It's ruining my life. And the irony is it's the only way to dissociate from bad things. At least it seems like that's the only way. Feels like the snake that eats its own tail.
Edit: thank you all for the good advice and support. It means a lot. I love my comrades. 
For me, it was a week in a state run facility. 7 months now. Different things work for different people, but always happy to be an ear if you need
Proud of you for even recognizing this!
Do you think you need rehab? I've been to numerous rehabs for my drinking. I found medication helped because I was drinking to cope with mental health issues brought on by stressors in my life.
In my experience as well as several people I've known, it actually can work to start by substituting your alcohol consumption with a different, less destructive drug like weed for example, replace your drinking habit with smoking weed, then ween off the weed (smoking all the time is still bad for you, but it's less bad than drinking and easier / safer to quit).
I smoke cigars and I've heard from people who were able to quit drinking, and others who actually quit cigarettes, by smoking cigars.
I haven't done either myself and I don't know at what stage of addiction either group was at but just want to mention it. Does seem like some people successfully sub out their addictions for milder things that can be less destructive and constant, which is kinda wild when you think about it.
I agree with the Soros foot soldier. Rehab can help. If you can’t afford it or can’t get it covered, your county should have a department of mental health. Call them and find out what services are available.
Depending on how much you drink and how long you have been drinking, quitting without medical supervision can be dangerous. If you have a doctor, talk to them. Like the above, if you have a county, talk to them.
You’re most likely self-medicating and it could help to get something that allows you to function, such as something you can get from a psychiatrist.
Yeah I forgot to add based upon how much you drink I would advise stopping without consulting a doctor as you could get the DTs and or seizures. Hence why I mentioned rehab because you might need medical assistance to quit.
Drinking is known to be very difficult to quit. There are in my mind three or four steps that seem to work. 1. Depending on your level of dependency you will likely need medical support as withdraws can actually cause probelms that need to be treated. 2. Figuring out the underlying untreated issue that let alcohol dependency become a problem and get treatment for that. 3. Start smoking a bunch of weed.
In my experience the biggest factors for me to stop drinking were figuring out why I was drinking in the first place and actually wanting to stop. For a while I knew "I should probably stop" but didn't actually have the desire to. Once I got to the point of "Oh shit, I seriously need to stop" it became a lot easier for me to stop because I knew serious consequences were right around the corner if I kept it up. I'm still working on my mental issues pertaining to why I drank in the first place but it's gotten easier to deal with once I stopped drinking and actually started addressing the problems.
Agree with other people here. Stopping cold turkey can be incredibly dangerous, so rehab is very helpful if that's an option. If it's not, AA is a helpful starting point to build community. I don't like all the God stuff, but the community aspect of AA can be helpful. You will need to also address various bits of trauma or mental health to get at the root of why you are drinking and build healthier coping mechanisms. A psychiatrist would be a good start here as others said.
Yeah, alcohol is really like that. At some level, being an alcoholic feels like the right choice. The world around us is terrible and it feels like there's no end. Fixing my life these past few months has been far more expensive than my $1 double shots ever were. I was able to quit fentanyl and kpins relatively easily, that was expensive and not everybody around me was doing it but alcohol? 4 years and counting at this point. You don't get ads for snorting fent. There aren't readily available dens to go shoot up in. But it's never hard to find people to drink with, and you always have enough change to get at least a few shots. You can't always change enough in a day to make yourself stop drinking. The most important step is fighting this voice. This is justification for the addiction to continue. Even if it's a cheap rush, it's eating your soul. It's slowly leaning more and more into alcohol. What it makes of you. What it takes from you. How dishonest it makes you with yourself.
I got into outpatient rehab through a local place that works through the department of mental health. Even helped me apply for medicaid. Getting in for mental health services was a good idea, and has helped quite a bit. I relapse less and less as time goes on. Just a little longer between drinks than last time yk? I get weekly therapy now and that's been great. I still need to start going to groups, but they even have someone specifically for finding the right groups for you to go to, will even give you rides to them. They're called a sobriety coach, and having that has been pretty cool so far.
And figure out why you drink. For me, I have a million different reasons. Stressful home life, self medication, boredom, a need for dissociation from the world, a need to make my already existing dissociation bearable. Then start working towards those things. Stopped medicating myself and let the doctors do it. Of course I still research quite a bit into what they give me, but I'm not trying to handle it myself anymore. As far as boredom goes, I've been getting into Pokemon Showdown more recently. Doing mentally active things to fill the time so my mind drifts to drinking less. Probably helps that I'm a way better player when I'm not drunk.
