The next morning my uncle was gone without a trace. At the time I didn't know what was going on. I just remember watching my mom cry. A lot. My uncle disappeared for 20 years and is now the most pathetic excuse of a man you'll ever meet.

My vices have included smoking and drinking. I used to smoke about a pack a week. I quit because I started thinking about my health and that smoking probably hindered my cardio endurace. And, when I lived alone I got in the habit of drinking alone. It was fine when I'd just have a glass of wine, but sometimes thanks to issues going on in my life I'd drink to excess. It feels really pathetic puking in front of your pet. Nope, no great time with friends down the street. I just drank a bottle of wine alone. Depressing.

I feel like I'm mostly done with drinking. I probably drink twice a month. Most of the time I have a 5 am wake-up in the back of my mind, and I've had enough hangovers to remind me how much they suck.

 

I never drank at all in high school. I'd like to say it was because I thought it would interfere with playing soccer, but it was mostly just because I was afraid of what my parents would do if they found out. When I got to college and didn't have to worry about coming home drunk every night, I started drinking and I was trying hard to make up for lost time.

I drank anywhere between 3-5 nights a week and never really had any problems. Then one night I apparently decided to chug vodka. I woke up in the hospital the next morning and had no idea how I got there. A doctor came in and told me my BAC had been .29, my friends hadn't told him that I had stopped drinking and was just throwing up for three hours before they brought me in. The doctor just sat down and pretty much said that I was lucky to not have any permanent brain damage or even be alive. I can't even describe how horrible I felt. It was like I let all my friends and family down. Even though it wasn't intentional, I felt like I had attempted suicide. Calling my mom the next day to tell her what had happened was the most humiliating and shameful thing I've ever done.

I'm not totally sober now but I'm way more careful ever since that happened. I still like to drink on the weekends and go to parties. It's easy to fall into the binge drinking lifestyle in college so I feel responsible for my friends when we drink. It made sound bitchy to tell your 21 year old friends to slow down or stop drinking, but I'd rather do that than find one of my friends in a bathtub covered in his own vomit.

 

Subitos post is a situation as similar to mine as you are going to find.

I also didn't drink throughout highschool, since I lived at least 25 minutes away from any party and my parents wanted the car home each night. My friends were all involved and seemed to enjoy drinking, but I always thought it wasn't for me.

Once I arrived to college though, I started to drink. I am what I like to call a weekend alcoholic. I have never drank more than 3 times in one week, even into my sophomore year...but when I drink I drink to get drunk. There have been a couple of occasions where drinking has gotten me in trouble, most recently where I finally confessed to a middle school friend that I was in love with her [this girl was the girl of my dreams back in the day] and we ended up making out that night for awhile, but the next day she decided that it would be entirely too awkward for her to see me anymore. Situations like that where shit just hasn't worked out because I was drunk. I would always lay off the alcohol for a week or two, but then be back on it.

It doesn't help that my roommate and suitemmate both are excessive drinkers. My suitemate's family has a problem with alcohol abuse too, and we have tried to stop, but just gave up after the first semester [you could say we have now embraced it, but that sounds like we support it...he has to work extra hard to get his alcohol].

I am a very cautious person in nature, so I have only been blackout around 3 times, with only one of the times attributed to me personally understanding what I was drinking, and that I was intending to blackout [>_<]. I am always sure to drink a lot of water, and due to my friends being heavy drinkers, I have learned to watch my alcohol intake. There is one single most important thing is knowing when you have had enough...and to never push past that.

Sobriety is especially important to me around test times, but if I have nothing due for a week and a Friday night is coming up...you can bet your ass I will be having a few drinks.

[After reading through this, it sounds more like just my drinking habits, but hey....not too far off topic.]

I don't have any vices other than drinking...although I play penny poker online. [put in 5 dollars, hovered around 5 dollars for awhile now]

 

I really only have one problem with alcohol. I've been drinking since I was 14 and there has been a consistent consensus amongst everyone regarding what kind of drunk I am. Apparently, no one can ever tell when I'm drunk for the vast majority of the time. I never "want" a drink. If a drink is available I'll have some, sometimes some too many but apparently no one can ever tell how drunk I am. Until I black out. I don't know what happens to me when I black out. I turn into a menace. Not a menace in that I start fights and break shit, I am actually quite calm. I just become a devious, lying, manipulative sack of shit. For some reason as soon as I black out I make up the craziest shit and manage to get other drunkards to believe it. These lies are all basically lies told to make myself look like I am the fucking emperor of the world and everyone else is below me. It is really pretty sickening. Days after this are really quite miserable because I have to admit to people that I am a liar and apologize.

Luckily I seem to have a better handle on things in that my blackout nights have gotten very few and far between. In my first year of college (probably the peak) this would happen about once a month. It has slowly gone down to the point where I haven't blacked out in about a year. I'd like to keep it that way for the rest of my life.

