Could be, not sure

Putting down the bottle brings something else back up to my lips.

So, I've been told I'm a alcoholic. I've also been told that I'm not. Ones telling me, a few of them I called projection but others I just... was dumbfounded. Like, really? How so when I hardly pick a drink up these days?

Well, when I put the drinks away or just quit buying them I seem to have to escape in other ways. Marijuana is great and I get high, but it doesn't completely fill my need/desire. Alcohol helps me numb, helps me just not give a ****, and ultimately I think that's all I want.

I have to fight not to call my guy and get other things lately. I had a 20 in my hand and wondered how many benzos I could get since I know the guy pretty well. If it isn't that, I keep thinking about opiates. I'm a downer person, I guess.

I can't have these things, I won't allow myself to have them in my apartment because I know me. I know I binge with alcohol, I would binge with these. I also know that I've had a taste of them, good and long one, and that's why I want more. If I had a pick of everything, though, I'd want morphine. It's my favorite high.

Alcohol is easier access. Much like me not having access to sex at all times means I watch a lot of porn. Though I don't think I'm addicted there. But again, looking for escape.

I just want to escape. Does that make me an alcohol or an addict? I don't know. I just know these people would want an escape if they had the same things floating around in their head.

I think it makes you human...

You're ultimately the only person who can decide if you want to call yourself an alcoholic or not, although there are some indicators that can be used to determine if and how problematic your use is.


You say you drink to feel numb. That's why I drank, and I definitely did the same, and yes I've abused benzos in the past to get the same effect.

I've been sober a bit over a year now, and I'm tapering off benzos and I'm generally feeling better. But learning how to deal with the feelings instead of trying to numb them, has been really difficult and sometimes it going out of my mind hard. I've found therapy helpful in this, so that might be something to consider.

In the end, all I can really say is that any substance doesn't really solve a problem, at best it's putting a poor bandage on the underlying issue.

splitimage

I agree with both the above wise posts.

Life is hard, man. Everybody does it in their own way. I had a mood disorder as a kid and turned early and often to drugs and alcohol. Fully addcteed to cocaine by 15. Totally hooked on Rx opiates like the one you enjoy by 26. This went on into my early 30s, when I finally went to treatment for the first time. It was hell for three days, then, once I figured out what it was really all about, it was a totally awesome 4 months.

I still struggled to figure out exactly how to do recovery and keep it consistent all the time, though. It turns out that recovery isn't so much a concept or idea as it is a skillset. You have to actually do it for it to work. But if you really do do it, it seems to work pretty close to 100% of the time. If you do it all as recommended. People who don't stay clean/sober and say AA/NA doesn't work are almost without exception neglecting some important aspect of their recovery program. Meetings. Sponsor. Or my personal problem, which was, I liked everything else about AA, but I did not want to stop using in between meetings. Couldn't get that part, like, down.

Addicts come in all sizes and shapes. I went to a treatment program in Atlanta that treats strictly professionals. Docs, lawyers, psychologists, commercial pilots (it's true--the stories [you'd never fly again...]). A very senior pilot at Delta making big money did just the one stint at Talbott, went back to work, and never looked back again. Awesome career. Good fella. A brilliant lawyer I knew completed treatment, returned home, and within two days, had left his awesome wife and young child and shacked up with an 18 year-old hooker in a motel. He died of a crack overdose, naked, in a sh**** motel and a crap part of Portland. His daughter was 7. Nice memories for her. Another super nice guy I knew, a marketing executive, also finished the program, was discharged, and one week later, in a meth craze, plowed his SUV head-on into a family of five on Interstate 40 and killed them all. He will never get out of prison.

The point here is, you actually don't really even need to worry if you are an "addict" or not. It will be revealed in your life one way or the other, whether you wish it to or not. This is just what happens. You actually have no say in it. But make no mistake and hear this loud and clear, addiction to drugs and alcoholism are fatal diseases. If you are an addict or an alcoholic and you do not get into recovery, there is a very good chance you will end up either in prison, in a forensic psych hospital, or dead. I am not preaching, your life is yours to do with as you wish. Free will. But you might want to keep in mind that a pretty large number of some pretty smart people have been down this road before you and have figured a successful way through the morass. Maybe you should check that out, before you order that Klonopin.

Good luck--