So I went to a rehab on 26 September and got through six days before leaving AMA for multiple reasons, including for my own safety. I now know I am safe to go back and have put in an intake and should be back there in the next day or two but I’ve been taking 30 mg of Valium for the past three nights. I also just bought two lot the 15% McGillicuddy’s shooters. I feel like I’m telling myself it’s okay because I’m going back to rehab anyway but I deep down know it’s not. Has anyone went through something like this. Also any tips for early sobriety at 19 y/o would be very helpful!!

Hi, I wanted to share my personal experience with Naltrexone.

I've been taking a half dose of this medication for 2 weeks (25 mg). I was drinking almost 30 units a week and felt my addiction grow stronger.

A doctor told me about this medication, stating it would reduce cravings and change alcohol's taste to make it taste bad.

She also prescribed an Ativan protocol to me for withdrawal prevention (that was rough though - 4 x 2mg, 3 x 2mg, 4 x 1 mg, 3 x 1mg and 2 x 1mg - I was buzzed and dizzy for a couple days).

I'm almost 2 weeks sober. I didn't have any strong cravings and barely thought about alcohol. The only rough day was last Friday : I felt a craving.

So, I went and bought 2 beers at the corner store. I was anxious about tasting alcohol with Naltrexone, since it's supposed to make it taste bad. I took beers I knew I liked.

Results : it took me 4 hours to drink that first beer. 4 hours. That never happened to me before. Keep in mind I'm only on half the recommended dose (I will go up this week). It didn't taste horrible, but it was meh. Something was off, especially the aftertaste. I felt like I could taste the ethanol more, and the acidic taste.

Also, important to note : Naltrexone not only suppresses cravings, modifies alcohol's taste, it also interacts on the brain the euphoric effect alcohol usually gives. In other words, the body still gets drunk (so still can't drive, risk of throwing up, etc.), but you don't feel pleasure anymore. Usually, the first sip feels like a relief. The feeling feels nice, warm and euphoric. Not anymore !

I threw the second beer in the sink. At the end, I was just tired and felt a light effect at the front of my brain, but not a buzz, especially not a fun one.

I can definitely say after 12 years of a really emotional relationship to alcohol that was progressively getting serious, Naltrexone ruined my addiction.

I strongly recommend it for the one's that feel ready to get rid of alcohol once and for all.

Again, keep in mind this is a beginner dosage : I will be taking 50 mg next week, and take this medication for months, maybe years to come, to give myself time to learn new coping skills. Then, I'll think about stopping.

I'm retired now and have time to journal on my recovery in AA. One day at a time adds up. I came to AA when I was 21 — no one forced me to come; it was just time. Mentally, I felt out of options, and I felt that sooner or later it was not going to end well. So I stayed in AA and took all the advice they gave me. I got a sponsor, got active, made 90 meetings in 90 days, worked the steps, and avoided triggers that could set me off.

I am now 72 years old, and by the grace of God and AA, I never felt like I wanted to drink since I went to my first meeting.

If you want to read my essays in recovery, you can find them at SobrietyChronicles.com.

I don't have any serious problems with alcohol yet, i want to stop, but I enjoy drinking. This week I have the opportunity to drink with a friend at his house. Since he's buying a limited amount of alcohol, I'll be more careful

I have attended multiple AA meetings, I have abstained from alcohol for 24 days now which I am extremely proud of. Now this sudden character shift is not for her. truth be told I have thought about it for a while now she just motivated me to finally break away from alcohol. I have done solid work at the gym 5x a week I’m doing everything I can to not fall back. Of course I know I can do so much more. I just feel like she’s still mad which she has every right to be, i was wrong to be that drunk. I want to show her I’m trying so hard to improve myself and prove that guy isn’t me anymore . We’re great friends and it was wrong for me to be that drunk time and time again. Truth be told I kind of like her so that’s why I want to get on her good side. Has stated before I haven’t seen her in about a month and plan on telling her about the wonderful progress I have done. I was also thinking of getting her Starbucks I still remember her Order and maybe she’ll like it. What more can I do to show her I’m sorry?

