CW: Alcoholism, binge drinking, blackouts
spoiler
I've spoken before about having a parent with serious alcoholism problems before here somewhere, but I personally relapsed after trying to get sober for awhile and feel really shitty about it. I got wasted early in the day, and then went through shit I had to get done at home drunk around 3-ish throughout the day and just kept taking a gluggluglugglug kind of swig from an 80 proof bottle after each chore, and eventually ended up going to bed early, then woke up completely confused and thinking I was in my back yard instead of my bedroom for some reason and it took me like 10 minutes to figure out where I was while being scared and pathetic and alone. I don't want to fucking be like this anymore. I've been to AA meetings before and was really offput by the weird pseudo-Calvinist shit and would appreciate some kind of secular and preferable left-friendly options for getting sober because I'm in really bad shape mentally right now and don't really have any faith in the typical avenues where people go to when they want to get help.
Thanks a ton for all the suggestions. Is there a guide out there for identifying and diagnosing "how much of this is the psychological addiction symptoms" vs "how much of this is physical chemical dependency withdrawal symptoms" type stuff? I've been diagnosed with GAD before and knowing where that begins with like, occasionally racing heart rate vs "your CNS has got accustomed to functioning with a depressant on your system, and if you're not on it your baseline is gonna be higher."
I don't really think there's a guide for it. Physical dependency is the bigger deal I'd say, because it makes it feel nearly impossible to put down the bottle for a day. If you can make it a day or two without drinking before you falter, it's more psychological addiction.
And with being previously diagnosed with GAD, alcohol and downers all make sense as an addiction. Your body will recover without the alcohol, your nervous system will go back to the way it used to be for the most part (ignoring nerve damage caused by alcohol). And the recovery starts way sooner than you think it does. We were like this before we were drinking, shaky, anxiety ridden messes that couldn't get our brains to slow down. Alcohol made it worse, no doubt, but we were like this before we started drinking. We'll be returning to a shitty state, but it's still us.
From what we've talked about, I'd assume most of your addiction is psychological, even if you're physically dependent. Even ignoring the withdrawals, you're using alcohol to replace social and coping skills. Not saying anything bad about you, I'm an alcoholic too and had similar thoughts of "if I can get past the withdrawal it'll be fine" but now I've gone through the full withdrawal 3 times since February. Getting through withdrawal didn't make me less anxious or scared of people. The big reason I suggest psychiatric help is because you have good reasons to drink, and you need to have those needs met before you even stand a chance of getting sober. I mean if you get something for social anxiety that helps you, that's one less urge to drink yk? I got all those needs met with meds, but I'm still struggling to stay sober.
Oh yeah, I didn't mean to imply I thought "hey, once I kick withdrawals it'll be smooth sailing" haha. I've had extended stretches before where I've been dry for months and then something really difficult or retraumatizing will come up and I'll fall off the wagon kinda hard. The last month-ish has been like that, and it took me until making this post initially to be like "shit, I need to get it together" again.