If You Suspect You Might Have A Drinking Problem (An Open Letter)

RobFromGa | December 11, 2004 | RobFromGa

[RobFromGa]

To Any Person Who Suspects They May Have a Drinking Problem,

I have written this to describe my experiences of the past 14 months as I have worked to resolve my drinking problem. Everyone is different and I do not propose to be an expert on this topic, but I have my own personal experience and I am sharing it in the hope that it might help someone else to solve this problem and change their life.

I have now been sober for 14 months without a drop of alcohol. This is not a long time as compared to over 25 years of heavy drinking, but I also know something else: I am totally confident that I will never drink again.

In that 14 months I have made it through two football tailgating seasons, over a hundred business lunches and dinners, numerous trips to Germany where beer flows like water, parties, picnics, Super Bowls, a Caribbean cruise, several family vacations, ups and down in life, etc. All things that I thought “required” alcohol.

Fortunately, I did not have some event that caused me to hit “rock bottom”. (I could have had many rock bottoms but I was lucky). Some people need to lose their job, lose their family, kill or seriously injure someone in a car accident, end up in prison, or many other horrible things that alcohol (or drugs) can cause in order to gather the will to quit. Some people think that “bottom” is the only thing that can make a drinker quit for good. I have met many people who proved to me that this is false, you can make such a decision without going through the horrors. But in some ways it is tougher to take the first step.

In every other way, it is much easier to skip the “rock bottom” step and I hope that this letter helps at least one other person to avoid the lost job, lost marriage or prison route to sobriety.

Last October, I made a firm decision to quit and I followed through on that commitment. But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that I had similarly tried to control my drinking or quit at least 100 times before.

Why was I able to quit this time as compared with the previous 100 attempts? This is a very good question. The only answer I have come up with as to is that this time I was really ready to quit for myself alone. I was truly 100% sick and tired of the way alcohol affected me and I wanted a different life. All the other times I was, in some way, not really ready to control my drinking. The bottle was still in charge. I tried many tactics: I’d only drink on weekends, only drink after 5pm, only drink at parties (almost anything can become a party in such a plan), only drink beer, only drink wine, only drink hard liquor, only drink things I didn’t like the taste of (I know it sounds nuts but I was nuts), only drink every other week, quit for a day, quit for a weekend, quit for a week, quit for “this vacation or event”. I tried every way to quit in the world to stop drinking except the way that eventually worked for me.

If you are reading this and you know someone that has a drinking problem and you want to help them, you must understand that you are at a severe disadvantage. This is a condition of the mind more than a condition of the body and it is nearly impossible to bring another person to a mental place where they can admit that alcohol is causing more pain in their life than the pleasure it brings. Because a drinker can hardly imagine life without alcohol. It is with us at many points of our thinking and decision making process. We make plans around alcohol and drinking, not all of the time but enough.

If this does not sound like you at this point but you still think you might have a problem, I am not going to tell you that you are OK with your drinking, I will only say that you don’t have the same problem that I was facing so my experience may be of little value to you. I do know people who can go for long periods with nothing at all, then they “binge” and drink to pass out. This is obviously a problem, but not the problem that I have experience with. For 25 years I drank to excess. I often did not get "drunk" but I was always under the influence. For many of those years I drank daily, sometimes starting at 6am and going till 2am the next night. I am not proud of this but it is the truth.

As a problem drinker, you probably associate most of the “fun” you have in life with alcohol in some portion and are worried that without alcohol you will become a dull, bored person with no joy in life. You probably think that there are some things where you will always have to drink to enjoy. I know I worried about that, and I can assure you it is false. You will enjoy life more when you quit, at least that has been my experience. Even that Caribbean cruise and college football tailgating.

I first started drinking in High School. I don’t feel that it is necessary to recount the whole story but I drank to blackout on a number of incidences. Other times I just got really drunk and did stupid things that put my life at risk. I drove many times when I had no business on the road, and it would not have taken much to have had a series of events happen that would have changed my life for the worse. In college, I made good grades at a top Engineering school, while drinking heavily. It was a joke that I would study with a bottle of Jim Beam next to my desk.

As I got into the business world, and specifically into sales, drinking is a daily part of business life. At least that’s what a drinker thinks. And for people who do not have a problem controlling it, drinking is a wonderful part of life. The occasional party or business dinner and a few social drinks to move the business forward are great. But I was never able to do that—for me it was five, ten, fifteen drinks. Into the late hours, with not enough sleep, feeling like crap the next morning when I should have been at my best. Then repeating the same behavior each night. And I was very successful, and I thought drinking was part of the success.

I rationalized that with my talent, the drinking was part of who I am, and that even at 50% I was still more capable than most others so it wasn’t necessary to control myself.

I know this is getting long so I’ll get to the point: One Friday last October I was driving down the road. I hadn’t had a drink in two days and was in one of my “quit drinking the rest of the week” attempts. Rush Limbaugh announced that he was going to a Rehab Center for his drug addiction to resolve his problem. This for some reason got through to me. I called two people that I am close with and told them that I was not going to drink one drop of alcohol until Rush came out of treatment. (Telling these people I had made this decision helped me).

I told myself that after thirty days, I would decide whether I would drink again in a more controlled manner or stop completely. I did not have the luxury of taking the time off from work to enter treatment, but since Rush was going in, he was in there for both of us.

I did not attend AA (although I will talk about AA later) but I was clearly at the first step of their program. It is a very simple concept:

I admitted that I had a drinking problem and that I wanted to do something about it. I can tell you that if you are really at that point then you can fix yourself. If you are not at that step, then there is nothing that anyone can do to help you and I hope that you stay alive, and intact until you reach that point.

