It is never to late.And yes people can change, you just have to accept what things are going to be like for a while. When everything works its way out you will realize that that is the way it is supposed to be. And it will all be good!! best of luck to you!!

I am an alcoholic. I have three wonderful children and all three have seen me plastered, dancing and stumbling drunk and have hated me for it. I am in the process of getting a divorce from the father of my two youngest. He has our children cause i know i am not capable to take care of them right now and they are in an amazing school district, not ripping them away for my own selfish reasons.

That being said, i was lucky enough to find an amazing man back in January. I was constantly drunk and got up to a fifth or more a day of vodka. It got to the point i would wake up every three hours shaking needing another drink. I had been pretty bad for the past few years but this past year just got worse cause of everything going on.

I know what you mean when you say you don't understand why....i don't either....i don't even try to pretend to anymore. I just know that if i get a bottle....i will not stop till it is empty...i will even pass out, wake up a couple hours later and finish it...and never remember it.

I finally had to go to the hospital and get detoxed. My now boyfriends mother has been in AA for over 20 years now and she detoxed me and made me go to AA.
I didn't like it one bit cause of hearing "God" every other word and i'm pagan.

AA HELPS! After i finally shut my brain up enough to actually listen and realize that i can substitute "God" for my own or even a couch if i wasn't religious or spiritual at all...it worked.

AA put life in perspective for me. I went every single night, sometimes to two if i could. I prayed every day, i read pages, i shared my story in the meetings, i called my sponsor. I stuck with it even though there were times i just wanted a drink, i knew...absolutely KNEW..if i took a drink i would go right back down that path of destruction.

I am telling you right now....NOTHING will get better until you go to AA. And not just any AA group...find one that fits you. Some are more like cults...i got lucky and found one that really cared about me.

Stop worrying about fixing your relationship with her, your kids or anyone else. Fix the relationship with yourself first. Then start on everything else..it will all fall into place.

After a few months of sobriety you are going to think a half pint is no big deal..just a drink, relaxing with friends....don't.

Unfortunately for me, i had been sober for almost 2 months and we had to move, then our car broke down. So i started drinking again...and then stopped, then started...then stopped...but Fortunately for me, i have an awesome person in my life that has no issue saying "no" when i ask for liquor or limiting what i have.

I recently quit again cause my liver/kidneys were hurting....and tummy issues that didn't want to go away.

You are not just harming your relationships but you are harming your body.

Go to AA, seek mental health if you feel you need to, i have been on meds for over 20 years now....everyone can tell when i forget to take them...i cry and don't want to leave the house.

So..yea...go to AA, find you a great sponsor, don't be afraid to switch if your not happy with the first one!
Go to mental health....therapy on its own might do you good.
Show your family that you are getting yourself together....and they will come back to you...just don't push it. Give them time and let them see you have changed and you are going to stick with it.

Don't give up on yourself!!!
It will get better...

Good luck and if you ever need a fellow alchy to talk to...feel free to pm me!

Sorry for bad spelling hehe

Originally posted by liejunkie01
OK, so I am going to lay it all on the line for you all to judge me and maybe give ne a little advice to help me out in the end. Sorry for the long post but please read it. I could really use some insight here. I hope that I can convey my feelings properly for you.

Hello my name is liejunkie01. I am going to be 34 this Christmas. I have three children one with a woman of years ago that I never see anymore and two with my now ex girlfriend of 12 years. My children with her are 9 and six. Boy and girl. I love them like nothing else in this world.

I have been battling an addictive lifestyle since I was a teenager. I am a severe alcoholic that is capable of fighting the urge for long periods of time. But for some reason I seem to lose the battle with my demons from time to time. Sometimes I manage to go years of sobriety.

In my early 20's I was a bar regular and basically lived dependent on alcohol for my social life, this was around 1998 through 2000 or so. Believe me when I say severe alcoholic, bar tab and all. I worked at the time and I ended up keeping my job at this company for 12 years until 2008. Then I went to the local college for two years and studied welding g technologies. I wanted to provide my family with a better life. I just wanted to state this because I am not affraid to work.