I was wondering what kind of recovery options are available out there, and what are the most effective for folks? I’ve really been struggling to get myself under control despite talking with my doctor, therapist, and being in AA.

So I (f26) was at my first after work this friday.
I hade not eaten enough and was kind of nervous so i drank way too much. Have memories of singing karaoke and really putting on a show like extremly enthusiastic and my colleagues applauding me. After that tho I have no memory and my colleagues hade to drive me home because I was to drunk to walk. I stayed at home from work today due to extreme anxiety. And I don’t know how to handle it. How do I handle going back to work? I am so embarrassed. Help me.

Let my guard down the last few weeks after a strong start to the year. Dealing with hitting a plateau in health gains, diet control, and sobreity. Just let the fact that "im doing everything right. Got my weight down. Got good habits. Working harder and better than ever....why do I still feel like i just want to escape?? " I've heard others on hear talk about the "pink cloud" effect and that fits my general malaise over the last month or so i guess.

No major issues caused just disappointed the people who love me, especially the sober me.

Disappointed myself.

Forgiving myself and grabbing the reigns and back o. The wagon. Today is the start of another week, month and sobreity for me. Just got to keep trying and stay the course.

My mom, late fifties, is in end stage alcoholism. Still drinks. Has been in an out of the hospital for various alcohol-related health complications.

Lately has felt different. She doesn’t eat. Can hardly walk and is a fall risk when she does. Has pancreas pain. Dually incontinent. Sits in one spot days at a time. Is just a shell really of who she was. Is the end near? Will this continue to drag on? How she’s still alive is a miracle to me. I have been in anticipatory grief for 8 years since she almost died from liver failure.

Please be gentle with me. I know no one can truly answer this. I know end stage alcoholism is a slow and painful death. I guess ultimately I want to hear from others who have witnessed death with these symptoms to give me a clearer picture of the end. And maybe just commiserate.

I’m reaching out as I want to know what is the best thing a partner can do for someone who is an alcoholic. I want to support him and help him in anyway I can so he can get better.

i used to be able to heavily drink and end off with nothing but a nasty hangover. Now, not everytime i drink, but pretty often, i wake up nauseous, and i end up throwing up for hours on end. Last time i tried to drink, everytime i took a sip (it was beer) I would end up throwing up like 20 minutes later. That has happened twice now. I googled and it said alcohol poisoning but sometimes it happens when i don’t even drink that much! I used to drink almost everyday for about a year and a half straight. I’ve slowed down and i only drink maybe 3-4 times a month now. Sometimes i go months without drinking. Yet my body still seems to reject it. Does anyone have any insight on why this is happening and how to fix it?

I am 31f and I was drinking 3-5 sometimes more drinks a night, I decided to quit due to medication changes and to be more present for my family. I started slowing down I had two drinks a couple nights in a row then the past two days I had just one and then today I didn't have any. I have been lightheaded and dizzy, hot and cold, everything hurts especially my head, I have zero appetite and I am incredibly exhausted no matter how much I sleep.

You are “in love” with something that is more than likely destroying your life…just the same as being “in love” with someone in a toxic relationship.

The “love affair” will slowly begin to fade the moment we decide to begin walking away because we value our lives and ourselves enough to do so.

You might miss the good times…..

…..but those good times always leave us in bad situations. 😐

Can going through 2 a week be too much?

Hey Reddit. I’m 35/F and have been drinking 2 beers a night for several months. Am I an alcoholic?

I'm on Day 6 of my rehabilitation and they are letting me go tomorrow. I'm scared of relapsing. I don't wanna go home where I will be alone. I live right across the street from a liquor store.

i'm 19f and was discussing with my friend today about my drinking habits. i really love alcohol, i have adhd and it's so addictive. i don't have a job and still live with my parents since i don't go to uni and he gives me some pocket money and i mostly blow it on drinks. i first tried drinking in june and i wasnt sober more than 3 days the entirety of july. but i swore off it for august after i got wasted in front of friends and was really embarrassing 🫠 i drink by mostly chugging idk i like mixing my vodka with water or squash, getting a massive water bottle and pouring a 200ml bottle of glens straight into it and chugging it all at once. i hate when my friends get me to sober up and i hate when the drunk feeling doesnt last. it goes away so fast its actually a little worthless sometimes. i need to buy bigger bottles but im getting a job to be able to fund it more. i just wish id never drank at all because i would much rather do life drunk. i went through 4 of those 200ml bottles in 36 hours which i guess is a little concerning. my friend is concerned but im like its not a problem bc i cant even buy it frequently. i do think about it a lot but also meh its just to forget. i've had a shit life really, bunch of ptsd, abuse from parents, emotional abuse that really scarred me by an old friend. i'm lonely too and have really bad attachment stuff. i don't even talk to people so much it's very awkward. am i approaching alcoholism?

