BWD, I hope you feel you can be honest here! but I know exactly what you mean. Like others, I often censor myself even to...myself!

Thanks for the encouragement folks.

It was hard for me to be open and honest even here because I knew that my wife was reading the board (with my full permission - she asked if it was OK and I said yes, but then found afterwards that I was unable to open up). We've re-negotiated though, and she's quite understanding as to why I'd prefer her not to read it. So, that should help... it's only my own cowardice now!

I don't actually remember my post about self-censorship, as New Year's Eve went quite badly for me; not sure if it was UKBlonde who talked about the days when one has the first drink and knows that one's in trouble, but that's exactly how it was that day. Over the course of the day/night I recorded sinking some 28 UK units, despite two Nal's and a ton of pot which often helps kill the craving. Later on, my wife also felt like drinking and so we got quite ratted before she went to bed and I carried on until I passed out (did manage to get to bed first, thank god). So, New Year's day was more or less a write-off due to hangover and shame.

Although the Nal usually works wonders with dealing with the desperate craving, it doesn't address my internal need to get out of my head (which I think is where AA has some merit, despite my intrinsic dislike of much of it). I've had chronic depression diagnosed for the last 30-odd years although probably existing before that; Prozac has worked wonders for me in that I haven't been suicidal for a long time, but again it doesn't get rid of the underlying despair that I feel. There's a whole raft of self-loathing, "if only"'s, and childhood memories that make me burn with shame - my memories go back to about age 3, and I find it very hard to reconcile things I did and thought then with my current adult worldview.

Before the holidays, there was a very nice overall downward trend on the consumption graph (punctuated by periodic binges, but the time between them seemed to be getting longer); over the holidays, though, I seemed to drink very heavily for a lot of the time. I was happy that I hadn't had any blow-outs especially on the first day and on Christmas day, but just seemed to lose the plot completely on New Year's Eve. A couple of weeks ago my wife said that she thinks that Nal's a pipe-dream for me, and I'm currently wondering if she's right. There was a significant part of me that *wanted* to get f---dup over the holiday.

BWD! I really enjoyed your thread this morning, I want to encourage you to hang in there. Those victories are what matters, don't be so hard on yourself. One of the best things I have learned here is to just enjoy yourself, so stop taking yourself so d*m seriously. No apologies needed here, you are ok just the way you are. Being able to be honest, number one to yourself and number two to others is the best thing we can do in life. To thyn own self be true!

Animals, Characters, Real or Fictional ... Too funny!

Hang in there, don't quit before the miracle happens, stay positive. You deserve it!!!

Zippy

BWD, here also to offer my support and two cents. It's hard for people on the outside to always see the change that TSM brings, especially when it gets rocky and seems like we are back to square one. As many people have discussed on this board, however, a lot of the changes comes inside our head, and it's a while before it translates to the reality. Hang in there!
Also, for what it's worth - people choose to get drunk sometimes. I think it's a natural and normal part of the human repertoire. The fact that you decided you were going to get drunk on NYE? not that big of a deal - I'm sure you were in good company. What TSM will hopefully give you is the ability to choose NOT to get fucked up more often than not. It doesn't mean that you'll necessarily NEVER want to get drunk again.

Thanks guys , I really appreciate everyone's feedback and support. Since New Year things have calmed down a lot, actually had 3 AF days since then. It seems that with me things build up to a crescendo where I act out the crappy behaviours, and then everything's OK for a while until the pattern repeats. It is getting further between the peaks in the pattern, but I'm concerned that the peaks maybe getting taller - kinda hard to tell though, because the holidays are always going to distort the trend.

Drinking on NYE wasn't in and of itself a problem for me; drinking to the extent of being an arsehole and having to start the new year by doing laundry was. That's the bit about uncontrolled drinking that I really dread more than anything else, I think - it just underscores the occasions where I lack any form of control. I find myself sucking back the beers, *knowing* what's likely to happen but carrying on regardless. My wife's understandably fed up with the whole thing, and is getting to the point of wanting to leave but feeling that she can't because she doesn't have an income.

