Drug Rehab Options Blog

Sorry for the title, but thats how I feel. This is all going to be hard work.

It's hard to know where to start. I am not sure how or where it happened.

I know I am very shy, and turn into this entertaining sexy funny women when I have had a few drinks. Well, thats my perception NOT reality.

I have:
done REALLY embarrassing things that I just won't even say, even here.
I have hidden drinks from my partner behind my chair (which he has seen)
Alcohol is my way of de-stressing, it makes my head stop spinning

It's really impacting my relationship
I want to do something about it, and plan to, but then it seems so natural to have a glass (or several) with dinner, I don't know where I am meant to stop it.

I usually most want to do something when I feel really sick.

I have on occassions gone through 3/4 a bottle of Bourbon. These are the 'bad' nights when I will fight with my partner.

I can drink 2 btls of wine, a few nights a week. Lately it's more like 3 or 4 glasses.

These days I get drunk quicker. Rather than building up tolerance it seems to have gone backwards.

I feel sometimes like I can't cope, but I don't know WHY - my life is fine.

I often want to make nights more 'exciting' alcohol heightens everything - even watching tv becomes more fun!
I suddenly have an opinion that I am not scared to voice.

I know I have terrible terrible self esteem.

This is all rambles not a story, I feel sort of emotionally detached from the situation as though I am looking at some stupid girl who can't control how much she drinks...............rather than looking at me.

Ok that is all for now. I just had to make a start.

Hi

I wanted to strart this post as I have been drinking all my adult life (now 37). I went to AA, counselling, and tried to deal with alcoholism myself too unsuccessfully. I was always depressed about what i thought was the drinking.

2 months ago i decided it might be time to start thinking about how to end my life as it really was not living anymore and i could not get any better. At this point i decided i would have one more shot at it and went to a counseller.

I've been going for 2 times a week ever since and have been sober with no real hard cravings like when i tried to give up myself. I think in some way it has helped me to be told that i have been self medicating using alcohol to either in some part deal with the anxiety/depression/social anxiety and to some extent the issues i have with myself, which i am addressing now and will continue to do so at counselling.

I was prescribed anti-depressants (seroxat or paxil as it is known in the states), anatabuse and an anti anxiety pill for the weeks coming off booze.

I want to start this thread as i wanted to get some feedback on the above and also wanted to discuss users questions about my road to recovery which has, and i know will be now, successful. Fears on medication etc.

I would never have really considered what i have done to get to being able to sit here happy and posting in a sane frame of mind, post away please:-)

I've never posted a thing on a forum, but I think it's time to reach out.

I am the wife of a recovering alcoholic. We've been together 7 years, and while I knew he had been abusing "something' for 6 years of our relationship, (he has been off the booze for 1 year, 22 days) I have just recently opened my eyes to the realization that he is using again, but this time it's not alcohol. It's prescription drugs and he has just confessed that he's been on them (ordering them) since one month out of rehab (1 year ago) and now he's completely, physically addicted to pain pills.

This time last year we were the model recovering couple. Did everything by the book. But things changed quickly. I notice he began to transform about a month into our recovery, but I chalked it up to one of the many changes I'd seen. Now, 1 year later, I have learned that I've been lied to and deceived again, repeatedly, for the last year!! I knew that something was wrong a while ago, but I seem to have forgotten all that I've learned (I guess we both have), I didn't want to believe the warning signs, I didn't want it to be true. It's so sad. I look at him now, and I DREAD going through the pain of trying to get back on track. I love the idea of my husband. I want a future with him. But I don't know who I live with anymore. I am shocked, confused, grieving, and fed-up.

This is a long story kind of short. I'm not even sure if this is the right forum. But if anyone can point me in the right direction, I could really use it.

Thanks-
Crushed.

I am have been clean for 1 year from opiates and I'm personally doing pretty good, but my fiance, the man who helped me get clean, is an alcoholic. He won't admit it, and he doesn't want to quit. He moved me out of state to get away from the drugs and without him I probably never would have got clean if it wasn't for him and I want to support him and be there for him like he was me. I wouldn't mind his excessive drinking but when he drinks he becomes a completely different person. He's short tempered, easily offended, and just altogether mean. He is the manager at a liquor store and comes home with a different kind of beer every night. He won't quit his job to get away from the alcohol because the money's too good. He says if he wanted to quit he would. I think deep down he knows he has a problem, he admitted to me once but later denied it. I know whether he drinks or not isn't up to me, and I know he has to want it, but I don't know how much longer I can deal with this. He was there for me when I needed him and he never gave up on me. When i'd wake up at 4 am crying for a pill and he had to get up for work at 6, he'd stay up with me. He spent $3,000 on methadone. I can't give up on him. Any advice on convincing he has a problem, or even just how to tolerate it better? I've started going to bed earlier when he drinks so I'm not awake to see him that way, but there has to be another answer. Any advice??

