re: A guy told me that before he stopped drinking, he was killing a fifth of Jack a day.

I have insomnia real bad. My doctor took me off of the sleeping medication that he prescribed. I had a real tough time falling asleep. I started drinking either rum and coke or whiskey and coke. I never was a fall down drunk or someone who had trouble walking after I drank. My doctor asked me if I took an abundance of Tylenol. I told him no and he asked me if I drank a lot. I told him not a lot but I would drink four or five drinks to help me sleep. I stopped drinking a year before I went to the doctor and I haven't had a drink for at least five years. He told me never to drink again. He told me that I have cirrhosis of the liver. I just took what he told me and made a promise to myself that I would beat this. There is nobody to blame but myself. I abused alcohol and I'm paying for it. The doc never gave me medication. I feel healthy and I never experienced any pain. I never turned yellow and my eyes never turned yellow. If I die then I die. I was in a coma for four months because of a severe traffic accident. The doctors were surprised that I lived. It's all in God's hands and I will accept whatever happens to me.

I was around a fifth every couple days along with 1/2 case or more daily. When I was off, it would increase to about a case a day. I never drank at work, did my job and all that, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't "sober" for around 10 years. When I started having to drive a lot more for work, it scared me to think what I was doing. I put myself into rehab in 2021. Probably one of the toughest things I've ever had to do. Those first few weeks sucked. While I still occasionally drank a beer or two, I've been sober since. Best decision I ever made.

I have worked with a handful of functioning alcoholics over the years but two of them stand out over the others.

1) while at work he had a cup of coffee and a cigarette is his hand almost none stop. He would have work and but a case of Natty Lites and kill it before he went to sleep, everyday. Doctor finally told him he had diabetes and to quit drinking.

2) I personally witnessed him suck down a fifth of rum at a Christmas party in just a few hours. He would also buy a new handle of cheap Ron Rico rum at about $10 a handle every Thursday at lunch and drink better than half that night and still make it to work on Friday.

I can drink a fifth of vodka in a day if I wanted to.

But I don't, because it's devastating to your body.

My father drank himself to death at the ripe old age of 49.

Vodka, beer, whiskey, mouthwash, vanilla extract…if it had alcohol…he would drink it.

He was a very intelligent guy, a RN, but the last few years of his life he could barely string 2 sentences together. His brain was complete mush.

He had cirrhosis but died from a massive stroke because he couldn’t remember take his BP meds.

Damn how long did you drink at bedtime

Guess I’ll share my journey.

Didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until I graduated college and got married.

I played baseball through college and my highschool sweetheart and I have stayed together all these years and been married for 11. I say that to illustrate that we really kept ourselves out of trouble, and we both were quite judgmental of our peers who were drinkers or party types.


My first beer was a Fat Tire. A colleague of mine, and good friend from college was in the same industry, and we found ourselves dabbling in craft beer.

On Fridays, we would go to the local craft beer shop and purchase 6-8 new beers. We would split them and just were exploring all this new beer.
( 2010 -2012)


This instigated a big time hobby in craft beer and beer trading.


I ended up making friends with a guy who had been brewing beer since 1996. Started reading books about brewing beer and consuming all manner of literature about it. Guess I just was seeking out the best the beer world had to offer.


This turned into from splitting a max total of maybe 3-4 beers total on a Friday to daily drinking.

Typically I’d have one big beer a night.
(10%-18% ABV barley wine, stout or IIPA)


This turned into 2-3 lighter beers with a big beer.


Anyway, I can count one hand the amount of times I’ve been drunk.


After the last 5-6 years of doing this while also being addicted to health and fitness, i just came to the realization that alcohol runs completely tangential to all my goals in fitness and in life.


It’s never negatively impacted my work, marriage or relationships, but a friend of mine who had a similar journey has spiraled rapidly and it’s the saddest thing ever. He has ruined his marriage, and will probably die from this. Scares the hell out of me.

So in short, I’m 20 days no alcohol. Doing 75 hard.
Just want to hit a reset with my relationship with alcohol.

Not sure my story fits here but felt I need to share.

Way back in the day, when Cracked.com was at the forefront of the internet, David Wong had an article about getting sober. Was pretty crazy.

The one I did not expect was about the GI issues/shitting. When you get almost all of your calories from alcohol, switching a normal diet is apparently hell on earth for a few weeks as your body adjusts to food again.

quote:

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Suprisingly she was immune to the alcohol, you couldn’t tell she was drunk at work.

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They're not "immune" they just have a huge tolerance. Anytime you see one of those stories where a person blows like a .5 something BAC, you can bet they're HARDCORE alcoholics.

quote:

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Looks ok in water bottles and all

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I cannot begin to count the times I've put vodka in water bottles for social events, places where drinking wasn't allowed or frowned upon, ect. Woke up the in the middle of the night or next morning for a swig of water and immediately regret everything about that choice