13 Months without Alcohol!

[Blue]

I wrote this article on my Rural Australian Blog about Giving up Alcohol ... it is now 16 months, and I still have not had a drink! So I am going well.

I still think about having a drink BUT I WONT! My cravings usually happen when I see someone drinking on a TV Show.

I am determined not drink again, please read this if you are considering giving up drinking, and feel free to share your story!



No Alcohol Permitted in my Life!

It's been 13 Months now since I decided to give up drinking and since I had my last drink.

My decision to give up drinking started around 2 years ago when I was sailor in the Royal Australian Navy and I was suffering from depression and turning to alcohol to make myself feel good. Everynight I would get drunk, not blind drunk, but just drunk enough to dull the pain of depression and despair I was going through.

I had excellent support for my depression whilst I was in the Navy and if I needed psychological help, I could just ring up the "Psychs" and see someone almost straight away.
I won't divulge what caused my depression because that is a bit too private, what I say here is already saying alot.

It got to the stage where alcohol was getting me into trouble, not through any means of violence or anything like that, but just like sleeping in and being late for work, not having any drive for excelling in my career, not caring, being grumpy towards my work colleagues and evn some superiors, and thinking about suicide more and more, thinking about just taking off to someplace where no one would find me.
Everyday after work I would go into town and buy myself a few kingbrowns (750ml Bottles of Beer) and maybe a few bundy or bourbon and coke mixers, and then head back to my place for a quite night of drinking and surfing the net to around 1am in the morning and go to bed in a hazed state of happiness and sadness and then wake up the next morning full of anxiety, sadness, guilt and shame.

Throughout the day at work my anxiety would rise and fall, but most days it would hit a massive peak, and the only way I could make myself feel better was to go and have a nice long hot showe
r at lunchtime, and feel that warmth of hot water soak my skin and take away the anxiety. It really worked for me, it's amazing what a nice hot shower or hot bath does for the body, but you could only stay in the shower of bath for a certain period of time before your skin starts to wrinkle up.

I also had XANAX tablets which I could rely on for panic attacks, so if I felt that coming on, I could just pop one in my mouth and it would take away some anxiety, but those tablets are addictive and was worried about XANAX becoming part of my life like alcohol was.

I was not really much of a social drinker, I'd rather have a drink by myself or with a couple of trusted friends, I hated drinking in crowds of people, nightclubs and even pubs, and when I did so, I would binge drink to get my confidence and ability to socialise properly... just like most people binge drink, to get some form of confidence, that is until it's all too late, and they make a fool out of themselves.
I remember once I visited a mate at his place around 30 minutes where I lived, I drove up and saw him and did the usual, started drinking beer, anyhow to cut a long story short, it was time to go, so I left his house and on the way back, I popped into a bottle shop, grabbed a takeaway beer and hit the road home.

When I got to the main road I just put my foot on the pedal, and overtook this car, I would have been doing around 180kms and after I overtook them, and I nearly lost control, yes I was over the limit and drunk, I was testing my "risk factor"

I felt a lot of fear inside of my body, and later, the next day later, it hit home to me, and I thought,

What the hell are you doing?
Why are you getting drunk all the time?
Why are you taking stupid risks?

The next day at work I told my Navy Psychologist, the whole story and how I was drinking way too much, more than I can write here and how I felt so suicidal, and was told I had a couple choices, either continue the way you and lose are or gain control of my life and win.

Obviously I wanted to win and I was sick and tired of being a closet drinking loser, so I chose the second option, and I immediately I threw away all the alcohol in my possession, (carton of beer, and a few bundy and coke udl's) and all reminders and past reminders of alcohol, and I started a plan.

My plan and goal was to give up the alcohol for at least a year. I had done it previously for three months, and fell back into it.

So that weekend, I bought myself a Kayak, so I could get out and get some good decent exercise, and that I did.

Everyday I would go Kayaking before work and after work, I even kayaked on my lunch break when I had an hour to spare, off I would go kayaking for around 45 minutes, and have enough time to shower and get back to work, it was great, it gave me the opportunity to get some exercise, to think, to plan goals and to clear my head and clean my body from alcohol.

It really worked, I did this for around 8 months, feeling on top of the world everyday, my depression improving, and then guess what happens?

I meet a girl.... who drinks alcohol.

I tell her my story about give up drinking for a year, she is fine with that, but a little disappointed that I was not a "drinker" and one day I go and visit her, and she makes a nice meal, and then the old bottle of red wine is introduced!

Temptation strikes at my heart, and yes, being good old me, I fall into the trap and have one sip of the wine... 8 months of hard work goes down the drain and I start getting into my old habits again.
I don't blame her one bit, maybe I could push the blame on me, or maybe it was meant to be.

