Do your memories of that last $140 spent on drinking resemble

or


It makes a difference in how we counsel you.

Thats pretty cheap if your referring to that "engineer" guy in gd. eat our own don't we.

Large vodka daily. Think over a liter I believe.

If it's a handle then half or little more per day.

Being told by your liver Dr your on the clock per say is not fun.

The liver can regenerate, I’m told.
Once you stop punishing it.

Here’s hoping you have luck on that score.

That's true, it's one of the most resilient organs. It's essentially a filter among other jobs it does and it can self repair.

My numbers were still good but my consumption level was at least a fifth of vodka every evening and that had gone on for about 5 years. I noticed at the end of it that it took less to get hammered and pass out
and after talking to my DR about it he told me it was a sign that my liver wasn't working on the alcohol as well and even though my enzymes were good at the time it was a matter of time.
I remember the last drink , sitting on the deck , finished it off and called it quits. Haven't had a drop in about 27 months.

having said that I have to caution anyone drinking a whole lot to be careful with a sudden stop. I was given a small dose of benzo and had no problem but just straight up cold turkey stop can cause some
real problems.

I don't miss it , think about it , reminisce or any of that stuff. Over and  done.
I'm 57 now so I don't have any reservations about quitting , when I was younger it would have probably been harder because of the social aspects but I had reached the point of isolation and solo drinking.

Man you do open my eyes a bit, though I've seen people die of alcohol i was depressed enough to know and not care, I quit the hard stuff about a year ago and was doing well for a long while, I lost 100lbs after the first time quitting( 2 years ago) and fasting ( actually fasted 19 days)  I went from 370lbs to 165lbs,  I had a fall off period lately due to my insane mother and holidays, but managed to dial it down to two but light seltzers. I was up there in the bad about two three years ago, easily half a handle a day. I'm nothing like that now and can go a few days without the crazy withdrawals i used to have. I can quit cold turkey and its only difficult the first few days,  If anyone wants to talk about that I'll talk about it and I'm not judgmental.  But those of you who read this it does get better but its baby steps in the start, and a fall off doesn't mean your stuck with it.

https://www.youtube.com/@HabitsUnplugged/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@DrEricBergDC/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@drekberg/videos

Your right liver can grow back even if I think only 10% is still working.

Was told at level 15 your put on the transplant list at 35 your at the top...27

Really if your going down that path don't. It's really not fun having a rode with a catheter inserted in your abdomen fucker is 6 inch's long

It's also really fun not being able to catch your breath because you have like 15 pounds (5 litters) or more a fluid in your abdomen compressing your diaphragm so you can't lay down.

Nobody thinks it will happen fast but it does.

Oh even better they where giving double dose of meds to kidneys may be shot

The problem is the scar tissue that forms in the liver and affects the circulation of the blood through the organ. It causes all sorts of problems.

There is a point of no return as to how far you can go in abusing your liver.

One of my ex-coworkers had a liver transplant, she claimed as side effects of diabetes. I know she was a drinker too, I was under the impression she was just a typical heavyish drinker. She may have had fatty liver disease, she was always large and had a massive gunt.

Anyway, when I heard the account from her it sounded like pure hell. She seems to be doing ok now though.

Part 1
It’s back. I think I’m starting to figure myself out, connecting the dots and recognizing the patterns, but it’s back. I‘ve been having a lot of success keeping it at bay by working out and stuff. Down 20 lbs since my other post. Plenty soft in the middle, but I can see a bicep vein for probably the first time in my life. Irrelevant except for the context that I had myself in a pretty good place for about 5 months here. Self confidence was high. Got a promotion at my new job already. Had life by the horns.
I’ve sensed it lurking in the shadows for a bit (attributed to time change/seasonal?) About a week and a half ago, I got a text from a single mom who broke my heart pretty fucking good last winter. It was a completely innocent “hey, hope I’m not bothering you, but wanted to let you know I finally made that smoked Turkey you gave me and it turned out great. Hope all is well.” Topaint the picture, I was looking at my phone in the gym parking lot, and her initials popped up, and my stomach spun. I was scared to open it for 10 minutes. It was nothing, but it woke painful shit up I had buried.
Enter temptation. Skinny blonde, blue eyes, redneck AF. My kryptonite. Oh, and half my age with a potential drinking problem. And from work. What could possibly go wrong? Better just put the blinders on, right? Yep, had them on since I started there in May. Well… within 2 days of the aforementioned text, blondie mentions that she was going to a concert with her friend, but her friend flaked and never bought a ticket. Turns out my friends and I were going to the same concert. She could roll with us.  Long story short, we spend some quality time together, talk for hours, and now I’m catching feels for a guaranteed dumpster fire of pain and heartbreak. With the single mom, I at least had delusions of fairy tale reset on life. This is just “hold my beer” level idiocy.
(Part 2 to follow)