This doesn't work for everyone but you could try kratom if it's legal where you are, taking a dose in the morning and after work almost completely kills my urge to drink. People do say it can become addictive so take that with a grain of salt but I've never had that issue, and it's a lot easier on my bank account than alcohol if you order it online.
I'd highly advocate against doing this, since kratom can also be addictive.
I understand people react differently to things but I don't even understand how you can get addicted to it, I get nauseous if I take too much and it becomes unpleasant real quick.
It might be a matter of slowly dosing and titrating up, and once you get those opiate like effects that's probably when it becomes addictive. I do now one person who got very addicted. Like you said your mileage may vary though. I wanted the opiate high from it but always got sick on even small doses so never got there
Yeah I know a guy that said he was straight hooked and if you have issues with abusing pain killers then I would recommend against it, I just personally never had those issues even after dosing a couple times a day for most of a year. There seems to be a real cutoff point where I get a lot of positives from it until I increase the dosage and then I'm nauseous/drowsy.
Psilocybin does too, along with cutting nicotine cravings. I get no pleasure from either on a microdose.
I second everything you said. I've taken kratom for almost a decade and even when I stopped for a month or so at a time I've only had withdraw from it once and even then it wasn't as bad as caffeine withdraw.
I don't even really view it as a recreational substance because the buzz is almost imperceptible, but as a anxiety medication and pain killer that also curbs my more unhealthy impulses its amazing.
but as a anxiety medication and pain killer
Yeah that's exactly what I use it for. The relief is much more relaxing than any buzz.
Rehab, preferably medical? if you're at risk for withdrawal. After, some kind of outpatient or AA or SMART Recovery (popular AA alternative) involvement. Watch out, some dud rehab/ outpatient operations out there.
Mutual aid societies do work. AA, Smart Recovery, whatever sounds better to you. Get to a meeting and raise your hand and ask for help.
So there's the basic advice:
Avoid your triggers and the environments that drive you to start drinking, don't look at it as an all-or-nothing situation where if you relapse then you might as well just give up/you've let yourself or everyone else down but rather that you are on a recovery journey that is non-linear and every relapse is an opportunity to identify which factors in your life have brought about the relapse so that next time around you'll be able to manage sobriety better and more sustainably, rehab, therapy etc.
You have indicated your need to dissociate from bad things. That's really crucial and it's going to be fundamental for understanding how to approach your particular situation, which is going to be unique (although you'll be able to draw upon advice from people who experience similar circumstances to yours.)
Personally I would draw a mind map or a diagram that locates the different factors that cause me to drink and weigh them accordingly. This is something that might take a lot of hard work and it might be a gradual process of discovery to arrive at.
Try identify all the causes and trace their etiology right back. "Stress" is a good start but what feeds into that stress? Work? Home life? Trying to give others the impression that you're happy when deep down you feel miserable?
If you can figure out what is feeding into your major causes, you can start on the arduous but necessary undertaking to renovate your life.
I believe that this is the most viable way for long-term recovery from addiction. Rehab is a great way to short-circuit addiction patterns. Therapy can help you develop better insight and healthy coping strategies. But ultimately, especially speaking as materialists, there are fundamental circumstances in our lives that give rise to and reinforce behaviours that cause addiction and it's only through changing those circumstances that we can expect to see addiction addressed; some people can white-knucle it, some people have a major breakthrough one way or another and I have all the respect in the world for those people but I don't think it's realistic to expect that most people can just put the bottle down one day and use willpower to never pick it back up again or that a sudden realisation will spontaneously emerge and cure the addiction permanently.
Instead I think it's more about being the architects of the sort of life that you are able to thrive in. You deserve a life of thriving. You can do this 💪
I usually hit a point where I can't take it any more.
Buy an epic amount of soda water. Since I drink beer.
Drink the sodas and take edibles as needed.
Start reconnecting with family as now I have time to talk.
Lasts about a year and a half. Forget about my problem.
Go on vacation, drink again. Do that for three years.
Hit a point where I can't take it anymore.
...
Pounding the soda waters works great when you're really done, but yeah that's the cycle