Twelve months later that relationship is over and it has been decided by the Navy that my depression is not warranted in the Navy, so I am medically discharged from the Navy. I was happy actually, to get away from that environment of the armed forces after 13 years in the Australian Defence Force.

I discharged from the Navy and started my new life as a civvy.

Other bad things had happened to my family and I in that last 12 months, my Mum suffered a major stroke and was hospitalised, she undergoes operations and rehabilitation and is eventually well enough to go back to her home with my elderly father who has Parkinson's Disease.

I leave the Navy on my medical discharge to go home to care for my parents.


The stress of looking after my parents builds to a bursting point, I am drinking probably more than ever, not during the day, but at night by myself. And one night after a heavy drinking session, I am sitting on the verandah on a warms summer night, and the alcohol starts talking to me.

• 
  
  • Your useless!
  • You should be ashamed of yourself!
  • Your a complete and utter failure!
  • Life is too hard!
  • This life is not worth living!
  • Take the pain away!
  • No more sadness!
  • Go on end it all!

I think about it, not over a long period of time, not hours, but in minutes.

In a drunken blur I go through my prescription tablets, grab a half bottle of bourbon or what ever I was drinking at the time, and swallowed a lot of various tablets with 4 or 5 mouthfulls of bourbon.
Thats it.... so easy, waiting, waiting .... things go all white, people moving.

Next day there I am in hospital, can't remember anything, with faint memories of a couple of nurses putting a catheter in my penis sometime the night before... it's all a haze.

A Nurse comes in asking me if I want some more Valium .... never had valium before, but I must of had some that night in the hospital, I had heard of valium before, good things and bad things, my addictive personality says "yes please" .

Throughout the day asked for more, not because I felt I needed more, but because I felt I might as well make the most of it, and I was given more.

I'm a nice decent bloke, but I was treated kind of like a criminal in that hospital, all because I had attempted suicide.

I had no shoes, only one visitor, my brother in law, no one else, I think they were too ashamed to see me maybe.

I asked if I could go down the street to get some new shoes, I was allowed and I walked down the street like a zombie, with bare feet, a white hospital wrist band on my wrist, and wearing the clothes I came in the ambulance in, it's all a blur. I walk past a pub, and go in the pub, with bare feet.

I would never do that, go into a pub with no shoes on.

I'll blame it onthe drug overdose only the night before and the valium which the nurses gave me.

I chat up the backpacker barmaid, as I sit at the bar with bare feet, and a white wrist band on my wrist, trying to talk normal, saying that I am just passing through ... with a hospital wrist band on my wrist.
I have one beer and grab a couple of take aways and then go to a shoe shop and buy some thongs (flip-flops) and walk back to the hospital with the new thongs on my feet and a couple of beers in my hand.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! YOU'VE JUST RECOVERED FROM ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AND HERE YOU ARE WITH BEER IN YOUR HAND?

I drink half a beer and throw the rest in a bin, just outside the hospital enterance.

I stay in hosptital for another few days, alcohol free and then go home.

Thankfully because I have been looked after by the Navy medically my medical care was and still is paid for, and around two months later I was referred to Hollywood Private Clinic to undergo an Alcohol Rehabilitation Course, and this time I swore black and blue that I was dedicated this time.

I stayed at the hospital for around 2 months, I did art therapy, relaxation, meditation, heaps of talking, alot of group therapy.

It was hard work, I actually was more anxzious than ever, maybe it was some kind of withdrawal thing.

The hospital was like a five star hotel, the food was great, I made great friends, the staff was amazing and what I learnt on the Alcohol Rehabilitation Course was quite life changing.

Before my admission into Hollywood, I had also met another girl, Natalie, I told her my story about what had happened and that did not scare her one bit, she gave me no stigma, only lots of love and support, and she visited me every day whilst I was in hospital, apart from the days when I asked to be alone, and she respected that.

So dedicated to me Natalie has been, she too also had given up drinking, not that she had an alcohol problem, but it was just one of the ways she has supported me over the last twelve months, she's been wonderful.

So its been 13 months now since my life changed for the better, no alcohol, the depression is still there, but under control, and without the alcohol it has made a huge difference to my life.

So many things which are of benefit for me...

• 
  
  • No more hangovers
  • Clear thinking
  • Healthy diet
  • Better off financially
  • Money to spend on other things

...and much more.

I still have my faults, my other bad habits, but at least I don't have alcohol in my life anymore, and I am quite proud of that.
Thats my story, and cheers to you all as I raise up my cup of tea.

[octiris]

NO MÁS! No te puedes perder detalles de la vida...cada uno de sus resultados son una experiencia positiva para recordar...vale la pena! NO MÁS ALCOHOL!