Help me quit alcohol

[john kane]

ill give a bit of background to my drinking and then why i want to quit and why it is so hard.

got into drinking aged around 15-16. i would drink with my school mates round someones house. was really good fun. still meet up with them when im in london. we go to the pub 2-3 nights a week.

spent my gap year permanently drunk. went to australia with two of my school mates, travelled everywhere, don't think there was a spell of more than 3 days where we didn't hit the bars etc. great time. spent 4 months working at a golf club, did the usual pubs 2-3 nights a week. when i say go to the pub, talking on average 5 pints (around 2.7 litres) then a few doubles and mixers, sometimes more, sometimes less.

went to uni, been on a 4 year bender. again been a really great time. varies from week to week, sometimes ill get shitfaced 4-5 times a week, other weeks 2 times. in first year drinking to oblivion was frequent. second year getting home regularly was a blank. third year all day pub sessions were common. this year the same. whenever i go back home, my school mates all live right near me so again ill hit the pubs back home.

now, this may seem like, wtf, you've really enjoyed drinking. i must stress i dont have an alcohol problem. its just ive been lucky to of meet a lot of decent fun people who want to have a good time.

however, i just want to quit booze becuase i feel after 5 years of constant hitting the pubs and bars hard, i need a rest. like a worker who has worked his socks off for 5 years needs a few months holiday. part of it is that im starting a job in 3 months time. in 2007 online i have made a bit over $200/hr. i have around $100K, my job will earn me $50K/year. i really want to play a sick amount over the next 3 months so i can hopefully buy a house within a year. in london $100K+$150K mortgage could buy you some scankhole. i dont want to live in a scankhole, but dont want to spend years living with my folks. this is really important to me, having my own place will really make me feel that i'd made it, that the financial side of poker hasnt just allowed me to be a blow money when going out, but actually help set me up in life.
the other part is i cant be bothered spending days hungover, feeling like crap with a banging hangover, having spent $200+ the night before. i'd like to spend what free time i plan to have this summer watching a dvd or something, or having a nice meal.

the problem with quitting is that going down the pub and bars is what we do. when i say we i mean myself and school and uni mates. its hard to be the wet blanket, the guy who sits there sober while everyone else gets drunk. your effectively sitting there being like 'i think drinking is stupid'. the sober people never enjoy themselves as much as the drunk people, its not surprising given the effects of alcohol.

i guess im looking for suggestions on how to go about this or if anyone else is/has been in the same situation. i guess i find it very hard to be the wet blanket, becuase ive enjoyed going out so much be it with school or uni mates. but i dont want to look back when im 35 thinking 'that was a fun 20 year bender', i now have x y and z health problems, and have struggled with my job, blown most of my money etc.

but after 10 days or so of quitting booze, ill probably think 'this is so dull, lets get shitfaced'. if thats the case, i will probably get shitfaced, but i dont think it will be the case.

alcohol really has had a great effect for me, meant ive had a really great last 5 years (i may well of had a good 5 years without it but i doubt it tbh, certainly not as much fun anyway) but i just feel now its time to turn a different direction. also i think this is becuase ive never needed to not drink, during gap years and uni you can go on benders all you like, becuase its fun and you can build for the future in later years. but now i guess ive always wanted to be rich, and i wont achieve that quickly being an accountant, so i guess i need to spend the 15+ hours or so a week i spend drunk and hungover instead more productively.

sorry for such a long post, just i think i needed to post this.

replies much appreciated.

[luckyjimm]

I gave up booze completely in 2003 and stayed off it for 22 months. At that point I'd lived in London for seven years. I drank way too much at university, often to blackout / vomiting my guts up. I had such disastrous hangovers. When I drank, I couldn't stop, etc, etc. But I thought that red wine was my best friend; I felt so relaxed and at peace when I drank it; it was my morphine. The problem was I felt good after a bottle, bad after two, and was basically a bum if I had any more. I went to AA for six months then stopped going but stayed off the booze.

The first few weeks without my crutch I found really hard; drinking had neutered my emotions, my sense of who I am or where I was going, it wiped out my memory. All that came crashing back and it was like a form of grieving, for the mistakes I'd made and the things I'd lost through my drinking. Also part of my self-image was that I was a drinker - I felt darkly poetic, that I had this vice which made me special. Drinking in odd situations made me feel edgy - I remember once going to Italy, my mum went out for 20 minutes before driving me to the airport and I'd bought a bottle of wine and just downed it, then drank again at the airport bar, then again on landing. I remember drinking on tube trains, always travelling drunk. Suddenly I wouldn't have that.

But so many disastrous things had happened to me when I was drunk. I was the kind of person who made drinks disappear. At university this was pretty much acceptable, but as I got older I wasn't hanging around with a drinking crowd - in fact, I had lost a lot of friends because of what drink did to me. It also made me overweight and lazy.

Not drinking is easy when you get used to it. Fortunately I made a new crowd of friends who liked going to art exhibition launch parties, meals in restuarants, poker nights and dinner parties much more than sitting around in pubs or bars. Even when they did that, my not drinking wasn't a problem. Being an out-of-control drunk is much more likely to cause you problems than being sober, on form, witty, in control of yourself and taking part in conversation with your wits about you; able to judge a situation well, and generally being a much nicer person because you're sober.