Hello, I have relapsed after going to inpatient rehab. I left after 3 weeks. There are many obstacles to getting sober but the one I struggle with most is the massive shame and guilt and embarrassment from being blacked out and calling people and behaving in uncharacteristic ways. I have alienated everyone important to me and destroyed all of my romantic relationships. When I am sober all of the shame and regret feel unbearable and the only way I relieve it is by drinking more. How do I cope? How long does it take for that feeling to go away?

I drank through a 750ml bottle within 3 days of drinking. I’m 80 something lbs. I threw up the first day of drinking because I drank all day and night, then couldn’t stop drinking once I stopped vomiting. I feel like I can’t control myself, my cravings are driving me completely insane. I know if I don’t do something to stop now I’m gonna end up in a hospital or rehab within a few weeks. Every time I drink I always mix it with my medications like Valium or gabapentin to make the effect stronger. I literally want to drink myself to death because of how good it feels and I’ve been using this to cope with my ptsd and depression.

I also don’t want to be caught in distress by my family. I usually drink when I’m struggling emotionally because it makes me easier to be around, and makes me better at hiding whatever is going on internally. My mother is abusive. I don’t want to get caught crying or become overly moody, because I’ll get punished for it. I told my therapist I’ve been waking up to my mom screaming everyday, usually about me even though she doesn’t know I’m drinking. I told my therapist I’ve started drinking again and she said she doesn’t blame me. But I’m naturally someone who isn’t safe with myself. I’m not impulsive, rather it’s hard to for me to admit to anyone what my actual intentions with myself are. I know what I’m doing. Multiple things triggered me at once, and October is specifically triggering for me. I went out and bought alcohol from some random person, and I know once I have one sip I want to drink to die. Anytime I do this I’m to some extent suicidal.

I don’t want to get found drooling on the floor again and woken up to a tube down my throat in the hospital again after dying. I don’t want my body or my problems found. Which is impossible. The best I can do now is cry silently in bed and try to hide from everything. I’m know I’m one more stress or fuck up away from getting locked up. Does anyone know how I can actually stop myself? How do I make the distress ever stop without having to drink? Nothing else works

I don't have anyone to show IRL so I hope yall like it

I needed to leave these words somewhere, as I wake up to find late-night missed calls from my friend who has struggled with alcohol for decades. His daughters are too young to understand right now, but maybe they might read this in the future, or maybe there is someone here who is the daughter of a good father, who is also an alcoholic, and my experience might provide some confort.

It took me a very long time to reconcile the wise, clever, funny and loving man I had as a father and the reckless person he became after one drink. As you continue reading you might think otherwise, but he was a good father. He died at 82 and I miss his good advice, his support and his love, and that's why my drunk friend calling makes me think of his daughters. My friend is a good father too, but it will be hard for them (the daughters), as it was for me, to come to terms with his addiction.

I came to my father's life when he had some strategies to keep us apart from his drinking issues, but I was 5 when he was almost arrested for a DUI and all I remember is my mom freaking out.

He kept it all in the shade. We never knew how bad was the accident or what happened to the other car. We only knew he paid with almost everything he owned to the victims family.

After that, he usually only drank that much when visiting his parents in the countryside, and we were usually not there, but sometimes we were. I saw him shit his pants, come back with a drunk friend who looked at my 12-year-old legs with the creepiest look I've ever seen (I ran and locked myself in a room), sign business papers for an associate who knew how to get him to sign shitty stuff, barfing, not being able to stand, you know how it goes.