After about a week of sobriety, I stopped thinking about alcohol very much. I threw myself into work and tried to start losing weight as well. By the second week I made the decision: “I WILL NEVER DRINK AGAIN” and I wrote that in my journal. I recognized that a bottle of booze is an inanimate object that is simply poison to me and that it cannot force itself into my body. I have the control over whether I use my arms to bring the poison to my lips. And I choose not to allow that to happen ever again.

I have noticed that there is an inner “voice” that I have (he stays fairly silent now) that in the beginning used to put thoughts in my mind like: “surely you can just have one, you’ve been good”, “it’s a beautiful Fall Day, surely you could just do the social drink”, “you’re in the Caribbean for Gods’ sakes, shouldn’t you at least have one Margarita to celebrate your sobriety”. When my mind lets the inner voice talk, I quickly reassert control and think about the serenity that I have found since I quit drinking.

I need to stop writing now, the family is waking up, but I will write another letter tomorrow morning which describes these 14 months and what other tactics I have used in my sobriety.

I hope that this helps at least one other soul out there. Feel free to post questions or suggestions.

FReegards, RobFromGa

[xcamel]

Great question - Riddle me this...

"Would you go to a whorehouse just to talk to the piano player?"

and no smart a$$ remarks about "if she was cute...."

[kjvail]

This condition is due to a genetic "defect" where your body does not manufacture the enzyme necessary to break down acetaldehyde (a close chemical relative of formaldyhyde) into acetic acid (vinegar).

How Alcohol Works

This defect is most common in Japanese men.

This is also where the drug "anabuse" acts, so what you are feeling is the same thing as what someone who drinks while taking anabuse feels - theoretically it can kill you.

(So don't drink)

[raybbr]

Prayers for you and your wife. It's a long road but one that doesn't need to be travelled alone. Don't be afraid to talk to others in your position. You will find that people want to help.

[LowOiL]

BTTT...

[raybbr]

Where do "non-alcohol" beer and wine come into the picture? I imagine one has to keep away from them as well.

I sure do. I sometimes think about it but just the taste would bring back old demons. I am pretty sure I would go back to where I was in hurry.

[xcamel]

There are a few basic caveats:
Beware "double-digit" sobriety.
Addiction is always a symptom of deeper problems.
The only one who doesn't know, is YOU.
Alone you must do it, but you can not do it alone.
The farther you are from your last drink, the closer you are to your next.
Vader: "Use the STEPS, Luke..."
Even sober, your disease does not rest. If you drink, you do not "start over", you pick up where you left off...
One is too many, and a whole ocean is not enough.

[Crawdad]

Please add me to the ping list. With the help of AA, I'll have 6 years next June 1 thanks to the Grace of God and the company I keep. There is so much that can be said in reply to your post, but all I will say is "God Bless You".

[jra]

congrats

[TheMom]

Guess that depends on the person. We have a friend who's been sober for almost 15 years that has been enjoying the non-alcohol beers since they first came out. It has not led him back to drinking the "hard stuff", although he swears he gets a bit of a buzz off of them - which is one of the reasons he does not drink them oftem.

RobFromGa - Congrats to you and please add me to your ping list.

[xcamel]

It helps to have my anniversary on Halloween - I take out a picture of my "old face" and it scares me to death. :-)

[Ditter]

Thanks for explanation, I always wondered. My father was the same way, he could not drink at all. I remember once or twice when I was a child him getting deathly sick from having one drink or two. I noticed back before I quit drinking anything that if I did not have even a sip for 2 or 3 months that I could have a half a glass of wine with no headache but if I had another half glass or even a sip within the next month, I suffered a severe headache. That is when I decided that I had become allergic and I stopped even tasting alcohol in any form.

[TC Rider]

Thanks for your kind thoughts. The Mrs is not a secret drinker or one who starts in the AM. She just can't quit after downing the first beer, etc.

It wasn't that big a deal here at the house, but over the last several years she started going out with the gang to bars after work.

It didn't help that she was mean and bitter while drunk.

[TC Rider]

Thanks for your prayers. I know it's going to be tough, we have a lot of other problems unrelated to the drinking but I see a dim light at the end of the tunnel.

[Riflema]

Congratulations and good luck!. I just completed 4 years, 7 months and 7 days (but then, who's counting). I confess, GWB was my inspiration.

[Tribune7]

Good for you. God Bless.

[Osage Orange]

Rob, you are to be congratulated....It's not easy admitting one's fault's.

Much of what you said...I can relate to. Alcohol abuse has been a part of my family for many years....Mom, Dad, uncle's, aunts, sisters, cousin's, me.....

I could tell you a lot of stories....some no doubt, would be familiar to you. I won't trouble you with all the details....but I've not drank since 1988. My story isn't like yours, but it's not far off. Ha!!

Anytime you want to talk...just holler..!!

Best FRegards,

[Ditter]

I am not a Japanese man BTW. LOL

[RobFromGa]

you might be interested in helping me spread the word

[Katya]

"Hmmmmm...that's interesting....do you believe, as some do, that alcoholism is genetic?"

This is probably somewhat anecdotal, but I have noticed that quite a few drinkers, ex-drinkers, smokers and ex-smokers have one thing in common: A tendency towards hypoglycemia.
Alcohol and tobacco both do the same thing...raise blood sugar levels.
In individuals who quit smoking, many grab a hard candy to fill in the intervals. I do think that some of these "addictions" are physical in nature...because they fulfill the bodies immediate need for a surge in energy. If indeed, they are hypoglycemic...the sugar high can be pretty potent. GTF chromium (Glucose tolerance factor) can be very useful for anyone quitting sugar as it will help balance your sugar levels.