Archive for the ‘Binge Drink’ tag
Scared and detoxing alone right now
I came here to make a topic and ask for advice, but I got caught up in replying to a private message from back in September, and replying to a topic.
Instead of typing it all out again I'm copying/pasting both right now. I'm starting to think that being a part-time alcoholic is worse than doing this every day. I hope I make it through tonight because I want to embrace the addiction of being sober at the level I have drank in the past few days.
Oh, here are my messages. I'm tired of typing.
Reply to private message:
Thank you.
Sorry I'm so slow to reply, it's my first time logging in again.
I was better for a few months then sunk really low again in the past few days. I binge drink. Sometimes I go weeks without any. Then I go nuts for a few days and occasionally miss work.
I've been in such denial because I'm not a "normal" alcoholic. It doesn't control my life every day. It just grabs chunks of it and eats it up. But I've had enough of that.
I went back to AA on Monday but I didn't stay long. I was very uncomfortable and also going through withdrawal. I tried getting a cup of coffee but spilled some and burned my hands because I was shaking so much, then I pretended to go out for a smoke (believe it or not, I'm actually doing good with quitting smoking), and I just got in my car and drove home. I didn't drink that night. Or for a couple of nights after.
It's kind of ridiculous. I was in the one place in the world where I don't have to be embarrassed about my shaking hands. I'm sure most people in that room can relate.
But I started again on new years eve and I'm trying to survive tonight because I ran out totally, the stores are closed, and I couldn't drive anyway.
Anyway, that was a rant...more than I meant to type. I appreciate the private message and I hope things are still going good for you. I think I'm ready to end the denial and work towards something different.
Reply to post:
This is the first time I've honestly read or heard something that I totally relate with. ....
I was at my lowest point several years ago. I drink much less now, but when I do, it seems the result is worse. But it's not every day. Or every week.
I've learned to "maintain" my problem. And hide it from everyone, really well, I managed to quit smoking AND lose about 30 pounds in about 3 months. Everyone is amazed at how good I look. And they think "temporary drinking problem" a few years ago is gone. Because I keep it to myself now. When I'm in a social situation I have 1 or 2 drinks, then stop. Then I go home in finish a large bottle of vodka. And it goes on for a few days, I stop, go through withdrawal, and do it again a few weekends later. Nobody ever sees me drunk anymore. Only people online, this message board and many others, sometimes I read my messages the next day and I'm shocked and disgusted.
-not functioning so well right now....
I'm making a new topic now, that's what I came here for. Sorry for the repeat.
Wish me luck tonight everyone, I've gone through worse and I don't have it in me to reach out for help with friends and family right now. I don't want to disappoint anyone again. They all thought I was the 1 in million person that conquered alcoholism and began a successful social drinker.
I can't take that back now because I might want to go back to that fantasy sometime in the future.
Sorry for the crazy long topic.
Instead of typing it all out again I'm copying/pasting both right now. I'm starting to think that being a part-time alcoholic is worse than doing this every day. I hope I make it through tonight because I want to embrace the addiction of being sober at the level I have drank in the past few days.
Oh, here are my messages. I'm tired of typing.
Reply to private message:
Thank you.
Sorry I'm so slow to reply, it's my first time logging in again.
I was better for a few months then sunk really low again in the past few days. I binge drink. Sometimes I go weeks without any. Then I go nuts for a few days and occasionally miss work.
I've been in such denial because I'm not a "normal" alcoholic. It doesn't control my life every day. It just grabs chunks of it and eats it up. But I've had enough of that.
I went back to AA on Monday but I didn't stay long. I was very uncomfortable and also going through withdrawal. I tried getting a cup of coffee but spilled some and burned my hands because I was shaking so much, then I pretended to go out for a smoke (believe it or not, I'm actually doing good with quitting smoking), and I just got in my car and drove home. I didn't drink that night. Or for a couple of nights after.
It's kind of ridiculous. I was in the one place in the world where I don't have to be embarrassed about my shaking hands. I'm sure most people in that room can relate.
But I started again on new years eve and I'm trying to survive tonight because I ran out totally, the stores are closed, and I couldn't drive anyway.