I met this girl "love" in 2000. I decided that i was tired of living alone. She needed help with the bills. I agreed to move in and help her out. This is basically where my relationship started with the woman that I gave now spent over a third of my life with.

Except we/I still partied a lot and had a lot of good times. With those good tines also came some bad times. Our son was born in 2003 and our daughter in 2006. This is the hard part to talk about.

Even after my children were born I continued drinking pretty heavy. It is something I am not proud of and quite frankly I cannot explain. I held mu job and paid the bills trying to live life how I thought it was supposed to be. Well, to the parents out there we know that this isn't supposed to be this way. I was stubborn to the fact that I was sinking the family "ship" and we broke up a few times here and there. I thought that the bills were paid and I was faithful then my obligations were being met regardless. Boy was I wrong.

As I have stated over the years I have sworn off the drink and reconciled and made up. With "love" being a good woman and taking me back to try to be a complete family. Each time knowing I was chipping away at the foundation for complete love. We have separated moved out on our own a few times over the years.

Each time I got this is the last time speech. I even agreed to go to AA a few times but felt ashamed and stopped going.

This Sunday will be two weeks since I went over to a friends house with a half pint to watch some football. I thought it would be an innocent drink and everything would be alright. Boy was I wrong. "Love" got totally irrate and I lost my cool. She kicked me out and I went to my brothers to stay. This only made matters worse because my brother has issues of his own (drugs) and it really was not a good move on my part.

"Love" and I have not been getting along to well before this last incident. Our communication with each other had all but stopped. We are both stubborn and hardheaded but I take most of the blame for not being there for her like I should have been.

The children are taking it pretty hard and she asked me if I wanted to stay at the house until I can find another job and get a place of my own. After my schooling I got a job as a union sheet metal worker. Work slowed down and I have been unemployed since the end of August. This has added to the attitude problems around the house. She works as a dietary tech(cook) and started working more since I got laid off.

Her working and me not pretty much turned into animosity because my unumployment isn't cutting it. I personally believed I would have got a call for work, but pretty much gave up hope.

We were doing so good at the beginning of the summer. We were pretty much happy and had a little extra money to boot.
Now it is just complete misery and I cannot sleep at night. She told me she is tired of trying and is ready to move on. I feel comleyely devastated and I can not let it go. I absolutely love this woman and the family we have made together. My kids are suffering because of my ignorance and selfishness.

She tells me that I put booze and drugs before family. I do not feel this way and I really cannot explain why I relapse once in a while. I do not put booze and drugs before family, no excuses this time. I just don't know why.

I really want to know what the hell is wrong with me. Why can't I get it right for my children's sake. All I want is to be a happy family and honestly I feel we haven't figured out the right way. We have never tried counseling or anything. It just kills me that it turned out this way.

I just don't want it to end this way. There has got to be a way t work it out. It hurts and I have torn my family apart.

Why?

edit on 22-12-2012 by liejunkie01 because: spelling

Originally posted by liejunkie01
OK, so I am going to lay it all on the line for you all to judge me and maybe give ne a little advice to help me out in the end. Sorry for the long post but please read it. I could really use some insight here. I hope that I can convey my feelings properly for you.

Hello my name is liejunkie01. I am going to be 34 this Christmas. I have three children one with a woman of years ago that I never see anymore and two with my now ex girlfriend of 12 years. My children with her are 9 and six. Boy and girl. I love them like nothing else in this world.

I have been battling an addictive lifestyle since I was a teenager. I am a severe alcoholic that is capable of fighting the urge for long periods of time. But for some reason I seem to lose the battle with my demons from time to time. Sometimes I manage to go years of sobriety.

In my early 20's I was a bar regular and basically lived dependent on alcohol for my social life, this was around 1998 through 2000 or so. Believe me when I say severe alcoholic, bar tab and all. I worked at the time and I ended up keeping my job at this company for 12 years until 2008. Then I went to the local college for two years and studied welding g technologies. I wanted to provide my family with a better life. I just wanted to state this because I am not affraid to work.

