Why do I write myself off when I drink?

[JeeshJeans]

I just recently turned 30 which should have been a time of happiness and good celebration but instead turned pretty ugly as I was gone (as in blind drunk, blacking out) before the party even started. This is definitely not the first time I have drank to excess, blacked out, woke in the morning thinking what have I done and with feelings of guilt and remorse. Now I understand that people drink to excess to escape from there problems but as far as I am concerned I don't have any problems significant enough to warrant wanting to do this. I also understand that people drink to overcome social anxiety but I don't think I suffer from this any more than the average person. Everyone experiences a bit of anxiety socialising to a certain extent. Basically I'm struggling to identify the reasons for my binge drinking. Could it be my genetic make up? Any thoughts or input will be appreciated :)

[JeeshJeans]

So I've been 11 days without a drink but to compensate I have been gambling a lot. I have such an addictive personality.

[Ann2497]

That is great that you felt comfortable admitting that you are an alcoholic.  Good luck in your recovery.

[susanzach]

AA IS GREAT. . . . And FREE!!!! I am always telling people: " I used to go to a therapist for 100 dollars an hour to lie. . . . . Now, I can go to AA and tell the truth for Free"!!!
Suggestion: Shop for AA. Not All meetings are run the same, so it is imperative that you find a meeting that you are comfortable in.
Just by posting and admitting is HUGE!!! Please DO let us know how you are doing!!!
If you are Spiritual in any degree you can also check out celebrate recovery. www.celebrate recovery.com
Peace

[JeeshJeans]

Thanks guys for all the replies. It is Friday night here in Australia and the usual thing I would do on a Friday night is drink (either at home or at a mates place) and then probably end up at the pub drunk despite the fact I have to work tomorrow morning. Instead tonight I went to a Social club that hold a free poker night every Friday. I drove my car so even if there was the slightest temptation to drink it wasn't an option because I currently have a interlock in my car as a result of a previous drink driving offence and have to be 0.00. Anyway sitting at the table a girl said 'Does everyone know each other?' I jokingly spoke up and said 'Hi, my name is Josh and I'm an alcoholic'. I live in a small town of a population of 11,500. A guy sitting next to me who I know from school and just small town thing said after me 'He's not joking about the alcoholic bit either'. So probably the whole town thinks of me as a drunk/alcoholic but it's not something they are going to say to your face. It's hard for friends and family to tell you, you have a problem let alone acquaintances. I have done counselling before but never AA. I think I should give AA a go.

[Ann2497]

How long have you been binge drinking?

[donewitis]

You have crossed this invisible line..from being a social drinker to an alcoholic. It is baffling, insidious and powerful...the time has come where your drinking will only increase. It's a social as well as a genetic issue. Your parents don't have to be drinkers..maybe your grandparents,,etc...
When I was your age I finally got it..I couldn't drink socially anymore..I walked into an AA meeting..and knew that I was around people who understood. I learned alot...how to have a good time w/o alcohol. I could go on and on about all that I learned but..that could take all day... My life was more than good for many years until I started doing things my way..taking my will back..not using the tools I had learned and I had to go through a long arduous medical treatment and Dr's prescribed pain meds, anxiety meds..and that's how I ended up here...trying to get off of them. Addiction is addiction is addiction. Thankfully I have been given another chance and nothing I have learned has gone to waste... Don't do this alone, check out a locall meeting...it could be THE best thing you will/can do for your life. Just go and listen...see if anything resonates.
Happy Birthday.

[Free_ovitall]

Imagine the embarrassing things you do when you are so drunk you don't remember anything until you wake up the next day. Your friends probably don't tell you what you did because it is so embarrassing, even for them because they didn't try stop you. But you can bet they are having a good laugh behind your back.
next time you go out drinking, have a freind recors everything you do with a camcorder, then you can see how you act when you are sober enough to watch it.  That should cure you of any desire to go out and get drunk.

Alcoholism is a disease, and people who black out and have little or  no memory of what they did have it particularly bad. For some, it only takes one drink before they "morph" into another personality, and have no memory of it afterwards.
If that sounds like you, then you should seriously consider never having a social drink at all, because you just can't tolerate any alcohol at all.

You don't even have to have a strong desire to have a drink either, You may have good self control over whether or not you take a drink; it's just that when you do, it has a very bad effect on you. There is nothing wrong with going out and NOT taking a drink, and if you are capable of refusing a drink, then go out and have fun, but don't drink. If you can't resist a drink however, avoid any parties and people that  encourage you to drink.  There are plenty of fun things to do for entertainment that don't require alcohol to have a lot of fun.

i remember the last time I got drunk- or rather, I don't remember the last time i got drunk, but I heard all about it, or rather, heard parts of what happened, and still not everything to this day. That was about 42 years ago, and I have never got drunk again after that. I have a drink or two now and then, but I never drink to excess.

Apparently, my "friends" brought me home in a wheelbarrow that night, and dumped me off on my parents front lawn. My parents didn't know what happened to me, whether I had taken drugs or what, so they rushed my drunken body to the hospital, where they pumped my stomach, found nothing of course, and I woke up the next morning in the hospital to my mother yelling at me- "what did you take!" wake up! what did you take?"
I was 15 years old at the time,  but it was embarassing enough that I never got drunk again.
Worse was what happened while I was at that party, so drunk I can't remember, but apparently asking a girl I had a huge crush on and was supposed to hook up with at that party- to find me a girl to make out with.
That was even more embarrassing than dealing with my parents.  Aparently there were incidences of falling down basement stairs, then being tossed in ditches on my wheelbarrow ride home to avoid police.

That's the only day/night I still have no memory off to this day. I'm sure those people still talk about it in that town I used to live in though.

The bottom line is- if alcohol does that to you, don't drink. You certainly don't need it to have fun, in fact, these days having any fun at all with alcohol on your breath is illegal anyway. So why limit your recreation time and options with alcohol? You can have a lot more fun without it!

[ksohkb]

It could be that you grow up with a parnat that drank and be a lreaned habit, or just plain addition. I suggest you see a trepsist to help identify why you are drinking so much.

[allmymarbles]

There are lots of reasons people drink. Among the most common are having a social group of heavy drinkers or having a parent or parents who are alcoholics. In such cases the drinking may be considered cultural and there may not be any deep psychological reasons for the habit. I come from an Italian family. From my earliest memories my milk was flavored with coffee. The older I got, the more coffee and the less milk. Purely cultural.

[norcomonster]

There's doesn't have to be a good underlying reason to be an alcoholic or a chemically dependent person. I struggled with that too when wondering why I did the things I did... Finally went and talked to people that really understood the disease of addiction (treatment) and quickly realized I'm not a bad person... I'm just a sick person. Even though I went to treatment "for opiate... In treatment they don't differentiate one drug from the next. They treat opiate addicts just like alcoholics... And the first question they asked upon check in was "have you ever experienced a blackout from drinking or using"... It's a pretty standard symptom of alcoholism... So I'd take it seriously.
This is a great place to start.