YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I did not realize I was addicted to alcohol, I just thought it was a habit. However, I was feeling doom and gloom and could not understand why. I put down the bottle in 06 and hope it is for good. I had tried to quit many times, but deep inside I know I would go back. I do not feel that way now. I have used AA and got some good out of that. I am an atheist, and do not like all the God talk, but other good stuff is there.

I am addicted to distracting myself for whatever feelings and fears I have. It could be something on the computer, food or almost anything just to get away from the feelings at hand. I have fear of even doing my work! I procrastinate which I truly believe is based on some kind of fear.

It helps me to write my honesty here, whether anyone reads it or not.

Yep, I am guilty as charged... you are not alone. Thank you for your honesty.

You are not alone Artsmart! I too suffer similarly, where now I procrastinate and constantly distract myself. It's not a good feeling at all, and it's good to catch yourself as often as possible.

Thanks for that.. yes, catching myself is tricky, as I am usually in denial. However when I look back, it is never a good feeling.

This is my first post here. I just found this podcast by chance and I feel like a door opened with all these fellow people looking for companionship and understanding. I know that I am an alcoholic and I am so afraid to change. My life is heavy with a lot of mistakes I've made, much guilt and knowing that I fucked things up more often than I admit. Its easy to go to bars, sit there, be social with the people that are always there. I live alone and maybe thats why I have such a hard time just going home after work, and not not going for the 2-4 glasses of wine I have most every day.
I want to stop doing this but I haven't any tools to do so. Add the additional layer of a seriously abusive father and a Mom with dementia- its a lot for me to handle on my own.
I spend most days just afraid. I don't want to feel so afraid anymore.

Hello peter7, welcome to the forum.

I read your posting, I wish I had an ability to help you, but all I can do is say I read your post and I honor your pain and I am letting you know you don't deserve to feel the misery and fear that you do. There are better people than I on the board, so stick around!

Please take care, all the best, you feel fearful, but we are cheering for you and your greatest today and tomorrow!

When I was initially diagnosed I was binge drinking a lot and blamed it on my age and just the lifestyles of those I hung out with. I was "binge" drinking at least 5/7 days in a week, which I didn't think was a big thing. Looking back it is kind of horrifying. The things I did and brushed off on being drunk are really crazy. I think I like to dare people in my life to test their boundaries with me by disabling what few I have with drinking. Over the last few years I drink very rarely and with extreme caution. I feel like I don't know how to just drink socially, and my way of dealing with that is compartmentalizing myself to extremes. I can't think about going out and being social without relating it to drinking. I don't think alcohol is at the basis of my issues, but it is for sure a means I've used to abuse myself and others.

Alcohol is never the issue.
It is a coping mechanism. You are not alone. It is ok to be afraid.
My advice is open up to someone you absolutely trust, seek therapy or go to AA even if you just listen.
You can control booze. Don't let it control you and life..
I've been ther. It's hard but better on the sober side.

I haven't been on for a while, and I should have been. Each podcast I listen to or post I read makes me feel better. The truth is I have been sad for so long and the events of the past few days have made me choose between continuing the struggle or this is the end. The past five years of my life have been one, long beat-down of my will to keep pushing on. I am 52, I have a good job but everything else has crumbled into nothing. My last long term relationship was with an emotionally dysfunctional woman, and I as the weaker partner was steamrolled for a long time. We bought a house together, but after I had made the decision to end it with her, the house was foreclosed on. And all this time I had developed the habit of drinking. Stop at a bar on the way home, a few drinks to fortify myself before facing her.... that habit stayed with me after we split and has caused me such tragedy. I have a Mother with advanced dementia that My Father- a hugely dysfunctional and abusive man, blames me for. Constant guilt and manipulation. Insults, lies, criticism.
I'm alone. I am constantly lonely and to empty that void I'd go to the neighborhood 'Cheers' bars where I felt wanted. That became every day and me having two, three...four drinks before heading home. A pattern that each morning I loathed and told myself to break this habit, and I would do things to balance the fact that I was drinking every day. Working out. Taking walks. Doing life things that made me feel like the drinking was balanced. I started to see a therapist but would feel envious of his great life and told him only things I wanted to- not the daily drinking, not the house, not my past mistakes that I feel such guilt and shame over. I wanted him to feel like I wasn't that screwed up, when I knew that I am that screwed up.
This past Tuesday I did my usual stop at the bar. I had four drinks and on the way home I was pulled over and got a DUI. This will be my second. I was in jail and called my father, and told him I wanted to die and was put on a suicide watch- naked in a freezing cell for eight hours. Finally a Psychiatrist said I could leave. Ironically my father posted my bail, but immediately demanded I pay him back in full, money I don't have. Because I am a loser who has made so many life mistakes and failures that I have nothing to fall back on. People talk about suicide in the abstract sense- many use it as the ultimate drama trump card that can't be argued with... 'I'm going to kill myself if you don't help me.' That kind of threat. Well, after dodging many fuck-ups and still standing, I can say that now, today, I have nothing to live for. Yes, I have many friends and people who love me, and yes, there are countless people worse off than I am, but all i can see right now is a darkness that I'm tired of navigating. I have fucked up my life so badly. I am frozen with fear at what my future holds and although I am still here... I saw my therapist yesterday and have contacted a treatment facility, I know these are the right things to do, but I don't know if at this point its worth it for me. I have been so sad, for so long, and I keep fucking my life up and I am just tired. I am facing everything alone. That's what I keep thinking that if this is the end of Peter, its okay.

Do I rely on distractions ? Yep. I just recently admitted that I'm an alcoholic. I too was in denial. My husband could see the behaviors I refused to see.. Mainly that if around alcohol I HAD to have a drink. I'm like my relatives; we seem to drink heavy for a while then put the bottle down for a while, but it starts up again after something major happens. I am terrified that I'll drink again at some point. I don't right now because of the meds I'm on. You're not alone!