I met this girl "love" in 2000. I decided that i was tired of living alone. She needed help with the bills. I agreed to move in and help her out. This is basically where my relationship started with the woman that I gave now spent over a third of my life with.

Except we/I still partied a lot and had a lot of good times. With those good tines also came some bad times. Our son was born in 2003 and our daughter in 2006. This is the hard part to talk about.

Even after my children were born I continued drinking pretty heavy. It is something I am not proud of and quite frankly I cannot explain. I held mu job and paid the bills trying to live life how I thought it was supposed to be. Well, to the parents out there we know that this isn't supposed to be this way. I was stubborn to the fact that I was sinking the family "ship" and we broke up a few times here and there. I thought that the bills were paid and I was faithful then my obligations were being met regardless. Boy was I wrong.

As I have stated over the years I have sworn off the drink and reconciled and made up. With "love" being a good woman and taking me back to try to be a complete family. Each time knowing I was chipping away at the foundation for complete love. We have separated moved out on our own a few times over the years.

Each time I got this is the last time speech. I even agreed to go to AA a few times but felt ashamed and stopped going.

This Sunday will be two weeks since I went over to a friends house with a half pint to watch some football. I thought it would be an innocent drink and everything would be alright. Boy was I wrong. "Love" got totally irrate and I lost my cool. She kicked me out and I went to my brothers to stay. This only made matters worse because my brother has issues of his own (drugs) and it really was not a good move on my part.

"Love" and I have not been getting along to well before this last incident. Our communication with each other had all but stopped. We are both stubborn and hardheaded but I take most of the blame for not being there for her like I should have been.

The children are taking it pretty hard and she asked me if I wanted to stay at the house until I can find another job and get a place of my own. After my schooling I got a job as a union sheet metal worker. Work slowed down and I have been unemployed since the end of August. This has added to the attitude problems around the house. She works as a dietary tech(cook) and started working more since I got laid off.

Her working and me not pretty much turned into animosity because my unumployment isn't cutting it. I personally believed I would have got a call for work, but pretty much gave up hope.

We were doing so good at the beginning of the summer. We were pretty much happy and had a little extra money to boot.
Now it is just complete misery and I cannot sleep at night. She told me she is tired of trying and is ready to move on. I feel comleyely devastated and I can not let it go. I absolutely love this woman and the family we have made together. My kids are suffering because of my ignorance and selfishness.

She tells me that I put booze and drugs before family. I do not feel this way and I really cannot explain why I relapse once in a while. I do not put booze and drugs before family, no excuses this time. I just don't know why.

I really want to know what the hell is wrong with me. Why can't I get it right for my children's sake. All I want is to be a happy family and honestly I feel we haven't figured out the right way. We have never tried counseling or anything. It just kills me that it turned out this way.

I just don't want it to end this way. There has got to be a way t work it out. It hurts and I have torn my family apart.

Why?

edit on 22-12-2012 by liejunkie01 because: spelling

I understand.

I know it is, but continually cannot admit that the fault is mine. I make my father's death or my youthful boozing an excuse. It's MY fault that I use alcohol as a crutch for everything. I tell myself that a day off the booze allows me a day on the booze. "Oh! how well I've done to have two days off the booze".....then drink.

I don't kid myself.....I'm what is called a 'Functioning Alcoholic'........I earn lots of money, no sick days, just continually find ways to drink when my wife will not know and when it doesn't affect my job.

I do not know how to totally stop the cycle, I cannot advise you but I know that I love my family and have not done anything to change that.

A little secret - I get drunk to change my mind, to just drift away from reality and listen to some music BUT when that drunk is contained because of the fact that you cannot be too drunk unless you're found out then the drunk becomes less.......(i.e. I have brain-power about just how drunk I get.....)

So, because of my love for my wife I've have started to drink considerably less....then lesser..........I'm starting not to care about booze because of my love for my wife.

Not saying that I won't suddenly get crazy drunk again because I know this thing will never go away - I'm just lucky that I've found a wonderful wife who gets what I am............

