Heart palpitations, bloat, digestive issues, anxiety…It’s very related.

As for the sobriety thing I broke it 9 days ago when we went over to friend’s for dinner. I was completely fine with it in every way. I think I had 4 glasses of wine, I didn’t get drunk or stupid and the next day it was back to another dry spell. I didn’t feel anxiety or any symptom of having drank. The key here is my new approach to alcohol. It no longer is for binging every weekend. It is now for social events only. That way I can still have wine in my life and enjoy myself without the binge pattern that causes emotional and physical problems.

There’s 52 weekends in a year. 2 days per weekend so on average that was a near guarantee of me binging (where binging is consuming at least a bottle or more of wine per episode) 104 times per year. Then add holidays and social events and the times I would drink 3 days in a row on weekends that’s probably another say 20 times so that was around say 125-145 days of heavy binge drinking per year.

That’s a lot of beating up on my liver and a lot of living my life in a continuous pattern of anxiety and abuse. By reducing my wine intake down to say 20 times a year, that is something completely manageable for me. It’s all about a mental switch in how you approach something. Wine is no longer a weekly substance I can drink as much as I like but is now something that is only done on special occasion like a rich dessert.

For the record I still feel great and motivated and not at all like I slipped up. This is the way I choose it to be. This is me having control over my life. If I find myself even for one moment slipping back into my weekly weekend binging patterns then I will absolutely quit for life. The buzz has no longer become worth any hardship.

Hope everybody’s doing well!

Todd–hows your sobriety going? you should be on like week 9 or something by now?? do you really feel a ton better?? Reinforcement and honest opinions matter here..

Fizzy, hang in there, you sound a lot younger than some of us; trust me, we can all tell you, that is part of life, some of those setback will seem funny as you get older. I dabbled in all the same stuff you did when I was younger and yes, substance relationships/friendships can be, well, interesting at times. It was a big part of many of my friends I hung out with, hs, college and young adulthood. I mean I wouldn’t change it for the world, I have no regrets, we had so much fun and at certain times in your life, its the one time you can live with that. But of course it takes its toll, your perception of reality gets wharped, often selfish, more so because you need sleep more than anything else. Or other friends lose their grip of what their doing – regularily cocaine use over time definitely changes a personality. However, we all managed to remain friends, we never lost each other. There were some setbacks, but we outgrew them, you realize how stupid they are. I don’t believe any of us were ever addicts which is kind of surprising considering the odds. We had one friend that was getting a little too crazy with coke; it was kind of frustrating because we didn’t know what to say or do, we felt kind of hippocritical.

I actually really like the notion of not drinking, but like most people, its there – after a hockey game, after skiing a good meal, its just too good with all that stuff. I’m a little sluggish today, but I’m feeling myself wake up. I was at my club (private, somewhat snooty NYC place and people tend to get smashed in the tap room, people of all ages too. There was a little while when I was heading there and not drinking at all. But man, I had such a crazy day going there seemed like it would be fun. I bumped into a lot of people I hadn’t seen in awhile and people seemed to be in an overly festive mood that night and as I stated before I know, when the girls are seriously pounding, its easy for me to lose count. I was leaving with two of them to go home and then they wanted to go to the bar in the lobby, I went in with them, I didn’t get a drink, I was like, “Damn, its kinda of late, what the hell am I still doing here.” I literally just left without saying goodbye, one of them came out and gave me crap for it, in a fun a way, “She was like ___ where are you going, no goodbye?” I chuckled and said, “___frankly, I’m just really tired and want to go home.”

I woke up with a little bit of the anxiety, I was like, “why did I stay out so late,” but then thinking about it more, I actually knew when it was def. time to go and I did and did not get that next drink at the other bar, I’m not that bad of a person.

It’s weird, since I’ve been divorced, I find my weekends very boring, I don’t do much…maybe that is why every now and then I have a somewhat late weekday excursions at old or familiar haunts. I’ve been on a lot of dates and have been having fun, but when I meet a girl I’d like to seriously date I don’t think I get that right signal out or the right way to move forward; the hookup ones, well, that’s easy …anyway, again, rambling.

For me, the symptoms are anxiety and detachment. The sober world is a strange, harsh place. The worst part is trying to interact with other people, and constantly trying to feign interest, laughter.

I did go see a psychiatrist, and it was worse than worthless. He was obsessed with psycho-analysis and kept trying to dig skeletons out of the closet. He denied alcohol as a root cause of my anxiety, which is insane. I also went to a PCP seeking medication to try and hang on at work, but got shut down there too.

So anyway, I’d be interested to hear about other people’s experiences. After this much time, I am starting to wonder if this is the new reality that I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life. I will try to update here in a few months with how things go. ]

My problem is not that I drink all the time, but that I binge- if I start, I find it tricky to stop. I’ve got better recently though, and try to ‘think before I have another drink’. It helps calm my social anxiety, but the day after a big session it just kicks in with a vengeance. I recognise it for what it is now though and can generally ride it out. I suspect that though my anxiety feels bad at times, it’s probably a lot milder than a lot of you good folks have it on here.

I’d intended to give myself a year’s break from alcohol, mainly to prove to myself I could do it, but then got involved with a girl, the anxiety really kicked in and I ballsed it up big time. This was over the new year period and I decided that right then probably wasn’t the best time to deprive myself of a few drinks. However, that little mess behind me (and everything smoothed over with said girl, and I still retain a faint hope our now friendship could blossom into something more, but if it doesn’t, then I’m good with that too), I’ve decided that February will be a month off. There are no big social events coming up, so little temptation, and if I get through the month okay and am feeling up for it, I’ll make it a two-month abstinence, and so on. Maybe I’ll get to my year, who knows.

This is self-experimentation at it’s most basic, and is perhaps my own way of testing myself. I like to prove to myself I can do things sometimes, and as Todd stated only a few posts ago, a hiatus from the toxins that build up after drinking for a long period is no bad thing…