Stop Drinking

Advice... Mine would be to address the root cause. As you already mention yourself: Alcohol is a drug to cover wounds and pain, and in some dark way it's working. The price is very hefty, too hefty, and I don't want you to lose your wife and marriage.

Did you ever receive professional support or did you ever join a support group for your complex trauma? Even if it takes time to get support it's worth it. As important it is to care for the alcohol: You'll have to take on the other beast, too.

Make your wife your companion on this way and tell her you will sometimes need some advice on the right direction, or find some other companions. Don't go alone. You are not alone.

I don't intend this as a scare tactic post, but the scary part is what I'm intimate with because it's what got me. I can't in good conscience give you some more therapy or support based advice - even if good - while sitting on what worked for me (because it had to, not because it was an attempt).

Secondly, I see my tale from both sides now - its reality and its prevalence. I did my drinking in a previous career, but now I drive people to the hospital and have plenty of opportunity to see that I was hardly unique.

I think there is an assumption that dying from alcohol generally involves dying in your sleep. Or on the toilet like Elvis. Or in some other generally passive, relatively peaceful, medical-like death. That the wife who has put up with so much already will wake to find you just dead in bed. That's not how this works.

How this works, at least in enough cases that I break my silence here like I rarely do in the back of the car, is a trauma-like, bloody, violent death (or near death). Maybe on the toilet like Elvis, but that just puts the bloody mess in the bathroom. This is not a given, of course, but I argue more likely than ones wife finding them peaceful.

We drink and drink and are still young until you aren't and you have cirrhosis. Less commonly talked about is how this constricts the flow of blood through your liver. This isn't a traffic jam, the blood goes a different route to get to the heart. Besides a lot skipping your portal vein and its intended liver function, it takes a path up by your esophagus. Those veins aren't built to handle this additional pressure. They bulge, varicose veins right above your stomach - esophageal varices.

Eventually the varices leak. The blood goes into your stomach, which at this point can handle the volume. The body digests most of the blood, but the heme remains and starts to colour your shit tarry black. But then they pop. The stomach can't handle the volume, and blood kinda makes you want to vomit. So you do, and it's full of actual real blood. Kinda like a big version of the loogies with blood ignored for a bit. This is now an emergency and the decision point (maybe, if lucky) between a hospital and the next big pop causing you to vomit your lifeblood wherever you are before dying.

I somehow made it within minutes by asking my wife to drive me to the hospital. I had to lay in the back seat. 8 units of blood. Lowest hematocrit seen in the hospital. Wife told to come say goodbye. I woke up a week later. A doctor just chill-like said "So, you drank a lot, hey? You can't do that anymore." And I didn't. I never really thought about it. I didn't have urges that weren't wholly superseded by "you can't do that" and the now more direct drink = die correlation. It's been almost ten years. My wife has even started drinking casually again, no urges - even though I'm near done with everyone because of Trump's America. I was sober until cannabis legalized around here, but it's been no gateway for me to booze.

I tend to only bring this out with people who are on the way to the hospital, or are debating because they've called us. Embarrassment, sure, but more because I feel bad. I didn't have the struggle in the mental way, but I've had plenty of experience with the bloody part. From my mouth, on the floor after someones wife phoned 9-1-1, and in the toilets of those smart or scared enough to call at the last minute.

You can do this. I know it's physically possible. I've seen a lot of people that make me confident it's mentally possible, but I didn't go that route. Don't go my route.

I don't have any wisdom, or advice. But i want you to know I'm rooting for you, whatever that may be worth.

Posting here is a great first step. AA meetings can be intimidating at first, but if you're ever white knuckling it, they can be a godsend.

I try to look at my drinking this way, I just can't anymore. Much like how I can't breathe underwater, I can't drink alcohol. My life is no lesser for it, in fact, it's far better than I ever could have achieved if I had kept drinking.