Part 2
So here I am, creeping up on 3am, I need to get up in a few hours, but instead of sleeping, I’m laying here wallowing in self-loathing and reliving past heartbreak, pre-living the next heartache, and contemplating the pros and cons of various ways to make it stop if I ever decided that was the best option. But like I said in my first post on Page 63: if God ever decided to have me not wake up in the morning, I’d be totally cool with it.
I’m a complete shitshow.
Self analysis theory from writing these out: I didn’t really have a model for healthy relationships, so I ended up learning how to relationship from 80’s movies, which set me up for disaster thinking every teen relationship was true love, and they all ended badly for super-attached me. I think I’m ok with a cold marriage as a home base because it’s safe, it can’t hurt me. When my ex texting me brought back all the pain, and instead of an alcoholic reaching for the bottle, I’m reaching for another set of pretty eyes to tell me I’m a good man and I deserve to be happy.
FML. I think I may have nailed it. Now what’s the treatment plan? I’m 50 fucking years old. I need to go the fuck to sleep and get up and go to the fucking gym so after work I can go to dinner with my wife, and fake until I break.

Thanks for listening, Arfcom. I love you all.

Single moms, fuck no for me. Love and realization comes from within, People forgot what people are long ago and those of us who get it are stuck. Just use youtube and work on your body,  i lost 100lbs  and i have fucking stretchmarks like a bitch does. I got many stories. Been down that road.

It’s like another piece of the whole self-destructive puzzle.

...

How’s it going, man? You’re not alone, even if it feels that way.

I think I'm gonna skip Christmas this year.

I'm over it all. The pressure of having to show up because it's Christmas. I don't give a fuck.

Holidays are overrated. It's not gonna sit well with my dad if I don't show up, but I truly don't care.

Bullets don't sound tasty yet..

I stopped celebrating Christmas three years ago.

You guys know most of my story. My wife wife of 21 years walked out Christmas Day 2019 on my six kids and I. She married the guy she’d been having a affair with, a guy her friends at work ‘chose’ for her on Tinder. Fifth affair in eighteen months. Our oldest daughter had caught her with the guy and my wife bullied her into keeping it a secret; in March 2020 my daughter, sick of lying to me, climbed into a tub and slit her wrists; that’s how I found out he existed.

Every year for twenty years Christmas was my favorite holiday. We decorated the house, inside and out; I spent all day cooking a feast twice the size of our thanksgiving spread. My sister in law and her husband came, mother in law, grandmother, sometimes aunts and uncles from my wife’s family. I have a bother in New Jersey, I’ve only seen him twice in the last twenty years; we’re not close. My wife’s family was the family I always dreamed of having when I was a kid.

Every year since the split, I work and save and make every effort to give my kids Christmas gifts. There are no decorations at my house, no tree. They’re at their mothers for Christmas Eve and I drop off the presents, watch them open their gifts, hug them, love on them, kiss them goodbye, then I go home and cry myself to sleep over a whisky or five.

I politely declined an invite to grandmothers home last weekend for early Xmas gathering, because it hurts too much. My ex called me back and said she was working in Cincinnati that weekend and I’d have to take the kids or they wouldn’t get to go. She guilted me, saying that her grandmother was 90 and it might be her last Christmas. So I gritted my teeth and took the kids. All the relatives were there, and I had dearly missed them. But it broke my heart because my family wasn’t whole. We hadn’t been whole since my wife went insane and became a whore.