Anyway, for now, it's the start of another week without any weekend disasters so nil desperandum, and nil illegitimum carborundum Just wanted to drop in and say thanks to everyone!

There seems to have been a lot of talk recently about drinking through habit, and it's been niggling at me for the last few days. I'm sure that my "routine" drinking is just habit, and that I need to make an active effort to break the routine. Fundamentally, I walk into the house at night, pat the dog, kiss my wife, put my lunchbox down, change my clothes, grab a beer and sit down. The more that continues, I think the greater the chance of the body habituating to the Nal and slowly overcoming it.

So, it seems to me that it's time that I start applying myself. Hopefully tonight isn't a good indicator as I had a couple of tins of beer (though I did pour some of the last one away), but I'm putting that down to my wife [unusually] wanting to drink tonight. It's amazing how well I can even lie to myself.

The fundamental fact of the matter, I think, is that I'm inherently incapable of handling life when sober and the prospect of doing so scares me. It's very tempting to think that if I can just deal with the big binges and all that crap then drinking 3 times the recommended limit is OK and doesn't force me to be sober outside of work hours. AA's aphorisms and some of the steps can be useful, I think, but they require constant repetition and reinforcement to work as evidenced by the periodic tales of those who thought they were cured and stepped out of the fold. And personally, I'm done with the enforced monotheistic morality and cult-like aspects. In my yoof I was a committed bible basher (managing to attend two churches which achieved national-news-worthy scandals) before becoming disenchanted by the whole thing; there are a disturbing number of similarities between the techniques used by those churches and by AA.

Off to bed now, looking forward to no hangover tomorrow. The hangovers seem to be less often now... most of the time I can stop now (woo hoo! The day I came home from Scotland on the train just before getting Nal was horrendous, nothing has been so bad since then!), now I need to work on not getting started at all.

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This post brought to you by HomeGrown StreamOfConsciousness [tm]. Although no animals were harmed, the cat was severely inconvenienced by his warm sport being commandeered. He is currently considering retaliatory action at 3am.

BWD: You are spot on. You need to start doing things to interrupt your habits and learned behaviors. While Nal is tearing up the rails of the reward mechanism freight train, you need to do some daily rerouting of your own.

It's classic stuff from places like smartrecovery.org. I'm not part of that world but I've used some of their techniques to break the evening pattern. No miracles but it helps.

Hang in there. You've come a long way since Scotland.

Just dropping in to say that my alcohol intake seems to have plummeted down after starting to make a conscious effort; quite a few AF days now, and interestingly a lot lower consumption when I am drinking. Saturday was AF (and also Nal-free, as I didn't have any real compulsion to drink) which is probably the first Saturday that I've not had anything to drink since leaving AA . It's starting to feel 'real' now that this problem may be beatable.

BWD! This is huge!

Compared to where you came from the lower units and the AF days are a significant accomplishment. I hope you are giving yourself some real credit and taking pride in what you're doing.

How are you feeling about the ambivalence you've described about a lower/non-alcohol future?

Can you tell us what week/month you are in so we can add it to the collective fund of knowledge?

Way to go, pal!

Thanks! I don't really think that there's much in the way of accomplishment, it's more a question of just doggedly "doing the right thing".

The ambivalence is still there, though possibly a bit less. I'm certainly not feeling a need to be drunk "all the time", but part of me still looks forward to the idea of a bender with the expectation that it'll be pleasurable [fortunately, they don't usually seem to be anymore, though I think twice there've been days where the Nal simply doesn't seem to have any effect and the beer went down Very Well, Thank You]. My birthday's at the end of April, and the addictive part of me is making all sorts of suggestions about justifying a binge (even trying to justify it as part of extinction therapy!!). Hopefully the dope isn't a major contributor; that should run out this week or next, so I guess we'll find out.

I started TSM back at the start of August, so that would make it month 5, I think.