Just know that relapse is part of the recovery process. Don't beat yourself up every time you fall off the wagon.

It's all part of the process. You just need to have those "slip-ups" less frequently over time. But when you do, you just need to brush it off and continue the process. Don't look at it as if you blew it and now must start it all over again.

When you get knocked off your path to recovery, continue to remain focused on your goal. Looking forward, get back on that path right where you left off.

All the best...

I wish I could offer you some advice but I have screwed so many things up with my own life due to a variety of issues that I looked in one of the drawers of my mind and well, it was empty.

You have some great advice here from other members so ... kudos to them.

oh... there was something in the drawer that was trying to deceive me and I grabbed it with both of my hands and had a bloody good look and there it was, in capital letters... GUILT.

thankyou, I just found out what was lurking troubling me in my own life.

I decided then to grab the word and rearrange it and only came up with this that I decided could have a sensible meaning:

GLUIT



get some glue and maybe try to stick your life back together?

OP, your screen name says a lot to me. "Liejunkie"....people that are addicts are people that have to lie every day of their lives. Lying and hiding, sneaking that extra little bit to get a little higher, lying to those closest to you, hiding what you're addicted to in various places, etc.

It is a life of deception. The only trouble is, an addict is fooling nobody but himself. Everybody else can see, even your little children can see that you are not all there for them.

When you're in the throes of your addiction, you lie to yourself most of all. You think you have it together, and you are "high functioning". Maybe you can go to work and do your job, but what good does that do if you lose your family and your kids think of you as a drunk?

Harsh words, I know, but I've been an addict. I was called "high functioning". I was fooling myself thinking that nobody could tell. LOL, everybody could tell.

You need to see yourself as others see you. This alone should make you want to clean up your act. You are now awash in shame and sadness. That's step one. Step two is knowing that life without your substance of choice (in your case, alcohol) can actually be pretty good. You have to give yourself a chance to learn to live clean in order to see that. Step three is having the willpower to stay away from the offending substance when things get hard. I don't see a problem with AA and its insistence that you rely on a "higher power". If you need to substitute God for alcohol, that's a pretty good trade, don't you think?

Some of us were born crippled, and end up using the wrong crutches. Find the right one, there's no shame in that.

Know that you are at a crossroads right now, and the roads are clearly marked: One will give you your life back, and the other one will destroy it forever. It's not hard to know which way to go.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. You know what to do. Don't be afraid, many of us have been there, done that, and come out the other side better and stronger than we were before.

Best of luck to you.

She's done trying to encourage you to change. I'm sure she feels it's not worth it to try when there's not results. I highly recommend couples therapy. I went with my girl just 1-1/2 years into our relationship to iron things out right away, and now we can resolve almost all arguments sanely.

You however, need to make some paradigm shifts involving your favorite substances. I don't know if she's asking for you to give it all up completely or to scale it down to like "one beer a night" or something like that, but you need to know where those lines are.

I have been practicing regulating substances with myself for about 8 years now and try to get in the habit of taking month breaks, setting reasonable limits for myself etc. However, some people don't or can't regulate themselves with these things. I was that person once... until I took an ego-shattering dose of '___'.... Also HIGHLY recommended.

Short answer - change your habits on your own and gain a new perspective. Show her that you can do it instead of telling her that you will do it.

None religious people want to find a shortcut to

1- solve all their problems

2- to do what they please

In a parallel way. There are some short ways , but they may seem ending sooner or later.

You can choose between :

1-Be honest with god and try to find him , then there is no problem.

2-Try to play smart or stubborn for god , take all the problems for yourself.

Lookup Occams razor.
"The simplest answer is usually the correct one."

Stop drinking. You know it has never helped in the past.
Stop lying to yourself. You know you can't have one small drink. Don't lie and think you can.

Why are you asking us? You know what you have to do. Quit making excuses and quit drinking and using drugs. Christ man, your in your 30's. You're not 16.

If your looking for someone to say "it's ok man, you didn't do anything wrong. She should except your drinking and drug abuse", your in the wrong place.

Man up