Several times I had to step outside...I cried. My MiL hugged me and said she missed me and she knew it was tough on me. Grandmother came up to me, the kindest, most loving person in my ex’s family and said she loved me and that I was a good dad, and that she would always be my family. She said she couldn’t understand the choices her granddaughter made and she said she still prayed every night for her soul.

When it was tie to leave I had to hide in the bathroom and dry my eyes so my kids wouldn’t see me red eyed from crying. I drive them back to their home..to find my ex with her husband. She hadn’t worked that weekend in Cincinnati. She’d stayed home with him. It was 7pm and they were in bed when we walked in the door.

I left without speaking to her. I couldn’t handle saying anything. Over this week she contacted me asking what plans with the kids were. I picked them up Friday and she asked if I was okay. I told her I was hurting and struggling with depression over Christmas. She said she’s working on the twenty fourth and she wants me to keep the kids next week and drop them off Christmas Day so she can do Xmas with them.

Yesterday a picture popped up on my Facebook memories. Our family portrait from 2018. A week before thanksgiving, a week before I caught her in Her first affair. We were all smiling, my kids happy, giggling, my arms around my best friend and the love of my life.

Seeing what I had back then broke my heart. My daughter is smiling, beautiful, her eyes bright. No haunted hollows under her eyes, no scars on her arms. I’m smiling; grateful and overjoyed to be with my family. My whole family.

I clicked on the picture and shared it, and below I put an emoji of a face with a single tear. Sad.

Sad because my family doesn’t exist like that anymore. My youngest will never wake up Christmas morning and come climb between my wife and I in our bed, waking us up to go open presents. We’ll never sit by the fire and all of us cram into the massive sofa in our stupid Xmas pajamas for a laughing family photo.

I hate that she destroyed all that; took it all away. I hate that every Christmas I cry myself to sleep.

Attached File

You have my sympathy and prayers…….. I can’t imagine what it’s put you through. I hope someday that the hurt and pain eases……. I myself am dealing with a fragmented family. I have two adopted siblings, brother and sister…… my brother would not even come to my fathers funeral because of the grudge he held against him…… a stupid grudge that makes no sense. My oldest sister and my mother can’t get along for five minutes and my youngest sister is the target of her hatred…… and I am caught in the middle of it all trying to put out fires as fast as they spring up……. But it’s all beyond my pay grade and I just have to pray that God gives me the grace and ability to deal with it all……. Because I certainly can’t do it on my own

As multiple people here have said you need to stop. She’s (dating) you but moving on. Great family seems most of them are eyes open. You clearly are not. Let it go

I know.

I don’t miss (or even particularly like) the person she has become.

I miss the person who she used to be. I miss my family having a mother who loved them and cherished them above everything else.

A family is more than the sum of its parts. Together as a whole we were something wonderful. And she chose to break it apart  and scatter it to pursue her own selfish needs, and shamed the rest of us for being hurt by her actions.

I wish my kids could wake up to a world where none of that happened. And I wish I still had someone who I loved, trusted, someone who loved me, our kids and our family.

All my kids will be with me for Christmas but even then it won’t be the same and I know it never ever will be the same again.

Two friends passed on this last week. One is an ex cop who decided he was done with life and the other drank himself to the grave, after we celebrated two years of his sobriety this summer by blowing up crown royal with tannerite (he currently has items in NFA jail also)

This holiday will suck

Lot of things piling up. Trying to give it to God but having a hard time. Just emotional. Holidays don't help. My wife is a saint.

The person she used to be is gone……… and likely never coming back. I know it’s hard, but let her go……. It’s the one thing that is holding you back from moving forward. She knows this and is using it to her advantage……. Remove her power and place her in the past where she belongs…….. worry about you and your kids. Leave her behind…….

Nice message and I think you can still see it without Instagram.

I find scattered insights and moments of profundity on Instagram Reels. This is one I just saw. Might help those of us who struggle with “The Christmas Spirit”

Merry Christmas to anyone reading this thread.  I don't know you or your circumstances.  Not trying to bullshit anyone -- life might suck right now.

The key is that life WILL get better.  Give your problems some time.  Everything is better in the rear view mirror.  

I wish you the very best.  People do care -- even though it might not seem like it sometimes.  

Bob

If anyone has an ear to lend feel free to IM. Not time sensitive so please enjoy Christmas with your family first.