So i am 32 days sober I am thinking of ways to help with my anxiety (not from alcohol). I am very stressed out with my current predictament and am trying to find a way to get through it all.

I am a recovering alcoholic and I am going through some legal issues involving DUI's. I am on my 3rd DUI. i got my 3rd while almost completing all of my classes and community service...etc. Then i got my 3rd while still on probation. I obviously decided to wake up and smell the coffee and deal with my alcoholic ways. Let's just say I met Rock Bottom. I don't like him. Now I am dealing with anxiety due to thinking about what is going to happen to me. I am scared. I go to sleep and wake up thinking about these issues. I am trying so hard to deal. I am always stressed. So I am thinking about getting some Xanax. Just thinking...kinda wanted to get everyone's advice first. Thanks.

You know I have a very unique situation which I have no idea what to do about. My AW has destroyed our life with alcohol for the last three years. So many gritty, gory stores I couldn't even count them up over this time. I could write a book. Seriously. A year ago my job was transferred to another state. I told my wife in order to come be with me she would need to go to rehab and maintain her sobriety with meetings, etc. and so on. She went to rehab and came to live me after. Over the next year she drank probably on 30 different occassions and became her old self. Finally I told her she needed to leave. She broke the terms of the deal many times and its just not healthy for me to have her live with me any more. I'm falling apart, she's not dedicated to her sobriety and/or our life together. Now she states she won't leave no matter what I do. I rent our home and pay the bills each month. I found this place on my own before I ever allowed her to come here. Now she tells me I'll have to move out if I want to seperate. Now she gets drunk every night to spite me and puts me through hell on a regular basis. So when I come home every night I sit in anxiety wondering what is going to happen and what I should do. Life is not good. Does anyone have any idea what I might try? I love my wife more than anything but she is tearing me apart and I can not change her or do her recovery for her. She has to do that and right now she obviously doesn't want to. All I can do is take care of myself and I need her to go. I don't think it right that I have to move out of the place that I provided for myself and allowed her to come to on condition she stay sober. Any thoughts are welcome. This sucks.

I leave on Thursday morning. I'm going to New York for 4 1/2 days with my mom. It will be just the two of us (which is a challenge in itself, but a different story!). She doesn't know about my drinking problem, and she also doesn't know that I have quit. We don't live near each other so we see each other once a year at best. This will be the longest amount of time we've spent around each other in at least 5 years.

I am worried about whether or not I will be able to resist the temptation to drink while I'm on this trip. Mostly because she doesn't know I've quit. I can already hear part of me rationalizing it: she doesn't know I have a problem and have quit, so if I have a drink with her it will not seem weird at all, and no one else will ever have to know! I'll be on vacation. No kids, no husband, no real life obligations or responsibilities... a drinker's paradise!

Part of me really views this as a "good opportunity" to test the waters now that I have 62 days sober, to see if it would be any different if I tried drinking again. And if nothing's different, then at least I wouldn't be exposing my husband and kids to it - they'd never even have to know!

God how sick is that? I'm disgusted with myself for even typing it.

But that's what part of me is thinking.

The other part of me thinks why ruin a good thing? I don't want to start all over. I don't want to come home and have to tell my husband that I drank in NYC, and I don't want to lie and not tell him. I've lied to him enough already about alcohol. And what if I have a few drinks in NYC and come home and the cravings kick back in again? Do I want to go back to hiding vodka bottles and sneaking drinks? NO, I MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT. So why push it?

Why can't I just NOT DRINK and be happy??

I started drinking at the ripe young age of 9 or 10 years old,i cannot really remember when exactly but i remember loving it and even being aware that there were people in my family most of us actually who already had a problem with alcohol so i remember making a concious decision to grow up and become an alcoholic,i thought it would make me cool. like most other folks in alcoholics anonymous,i was never comfortable in my own skin and always wanted nothing more than to be accepted. i even went so far as to get a little bit older and become a gang member,thats how much i needed acceptance from my fellows. alcohol among many other things allowed me to wear someone elses skin other than my own,i had developed a strong social coping mechanism, and i was not prepared to throw it away anytime soon. little did i know that alcohol and other things would rob me of everything i held near and dear to my heart, and as time went on my family wanted no part of me, i had lost countless jobs, good friends who cared about me and even a place to rest my head at night oh and it got even worse, i lost my freedom on several occasions. then i found alcoholics anonymous after a few trips behind bars and a whole lot of suffering. i went to countless rehabilitation centers and i finally realized that i did not want to go on to the bitter ends, more jails and institutions and even death. since i have been sober (06/29/2007), i have gone to quite a few funerals already and god willing i wasnt the one taking a dirt nap. my life today is better than it has ever been and i thank god on a daily basis for that. today i have good friends and my family back in my life. i even have a wonderful woman in my life and a couple part time jobs. i am also going to school to become an alcohol and drug counselor. what more could a seemingly hopeless alcoholic ask for? God, thank you for alcoholics anonymous!!!:praying