I remember when I quit... I was thinking about string theory, and how there are different timelines of my life which deviate based on my decision making. I thought that, surely, if there was a timeline in which everything in my life went to shit, I lost my marriage, my will to aspire, my everything, surely that would be the timeline in which I kept drinking.

So I decided to explore a different timeline. In this one I'm healthier than I've ever been, with money in the bank, and dreams I'm reaching out to.

You can do it too. ❤️‍

P.S. I also have CPTSD, and quitting drinking was essential in my path to facing it. It was only when I got sober that I could confront my past, and move beyond it. When I was an active alcoholic, I was using alcohol to run from my demons, but when I stopped and faced them, my symptoms let up immensely.

Dude, you got this. Try not to think of it as a shame that you can’t drink anymore, but a pride you don’t need to anymore.

You’re not giving up anything. I got the best sleep back. I wake up clear without an alarm for a decade now. It is such a good feeling, and most of all: I remember I had good feelings.

You got this, but make sure people know and can support you. Ditch the people who keep pushing “just have one drink with us”.

Best of luck

We are here for you!!! More of us than you may think. 😘

I tried and failed for years and years. Finally got a prescription for Naltrexone and just passed 4 months sober, the longest streak in my entire adult life. Never made it more than a few days previously. I am seeing a therapist, there is still work to do, but I fully believe the Naltrexone was the missing piece I’ve needed to finally achieve some kind of success. Just an option worth considering

I thought you were talking about coffee the whole post and this was just a shit post. I just clicked on it and saw coffee on top and didn't look that closely.

Do you have someone to help work through your CPTSD? If not, I think this might be a great place to start.

There are a decent number of lurkers here. Honestly, we wouldn't be here unless we thought our drinking was at least somewhat problematic but that doesn't mean we're all ready to quit (hi).

In my case, I have a hard time stopping once I start. I do a decent job with pacing as my goal isn't total inebriation, but I drink more nights a week than I'm happy with and if I start in the afternoon on a weekend I'll easily drink 4-6 beers which isn't a crazy level but it's more than I would like.

I've had a few dry months over the years, but have never really mustered the desire to stay sober long term. Going into a dry month knowing it's only a month made it easier for me.

Do you know why you drink? Do you do it in social situations because that's just what you and your friends do? Do you do it after a particularly long day? Do you do it to turn the volume down on your inner monologue? Is it simply a ritual? Is it a coping mechanism for an underlying issue?

IMO figuring out why you drink, and trying to tackle that, is much more effective than beating yourself up about the fact you drink. You can even talk this out with your wife as she'll hopefully want to help.

For me, my drinking is related to a mix of a particularly long day, turning down my inner monologue, and ritual. Thankfully, the last two of those gave a few easy substitutions. Tinkering/working with my hands and reading (books, long form articles, etc) are great ways of quieting down my inner monologue. Seltzer water and decaf tea (due to usually doing this in evenings) are good ritual substitutions. The trick is finding a good way to deal with a long day - especially when I just want to veg. I'm still working on that one as some of the easier mechanisms for me, like video games, don't work as a parent is difficult. I can nurse a beer while doing the bed time routine. I can't completely disappear.

Beyond asking yourself why you drink, it's probably a good idea to find an active community to engage with. There are lurkers here, so if you're willing to post more you'll likely find people like me who jump in the comments. You could seek out something physical/local or another virtual space.

Stay strong 💪🙏

Posting here is a big deal, and likely your first step to real change. Keep checking in. I have found what works best for me is saying that I've retired from drinking. It truly was a second job (sometimes first..) and now I'm retired. Been there, done that.

Your wife is on her own journey coping with this and will likely not recognize your progress as quickly as you'd like. Give her grace. Give yourself grace. We're all rooting for you!

Welcome, we're glad to have you here.

I'm glad you have an appointment with a therapist, and I really hope they provide effective help.

There are a number of suggestions for other supports in the pinned posts here, I personally used a grab-bag, "try it and see" approach to stopping drinking.

Welcome here buddy. A bit of a TLDR, here is my story with what helped me, hoping it will help you as well.