Anyway, that was a rant...more than I meant to type. I appreciate the private message and I hope things are still going good for you. I think I'm ready to end the denial and work towards something different.
Reply to post:
This is the first time I've honestly read or heard something that I totally relate with. ....
I was at my lowest point several years ago. I drink much less now, but when I do, it seems the result is worse. But it's not every day. Or every week.
I've learned to "maintain" my problem. And hide it from everyone, really well, I managed to quit smoking AND lose about 30 pounds in about 3 months. Everyone is amazed at how good I look. And they think "temporary drinking problem" a few years ago is gone. Because I keep it to myself now. When I'm in a social situation I have 1 or 2 drinks, then stop. Then I go home in finish a large bottle of vodka. And it goes on for a few days, I stop, go through withdrawal, and do it again a few weekends later. Nobody ever sees me drunk anymore. Only people online, this message board and many others, sometimes I read my messages the next day and I'm shocked and disgusted.
-not functioning so well right now....
I'm making a new topic now, that's what I came here for. Sorry for the repeat.
Wish me luck tonight everyone, I've gone through worse and I don't have it in me to reach out for help with friends and family right now. I don't want to disappoint anyone again. They all thought I was the 1 in million person that conquered alcoholism and began a successful social drinker.
I can't take that back now because I might want to go back to that fantasy sometime in the future.
Sorry for the crazy long topic.
so here is my story of why i need help
I have gotten into the habit of binge drinking every weekend over so many months now I cant count them. I use to have alot of willpower and slow down or even stop my drinking when ever i wanted to but since i moved to japan i cant seem to do it anymore and honestly it scares me.
My other problem is every week I am asked by friends who also binge drink to go out to bars and drink. I am in a setting where it is very easy to do as bars are actually right below my apartment and on every street here in japan. also public drunkiness and drinking anywhere (on the street, the subway, I mean ANYWHERE) is completely acceptable.
Even tonight as I am fighting in my mind on how to get on track with staying sober I am being texted by coworkers and friends to go out drinking since it is a national holiday today.
Dont get me wrong I love my friends but ALL of my friends here are heavy drinkers. Also finding a support group or going for counseling is impossible as I dont speak the langauge well enough to communicate my struggles.
The weird thing is after a heavy weekend of drinking I of course feel guilty and so the next day during the work week I wont drink. Ill even eat healthy and exercise. I try to tell myself I need to stick to my exercise in place of drinking because thats how i use to stop for long peroids of time if i felt i was drinking too much. but when the weekend rolls around again I lose my will.
I am really alone in my battle as there is pretty much no one to talk to about this here. so I know i could definitely use any support i can find.
thanks for listening and any advice is welcome..
My other problem is every week I am asked by friends who also binge drink to go out to bars and drink. I am in a setting where it is very easy to do as bars are actually right below my apartment and on every street here in japan. also public drunkiness and drinking anywhere (on the street, the subway, I mean ANYWHERE) is completely acceptable.
Even tonight as I am fighting in my mind on how to get on track with staying sober I am being texted by coworkers and friends to go out drinking since it is a national holiday today.
Dont get me wrong I love my friends but ALL of my friends here are heavy drinkers. Also finding a support group or going for counseling is impossible as I dont speak the langauge well enough to communicate my struggles.
The weird thing is after a heavy weekend of drinking I of course feel guilty and so the next day during the work week I wont drink. Ill even eat healthy and exercise. I try to tell myself I need to stick to my exercise in place of drinking because thats how i use to stop for long peroids of time if i felt i was drinking too much. but when the weekend rolls around again I lose my will.
I am really alone in my battle as there is pretty much no one to talk to about this here. so I know i could definitely use any support i can find.
thanks for listening and any advice is welcome..
NY Times article on binge drinking in college
Just read this article today and wanted to share with others. Let's see if my kids' lessons to their old mom on copying and pasting actually sunk in!
Personal Health
Curbing Binge Drinking Takes Group Effort
By JANE E. BRODY
Published: September 8, 2008
Of all the advice parents give to children heading off to college, warnings about alcohol — and especially about abusing alcohol — may be the most important. At most colleges, whether and how much students drink can make an enormous difference, not just in how well they do in school, but even whether they live or die.
