Do you have any good ideas regarding quitting drinking?

You need professional help, not help from an anonymous web forum.

You seem so surprised that addiction has reared it’s ugly head once again in your life.

It’s a pretty well known pattern that people who manage to conquer one addictive substance, sooner or later end up substituting something else.

A surprisingly high percentage of people who have gastric surgery for weight loss end up subsequently having a severe problem with alcoholism where that had never previously been the case.

It’s a simple matter of substitution. If the original underlying issues have not been brought to light and dealt
with, a relapse is inevitable.

Addiction is addiction and the exact same mechanism is at play regardless of the substance. Just because alcohol is legal and readily available doesn’t make it any less dangerous or damaging than hard core illicit drugs as you are finding out.

But, as you’ve described above, you continue drinking in spite of negative consequences both physical and legal.

If those haven’t gotten you to quit cold, then it’s clear that you really do need help.

You should seriously consider signing yourself into an inpatient, no-nonsense, hardcore facility such as Hazelden. They will help you really get to the root of why you have this ongoing need to escape thru addiction. And how to be fulfilled living an abstinent life is an important part of lasting recovery and they emphasize that also.

It’s time to get serious and make a commitment to deal with the underlying issues in your life which drive the addiction. The best place to do that is somewhere where the distractions of life cannot intrude.

Be kind to yourself and give yourself the gift of time to heal with professional help in a supportive atmosphere. People splurge on expensive vacations to all sorts of exotic places.

Give yourself the gift of a deserved vacation in a place which supports self knowledge and healing. Dont be so reluctant to seek the professional help you need. You deserve that for yourself.

At least take a read through their website to see what they’re all about:

www.hazelden.org

Another with a stellar reputation.

www.caron.org

Is your drinking a end of the day and need some help with relaxing and falling asleep thing? My doctor gave me some pills a while ago that helped a lot in that regard. They help since I knew I could pop one and be asleep in a hour instead of drinking myself to sleep.

Thanks all. I’m seeing my doctor this week. Thank you for the helpful links, but I don’t live in the Us.

Hey I believe in you, we all have our demons to beat. I think the best thing to do is keep yourself progressive with a hobby. Maybe it’s sports, maybe it’s hanging more at the gym, maybe you’re a person that might benefit from taking art classes and doing art meet ups and that stuff. Get your hands on something so that when you leave this world it can make others inspired, or at least think. Excessive Drinking only hurts not only yourself, but others as well.

1. Throw out any alcohol in your house
2. Tell everyone you’ve given up the booze
3. Don’t drink ever again.

It is not easy to quit drinking alcohol, for that you need firm committment and a strong desire to quit.But with proper advice from addiction experts or a church support group, you can stop alcoholism. Keep yourself occupied for as much time as possible everyday and stay away from all alcohol. Good luck!

I think the OP knows it takes committment, she quit a serious drug habit years ago as she mentioned.

@trailsillustrated I think seeing your doctor is a great idea, hopefully he can refer you to either an inpatient or outpatient clinic that can monitor you (detoxing can be dangerous as you know I am sure) and provide some therapy for you to get through it. If I was addicted I can’t imagine being able to do it with the AA program, which is the gold standard I guess in America. If the religion-like part of AA is what turns you off, they have atheist meetings in America, I don’t know about other countries.

I’ve been worried about you, and I think you are so wonderful, I hate the idea of an addiction taking over your life and bringing you down. You have been through a tremendous amount of stress, it’s perfecty understandable you needed help coping.

How did you quit the drugs? Were you inpatient?

I know you said you can’t go to AA, but I found an online meeting groups in Australia. I’m not sure if you can’t get there or have some other reason for not using AA. I also found this too in Australia.

Other than this, I don’t know what to say. I know it’s not as easy as just ‘don’t drink’. I would think letting your friends know you’re trying to give up alcohol as @flutherother suggests could only help and yes, get rid of all the alcohol in the house. If it’s not there it will be harder for you to reach for when you weaken. Best of luck with it.

It will kill you. There are drugs that your doc can give you that basically make it impossible to drink. I would get serious help for this. If it’s an all day thing you may need detox first.

I’ve heard of the saying that alcoholics become ” sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.”
Yes, you need professional intervention, but in the meantime maybe try to focus on how good you feel when you don’t drink.
How good it feels to not feel embarrassed or ashamed of your drinking behaviors.
I’d be especially concerned about your injuries and losing your license, those are both huge red flags that your drinking is progressing to a seriously unhealthy level.

Really, without ongoing support it is doubtful you will stop on your own and you must get serious about what this is doing to your health as well as the risks of more physocal injury, car accidents under the influence etc.
If you kill someone under the influence you won’t need to worry about how you’re going to quit drinking, you will be quitting when you are in jail for the next 5 or 10 years.
Wouldn’t it be better to take charge of this problem rather than wait for the inevitable train wreck that is coming?

