I was recently stuck with another night of insomnia, as you alcoholics not drinking for a moment undoubtedly know too well, and happened upon a link to download the Cure for Alcoholism ebook free as a torrent (sorry to the authors for swiping your stuff!).

I read it all in one fell swoop and was mightily impressed.

As I am currently under/self-employed owing to the effects of my Severe alcoholism, I have not yet had the funds to acquire this medication. With a 1.75 liter bottle of gin lasting only 2-3 days, it goes without saying that my "disposable" income is generally eaten up pretty quickly. I can say though I have not, yet?, devolved to the point of seeking out charity and instead continue to - barely - cover my rent, bills, and enough cash to try to eat well and get vitamins including liver-supporting Milk Thistle as I go along.

Even so, my alcoholism has been a life-destroyer. Whether by the often squalid filth I let the homestead become or the now virtually completely solitary existence I live with drinking being to the exclusion of interaction with friends (what few remain) and family, the reality is I have F'd my life pretty-well entirely.

With a still-decent brain despite my best efforts at destroying it and enough of an educated background understand and appreciate the science presented in the book, it is thrilling to know that I can soon commence on a path that will revert my behavior and conditioning to a time I have not seen in a good many years now.

I knew the moment I first went into an AA meeting, mandated by my one and only DWI fifteen years ago (now I just plan accordingly and stay home to get sh*tfaced), that it was a sham. Apparently, I was not mistaken given what I have since learned of its "success" rate which is vanishingly small.

In researching TSM, I have however learned that Bill himself posited that one day there may be a medical cure for this addiction. Too bad he turned out to be right even as what he wrought created a culture of doctors and adherents who are apparently religiously inclined to disavow even a possibility of such.

I am, given the hour of the day, "naturally" well on my way to another blinding drunk evening as I type this. The trainwreck that is my life and lost potential is too lengthy to even begin to recount. Perhaps the major highlight and insight to just how bad it is can be found in one element that remains with me always. I got so drunk back in 2008 that, as I often did, I was rough-housing with my powerful Rottweiler. I guess it went too far. Well, no guess at all: it obviously this day did go too far. He bit me and very nearly tore the tip of my nose off.

I slept it off and then went to the county hospital the next day to get sewed up. Having waited so long cost me a good bit of tissue and I enjoy a nasty, nasty wide scar as a result. A daily reminder of just how out of control I was and still am... Absent the damage, I am a pretty handsome guy.

Here in this post is my first and only post admitting that being a despicable drunkard cost me this dear price. One that has chased and tormented me for years since and every day when I brush my teeth.

Needless to say, it is way past time for a change. A few days of sobriety and earnest efforts at finding a new job seem to be bearing fruit. Tomorrow, I expect to take one of two jobs I am being offered. I will also collect enough money that I can place an opening order via River Pharmacy which I have discovered in my internet research to get started.

I look forward to seeking the support of participants here and all the more to whipping this demon into submission.

Please share with me your best threads here and any and all pitfalls to be avoided. I want my life back and am loathe to think I could possibly waste more of it, a third now gone to nothing if I am blessed to live out the last one fully.

So much thanks for this forum. If, or rather when, this works, I can So See Myself making a significant part of my life advocating for this too-little known treatment for the scourge I continue to endure.

Now though it is time to sign off as I will soon be too drunk to craft any further cogent thoughts...

I'm an amazing person. Or at least used to be. How much I look forward to being one again. Maybe even enough so to be one who is that to another.

Best regards,

HopefulDrunkard

[quote=]
Week 21: 5, 6 AF
Week 17-20 Avg: 14, 4.75 AF
Weeks 13-16 Avg: 3, 6.25 AF
Weeks 9-12 Avg: 8, 4.75 AF
Weeks 5-8 Avg: 10, 5 AF
Weeks 1 - 4 Avg: 17, 3 AF [/quote]

Please teach me what these stats mean.

Thanks

Hello and welcome. That's quite an introduction.

I'm sorry to hear about your nose. Facial disfigurement is a terrible thing.

Sounds like you've got a plan. I can tell that you've already had a few, but no problem -- we've all been there. Take the job, save the money, buy the pills, unaddict yourself -- it can all work out, and the forum is always here with support and advice if either of those is needed.



Some of us use our sigs to track our progress. In the first line you've quoted, Week 21 of the Sinclair Method clocked in at one day of five drinks and six "alcohol-free" days (AF). That's usually the most current week. The second line shows an average of 14 drinks per week over a three-week period, and an average of 4.75 no-drinking-at-all days during that same three-week period.

Each person does it a little differently, but you'll get the hang of it soon. You'll probably want to start your own journal now, to have an accurate idea of your current consumption before you even get the naltrexone.

Greeting, fellow Southerner. As someone who finds gin disgusting, I shudder at the thought of what you drink. Either way, you're drinking 20-30 drinks a day by your own admission. Wow.

I assume you drink throughout the day, so starting a new job may lead to withdrawals and all sorts of calamities during the workday. (Plus, gin smells so bad on the breath). What is your plan for all that?

Anyway, I'm hopeful for you. Worse drinkers have been turned around.

P.S. I PM'd you. Check the "New Messages" in upper left. Thanks.

I've blown off a few days her and there drinking, but generally I only drink at night.