Every state has a minimum drinking age of 21, and the vast majority of college students are younger than that. Yet drinking, and in particular drinking to get drunk, remains a major health and social problem on campuses. Car crashes and other accidental injuries, sexual assaults, fights, community violence, academic failure and deaths from an overdose of alcohol are among the consequences.
College students spend about $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on books, soft drinks and other beverages combined. Alcohol is a factor in the deaths of about 1,700 college students each year.
The consequences can be particularly severe when people binge drink, a drinking pattern adopted by 44 percent of college students, national surveys have shown. Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks for men or four or more for women in a row, usually within two hours.
“Most alcohol-related harms experienced by college students occur among drinkers captured by the five/four measure of consumption,” Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health and Toben F. Nelson of the University of Minnesota wrote in July in The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
A petition circulating among college presidents seeks to lower the drinking age to 18 on the theory that it would reduce the number of students who binge drink beyond the boundaries of college campuses. But opponents say there is no hard evidence for this belief and a better plan would be to change the drinking culture on campus.
About half of college binge drinkers arrive on campus having engaged in similar behavior in high school; an equal number acquire this behavior in college, Elissa R. Weitzman of Harvard and colleagues reported.
Every year, tens of thousands of college students wind up in emergency rooms suffering from the life-threatening effects of alcohol intoxication. And every year, about a dozen students, including some of the best and brightest and most athletically talented, die from acute alcohol poisoning. In one study of students who suffered alcohol-related injuries, 21 percent reported consuming eight or more drinks in a row.
Although Greek houses, which have the highest rates of binge drinking, are infamous for a free-flowing alcohol culture, studies have found that student athletes and sports fans are also among the heaviest drinkers, often gathering to drink to oblivion after an athletic event.
A Community Approach
A concerted effort has been made in the last decade to define the factors that prompt binge drinking on campuses and devise effective methods to combat it. What has become most obvious to researchers is that colleges cannot achieve this on their own.
“Basically, having programs to reduce binge drinking on college campuses in the absence of broad-based community interventions to do likewise may be a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Dr. Timothy S. Naimi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which began in 1993, has identified several environmental and community factors that encourage binge drinking. Dr. Wechsler, who directed the study, said in an interview that high-volume alcohol sales, for example, and promotions in bars around campuses encourage drinking to excess.
“Some sell alcohol in large containers, fishbowls and pitchers,” he said. “There are special promotions: women’s nights where the women can drink free; 25-cent beers; two drinks for the price of one; and gut-busters, where people can drink all they want for one price until they have to go to the bathroom. Sites with these kinds of promotions have more binge drinking.
“Price is an issue,” he added. “It can be cheaper to get drunk on the weekend than to go to a movie.”
Although it is a college’s duty to educate students about the effects of alcohol and the risks of drinking too much, “education by itself doesn’t work,” Dr. Wechsler said. “You must attack the supply side as well as the demand side.”
More than half the alcohol outlets surrounding colleges that participated in the Harvard study offered promotions with price discounts, and nearly three-fourths that served alcohol on the premises had price discounts on weekends.
The study found that the sites of heaviest drinking by college students were off-campus bars and parties held off-campus and at fraternity and sorority houses.
Strong Policies Work
Among the factors associated with lower levels of drinking were strong state and local drunken-driving policies aimed at youths and young adults, as well as state alcohol-control policies like keg registration and laws restricting happy hours, open containers in public, beer sold in pitchers and billboards and other types of alcohol advertising.
“College sports events should not be sponsored by alcohol purveyors,” Dr. Wechsler said.
Community measures that helped to curtail binge drinking during the eight-year course of the study included a limit on alcohol outlets near campus, mandatory training for beverage servers, a crackdown on unlicensed alcohol sales and greater monitoring of alcohol outlets to curtail under-age drinking and excessive consumption by legal drinkers.
Campus practices that resulted in small but significant reductions in binge drinking included greater supervision of fraternities and sororities and more stringent accreditation requirements for Greek houses, policies to notify parents when students have trouble with alcohol, an increase in substance-free residence halls and more alcohol-free activities like movies and dances, especially on weekend nights.