I can only encourage you to follow that step and tell you that it is not as hard as it seems. I actually find it very easy.

I've been drinking for more than 20 years. It came to a point where going out without drinking was not an option. Not drinking when the sun was on the balcony meant being bored. Not drinking while playing video games meant not really enjoying the game. My friends and I always met in bars to drink in the evening (since being young adults) but never to do something else in the afternoon (whatever that is, swimming in the lake, climb a wall, anything else).

My wife and I divorced in 2023, drinking was not the only reason but it was clearly one of them, and an important one. As your wife, she was done with trying to save me and quit that job. That year was kind of a shit roller coaster with periods of abstinence followed by very down and drowned periods when I had an excuse to drink again.

I started to frighten myself by having suicidal ideas, by starting to think that it would be easier, how I could do it, what I'll left to whom, how my parents would react. Stuff like that... That was a strong signal.

So I went to an addiction psychologist but it was honestly useless, to me at least. Talking to a shrink is cool, but it could have been any, not an addiction expert one.

I just took the decision to never drink again or else... My brain is convinced that drink = die, as @[email protected] said in his message here.

I know, it can sound silly or effing personal development bull', but in my mind I only had two options:

• Change nothing, continue like that and flatline myselft at around 50 after a last decade of decadence. Becoming a fat belly sad and depressed lonely wreck that no one want to love.

• Never drink again and try to live. Take care of myselft again and live the life I am supposed to live. Why never again? At first because it is easier to say no to the first drink than the following 10. Later because you realize it is poison and not necessary, and it taste bad so there's clearly no reason to even have that 1st drink.

I like living and there are still plenty of Arts and beauties to see in the world (even if it's only around my place). I also read that "being sober is a superpower" and was thinking "heck yeah I'd love to be a super hero!"

So I chose option 2 and decided on a date.

I had read the book "this naked mind" a year or two prior that decision and it worked on me, kinda. Placebo effect is strong on me and I know it, I believe in it. But "This naked mind" was only available in English (not my native language) and was "too american" to me. After a while I just took a sad event as an excuse to drink again.

So this time I decided to read the OP one, "The Simple Method" by Allen Carr. It is written by an English dude but was translated in my language and have way less of what me and my fellow countrymen call "american empowerment". So it clicked way better with my brain.

I took what I wanted from this book, teaching my brain about addiction and alcohol. Trying to teach my subconscious of the truth about alcohol in our lives, social interactions, education, culture etc.

I timed the reading of this book to have it finished by the last day I allowed myself to drink. I had a last stand, alone at home. It wasn't even an abusive one, just a quality one with expensive food and alcohol but without a huge hangover the next day. At midnight I was finished and started the counter of my new sober life.

Since then I don't think about it, I don't crave it, I don't want it. I go out in bars and social events and go home earlier without having regrets the next day (usually it is around 11pm when drinkers gets annoying and talks "in closed loop", that's when you leave). Or I go home in nice company because I'm not a drunk wreck. I look at my health, mental health, finances and overall life getting better and that is cool.

Hell, I even have two professionals barman working with me on trying to open an alcohol free cellar + bar + organizing public sober party events in my city. So being sober is becoming a business model in addition to a way of life.

A lot of good advice here. I will just give a shoutout to the Happy Sober podcast. Craig Beck does a good job of exposing the tricks alcohol plays on your brain.

I listened to all 200+ episodes in my first 30 days and it helped a lot.

Hey welcome, and congrats on becoming an ex-drinker, try not to let it get to your head hehe. You're lucky to have someone pulling for you, to help keep you from messing up. You'll never find a better friend and ally than the one who will call you on your shit like that.

Still, I know guys that got that ultimatum and didn't take it to heart. They wasted it, and now they're drinking alone. Real sad, but what can you do? Try to learn from it, I guess. Maybe thinking about those guys will keep you from joining their ranks. I hope so.

Feel free to DM me if you ever just want to chat one on one about whatever. :)