Will hangovers be a problem?

I'm trying to think how to make sure you stay employed, so that you can go through with the rest of it. It's easy to lose jobs to drinking.

I have and can still manage that. Remarkably, I can be pretty well entirely fresh by ten in the morning even after a hard night. This of course comes at the expense of overeating just before going to bed and the weight issues it causes. But enough food and plenty of water over the course of the night, and I do pretty well at getting up and after it at a reasonably early hour every day. That is, when it is necessary. Some days I have to be working by 7 and others not until I am good and ready (the part about being self employed I'll miss as anyone, sober or otherwise would...).

Thanks for the heads up on what were confusing hieroglyphs in folks' sigs.

Sounds good.

Be aware that some people find a "nal-over" more brutal than a regular hangover, so you might want to try this for the first time on a day when you don't have to work the next day.

You sound very enthused and hopeful. It's nice.

Maybe I have an aversion to gin, but I'm picturing you walking into work at 7am reeking like a gin bath after your 25 units just hours before. I take it that you used to be self-employed, and now you're going to be working for the man? Very interesting. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you do on all this.

I've read before about "real" Alcoholics, i.e. those with a bonafied genetic predisposition. It takes WAY MORE BOOZE for you to feel the high and the satisfaction than it does for others. I've seen this mainly in the Native Americans at the hospital. They have an incredible (and sad) ability to drink absurd amounts of booze and still function. This one guy claims to have drunk 96 beers, or 8 12-packs, a day for years -- he looked like a swollen, red corpse about ready to burst any second, though. If it wasn't against the law to take pictures of patients, I would have loved to take one of this guy and his disheveled, misfit wife. Hilarious.

Besides hangovers, I'd be more worried about withdrawals and even seizures, although you seem to suggest you can survive during the day without alcohol. At what time of day do you really get jonesin' for a drink?

Also, I'm curious as to what your goal is. Are you aiming for total sobriety or just "moderate" drinking? For you, what seems moderate might still be god-awful amounts in terms of your health -- e.g. 10 units a day. And, what support system do you have? Have you burned all your bridges and killed the dog?

Anyway, I'm going to be regularly checking in to see your experience. You're a good writer, so it should be a fun read if nothing else!

It should come as no surprise that I have Indian roots just four generations back.

It is a source of amazement to me that I can and do drink so much. As noted, I have not personally encountered anyone who matches me, to my great shame. I could count the number of times I have vomited in the last five years or more on one hand. Other than astoundingly high blood pressure and liver enzyme counts, there really are no untoward physical effects to my drinking; this of course makes me very, very hopeful I can have a decent and longish life when I conquer this mess.

Once a big time runner before tearing up a knee in a work injury and a eat-my-veggies and take-my-vitamins guy for decades, I think I owe my continued reasonable health to earlier, better choices. I can only hope they were and are cumulatively enough to see me through the enormous damage I am doing to myself.



Needless to say, a drinker of my ... err ... caliber spends entirely too much time thinking about booze. Even so, I can say the majority of those thoughts are remorseful. As big and bad a drunk as I am, there are great swaths of the day when a drink is the farthest thing from my mind. Especially when sufficiently busy. I may be a vile drunken loser (* "may" being at best a term of mendacious art, let's face it), but I also have an active mind that is interested in a great many other things.

I have, though not too recently, taken as much as a full week off multiple times with no untoward effects like shakes, etc.

Indeed, reverting back to drinking just seems to owe itself to being my most lasting and devoted "marriage." When I am down - which is not all that often other than about being a boozehound - alcohol is always there to sooth me. And when I feel like a million bucks after a week off, it is there for me to "celebrate." Disgusting, but oh so true.



A bit of a foodie, I would like to think I could get to a point where - as in years past when this was not such a destroyer for me (though it actually was already a problem in honest retrospect, not least given where I've come to) - that I could devolve this habit to a non-habit that allows for enjoyment of a good food-pairing.

If though it becomes clear this remains a slippery slope, I'm entirely ready to call it a day where drinking is concerned. I want to live. And Fully. Perhaps "fully" may mean without alcohol. It does for many millions of folks. I don't find it absurd to imagine being one of them even as I also imagine, luck be with me, that "fully" could include some beer and wine along the way. And if it doesn't play out that way, I can always resurrect the coffee-snob I once was

As to the dogs, my two babies are quite well, thankee Even though we don't go on enough walks at all, owing to my drinking taking priority. Thankfully, it is only rarely that their exuberance shames me in this regard. Just considering the matter shames me yet again.

As to further support, I do have a friend or three I have confided in, and most interestingly one of them is also an alcoholic though she would be loathe to admit that given her fairly high functioning and the denial we all know too well. Although we are the pair least in contact among said friends, I look so much forward to sharing with her this "secret" once I have something to show for it.

All that said, I appreciate your interest very much. It is not mere interest, but rather encouragement.

Second interview on the job I most want today and it went well even as I was rather shocked afterwards to look in the mirror at my bloodshot eyes

Thankfully, my brain and overall "feelings" seemed just fine, both to me and apparently the boss' son who did this go 'round. Nice and smart guys, the both of them.



PLEASE DO. I can definitely use the accountability partner.

Again, your interest is so much appreciated.