Well, nobody has mentioned anything to me about my alcohol intake, but it is kind of becoming apparent to me that i may possibly have a problem.

For example.

I usually have at least 3 or 4 cans of lager/beer of an evening, although it can sometimes be 6 or 7 if i am feeling frivilous. This is every night.

I havent had a night where i haven't had a drink since i had the particularly nasty bug known as norovirus, which made me really sick for 4 days. This was in april 2008.

Sometimes, eventhough i am tired, i would rather stay up and have another drink late at night rather than going to bed, when i know i should sleep as i have work the next day.

I have taken about 4 days off work in the last 6 months because of the above reason, that i am so tired and a little hung over that i phoned in sick so i can get some much needed sleep.

If i haven't had a drink then i cannot sleep properly and wake up in the morning more tired than i was when i went to bed.

Even if i get home from working on race cars at my friends at 11pm, i will still have at least 3 beers, but drink them quicker to make up for the time that i have been out.

I get in a mood if there isn't any beer in the house, and i always end up going to buy some, even if i try not to, as i always give in to myself.

Borrowing money from my parents to get some beer if i am broke.

I have bad guts in the mornings most days, depending how much i have drunk the night before (i won't go into detail but im sure you know what i mean by bad guts.) I also get heartburn on a regular basis as well.


I think i could have a drink problem as it does kind of run in the family a little bit. My uncle used to like a drink, but has cut down since he turned 40. My grandfather used to drink a lot, he used to drink spirits though, which i hate.

He died before i was born, aged 60 and from what i know of him i see similarities from him in me if you know what i mean.

I'm only 25 and i don't think i should be drinking this much.

I read the first few lines and I can already tell you do.

Cut it out.

E : Alcholism (real word?) is not a genetic abnormality. It's an addiction that you choose to feed, just as smoking and doing drugs. Whether your parents/grandparents were or were not is irrelevant - You are the one walking the path.

maybe u should seek out some kind of help like a doctor to find out wat the sleeping problem is and go from there

Some symptoms u describe point to a clear "yes u have an alcohol dependency".
Might not be a true problem right now, but u know as well as anyone else that it will turn into one if u don't a. stop altogether ; b. drastically reduce intake (fe. one drinking day a week, or max 7pints over the course of a week.)

Think u might have passed the point of self help though, but give it a try...NO alcohol whatsoever for 2months(no tasters, no excuses, not a drop).
If u can't muster that, go find professional help imho (all the way up to 6months-X years in a detoxcentre if the usual help won't suffice)
I know that some people will post that it's nothing to worry about, but if it starts affecting your day to day mood/behaviour/work there most certainly is a problem.

Barely touch alcohol myself, but one of my best friends had a serious fight with it from his teens onwards. He is finally clean after 8+ years in all kinds of centre's and even though his last glass was ~3years ago he still has cravings regularly. Doesn't dare touch a drop now as he is convinced he would relapse instantly.
Even from a relatively short addiction(though it ended with half a bottle of "insert whatever he could lay his hands on" in the morning,a bottle of vodka and a crate of beer as daily dose ,and then whatever he drank in the evenings/nights)..he now has one partly paralyzed leg from a freak nerve reaction on the Ant-abuse they gave him,still no job and living on social security for medical reasons and needs his bi weekly appointment with his shrink to get by. Even had a nervous breakdown as recently as 4months ago and needed to go back to daycare for 2months.

Don't let it come this far is all I can advise.

I didnt need to read all of your post to see you had an alchohol problem.

Or as a friend of mine put it recently,

"I was drinking so much I didnt think I was getting drunk, unless I didnt drink and I felt the difference, which was never".

I have some experience with addiction, I get addicted to everything! To the point of collapsing on my bedroom floor with my stomach convulsing in pain, shaking and swetting, agonising pains that feel like i'm going to die, and "coming too" having never really lost consciousness but having been catatonic for a period of time.

I've learned one thing about addiction from my problems earlier in life, the only way to end one is to permanently cease whatever it is i'm addicted too. It's never ok to try and have a "normal" consumption again. The only way to conquer addiction is to turn your back on your vice permanently. No compromises.

The physical pain of quitting an addiction is intense but that is not the worst of it. Your mind will depart the rational world and begin mood swinging, you may even find yourself subject to psychological conditions you didnt previously suffer from - stuff which crept in during the addiction but was supressed - possibly even the reason for the addiction.

So is it worth it?

Well that depends on what kind of life you want to lead. Do you want to end up a wife beating alchoholic who argues with the people you love? Go for it. The lifestyle isn't all that bad from what i've seen, although it's not so great for the people you love.