I’m an engineer so I believe any time we want to make a change we need to develop a measurement system to track where we are and where we are going. A good measurement system will enable you to see small changes and track progress. .

How would I track alcohol consumption? Let me suggest a couple of methods.
How much I spend per day. or
How many units I consume per day.

You write it down on a calendar that only you will see. The only promise you need to make is to fill out the calendar honestly – for yourself. You may not like the answer but the data is true. And knowing the data is your first step.
If you are a lunatic like me you will make an Excel spread sheet and plot your data with 2 and 3 day moving averages as well as first and second order polynomial trend lines with level forecasting. (I used this method after my surgery to track my recovery. It helped me determine my treatment plan. Without data, all you have is an opinion.

For fun you might write down how often you have sex or how often you get mad or happy. You will see a change there too. But you have to get started. .

If you have access to the Internet, you are able to do AA. What you may really mean is that you are unwillling to do AA.

A little background- I have personal experience with addiction, and I happen to work for a twelve-step program. I was able to overcome my addictive behaviors, but I didn’t do it through a twelve-step program.

My experience is that addiction is in large part a spiritual disease. At the very least, I can say with confidence that it is not overcome with one’s own best thinking and that it’s a little foolish to rely on one’s intellect to get the job done. You’re in the situation you are in because your intellect is being subverted; it’s not calling the shots and any belief that it is, is self-delusional.

Fortunately, one’s intellect isn’t the crown jewel we so often think it is (and this is self-evident from what I just said above). It is common in meditation practice to observe one’s thoughts. If we assume the thoughts are the intellect, and “we” observe our thoughts, then there must be an observer independent of the thought. Who is this observer? Is the observer the addict or does the observer observe the addict?

The twelve steps require turning one’s will to a higher power of one’s own understanding. This could be a deity, a person, a tree or anything. The addict admits defeat in their battle and appeals a higher power to take care of the addiction (and the addicted person). This appeal is a 24/7 task, and the recovering addict learns to shift and sustain attention from the addiction to the higher power. In the meditation example, attention can shift from the addicted thinking to the unmolested observer of the addicted thinking. When identity shifts to this observer, then the addict basically disappears.

My suggestion is to turn your attention and belief towards your spiritual health in whatever way makes sense to you. If it doesn’t make sense to you at all, then just sit with the question and turn it over. How do you unlocked a locked box from the inside?

If you are at all religious, you might consider the concept of soul. It’s common for people of that ilk to believe they “have a soul.” They also talk about “black marks on a soul” or other qualities, and live with a lurking fear of damaging their soul in some way. This makes no sense to me anymore, because I considered the idea that we are more like souls inhabiting bodies (or with the illusion of such). Plus, how is it possible to tarnish a soul with earthly deeds? It’s silliness held together by belief, yet that belief dictated my actions for a good stretch of my life.

Addiction is dictating your actions, and it is perpetuated by your belief, attention and identity as a two-dimensional (body and mind) being. Give sufficent attention to your spiritual dimension and your addiction will diminish and/or disappear altogether.

^^ This is one of the reasons I like Fluther. In two neighboring posts you can get answers at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet both want best for you. Nice.

Please, if you decide to take the @kevbo route, take the data anyway. It costs nothing.

My brother just quits cold. He just stops and is good, not touching alcohol for several months. Then he has a beer, then another, and another and so on until it gets him in its grip once again and then he drinks for several months until he quits cold turkey once again. This cycle has repeated over and over since he was a teen. He says he cannot just gradually let up, it has to be all or none.

Me, I haven’t quit but I found I don’t get as sh*tfaced if I stay away from the gin. When I feel the need to (and these days the need is to stop the pain associated with gout) I stop drinking or switch to having a few beers at night. If I stick to beer I usually end up getting bored with peeing before I get too drunk.

I have noticed it is boredom that brings on the over-consumption in me. That or being alone at home, I am much more likely to drink excessively if I am by myself even If I am doing something. But on outdoor vacations or out camping I drink very little, at most only a couple of beers a day. and I don’t miss it but if it is just sitting there, calling out “Drink Me, drink me!” then I oblige.

@trailsillustrated If you had a data plot of money spent or units consumed there would be no confusion. ;-)

I’m such a data weenie I’d gladly do the plots for you if that would help. I actually enjoy it. Don’t tell anyone or they will stop paying me.

I gave up booze 26 years ago. One day at a time and by doing meetings and helping other people recover from alcoholism. Your Doctor can probably give you as much help as the dustbin man can. Really it’s a process of recovery that you do daily. Therapy does help as at times drinking can be signs of self medication, or other things such as personality disorder, or high stress low coping skills. I don’t miss booze one bit. It’s damn smoking I cannot give up :(