Just wanted to remind everyone, love you guys.
Merry Christmas. I know it's tough, but if nothing else, keep that head up. Even if it's just for today. Even it's just for an hour today. Even if you have to fake it for a bit, watch something funny and goofy, make yourself laugh, even for 5-10 minutes, do something positive today. If not for yourself for someone else, drop off some donations off.

Not me.  Posted the link in Team.

I don’t know how I’ve made it this far. Maybe partly because of my pets. Partly because of hope, and dreams. All of my hopes and all of my dreams are dead. I’m too old now. The last straw was my crush. I’ve known her for over 2 years. She told me she’s just emotionally unavailable and has no love to give anyone. That was my sign. The sign that tells me I’m done. I have no family, or real friends. I spend my days alone. Laugh if you want I don’t care anymore I haven’t had a girlfriend in 30 years. PTSD from child abuse, and all the disorders that come with it ruined my life, and killed the person I could have been. There has to be a time to call it quits. I don’t want another 20,30 years of this non existence. Always struggling. I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of the unknown. Everyone dies. Why does it matter why, when, how? I hate Christmas.  It’s just a reminder of a wasted life.

Merry Christmas...I love you all...no homo...

I would encourage you to rethink this.

It is only wasted if you let it be.  

I would encourage you to seek help of some kind…….. see a counselor or someone who can help you unpack all of that and help you……. You may not think it or believe it, but you do have worth beyond what you know…….don’t throw it away. You may not feel this life is worth it, but it is……

Probably been covered before but what options do you have when a family member is on this level of drinking and has started to throw their life away? My older brother is in a downward spiral he refuses to admit to us (he's admitted it to one of his friends who is even worse off than him). Drinks a liter to a handle a day by our counts. Blames his problems on a sleeping issue (which he does have but booze is out of control). Dangerous to himself and others, disappears for hours on end. Gets indignant when he's called out on it. Has lost two jobs in the last year and refuses to admit the reason. So can't hold down a job after years of a very successful career. Wife is a harpy and he blames the drinking he does admit to on her. Given his behavior he's only making the situation worse and at this point we feel sorry for her and the situation he's gotten into. He claims he wants to work it out with her because of their kid.

My mom has confronted him a number of times. She is at her whit's end and can tell she's been crying a lot and not sleeping distraught over the situation. We've been, and me in particular, terrible talking about emotional issues with each other in my family.  I can barely stomach even thinking of confronting him directly myself. Im sort of hoping he lurks or post here and sees this. I told our family doctor at my last physical, he listened but obviously couldnt talk about anything theyve gone over. He's the type to immediately dog shit on psychiatry as a concept and profession. 'Theyre all just pushing SSRIs and you should just "get over your problems your life isn't that bad you live in America" and the usual negativity you see online. I think he spends his days in cesspits like /pol, just all negativity. Lots of the same fatalistic views you see here, America is ruined by the left ballot box option only one left etc etc. He claims not to be depressed. It is a terribly hopeless feeling situation. How do you relay to someone in this state so that they don't have to kill or maim someone or wind up on a liver donation list to wake up?

I’ve seen several over the years.  None help.  The worst part is I know what’s wrong, but I can’t fix it. Like you know you’re having a heart attack but can’t do anything for yourself. I’m not
going through my whole life history here, but it was a waste.  I’ve accomplished nothing. The only things of value are some guns, and electronics.

If I were to die in my sleep no one would know. Maybe the mailman after mail piles up for weeks.

My pets would die horrible deaths without anyone to care for them.

Years of chasing pipe dreams.  There is no healing. Everything is just a bandaid.  

Bro I've been there too. Our value to the world isn't the tangible -- unless we want it to be. I was raised probably like you were to believe that the only thing that mattered was when we passed that our checking account was larger than what we were left by our parents.

I still don't have the answer, but I do believe that I don't owe the world anything. And yes, life is full of those band aids to cover the problems. But stop and think about it -- those band aids are the same to you as for others who leave trust funds and other things.

We are all fucked up, broken, delicate imperfect animals. And that's OK. I've accepted that I won't be the picture perfect image. As long as I'm not actively trying to hurt others I've accepted that my flaws are OK. It's on others to learn to accept me with those flaws.

