I'm falling back into drinking alcohol again

[I'mdave27]

I'm slowly falling back into drinking alcohol again and it wouldn't be a bad idea if I could handle my drink but the truth is , I can't. I have read two books to help me stop , both very good , one was Jason Vales 'kick the drink....easily' and the other 'allen carrs easyway to control alcohol' but they haven't helped which is very obvious otherwise I wouldn't be typing this message , I feel a fool. The funny thing is I didn't touch alcohol for over a month it was a weird experience because I felt really emotional like I wanted to cry all the time and of course I felt so out of place especially as that's all people do is drink nowadays. I only got back on the wagon because I went on holiday with my fiance and parents last week so I didn't want everyone to feel or be bored around a non drinker so I did the only thing to do which is of course drink , I know im a weak person. I am fed up of being horrible to everyone when I drink alcohol I really want to stay sober but I don't want to feel emotional when stopping drinking because having anxiety and depression is hard enough. So any ideas on what are my options ? I don't want to go doctors as I can't see what he can do to help and I certainly don't want to go to AA because I'm not a chronic alcoholic.

[AuntieMoosie]

Hi there,

I kind of think that you've answered your own question here.

"I really want to stay sober but I don't want to feel emotional when stopping drinking"

So question number 1.........why or what is making you not want to feel emotional? Is it that you have painful emotions, such as sadness, anger or the like?

As hard as it is, and I do know and understand how hard it is, the only way we can deal with these tough emotions is by facing them, finding the route cause of them and then dealing with that :)

Because of my childhood, I was left with very painful emotions, I didn't use alcohol to mask them, but what I did instead was to make myself really angry with the world and everyone in it!!!!......it was a protection of myself thing.

We all find different ways to mask what we're really feeling, but they all amount to the very same thing and that it fear of having to feel and face these painful emotions again :)

" I know im a weak person"........oh no you are NOT!!!

If we have pain, physical pain, we all reach for a pain killer don't we?

If we have emotional pain, we want to do the same thing, we want the pain to stop and sometimes we'll go off track a bit and use the wrong thing or the wrong technique just to be rid of the pain, it's a normal human response.

I know that you don't want to go to your doctor, you don't need to be alcoholic to receive help though.

I would really encourage you to go and seek help with the emotions that you're are trying to mask, if you can tackle them, then everything else will fall nicely into place :)

Rather than using alcohol to relieve your pain, medication or therapy or both, is a much better and more positive route to take and I would really encourage you to try that route, that's the route I took, and I'm now much better :)

You have a fiance so at one point in the future you'll be planning on marrying, what a wonderful thing to be looking forward too. It would be really sad if you were still having this problem into your marriage and your future life, you're still very young and have lots of lovely life to come yet, so try your best to focus on your future and invest in it now, go and get the help that you need, be rid of your painful emotions, free yourself, then grab life with both hands and go out there and really live it :yesyes:

[I'mdave27]

I am an emotional person and I am getting private counselling. I also meant when I gave up I felt more emotional then ever but I don't know whether that was due to withdraw or not , so confusing. When I gave up it kind of made me see how alcohol is involved with life a lot like if I think of me on a beach there's a drink in my hand , if you call up a friend you go out for a drink , if I'm bored I want to drink. It's as if everything we do involves drinking alcohol or everything is revolved around drinking so that's where it gets tricky because you have to replace old behaviour with new behaviour but that's extremely hard when so many people are in the drugs trap , it's not impossible though. With alcohol I feel people are less likely to accept that it is a drug problem because obviously they are in the same trap I am in but they are just not at the bad side of it , yet. I mean who's going to admit they have a problem when they won't even probably end up a bad alcoholic ?