But, Dr. Wechsler said, “college presidents can’t do it alone. They need help from legislative and community leaders. Alcohol is sold and consumed in the community. Residents need to get together to get it under control.”
What Parents Can Do
Dr. Wechsler urged that parents “put pressure on schools.” They should ask officials at the schools their children attend, or plan to attend, what they are doing to control drinking — especially binge drinking. When visiting schools, parents should check out the quality of life in the dorms. If they detect problems suggestive of heavy drinking, like excessive noise or vomit in the bathrooms, “they should demand that these issues be addressed,” he said.
Of course, he added, “parents should talk to their kids about drinking. Parents shouldn’t think that if it’s a beer and not a drug it’s of no consequence. Beer kills more people than drugs.”
Parents might also make it clear to students that they are expected to perform admirably outside the classroom as well as within it. Studies have shown that there is less drinking by students concerned about their grades, but also by those involved in volunteer work and other activities on and off campus.
Personal Health
Curbing Binge Drinking Takes Group Effort
By JANE E. BRODY
Published: September 8, 2008
Of all the advice parents give to children heading off to college, warnings about alcohol — and especially about abusing alcohol — may be the most important. At most colleges, whether and how much students drink can make an enormous difference, not just in how well they do in school, but even whether they live or die.
Every state has a minimum drinking age of 21, and the vast majority of college students are younger than that. Yet drinking, and in particular drinking to get drunk, remains a major health and social problem on campuses. Car crashes and other accidental injuries, sexual assaults, fights, community violence, academic failure and deaths from an overdose of alcohol are among the consequences.
College students spend about $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on books, soft drinks and other beverages combined. Alcohol is a factor in the deaths of about 1,700 college students each year.
The consequences can be particularly severe when people binge drink, a drinking pattern adopted by 44 percent of college students, national surveys have shown. Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks for men or four or more for women in a row, usually within two hours.
“Most alcohol-related harms experienced by college students occur among drinkers captured by the five/four measure of consumption,” Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health and Toben F. Nelson of the University of Minnesota wrote in July in The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
A petition circulating among college presidents seeks to lower the drinking age to 18 on the theory that it would reduce the number of students who binge drink beyond the boundaries of college campuses. But opponents say there is no hard evidence for this belief and a better plan would be to change the drinking culture on campus.
About half of college binge drinkers arrive on campus having engaged in similar behavior in high school; an equal number acquire this behavior in college, Elissa R. Weitzman of Harvard and colleagues reported.
Every year, tens of thousands of college students wind up in emergency rooms suffering from the life-threatening effects of alcohol intoxication. And every year, about a dozen students, including some of the best and brightest and most athletically talented, die from acute alcohol poisoning. In one study of students who suffered alcohol-related injuries, 21 percent reported consuming eight or more drinks in a row.
Although Greek houses, which have the highest rates of binge drinking, are infamous for a free-flowing alcohol culture, studies have found that student athletes and sports fans are also among the heaviest drinkers, often gathering to drink to oblivion after an athletic event.
A Community Approach
A concerted effort has been made in the last decade to define the factors that prompt binge drinking on campuses and devise effective methods to combat it. What has become most obvious to researchers is that colleges cannot achieve this on their own.
“Basically, having programs to reduce binge drinking on college campuses in the absence of broad-based community interventions to do likewise may be a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Dr. Timothy S. Naimi of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, which began in 1993, has identified several environmental and community factors that encourage binge drinking. Dr. Wechsler, who directed the study, said in an interview that high-volume alcohol sales, for example, and promotions in bars around campuses encourage drinking to excess.
“Some sell alcohol in large containers, fishbowls and pitchers,” he said. “There are special promotions: women’s nights where the women can drink free; 25-cent beers; two drinks for the price of one; and gut-busters, where people can drink all they want for one price until they have to go to the bathroom. Sites with these kinds of promotions have more binge drinking.
“Price is an issue,” he added. “It can be cheaper to get drunk on the weekend than to go to a movie.”
