giving up drinking

[Emm068]

Hi everyone,

I have suffered depression for some years and are on medication. Although unfortunately I drink way too much and last night realised that I must give up. I just cried and cried because I know how hard this will be and I dont have any willpower and I need to find strength that I just dont know if I can find at the moment...

Does anyone have suggestions that may help me on the road to recovery and happiness again?

Thanks in advance

Emm

[Neil_1]

Hi there Emm

Welcome to Beyond Blue and ‘well done’ to you on coming here and providing your post.  Nice and succinct but very disturbing with what you’ve written also. 

We need to get you out of this bad place that you’re currently struggling with.

Firstly, with regard to your depression and medication – do you feel ok with your medication?  Do you feel that it’s doing its job and is working for you?   I only ask that as you mentioned you’ve been on for some years and sometimes, even with medications, they need to be reviewed, from time to time. 

Also are you having reasonably regular GP appointments or any other professional kinds of counselling?

 I believe there’s a number of us on this site who use the bottle as a means of escape/a means of numbing the brain, the mind, so you can feel a little different and not have those tortured effects with you all the time.  It’s just then a line for knowing when to stop, because quite clearly, last night you must have had too much to then get to the train of thought that you wanted to do “more” than just self harm.

It is a difficult situation to be in – and for me, I can pretty much only go off it, IF I’ve got a serious goal that I am going to work towards.  I’m a natural bodybuilder, and so in order to compete, you can’t have pretty much any excess fat on you – hence alcohol – a massive NO NO for me.  And so that is my serious goal and I have done it for the past 5 years from May through to October. 

 This year I am not competing and so my little friends (cans and stubbies) still accompany me at night time. That’s my situation – we need to work towards your situation. 

You’ve obviously come to the conclusion that you DO want to go off it for a while?   Back to me, I normally when I do it, go ‘bang’, straight off it – I guess called cold turkey – first few days are tough – the first one particularly – but after a few days it gets better and about a week later, it’s almost like, “why were you so hooked on it?”. Now I know I’m weird, hence why I can do it cold turkey style. 

I potentially wouldn’t suggest that for anyone else – unless I knew their character and personality, etc.  My advice would be to slowly reduce the amount you’re drinking each night – it doesn’t matter what you’re drinking – but just slowly reduce and it might be that each evening, you start just a bit later than what you would normally.

Try to find a replacement as well – something like green tea if you like that kind of thing?   And even better to drink now of a night when the nights are getting cooler.  Or even try the chilled variety of the Lipton’s Ice Tea – I particularly enjoy the lemon flavour.  Buy some of that, and sip on that during the evening.

One more suggestion before I send this off, as I’ve just looked and it’s one of my usual, longer than normal posts – would be, when you’re easing off or even when say, you’re off – is to not only have your drink replacement happening, BUT to brush your teeth with toothpaste.  Be obsessive about it if you want too – do it every hour or even half hour. 

After that, you’ve got a lovely clean mouth and the last thing you would want to do is to pour some alcohol down your throat, mixing in with the fluoridey taste that you’ve already got happening in your mouth.

 Emm, I hope that this post has helped out a little – and I would really like to hear back from you on this.

Kind regards

Neil

[geoff]

dear Emm, boy oh boy I know how you are feeling, because I was exactly the same as you are in now, just as there are so many other people who use alcohol as a self medicating way to numb this awful feeling of what depression does to us.

I want you to know that you are not alone with this, because my drinking and depression caused my wife to divorce me, and to other readers who respond and who are just so great in offering help, support and advice to others I have to say to Emm what I have said before, but as a newcomer I will repeat what I said before, but Emm would not have read these posts, but now she needs all the help to overcome this problem. 

I also really encourage those who we have spoken about this issue to pitch in as well, and not only about drinking but also about their way of trying to cope with their depression.

I am not going to preach to you what so ever, because when other people do this to us it means bugger all, and only increases the problem.

Emm please I don't want you to leave after we talk a bit, because unfortunately other people have been going along well and then drop off the site, but drinking alcohol is a recurring effect, that can increase when we are fully stressed out, and this is what happened with myself.

I have now been able to now drink socially but it's a long process to be able to do this, and now I am not asking you to do this straight away, we have to go through your issues, so please get back to us, I as well as others want to help you with this, and as you can see I have been on this site for quite awhile. L Geoff. x

So I am going to post this back to you now, and will reply very shortly, it's just that I want to know that we are listening to.

[geoff]

dear Emm, I'm sorry I forgot to say that I am about to log off, but other people will respond back to you, and I will be back on deck at 12.01am in the morning, but I will explain why, because of the medication mainly anti-epileptic which puts to sleep into strange hours, but I will check your reply out first thing in the morning, so please be careful tonight, because you have support here. L Geoff. x

[geoff]

dear Emm, please make contact with us again. L Geoff. x

[les]

hi emm, i used to drink a lot as well. BUT then i started taxi driving in 6 towns in WA. i saw all the nasty night time stuff as i was a night driver mainly. one thing seeing all of this made me give up drinking. i now enjoy a cup of tea more than any alcohol. cigarettes are my demon.

[fuschia]

Hey em,

Im relating to your story as I am a seld medicate (well have been for about 10 years) until y journey on this site started maybe 8 weeks ago when I first reached out for help. What the boys said above is paramount. Meds (should you choose the path) are all trial and error unfortunately and its 20 years since I started taking them (Im 37) and it finally looks like I'm on the correct one.

Please feel free to thread thru my thread "Can someone please help me" as its been a battler and I won't lie to you a bloody hard one.

When I have previously pushed others away, I have now surrounded myself with gp support, mental health from the local hospital (as I got suicidal) and also was harming myself and got abused whilst overly intoxicated and out one night.

Meds, and the professional pyscs are the way Im heading and a couple of months in and Im still here breathing!! Their will be people who wont understand (maybe only initially) but you can not rely on themfor support. So, I suggest let ole husbando play his games and take that brave step forward to helping yourself and show him.

ps when im feeling low or anxious or depressed or just need some inspiration or even want to try help someone on, I jump on here. Almost everyday since I started this new journey 2 months ago. And I will be here again to check on you and listen. When your ready....