I'd really recommend giving sobriety a try. The period I spent not drinking was the best time of my life. I slimmed down, I made so many new friends, my social life was much better than when I was drinking, and there really weren't that many awkward situations. I was much clearer about what I wanted from life, and so much more effective at achieving it, compared with the periods before or after, when any ambitions I might once have had are lost in the fug of addiction.

When I wasn't drinking I did find myself getting into other vices for example strip clubs and then poker. Poker came to replace alcohol as my means of self-destruction. I did eventally start drinking again but, happily, I found I wasn't as interested in it any more simply because my urge to play online poker is so much stronger and I want to be sober for that. Now the blackouts and the vomiting don't happen to me any more, and I drink much less frequently than I did in the past. Which makes me question the idea of alcoholism - or at least I would add the condition that an addict can be "cured" of one addiction by replacing it with an equally powerful one!

[nineinchal]

That's they only sure way; if in fact you are sincere about quitting.

My wife told me to quit drinking. I told her I am not a quitter.

[AlienBoy]

Simple: Replace alcohol with marijuana.

Marijuana is not nearly as addictive as alcohol, and has far fewer negative health effects - also, marijuana is far easier to give up. And using marijuana, you will help curb the withdrawal symptoms from giving up alcohol.

AB

[svenson]

posting in a poker forum isn't going to help you out. You need some professional help. And its well worth it. You have the cash to do it, you have plenty of time, take quitting seriously while you are still young. Good Luck.

[Al Mirpuri]

You feel you need to quit so that is a good place to start.

You claim not to be an alcoholic but that is just a question of terminology.

Alcohol is for losers: it impairs sexual performance, intellectual performance and so on. It is all empty calories which means that nutritionallly it is doing your body no good whilst adding onto your calorific intake for the day. This means you will end up FAT. Fat people are thought to be lazy and society discriminates against them. The women willing to date you will shrink in numbers. Your mates are just losers. I know a guy with a drink and cocaine habit who is always short for cash whilst earning 33% more than I. Is he contemptible? Answer: yes.

So you think sitting in a pub is good fun? Yeah. Once a week perhaps.

You are disgusting. Once you accept this you can change.

But how can you change when even politicians boast about how much alcohol they can consume.

This has probably been a waste of effort.

[PLOlover]

get that pill you take everyday that makes yyou sick if you drink alchohol, thats what I would do for the first month or so anyway.

[Eaglebauer]

If you have to be medicated (i.e. drunk) to have a good time then that's a bit of a problem.

[GreywolfNYC]

[ QUOTE ]
i must stress i dont have an alcohol problem. its just ive been lucky to of meet a lot of decent fun people who want to have a good time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Denial ain't a river in Egypt.

[john kane]

thanks for all the replies, ill try to respond to each of them:

luckyjimm, thanks for sharing your story, well done on overcoming your problem and sounds like things alcohol wise have been going well. alcohol clearly had a bad impact on you.

nineinchal, lol nice saying.

alienboy, i first smoked marijuana aged around 16-17, smoke roughly once a week with friends, smoked a fair bit out in oz in my gap year, but quit after 1st year at uni becuase it's not a social drug for me, just mongs me out and makes me fall asleep.

svenson, i dont think i need professional advice, im doing what a lot of the 20-30 age group do, just they don't want to quit.

al mirpuri, errr yeah, you seem a bit extreme in your views. alcohol imo helps you relax and not constantly be worried about success etc, it makes things seem funnier, makes situations more enjoyable, overall, if it didnt have health consequences, its has desirable effects. Sexual performance is worse, but then your far more likely to get some if you go out and have a few drinks, intellectual performance is worse, but you still learn a lot from interacting with others and seeing what they are doing. i'd be far poorer if i didnt drink as i'd never of gotten into online poker. 'You are disgusting', okay....i sense a patrick bateman wannabe.

PLOlover, that sounds great, ill go google that, could really help i think.

eaglebaueri, having fun when drunk and having to be drunk to have fun are two entirely different statements, i think i am the former. i have fun going to watch football, playing sports, playing poker, playing playstation, watching tv, reading (although i dont do this enough), going out for lunch or dinner with friends, reading about the financial markets, and a few other things im sure.

greywolfnyc, if i lived by myself and never spoke to friends, then i'd never drink. i never wake up and think 'i need a drink', i very rarely will instigate going out, its usually someone else persuading me (i am very easily persuaded though). the problem is i guess if im going to not spend time playing online poker and go to go to the pub, i might as well have as fun time as possible i.e. get drunk. but that doesn't mean i want to get drunk all the time, far from it.

anyways, thanks again for all the replies, this is something i really want to try to do. just it's very hard when you have things like having 7 housemates and another few good friends all leaving uni in the next 7 days, all with 'this is my last night, lets go out and get hammered'. to say 'sorry im staying in' when it's your friend's last night ever at uni is kinda hard given you've probably been out with them at least once or twice a week for the last few years.