Watch anything good on YouTube lately? I've been checking out car detailing videos (Pan the Organizer) and this amateur chemist called "Nile Red." I kind of got sick of all the gun, hunting, and fishing channels. Demo Ranch is a cool guy, but his content just got a little stale for me.

hurting pretty good, could use some help

Your in the right place. I come to this thread every day if nothing else just to read. There are many better people than myself to help.

You know that feeling when you feel like you want to vomit and feel better but you just can’t? That’s what I feel like right now. I just want to cry my heart out and feel better but I just can’t :/

Yep. I find that it's usually the concentrating on those things and other irritants which actually irritates you more. So damn frustrating!

Or like when you want a drink (I don't regularly drink) and can't have one vs. having a drink and then not even enjoying it.

Yep, we have all had that. Take a deep breath and go for a drive to somewhere you find peace. Life is not fair. It is sometimes rough and other times not. One thing I know is it is never permanent. The bad times pass if you let it.

The rough patch has been going on for so long that every time I have a break that time is not being spent in a healthy way. People keep telling me I need to take a break but I am worried the breaks are more destructive than continuing the struggle. Breaks seem so unnatural at this point. Sadly I think staying busy and overwhelmed is better for me at this point. I am not a selfish person and breaks seem so heinously selfish to me when trying to keep those close to me cared for to the best of my ability.

There is a line between working hard and having a life as well. You can't just work and work. When I was younger I did this. Then I realized if I was gone they would replace me in a week. I adjusted my lifestyle and stopped buying junk I didn't need (alcohol, expensive cars, expensive toys). You have to take care of your family. Just don't kill yourself providing  needless things. Everyone needs a break from time to time. What are things you enjoy doing ?

Honestly all of my hobbies/passions have been on hold for quite sometime. Funny thing about being an adult/professional - you have all the money tom pursue your passions but you have neither the time or motivation to pursue them. My passions are travelling, competitive pistol shooting, hiking, and chilling with my dogs.

Day off work today. Fucking hate it. I’m hugely reliant on routine and activity to keep the snakes at bay. Weekends are bad enough, that throwing “here, have a bullshit Monday off” into the mix…
I worked out this morning, but now I’ve got nothing but eating and thinking.

I need to ditch the mellow fucking tear in my beer songs and stick to some good rage metal with a driving beat that doesn’t make me think of anything besides tapping my foot.

Fuck today. Can’t wait for work tomorrow. I’ll wake up early, eat something healthy at home before I head out the door, off to the races until lunch where I’ll rush home and eat some more healthy shit, then rush back to it’s time to work out, then home, eat something healthy for dinner, then go to sleep. No time to entertain memories or let my mind wander.

Regarding music and memories… Why do we torture ourselves the way we do? Do we prefer the pain to numbness? We’re we in pain long enough that the pain is the most familiar feeling we have? Is letting go of the pain so hard because at least the pain is something? Is it like that Ron Livingston/Jon Favreau scene in Swingers? If the pain stopped, we’d miss the pain because it was with us for so long?
Enough philosophy. I’m changing my playlist. Later, dudes.

I believe we torture ourselves because we all have varying degrees of self destruction. I think we all of it but some of us are more affected by it because of genetics and others by environment. Being able to control this part of your life is the difference between being able to do something as trivial as managing a budget or purposefully destructing yourself with drugs or other vices.

Experiencing the pain (or another sensation/feeling) is our proof that we are living and are not just mindlessly plugged into the matrix. Again, I think some people don't experience it this directly, but others need or believe they need to feel something like that to know they are living.

I’m tired

Well, I don't believe your problem can't be fixed...........I believe you can fix it. And if you don't care about you, think of your pets...........they need you. I'm a firm believer that it's not too late to begin again. I felt like you did after my divorce..............I just didn't care. But I found that even though that hill was high, I could get over it, and I think you can as well. I care about your wellbeing........and I will definitely say a prayer for you. Don't give up.........

