For several years now I have been drinking way more than I should. I have tried several times to cut down but come day 2 give in and reward myself making the cycle continue. I woke up today and promised myself that this wouldnt continue as I feel like my ailments are a result of my drinking.
Any tips?
Thank you
Naltrexone
can you buy these or do they have to be prescribed?
thanks
Prescription in the UK. Though it can be bought online.
UK is a bit of a lottery. Some postcodes will (from what I've read) give you a prescription if you ask for one. Other places will make you go through counselling first before letting you have any.
It can also depend on your doctor. Some just refuse to prescribe it.
Welcomeš google the C3 Foundation since lots of good advice, videos etc. Medication is The way forward likeAlex is suggesting. Best of luck Robin
Let me ask you some questions, you don't have to post the answers here, just ponder over the answers by yourself. If the questions are not right the answers are Irrelevant . 1, Why do you want to quit? is it because of yourself or because of your family, wife, kids etc. you got to be selfish here, if you are doing it for the sake of others chances are that you will relapse soon. Do it only if you want to do it and solely for your own sake.
2, Are you thinking of giving it a break and maybe after a while have a drink only during special occasions, in that case don't even bother. Quitting means quitting, period.
3, How soon do you crave or have a drink once you wake up in the morning? if it is within a short time, don't quit all by yourself. Get yourself to a hospital or a rehab, you could cause serious damage if not.
5, Are you thinking of cutting down? life is too short to make all the mistakes yourself and learn from them. Learn from others mistakes as well. There is nothing called cutting down for an alcoholic, its all or nothing.
Lastly, a piece of advice. Do you pray? Pray, go to a secluded place, put your knees to the ground and pray aloud, don't worry about the words. Just have a loud and tearful conversation with HIM, remind him of the promises he has made in the Bible, HE is faithful, do it often and see the evil one will have no hold on you.
All the best me brother, you will be in my prayers. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything.
Dependency is a physiological condition and it can be successfully treated.
I tried to 'pray it away' for years, as did my aunt. My aunt is now dead through alcohol and I am now 5 years into recovery by using a clinically-proven and scientifically tested treatment for my alcohol dependency.
Having Faith is fine. I believe in God, myself, and am spiritual. But to claim that HE will answer your prayers and get rid of the hold that the evil one has over someone is neglecting to mention all of the wonderful scientific and medical advances that we now know about.
Besides, what if the OP doesn't believe in Him? Is he destined to spend the rest of his life with the evil one having a hold over him, struggling with his sobriety each day?
Dependency is indeed a physological condition, let me tell you about my experience. I prayed and prayed but nothing happened, then i was prompted to to go to an AA meeting. I shared that prayer was not working, GOD foes not care, to that and elderly gentlemen replied, HE cares thats why after all these years, although aggainst your wish you are now sitting here. GOD works in mysterious ways, going medical is one of them. First he needs a real push and courage and strength to take the plunge, that resolve i believe only GOD can provide
Only an alcoholic can understand the mind of an alcoholic, the fear, anxiety, helplessness, guilt, remorse and a whole lot of things. A doctor will only treat the symptoms, he would have no idea how it feels being in the pit feels like. only an alcoholic can understand the helplessness. its like giving birth to a child, one can read about it, can explain it, see it, sympathise and what not, but only the woman who has given birth can truly relate what it is like
Dear Joltbolt. You are obviously a very strong believer which is fine but i actually agree with Joanna. Medication is the way forward. God will not stop you from buying that bottle since your mind is obsessed with drinking only and you do not care. Robin
So, what if the OP doesn't believe in God? Is he destined to never find the solution to his illness?
If someone has cancer, we don't ask that the person treating us has experienced cancer themselves.
If someone has depression, we don't ask that the person treating us has experienced depression themselves.
If someone is seeing a counsellor because they have been sexually abused, we don't ask that the counsellor they see has been sexually abused themsevles.
You see, that is the thing with science - it works whether someone believes in it or not. Belief is great, and as I say, I do believe in God myself, but that doesn't negate the need for science. If someone wishes to pray then that is there decision of course, but it isn't a condition of recovery from dependency that someone does pray.
It seems to me that dependency is the ONLY physiological condition where people continue to believe that only someone with the condition can help someone else with the condition.
Please don't get me wrong. I am not aware of the level of depths Joanna or you have been. I had reached almost to the bottom, seemed like a point of no return. I am not trashing medical intervention, as a matter of fact if you read my first post I advised to get medical help to get off alcohol, they treat you for the shakes, hallucinations, seizures, DT and what not. The difficult part is not getting sober, staying sober is the biggie. You cant keeping popping pills all your life. This might surprise you, alcoholism can be a curse and at the same time blessing as well. In my case it was a blessing, I was Christian just for name sake, alcohol has brought me so close to God and I believe I am a much better person now than before I became an alcoholic. Medicines just treat your body, the core problem is in your brain if that is not addressed you WILL relapse and it will be far worse that it currently is.