Although it is a college’s duty to educate students about the effects of alcohol and the risks of drinking too much, “education by itself doesn’t work,” Dr. Wechsler said. “You must attack the supply side as well as the demand side.”
More than half the alcohol outlets surrounding colleges that participated in the Harvard study offered promotions with price discounts, and nearly three-fourths that served alcohol on the premises had price discounts on weekends.
The study found that the sites of heaviest drinking by college students were off-campus bars and parties held off-campus and at fraternity and sorority houses.
Strong Policies Work
Among the factors associated with lower levels of drinking were strong state and local drunken-driving policies aimed at youths and young adults, as well as state alcohol-control policies like keg registration and laws restricting happy hours, open containers in public, beer sold in pitchers and billboards and other types of alcohol advertising.
“College sports events should not be sponsored by alcohol purveyors,” Dr. Wechsler said.
Community measures that helped to curtail binge drinking during the eight-year course of the study included a limit on alcohol outlets near campus, mandatory training for beverage servers, a crackdown on unlicensed alcohol sales and greater monitoring of alcohol outlets to curtail under-age drinking and excessive consumption by legal drinkers.
Campus practices that resulted in small but significant reductions in binge drinking included greater supervision of fraternities and sororities and more stringent accreditation requirements for Greek houses, policies to notify parents when students have trouble with alcohol, an increase in substance-free residence halls and more alcohol-free activities like movies and dances, especially on weekend nights.
But, Dr. Wechsler said, “college presidents can’t do it alone. They need help from legislative and community leaders. Alcohol is sold and consumed in the community. Residents need to get together to get it under control.”
What Parents Can Do
Dr. Wechsler urged that parents “put pressure on schools.” They should ask officials at the schools their children attend, or plan to attend, what they are doing to control drinking — especially binge drinking. When visiting schools, parents should check out the quality of life in the dorms. If they detect problems suggestive of heavy drinking, like excessive noise or vomit in the bathrooms, “they should demand that these issues be addressed,” he said.
Of course, he added, “parents should talk to their kids about drinking. Parents shouldn’t think that if it’s a beer and not a drug it’s of no consequence. Beer kills more people than drugs.”
Parents might also make it clear to students that they are expected to perform admirably outside the classroom as well as within it. Studies have shown that there is less drinking by students concerned about their grades, but also by those involved in volunteer work and other activities on and off campus.
First week…month…?
Hi everyone. I am on day 3 since quitting drinking. I am in my early 20s and primarily binge drink 2-3 days a week with my friends. Nothing too disasterous ever happened. But enough social drama and stress came from my drinking habits that I have been "cutting back" for a while now. I thought for a while that going out and having 10 or so drinks a couple times a week was normal behavior for someone my age. But then I started waking up with classic withdrawal symptoms after drinking (like worse than the hangovers my friends experience). So I thought to myself that these symptoms indicate that my body is becoming addicted to alcohol.
I dont drink every day or in the morning or at work or anything, it was just the threat of addiction that made me realize I am probably in the early stages of alcoholism. I have done a lot of reading about this disease and dont want to get to any of the later stages. It terrifies me so I know I need to stop drinking altogether. Anyway...I am wondering if anyone has experience with quitting binge-drinking (like i described above). What should I expect physically, emotionally, psychologically? The last time I had alcohol was Friday night when I shared some wine with my friend. Yesterday I was anxious and had a headache but i felt okay after 24 hours. I feel fine today just a little tired. Any feedback on the first weeks/months of abstinence and what I can expect would be helpful. Thanks!
I dont drink every day or in the morning or at work or anything, it was just the threat of addiction that made me realize I am probably in the early stages of alcoholism. I have done a lot of reading about this disease and dont want to get to any of the later stages. It terrifies me so I know I need to stop drinking altogether. Anyway...I am wondering if anyone has experience with quitting binge-drinking (like i described above). What should I expect physically, emotionally, psychologically? The last time I had alcohol was Friday night when I shared some wine with my friend. Yesterday I was anxious and had a headache but i felt okay after 24 hours. I feel fine today just a little tired. Any feedback on the first weeks/months of abstinence and what I can expect would be helpful. Thanks!