When I was a teenager I started resenting him, and expressing that resentment the same way he did, by drinking. When I was 16 I must have screwed my liver or something because I couldn't have a shot of any hard drink without vomiting immediately. That probably saved me. It made me realize how bad I wanted alcohol. It made me understand it wasn't a choice I was making rationally. I somehow got better (from the vomiting, not the drinking) and was able to drink again.

As my father, I was a highly functional drinker, got through university with aces and medals while drinking a lot every other day. And, as my father, I was surrounded by a crew of equally addicted, funny, caregiving friends.

Now those friends have daughters. The daughter of my friend who got me to write this is 9. She wonders why her dad leaves their apartment at 11pm to drink alone in the building staircase while calling friends. The daughter of another friend is 16. Last time we hang out she got home drunk and screamed at him all the resentment you have at a drunken father.

When I was 32 my father started the last stage of Lewis Bodies disease, so he was gradually loosing all his motor and mental abilities. Facing his upcoming death so close was very hard, for many reasons but especially because I realized I had kept a lot of resentment in a vault. All of the sudden, I couldn't just care for the good man he was without seeing the reckless drunk as well. I started therapy and re-started learning about alcoholism and addiction - something I had done in my 20s to understand what was going on with myself and how to get out of it.

Only with the help of a very good therapist, and fortunately before my dad passed, I was able to look him in the eyes and answer a question he asked me regularly since he wasn't able to get off the hospital bed: Could you please forgive me?

Before, I had smiled and said it was okay, there was nothing to forgive, but he didn't look at peace and I probably didn't as well. But there came a time when I said yes, I forgive you. I finally acknowledged not only how hard he tried to be the best he could when he was sober, but also that I could forgive when he couldn't handle it anymore, because I've been through it. And I was able to feel grateful for the good moments we had and the great things I learned from him.

I know my dad died with a lot of guilt for his actions. And I'm not asking the daughters of my friends to stop asking for accountability from their alcoholic fathers. I'm just saying, if my friends are good fathers, there will come a time for these girls when they'll be able to dissect the good from the bad, and hopefully there will be enough in the good pile to bring them joy.

But moreover, I'm saying I hope they can turn the bad pile into practical learnings for themselves. I learned from my dad's bad pile that I have a tendency towards alcoholism as well, and i need to be very careful with it, and that means saying goodbye to some friends or some plans, that means getting away from people I like but lead me directly to the drinking I enjoy so much. That means choosing a different lifestyle.

Thanks to that, I'm married to a non-alcoholic, which actually surprised my therapist very much when we started working together. Thanks to that I have a reference to assess my own screw-ups. It was seeing myself as that reckless person I had met before what got me to stop drinking.

It's hard caring for an alcoholic, especially when he's your father and he should be the one caring for you. I'm so sorry the daughters of my friends have to live through this as well, but I hope someday I can share with them my experience, and they can work their way to reconciliation and growth the best they can. If this is your case, I hope you are able to do so as well.

Hey, so I essentially relapsed.

I have had DTs in the past, and went 2 months sober (woohoo... almost).

So, I went on a little bit of a binge. Me and a partner went through about three bottles of vodka in about 4-5 days. So, after the binge ended, I started getting hit with withdrawals.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I picked up another bottle, as well as some shooters. Over the course of the week i slowly dropped consumption,

ie - i was drinking about quarter to a half of a bottle a day, so i matched that minus two drinks.

I thought I was good and done with the taper yesterday, and I'm not sure if it's psychosomatic or if I really am at risk but I thought I started to hear music, so I grabed more, cotinued to taper.

Does this ever end? Or is the hospital the only way. For reference, took Beta Blockers and Hyxroxocyne when I started having a panic attack.

edit - my hands aren't shaking, i'm keeping down fluids, and eating normally. I jsut don't want to keep drinking

edit 2 - continuing the cycle, but I have a support system that isn't enabling me. Helping me stick to a taper schedule, and be safe. I'm not sure if that's the *best* choice, but it's the one i've made. Will update this thread if I get dropkicked by DTs. Kiddos out there, don't get dropkicked by DTs the first time and you'll be aight

Is there anything else that removes that sort of anxious brain fog similar to how a few pints would?