Green Doberman,
It's very courageous for you to come to an anonymous Internet forum and ask for help on this problem. I too have had a similar problem. I don't think my technique of solving is ideal and I think the key is to find something that works for you or you will never stick to it.
I love betting and one of the chief reasons I quit was it was f*cking up my betting. For me, it's very important to win at betting. I have ZERO shot when I drink. One needs to think clearly and be relatively calm to deal with the highs and lows. With the way I drank, that wasn't possible. Drinking affected my judgement for days and led to other "things".
But there were health reasons right up there. I don't know if you work out, but that's great solution. Eating right is awesome too. I was getting increasingly annoyed with myself as I would work out during the week hard for a good period and completely f*ck it up by going buck wild on the weekend and being dehydrated and feeling like shit for another couple days. I have drinking stories to match anyone on the forum or anywhere but as you get older, health is way more important. Living healthy is huge. Too bad in these months, the cold winters here, and all the sports to bet on, it's hard for me to be consistent in terms of working out.
The other reason is to examine WHY you drink and get wasted. I am still working on this part. But IMO, until you examine why you drink and attack the reasons, you will never be able to stop longterm. I was a binge drinker. I could stay away but on nights when I went out, I was going to drink hard and fast for as long as I could red bull and vodka and jaeger bombs etc. Nothing bad happened when I drank beer, but I could never stick with beer the whole night. Mix that in with blackjack and it was a deadly combination. Two years ago, I went on a 36 hour drinking binge in Vegas. Was the most expensive drinking binge ever. Only silver lining was playing blackjack with a Playboy Playmate for 4 hours, but that's a story for another day.
As for AA, I believe it has worked for a lot of people so it might for you. For me it was totally useless. I couldn't identify with anyone there and the cult like atmosphere combined with complete and total alcholics judging you telling you to avoid bars and clubs actually MADE me want to drink. I think an excellent step you made is wanting to stop for yourself. It's the only way.
As for friends, I doubted that too. What I came to realize and was surprised at was a majority of my friends were quite proud and impressed. Course there were others who looked on with skepticism or hinted that it wasn't cool. Those are not real friends. I guess they miss me taking care of tabs like an idiot when I was wasted or providing entertainment or just generally being social. I have fewer friends now, but I have real friends. That's a pretty nice reward.
I still go out to clubs and bars as much as I used to and one could argue that I am playing with fire, but it is something that I like doing. It is really different though but it's something I had to do for myself and I love proving people wrong, especially the AA cliques. I think the final step is to find other things. For me it's excercise, but there are tons of other things that I haven't done and need to get to. It's unrealistic to think that I will never drink again, but I am hoping I will be equipped to deal with it when a lapse occurs. Change is hard, but it can be done. If you ever need any help, email me.
[This message was edited by altice on November 27, 2003 at 10:59 PM.]
