Got back on the sauce again...

[cronosaegis]

I haven't been around here for a while. I've never been a high enough profile member for anybody to miss me while I was gone. But, anyways, how I spent my last month or so...

This isn't bragging about drinking, this is a note for you guys that don't drink to not start, and for you guys that quit drinking- keep quit. Period. If I'd never seen a drop of alcohol, my life would be so, so different and so much better. I can say that because I know how much better things are when I don't drink.

I've had a major problem with alcohol for most of twenties. This last year, since December of 05, I hadn't had a drink.

I got back into a good job, and I've been working on finishing my Masters. I got real depressed back in September, and I couldn't lay hands on any opiates, so for some now unknown reason- I decided to pick up a bottle of bourbon.

Since then I've had two blackouts of unknown length.

My first blackout came when I was pretty hungover and decided that the DT's would go away if I fed them. I went out, bought a fifth of early times, and apparently it got worse from there. I ended up across town, about 8 miles away, and woke up when a jogger poked me with a stick. I was wearing a dress shirt and a pair of dress slacks, so the jogger wanted to know if I'd been mugged or been maybe drugged at a bar and dumped. Keep in mind I'm male, so I thought the latter was a pretty weird thing.

Oddly enough, also, I woke up with my wallet, id, and cash still intact. I'd left my debit card and checkbook on a counter in my apartment.

I offered the jogger my last $20 bill to give me a ride back near my place. He turned out to be religous, so he didn't take my money, but he did give me a ride on the condition I'd attend a church service with him sometime in October.

The second blackout is probably genuinely the strangest blackout I've ever had, actually, that's a lie. It's actually just weird now because I've never had blackout quite like this before.

I came to on Friday a week or so ago, only to have a splitting headache, and I had something very warm and kinda heavy on my chest. My left arm was around it, and I had a case of the DT's so I actually didn't have any idea what I was feeling until I till I touched the soft, fleshy round part that was a breast. I realized then that I was under a body, a warm body, a warm female body. And then, as I started to get my senses back, and I don't mean to be graphic, I was also "inside" that body, or part of me was.

I managed to wake her up and slide out from under her. She was worse hung over than me, and you could tell she was plenty embarassed. I was too. She didn't have a sheet or anything to get under, so I closed my eyes while we tried to piece things together.

I wondered if this would end up in some kind of sex crime, as I figured she didn't remember anymore than I did. It turns out though, that she picked me up a bar when she was out with her friends. So all was okay on that front.

After some STD tests(it was protected sex, but still) we ended up going to an IHOP for waffles and grits. Needless to say, things were pretty weird between me and this girl, and they were compounded by the fact that neither one of us could seem to detach ourselves from the other.

After breakfast, we went back to her place, and then she gave me a ride home. She wanted to know if I wanted to go out for breakfast with her sometime this week, I said sure.

The second one was enough to sober me back up and make sure I don't touch the stuff. I've been completely sober for over a week now. I miss my opiates, but they're not available where I'm working. So that's life. I've had some pretty manic up and down episodes in the last week, and it's been a strange experience. The two blackouts were enough to keep me sober for another six months, maybe.

It's pitiful in a way though, because alcohol has never done anything but cause me problems, but opiates have always evened out my moods and they've never screwed me over like alcohol. As we all know though, despite the fact these are deeply personal choices, alcohol is legal and opiates are a major offense.

I'm not soliciting any comments, I'm just posting this cause I needed to tell someone, and I figured some people might get a positive reminder of why they quit drinking. I wish I'd had one.

[kyuss]

I used to be a heavy drinker
back in my younger days
I just don't enjoy the buzz anymore
or the hangovers.
But I used to "time travel" alot
when drinking too.

[vaxn8]

Chrono- I'm glad you're back with us and that you made it through relatively unharmed. I have to stay away from alcohol because i get in way too much trouble from it. I actually went to treatment and quit when I was 15 and left it alone for 15 years. Back in 2003, I had moved to a new place for a job i was really excited about. It's a long story I won't go into, but I ws laid off and was at home without a job for awhile.

At the time, I was taking opiates for pain but was using them more to forget about what was going on. I ran out of my script 3 weeks early (on a 30 day script). I w/drew for about 3 days and decided drinking might be a good idea. I thought maybe I'd been away from it long enough that I'd be ok then and wouldn't turn into a drunk nutcase and I'd be out of pain. Didn't happen quite like that.

Within a couple days, my family knew what was going on. They were out of state and were scared about what I was doing. I was drinking until I passed out, waking up and starting all over 24 hours/day. While on the phone with a friend, I passed out and scared her to death, she didn't know if I was ok or not. My family kept calling and couldn't get me, so they called the police. I came to with policemen all over my place, I'm naked on my futon for some reason- don't know where my clothes went. They took me to the hospital, didn't know if I had od'd or what- they had to break in to get to me.

At the hospital, as i started to sober up I started getting the shakes pretty bad. They let me go home with some benzo and told me to stay away from the alcohol. I just couldn't stop at that point, went back to drinking, my family just left me alone there wasn't anything they could do. I stayed away from opiates during that time because i couldn't get myself together enough to get to the doc. I ended up overdosing again, this time with the pills they gave me at the hospital and alcohol. That time, they kept me at the hospital.

I'm not sure what I'm telling you other than I can understand what it's like to drink like that. Most of that period is one big blackout for me. I'm back to staying away from alcohol. I just can't do it, I turn into a disaster. Its weird how I can keep my shit together with opiates, but am a total mess with alcohol. I couldn't even manage getting dressed while drinking, let alone keeping a job.

Glad you're back!