 

I know you wanted to stay out of the whole alcoholism thing in this thread, but it's impossible to discuss sobriety without confronting alcoholism a bit. And that's ok. I've truly enjoyed and been enlightened by reading through the troubles everyone here has with fucking booze, and I'm sure many of us that haven't posted have their stories.

I plan on trying out that whole sobriety thing here soon, for whatever that's worth. I can't keep consuming 2 cases of beer a week alone, NOT counting going out and all that. Sure I plan to supplant it with pot, but I can deal with pot. Booze rips my world apart.

 

I've tried sobriety exactly once. It happened after I got blackout drunk and came to in a drunk tank with my brother. I was charged with public intox, him with underage consumption. I decided maybe that was the wake up call I needed. I made it roughly two months. The only real problem I had with sobriety was how boring life was. My entire social life consisted of what bar we were drinking at that night.

After I was sober 98% of those bars, and those people were boring. I tried to make new friends, and found them to be boring also. Since then, I have learned this is what the midwest is all about. There is absolutely nothing to do there other than drink. People would rather go through life as ignorant pieces of shit, than try to learn or do something new. As of now I am traveling around the country (thanks work!) and trying to find a new place to live, where there are interesting fun people to hang out with.

After my brief stint with sobriety I mainly picked up the bottle again to make life more fun. I was tired of not having any friends, or anything to do outside of sit on my couch and read/watch TV. Now I only get blackout drunk maybe once a month. That may seem like a lot, but for the longest time it was twice a week. Usually when I drink now it is just three or four drinks socially, not 20 like back in the day.

I really want to try sobriety again. But before I do that, I have to have a real social circle set up of fun people that I can do things with outside of drinking.

 

I've been sober just over 2 years, and I know I could not have done it with out the fellowship of AA. I tried to stop drinking on my own for a year due to getting my second DUI, and it was the worst year of my life.

When I was legally able to drink again I told myself that I was going to drink like a "normal" person. I'd not black out anymore, just have a few drinks then stop. That lasted 7 days. I held onto the view that I wasn't an alcoholic since I didn't drink every day, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm 35 now and it took getting sober to learn about who I really am, what I want and can do, and who I am socially.

 

I knew I had a problem in 1998 when I looked back and saw that I drank everyday for a few years, it was only a few drinks a day though, but a few drinks in a 32 ounce cup is not a few drinks it is an issue. I started drinking to conteract not doing meth and/or cocaine on a daily basis which I had started doing to recover from drinking to much on a nightly basis.
I convinced myself that people with real drinking problems drank whiskey and since I did not drink whiskey I did not have a real problem, at least I was not doing drugs anymore.

In 2002 I got a DUI during a brief working stint in Wisconsin but I moved shortly after and avoided any license suspension by some quick manuevering, after the DUI I quit for 9 days, then I decided I would only drink beer and wine, that lasted exactly 2 days before I was back to booze, which included a generous amount of whiskey.
I drank alone alot, I still do not see why people feel shame for that, drinking alone on monday mornings before work is awesome, as is drinking a lone at 3am when I woke up and had to have a shot of vodka.
In 2006 I decided I had enough, I could not function with out vodka so I checked myself into rehab, ever been to Minnesota in December?
I do not attend AA meetings, although I do believe that program can work, any program can work if you follow it.
I do not know if I will ever drink again, I do know there is probably not anything that would make me drink today and really that is the one that counts.

If you are suffering from addiction, ask someone who has been through it, they will walk with you.

 

I came to the conclusion 3 months ago that drinking had somehow become a negative part of my life. I would barely even feel buzzed, continue to drink, and end up blacking out. My blacked out self is a completely irresponsible asshole. The worst part is that my overall demeanor wouldn't change, I'd still be talking normal and able to walk relatively straight. My friends wouldn't even realize how drunk I really was.

Anyway, I gave up drinking for 2 months. I've slowly started to have a single beer with dinner or a few drinkings when out with friends. However, I keep track of my friends and drink slowly.

If my self control lapses and I black out again I may need to stop for good. We shall see.

 

Alternative Focus: Computer games.

Sorry, I'm an introvert and prefer my own company a lot of the time, which means I spend a lot of time by myself, so I fire up the PC. I really enjoy games. FPS, RPG, RTS, Driving games... all have their time and place. The only difference between 18 year old me and 27 year old me was the 18 y.o. me was trying to impress other people and interact socially and get out more. Now, at 27, I no longer give a fuck about most other people, since I've realised that most people in the city I live in are complete and utter retards and not worth my time, so I indulge what I want to do more. However, I only fire up the games when I have nothing else to do and am literally just passing the time - games don't replace the stuff I actually need to do (e.g. dishes, laundry, showering), so I guess I'm not a complete addict, merely a high-functioning one.