If you donāt have faith, thatās still fine. There are other ways as well. I am sure you believe in morality, compassion, love and the like. As alcoholics though we believe in it. we may not be able to practise it. It is scientifically proven that if you have to give up a habit or a trait find yourself something greater that overshadows the current habit or trait you are trying to change. Vigorously involve yourself without any selfish motives in voluntary work, be it in an orphanage, old age home, terminally ill patients and try to bring a smile on their faces. You will find that all that alcohol gives you, momentary happiness, temporary gratification, a high and all the artificial things will be replaced with something far greater, āJOYā. When you find joy the former will fade away, you will be addicted to the latter. Just by doing this many of your character defects will vanish and you will experience life at a different level altogether. I have seen this happen in my case and in many others where doctors had given up.
To give you a poor example, if your are used to an Android phone and later switch to an iphone, you will never want to go back to an Android phone again.
A word of caution, donāt stop seeking joy once you feel comfortable. I am saying all this out of love, coz I know what hellish life can be with alcohol. I am trying to give freely coz someone gave it to me freely.
God Bless
I agree that finding Jesus is only going to work for a limited number of people (research seems to indicate that AA has a very low success rate) but on the other hand finding a purpose in life is probably just as important as taking medication.
Alcohol was the purpose of life and needs to be replaced with a new one.
For some, that might be God. For the time being I'm using work as my purpose while I think of something better to replace it with.
Cats?
Watch this video if you have a min, it touches upon what I mentioned earlier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs
Cats would be a good one :-) I do love animals.
What I love so much about The Sinclair Method is not only it's success, but also that the success usually happen quite slowly, and this gradual change gives people a chance to really work towards figuring these things out. In my experience, family tends to take it's place as a purpose in life again for those with families. For me, it was focusing on family, primarily - enjoying spending time with them instead of hiding and drinking all the time - and that is followed by those things in life which gives me a huge natural 'high'. Such as the outdoors etc, etc.
And of course, setting up and running a charity to help others with alcohol dependency is a mixture of hard work, dedication, putdowns and success, too. There are so many highs and lows involved that it wouldn't be right for someone very new to recovery who isn't really sure how they feel emotionally, yet.
This all happened quite slowly for me, which I think was good. After 20+ years drinking, a lot of it was very new and I had to learn a lot, which also helped me fill that void.
I definitely think there is nothing worse than something trying to get immediate abstinence and then wondering 'now what'? That can make some people very vulnerable to both relapse and/or being taken advantage of.
The Sinclair Method is indeed a good one, the problem is the dedication to take those pills diligently . Your alcoholic brain talks to you, it would provide justification like since you already have the cure, why fret, miss the pills every now and then and enjoy the high, if it gets really bad you can then take them again. For some it works well, not for most. They get into this vicious cycle. That's torture. I am having a bad day, need a boost, ill miss the pills today.
@alex01280: AA works 100% of the time without an ounce of a doubt provided we follow it to the tee. Nowadays AA meetings are a bunch of people sitting around and sharing their sob stories. There is no hope shared not any importance placed on the 12 steps which is the core of AA. I have met people who have been attending meetings for years and are still in step 3-4, the big book clearly says what needs to be done and do it fast. I luckily had a good sponsor and I finished my 12 steps in 15 days. Its hard, I agree, we need to be brutally honest and thatās the reason most shy away from it. He then assigned me two people straight away to sponsor and point them in the right direction. The message of AA has been diluted and hence the overall dismal recovery rates. The first question you should ask a potential sponsor is how long did he take to do the 12 stepsā, if the answer is anything more than 30 days, run from him. My first priority are the people who need help, not my business, not my friends not even my family. If I get a call at 3 am from one of the members I am sponsoring, I jump out of bed and drive down to him. By helping others I am not doing a favour to them, I am doing a favour to myself, it keeps me sober and I made a solemn promise to GOD that Iāll help as I have been helped.
That's funny what you say about missing those pills when the alcohol brain speaks to you..... you'd think that would be how it is, right? Except it's NOT! The entire skipping the pill thing is a fallacy.
In the past nearly 5 years, I have personally taken over 800 people through this treatment. With the correct support for that individual, non-compliance is not an issue. The number is very, very, very small indeed. And, in over 120+ double blind clinical tests (the 'gold standard' of clinical tests), the non-compliance rate was around 10% AND of that 10% about half of those had nothing to do with desire to skip the pill, but those few people had side effect issues that they could not overcome. So, in reality, less than 5% of people were non-compliant through their own 'alcoholic brain' telling them not to take the pill.
Of course, there is no treatment method out there for any condition that is 100% successful, 100% of the time. Even AA. Your statement about AA being 100% succesful if it is followed to the tee is utter rubbish.
I don't want to get into an argument about which treatment is best. That isn't why I am here. I am here to provide people with information about ALL the options available. Once someone has all the options, then they can chose which option is best for them - but oddly, when they make that decision, most people tend to opt towards the treatment methods that are evidence-based.
Argument, no thats not me. you could be right, but dont rubbish something you have no information about. I was just sharing my experience, not forcing anyone to adopt my recovery method. they have to decide for themselves. the primary motive should be Dans recovery, tools can be anything. The mention of GOD inevitably invokes hostility, once upon a time i was like that as well. Things change, have a good day
FYI, I spent over 10 years in AA, so its not something that i have no information about