Do you want to end up a shell and then rebuild your life from the pieces left over? Go for it. The lifestyle isn't all that bad from my experience. Getting to it is painful though.

There is nothing wrong with a drink, but in moderation. Of course it is easier said than done, but if you set yourself targets like: only drinking while having a meal. (and that not being 6 pints with a bag of peanuts)

It is hard to cut it out, you really need the motivation to get off your alcohol dependency. If it was me, I would use the fact that you never even knew your grandfather. If you have grandchildren, they might never get to meet you either.

if you have to ask...

Quote from danthebangerboy :

If i haven't had a drink then i cannot sleep properly and wake up in the morning more tired than i was when i went to bed.

If you can't do without and are getting physical symptoms (as opposed to 'just fancying a beer') then you are definitely getting addicted.

If willpower's not working, all I can suggest is that you get people around you to help - have someone take your bank card and cash off you and explain to them that they're not to let you have them, no matter how obnoxious you get.

try to drink only one cans (0,5 l)beer/day before you get sleep, it's healthy for kidneys(some say), and maybe 1 or 2 dl(but doesn't more then that) of red wine because that's healthy for your blood(some say), if it isn't enough turn for a doctor or don't know

If you're an alcoholic, you shouldn't be drinking at all. I talk from experience.

I have a friend who's an alcoholic, took him a long time to get off the booze but he has been sober for a few years now and he's doing well. Both his parents died of liver problems, but it wasn't until they both died that he addressed his own problem.

Another friend of mine was in a similar position to you a year or so ago, he realised he was drinking every night at home - it had become habitual. Once he realised this he decided it might be a good idea to stop doing it, but like you he had problems sleeping (he got the sweats too apparently) and it took a while for him to get over it. He still enjoys a drink at the weekend or whatever, but doesn't drink every day like he was doing.

Try to abstain except for weekends and see how that works out. If you literally can't do it, seek help.

There are links between having drinking problems with parrents and such, or at least the studies tells so. Some people just seems to have more of a "taste" for it, and are easier to get addicted to it, something that seems to run down the family tree aswell.

On the male side of my family we have had many problems regarding acoholism.

My best advice is to either get a personal rule like "only on party", or with special occasions, don't drink fairly big amounts of alcohol every day. The best however, if the family tree shows that there has been problems with alcoholism, is to just cut it completely off.

Dont start to drink alot mate.
One of the best man in my past days was my Godfather. He was and is still a really nice man. But the alcohol just ruined his brains. He is always confused and is awake at night and sleeps at day because he doesnt know when it is day or night....

It was clear from the first line of your post that you have a drinking problem.

Quote from Noccy :

Think u might have passed the point of self help though, but give it a try...NO alcohol whatsoever for 2months(no tasters, no excuses, not a drop).
If u can't muster that, go find professional help

Excellent advice imho. Try leaving the stuff alone for a time, to see if you still have the strength. Beforehand, make a promise to yourself that if you fail, you will seek help. And tell your closest friends and relatives about it, because (a) they can support you, and (b) if they don't know, their behaviour will only add to the temptation.

i think you should stop with it (or getting helped by a doctor)
i have friend who has a drinking problem, too.
It is really sad to watch some young gyu destroying himself (he´s 19 )
The problem is often the people don´t recognize themselfe that they have a problem

It doesn't sound like you have a physical dependency on alcohol - it usually takes more than a few beers to do that (and even 7 or so are still a few really). Although that likely differs from person to person, I've yet to meet someone who became a true alcoholic from drinking ~5 beers average a day. It sounds more like a habit - you like the buzz and so on and so forth, it's not actual addiction. An alcoholic won't simply "not sleep well" if they don't get alcohol in their system - it's far nastier than that.

However, proving to yourself that you can control your habit is sometimes required and can help boost your morale/self-esteem. Plus it'll let your system relax a bit and get back to having a decent shit in the morning which everyone is entitled to.

Quote from xaotik :

It doesn't sound like you have a physical dependency on alcohol - it usually takes more than a few beers to do that (and even 7 or so are still a few really). Although that likely differs from person to person, I've yet to meet someone who became a true alcoholic from drinking ~5 beers average a day. It sounds more like a habit - you like the buzz and so on and so forth, it's not actual addiction. An alcoholic won't simply "not sleep well" if they don't get alcohol in their system - it's far nastier than that.

However, proving to yourself that you can control your habit is sometimes required and can help boost your morale/self-esteem. Plus it'll let your system relax a bit and get back to having a decent shit in the morning which everyone is entitled to.

