I'm 65 years old and I have had a drinking problem since I was in my mid to late 20s.
I'm an only child in a family that moved around a lot when I was a kid. I went to 14 schools in all and ended up shy and socially awkward, always keeping myself a bit aloof from others. I never made friends easily and still don't.
In my college years I smoked a lot of dope. I was away from home – my parents still living abroad and I developed what I now believe to be cannabis induced psychosis. It was relatively mild as the condition goes, but it resulted in a element of paranoia and a great deal of anxiety. The anxiety was at times completely crippling and left me curled up on a sofa my arms wrapped around me, trying to stop my anxious thoughts.
I discovered that alcohol handled the anxiety pretty well. The mental anguish that came with the condition lasted into my early thirties, though thankfully the paranoia eased off after two or three monstrously difficult years.
Despite all that I managed to get two degrees by the time I was 28 and later on an MA and then a further post grad qualification. I did OK with my chosen career and was successful, as these things are measured I suppose, reaching the top of my particular greasy pole by the end of my career – one that ended five years ago as I applied for early retirement.
I drank all thorough those years, which included two marriages and a third long term relationship, which I am in now. I had two children, both of who are grown up and doing well. I love them both and we are close, which is a blessing.
I drank to relax and to suppress anxiety. And then of course I drank – and still do – because I am addicted to alcohol. As these things are measured the amount I drank was on the moderate side, as alcoholics go. Four cans of beer a night for many years and a bottle and a half of wine in later years. Whatever the amount it was alcoholic drinking- dependent drinking.
I have tried to stop many times. I have had periods ranging from a year here, six months there and last year a further 10 months. To do this I used methods ranging from self control and will power, to counselling and several times AA, an organisation I ultimately grew to mistrust and dislike intensely, which is not to dismiss the help it has given many people.
I don't know if I have it in me to quit for good using the resources I have in the past. I know I don't very much like or feel comfortable with the me – the mental and internal me that emerges once I am sober for a while. Not my personality - I think I am kind and a decent human being. I am tolerant, forgiving and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have never had what AA refers to as 'resentments'. Alcohol however has made me weaker than I should be. Less tough when it counts than I should be. The 'me' that I don't like when I am sober for long periods is simply a rather tenser and more anxious person than I am when I drink. My whole 'self' tightens up ever so slightly and I never truly relax.
A couple of months ago I stumbled upon Olivier Ameisen's The End of My Addiction. It was an eye opener to put it mildly. Not just his personal journey with baclofen, but his views about alcohol addiction as a condition more widely. However the hope that baclofen itself was potentially, and in his experience a 'cure' for his condition, one that he linked very clearly to his own anxious nature, offered hope for the first time since I started drinking again late last year, following the death of my father.
I am currently building up my baclofen intake and it is at 70 mg a day. So I have a way to go I suspect. I am still drinking though there has been a decrease in the last few days.
I'm glad to be here and I have hope. I have hope that it is never too late.
I'm an only child in a family that moved around a lot when I was a kid. I went to 14 schools in all and ended up shy and socially awkward, always keeping myself a bit aloof from others. I never made friends easily and still don't.
In my college years I smoked a lot of dope. I was away from home – my parents still living abroad and I developed what I now believe to be cannabis induced psychosis. It was relatively mild as the condition goes, but it resulted in a element of paranoia and a great deal of anxiety. The anxiety was at times completely crippling and left me curled up on a sofa my arms wrapped around me, trying to stop my anxious thoughts.
I discovered that alcohol handled the anxiety pretty well. The mental anguish that came with the condition lasted into my early thirties, though thankfully the paranoia eased off after two or three monstrously difficult years.
Despite all that I managed to get two degrees by the time I was 28 and later on an MA and then a further post grad qualification. I did OK with my chosen career and was successful, as these things are measured I suppose, reaching the top of my particular greasy pole by the end of my career – one that ended five years ago as I applied for early retirement.
I drank all thorough those years, which included two marriages and a third long term relationship, which I am in now. I had two children, both of who are grown up and doing well. I love them both and we are close, which is a blessing.
I drank to relax and to suppress anxiety. And then of course I drank – and still do – because I am addicted to alcohol. As these things are measured the amount I drank was on the moderate side, as alcoholics go. Four cans of beer a night for many years and a bottle and a half of wine in later years. Whatever the amount it was alcoholic drinking- dependent drinking.
I have tried to stop many times. I have had periods ranging from a year here, six months there and last year a further 10 months. To do this I used methods ranging from self control and will power, to counselling and several times AA, an organisation I ultimately grew to mistrust and dislike intensely, which is not to dismiss the help it has given many people.
I don't know if I have it in me to quit for good using the resources I have in the past. I know I don't very much like or feel comfortable with the me – the mental and internal me that emerges once I am sober for a while. Not my personality - I think I am kind and a decent human being. I am tolerant, forgiving and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have never had what AA refers to as 'resentments'. Alcohol however has made me weaker than I should be. Less tough when it counts than I should be. The 'me' that I don't like when I am sober for long periods is simply a rather tenser and more anxious person than I am when I drink. My whole 'self' tightens up ever so slightly and I never truly relax.
A couple of months ago I stumbled upon Olivier Ameisen's The End of My Addiction. It was an eye opener to put it mildly. Not just his personal journey with baclofen, but his views about alcohol addiction as a condition more widely. However the hope that baclofen itself was potentially, and in his experience a 'cure' for his condition, one that he linked very clearly to his own anxious nature, offered hope for the first time since I started drinking again late last year, following the death of my father.
I am currently building up my baclofen intake and it is at 70 mg a day. So I have a way to go I suspect. I am still drinking though there has been a decrease in the last few days.
I'm glad to be here and I have hope. I have hope that it is never too late.
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