Sure I have a drinking problem, want to stop
It is very hard for me to actually post here as I am admitting to myself that I have a drinking problem. I am a 41 yr old married mum of 3 little kids and over the last 12 months I have been drinking alot more than I have in recent yrs. I have always drank but socially, never at home alone like I do now.
We have been trying to have another baby for over 2 yrs, have had 4 miscarriages and I think that has alot to do with why I drink. I actually binge drink, I was never one to drink during the week, only on weekends when usually I will drink either 2 nights or 3, as much as a bottle of wine and a couple of mixer cans at each sitting. I can't stop at one, I want the feelling of being drunk, I always drink alone, usually when my husband is on night shift or at sport, as I don't want him to know how weak I am.
I just love relaxing at weekends with a dvd, or at the computer, with a few drinks, but I am recognising that I am drinking excessively, as I wake sometimes during the night with a shaky feeling and feel like crap in the mornings.
I am trying to get into fitness and gym, but I am sabotaging my weekly efforts by binge drinking at the weekends. And now, I so look forward to that first drink, that I have been drinking during the week, just a couple of nights usually but that means I am not there for my kids, as I am busy trying to get them to bed so I can have a drink.
So thats another point, I am finding my self with no patience for my beautiful children, I get cranky and tired with them so easily and my temper flares up out of nowhere, I NEVER used to feel like this and am sure this is a byproduct of drinking.
If I could just have one relaxing glass of wine, that would be great, but I can't stop at one, and I think about going for weekends without the relaxing drink in the evening and it worries me. I think, I look forward to that why deprive myself. I am worried that my health is suffering, I am worried that I am shortening my life, and I worry that my kids will suffer. My 7 yr old daughter has told me I drink too much wine, and I hate driving to the bottle shop with them, thinking that this is what they will remember of their mum.
There are so many things I need to and want to do but if I have a night of drinking that all goes out the window. I feel like I am doing all of the many things I do on 60 percent, I feel like a weak, bad, cranky, impatient mother and I want to be a better mum for my babies. I would love to just have one glass of wine now and then, but I don't know if that is possible because I class myself as a binge drinker. I want an alcohol free life, but I don't know how to do that, or if I can do it.
So there it is, any advice would be appreciated.
We have been trying to have another baby for over 2 yrs, have had 4 miscarriages and I think that has alot to do with why I drink. I actually binge drink, I was never one to drink during the week, only on weekends when usually I will drink either 2 nights or 3, as much as a bottle of wine and a couple of mixer cans at each sitting. I can't stop at one, I want the feelling of being drunk, I always drink alone, usually when my husband is on night shift or at sport, as I don't want him to know how weak I am.
I just love relaxing at weekends with a dvd, or at the computer, with a few drinks, but I am recognising that I am drinking excessively, as I wake sometimes during the night with a shaky feeling and feel like crap in the mornings.
I am trying to get into fitness and gym, but I am sabotaging my weekly efforts by binge drinking at the weekends. And now, I so look forward to that first drink, that I have been drinking during the week, just a couple of nights usually but that means I am not there for my kids, as I am busy trying to get them to bed so I can have a drink.
So thats another point, I am finding my self with no patience for my beautiful children, I get cranky and tired with them so easily and my temper flares up out of nowhere, I NEVER used to feel like this and am sure this is a byproduct of drinking.
If I could just have one relaxing glass of wine, that would be great, but I can't stop at one, and I think about going for weekends without the relaxing drink in the evening and it worries me. I think, I look forward to that why deprive myself. I am worried that my health is suffering, I am worried that I am shortening my life, and I worry that my kids will suffer. My 7 yr old daughter has told me I drink too much wine, and I hate driving to the bottle shop with them, thinking that this is what they will remember of their mum.
There are so many things I need to and want to do but if I have a night of drinking that all goes out the window. I feel like I am doing all of the many things I do on 60 percent, I feel like a weak, bad, cranky, impatient mother and I want to be a better mum for my babies. I would love to just have one glass of wine now and then, but I don't know if that is possible because I class myself as a binge drinker. I want an alcohol free life, but I don't know how to do that, or if I can do it.
So there it is, any advice would be appreciated.