And that extends to everyone in this thread..............I care about the wellbeing of each and every one of you, and I pray that each of you find the peace and contentment that only the Heavenly Father can give. Trust me, I know about walking through the valley...........I've walked through it many times since I lost my son to a miscarriage and then lost my father last year. But I do know there is One that loves me, even if I don't deserve it............and He loves you too

Guys ive just read some of the posts in this thread. The season has been hard for alot of us. I sincerely wish all of you well and hope you can find some peace and happiness as its out there if you look for it.  All the best to all of you in 2023.

Hang in there, man.

I’ve inadvertently started journaling recently. I think it’s helping. It started out as a safe place to write one of those texts you shouldn’t send, and it ended up being a dumping ground for my thoughts and feelings. It was cathartic to get it all off my chest. All the things I wanted to say but knew I shouldn’t were typed out in Notes on my phone. It felt good to tell someone, and in many ways it felt better to not tell them to Her. No judgments, just my own little safe space to ask all the rhetorical questions and not worry about sounding like a psycho.

I started out just using it to vent on bad days. Then I had some days that weren’t so bad. Then I had some decent days. There’s not much written on the decent days, but I recognize them, and when I look, there’s a lot more “at peace” days than I would have thought. They get overshadowed by the lows, so I think we fail to give the good days the station they deserve.

I really think it’s helping me. I’m sure I’m in the same cycle, and here I am talking mad shit like I cured my own cancer or something. Nah. The weekend is coming, and Kryptonite has been smiling at me at work. I’ll probably end up inviting her over Saturday night. She’s hot, so she probably already has plans, but that won’t stop my relentless quest for self-destruction. If I can’t destroy my career or my marriage, at least I’ll trash my self esteem. lulz.

I’m gonna go make my daily journal entry. I’ll try to be kind to myself and give myself a pep talk, but I’ll recognize that today was a pretty good day. I did not have any ideations, I didn’t have to hold back any tears when a sad song came on. I wrote what I hope is a constructive and helpful post.

“I’d say it was a good day.” - Ice Cube

This is kind of a journal entry.  Actually it was the thing I was going to post in this thread then I thought I should just write it in my journal but now I'm going back to the first idea

I am in a pretty bad place right now.  Monday was the worst day of my life thus far, even worse than my mom dying, because she's already gone and I'm grieving her already.  I got put right back at the beginning of it because I lost my best friend Monday.  Not the friend, but the friendship.  lI can't focus, eat, I have a bunch of orders that I need to get done but I am lost in thought.  Its so bad I can't cook, I'm just eating random things and not enough protein or carbs.  Like lucky if I eat 40 grams a day.  I do not know what to do.  I managed to go out last night and buy a new vape juice and pods, lower nicotine this time because I want to quit.  I went to a bar afterwards and drank 3 draft beers, 2 cans of miller high life, and had a bacon egg and cheese sandwich.  Spent way too much money and it didn't help a damn, it didn't even make me feel worse.  Its like I've hit the bottom of bad feelings and can't go any lower.  I know that isn't true.  Now I know pain leads to growth to revealing more light in ones self but right now I am in it and I need to figure out how to get out.  I want to heal the friendship right now but I know the thing to do is wait.  As I say that the thought enters my mind that everything will happen just right.  I now know this, but then I get sucked back into those thoughts of what to say.  How do I get this god damn brain-thought-worm thing in my head to go away?  I bought CBD capsulese this week that will arrive tomorrow, I am hoping they will help me lower my stress level.  Should I record my thoughts with voice to text so I still have them?  I'd appreciate any suggestions of how to get out of this.  It is debilitating.  I need to finish the orders I have.  There's 6 holsters on my heat press I have to cut but all I can do is sit here.  I need an action plan hopefully from someone who has been in this state before.  Like.. make pasta.. do this thing next, go to sleep, early, something specific.  Hopefully this is based on some kind of scientific/neurology/pharmacological understanding because I'm pretty sure this is a psychological symptom that is being caused by something physical.  I was in so much stress monday I kept peeing so I think my amygdala got lit up like a christmas tree.  I had a sudden urge to serve my bike into traffic but I wasn't in the bike lane and I realized that so my brain stopped it.  If I had been in the bike lane and had that same brief urge it could've happened.  I didn't want my cat to sit on me and he kept doing it and I snapped and threw him to the ground and screamed like an animal.  I never hit my cats or intentionally hurt them.  I've never experienced this kind of stress before.