I have been drinking heavily since I was 16 and I am 26 now. At first it was just a weekend thing but now it is every night that I am looking to drink. I have tried to quit before but it is always around and I get very excited to drink. All of my friends drink a lot and I get a euphoric feeling when I am able to pre game and then go out to the bars. This is the way that it has been for years. But now it is even worse. I have recently been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
About seven months ago I had a psychotic manic episode and was locked up in a psych ward for two weeks. I have lost my job and my home and have moved back in with my apartments. The psychotic episode that I went through had me believing that I was the second coming of Jesus. My parents sent the police to my house and after being brought to the hospital, I had escaped. I ran away and went to downtown Manhattan. Where I was climbing to the tops of bars and hopping from roof to roof because I believed I was in a movie or a TV show. I could do anything I wanted and nothing could stop me. I made it past the security guards of the Trump building because I said I was with the cleaning crew and started knocking on all the doors because I believed that there was a party waiting for me in one of those rooms. After I broke down that night I ended up back at my home, the police came the next morning and made sure that I was cuffed the whole time until I was submitted into the psychiatric ward.
I was in there for two weeks and when I came I had only the broken pieces that was my life to deal with. Ever since then, I have been drinking as much as possible and as often as possible. It has been a way for me to escape and while I am drinking I feel great about myself, but once I stop the earth shattering depression hits. I know that b/c of the meds that I am on and all the drinking that I am damaging my body and I dont want to die young. I am very reliant on alcohol and it is starting to scare me. Every where I go to socialize it is right in my face and it is very hard for me to turn it down, but I have to start. I appreciate any help and support that I can get. Thank you for listening.

Hello everyone. I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now, and you all seem very friendly and knowledgeable, so I hope it's OK if I jump right in.

My husband of 7 years is struggling with his addiction to opiates. He has abused alcohol and a few other things in the past, but it's the opiates that have really drawn him in to where he's gotten pretty messed up. He was drinking and using most of 2007, until we (our marriage) hit rock bottom around Xmas of last year, and he sobered up. (I took our 3-year old daughter to my mom's for a few days and threatened to stay there if he couldn't get it together.) He did OK for a while, but he has had several relapses in 2008, and most recently, I found out that he had been using again during most of October of this year. Around the first week of November, he got so messed up that he fell and hit his head hard enough to make me wonder if he had a concussion (he didn't).

I never know (though sometimes suspect) that he's using. He's insanely good at hiding it, and while I often have a gu feeling -- I've learned to trust my my gut -- he's so convincing when he lies to my face and says he's just tired/sick/stressed/etc. that I have often given him the benefit of the doubt.

This time is different though. I've had it. I can't even tell you how traumatic all of this has been for me -- how terrifying, horrifying, devastating, etc. -- so no more. I absolutely insisted he get help this time, and so far, he has attended one counseling appointment. He still needs to call to set up the second. I'm trying hard not to bug him about it, but this is exactly my problem. I don't know when to get on him about something anymore, and when to lay off. I don't trust him anymore. That has been the saddest thing about all of this for me. He's a great person, and I want to be able to believe what he says and know he's telling me the truth, but I just can't anymore. He is very bothere about that and says we can never move forward if I'm not going to trust him and believe him, but seriously, that's going to take a while for me. A long while.

One other dilemma: We both work at the same place, and we are both well-respected by our colleages. It turns out, though, that a coworker had been giving my husband all kinds of pain pills from a recent surgery she had. He told her he gets migraines, and because he has a good reputation at work, I'm sure this woman totally believes him. My husband begged me not to say anything to her (now that I know) but I don't know what to do. I'm not angry at the coworker because it's HIS problem, HIS addiction, etc. and she's not a bad person. I'm sure she just thought she was being helpful. I would like to talk to her privately, thoughm, explain that my husband has an addiction we're trying hard to deal with, and ask her please never to give him anything ever again. My husband would be very embarassed if I did that (though of course I'd ask her not to say anything), so I'm torn. Again, it boils down to trust. Do I or don't I?