I don't agree. You are right with saying he is not physically addicted (yet). So maybe he is not an alcoholic yet... but 5 beers a day (every day) will get him there, pretty sure.

You can do that with weed... but not with alcohol.

Quote from jibber :

I don't agree. Maybe he is not an alcoholic yet... but 5 beers a day (every day) will get him there, pretty sure.

Perhaps doing a check-up on his liver would shed some light on that.

Not necessarily good comparison, but:
On average I drink a bottle of red wine per night and usually a few shots of harder liquor (raki usually, which is like whiskey in alcohol content), more than that if I have company and I'm usually not alone that often so yeah... have done this for years and yet if I go for a day (or night) or even days without alcohol I have no problem sleeping and I'm quite the fan of starting my day with a good shit. My friends usually joke that the only time I'm drinking water is when I'm on my bicycle (which is not really true as I go through about 1.5 liters of water at work and that's not including 2 or 3 double espressos).

So yeah, I seriously doubt 5 beers a day would cut it.

Maybe it works for you... and will not change hopefully.

However, a person who drinks a bottle of wine ever day does have an alcohol problem if you ask me (not pointing at you, it seems like for you it's not a problem).

I have friends who got addicted to alcohol exactly because of such habits... a beer everyday after work... then two or three... eventually it became more and more. Some knew when to stop, some didn't. All i know is that it's not funny at all to see a friend becomming an alcoholic. And therefor, even if you can do it... not everybody can. It's really bad advice to tell somebody "five beers a day is fine" or something along those lines... because it's not.

Oh, I'm not saying it's "fine".

In fact what I am saying is that if it's a habit that someone feels is dominating them - as Dan's apparently is dominating him from what he is saying - then they should put it down even if it's not a full-fledged physical addiction (which his, from what he describes, doesn't sound like). Hence in my initial post to this thread I refrained from mentioning my own alcohol consumption as an example and still think it's not a good comparison as people differ quite a bit.

If anything else - proving that beers don't rule your life will increase the eclectic enjoyment of fine beer at select moments in life.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/ ... /12/30/1230399195271.html

Even though the article sounds like an add for Odyssey House, there may be wisdom in seeking a professional opinion on how to manage alcohol withdrawal.

Quote from xaotik :

On average I drink a bottle of red wine per night and usually a few shots of harder liquor

There are plenty of online resources with advice about alcohol consumption. The Dutch center for alcohol and drugs sets the norm at 3 glasses a day, for at most 5 days per week. Your level of consumption may or may not lead to addiction, but it seems more than enough to damage your health in the long run.

Well firstly, thanks a lot for the feedback and advice, very useful.

I have tried to confide in friends before, but they always seemed to kind of laugh it off by saying something like, "You're fine as you are you daft p155head!" Which is quite funny at times, but not that helpful when you are looking for a serious conversation sometimes.

I think that with me, it is kind of habitual, in that i have just slipped into it without really realising, it has kind of become a bad habit, so i heve ended up having more and more over time, my plan is to reverse this.

I think stopping straight away would be a bit of a shock to the system for me, so i am going to try to cut down over the course of a week, one night have 5, then the next night 4, next night 3, etc.. until i get to 0.

Thanks again for the help, i know that with you guys, i won't necessarily get the answers that i want to hear, but they will be thruthful, which is good.

I drink LOTS of hot chocolate, but that doesn't make sense mentioning here...

Quote from wsinda :

There are plenty of online resources with advice about alcohol consumption. The Dutch center for alcohol and drugs sets the norm at 3 glasses a day, for at most 5 days per week. Your level of consumption may or may not lead to addiction, but it seems more than enough to damage your health in the long run.

Well of course it causes damage. Although I think it's a matter of pace really and how long it takes one's liver to go through it. After all, wine is not about drinking fast, that's a waste, a sin and a lack of style.

Due to endurance sporting activities and not really wanting any nasty surprises in the form of dropping dead I have at least a heart check-up every 2 years or so (not to mention that it's required to enter in certain regulated events), my main concern is hypertrophy. Everything works fine, pressure's ok and the ticker is a-ticking fine. Last time I went for hepatologic exams showed the same (got to make sure that glycogen depot is dependable) - nothing out of the ordinary or abused.

Anyhow, this thread isn't about me. Dan's the man asking for opinions/help. And I too say he should knock it off since it troubles him so but not to panic in the process.

Quote from BlakjeKaas :

I drink LOTS of hot chocolate, but that doesn't make sense mentioning here...

Don't get me started on my grapefruit juice binges.