From the DUH Files: Study -Gastric bypass weight-loss surgery increases risk of alcoholism

I know where you are at, and can feel your pain. Before gastric bypass I barely drank. For me it did not start right away, I was about 3 years out,going through some really stressful things. I started drinking with family at a get together, they told me I needed to relax. Well, I will tell you, I went from a non drinker to a full blown alcoholic. I would say 07-10 was basically drink till I blacked out, just about everyday. I still functioned at my job, even got exceeds standards for my evaluations, but I was sinking very fast. I got to the point that when I was not working I was drinking, morning, noon, and night. I went from a non drinker to drinking 12-16 Tall Boys of that awful tasting Steel Reserve beer, just because it had a high alcohol content. It could be cold or warm, because in the beginning I would only put a couple in the fridge, to try to curb my drinking. The funny thing is before gastric bypass one drink made me loopy, but after RNY I could never get enough. Thank God I did my drinking at home, when I would black out I would end up urinating on myself. Then I would wake up 1-2 hours later and feel, but not be, totally sober. I went to work one day and thought I was having a stroke, shortly after getting there. Ending up in the ER and a short hospital stay, I found out that I was not having a stroke, I was 3 times the legal limit. I always prided myself on that I would never drink and drive... There I was drove to work in that kind of condition!! The last three months of my drinking days I would have to get up 2 hours early to go to work. I would be sitting on the tiolet with the worst diarhea and dry heaving in the waste can on my lap. I got to the point where I did not want to go on anymore. I would not say I was quite suicidal, but I wished that I was never born or just never existed. Thank God I never drank at work, but if I did not get help, it would have been a matter of time because my hands would get the shakes so bad that my normally good handwriting looked like chicken scratch and I would just start up with the dry heaving and would have to wear a pad in my pants so I would not crap myself. I know that this sounds really crude, but I would rather embarass myself on here ,if it can help you or any other person who is reading about this to find out what the F@#! is happening to them!Thank God I was able to get the help that I needed through the fellowship of AA and just falling on my knees and praying to God to help take this terrible pain away. My sobriety date is 4/25/10 and life gets better everyday one day at a time. If you or anyone needs to talk to me please feel free to email me.

 Thank you for tellling your story, mine is very similar.  We need to get the word out on this.  Our bodies have been forever altered and can not process alcohol normally.  This almost destroyed me and everything that I loved.  Thankfully I went to treatment and AA and my sobriety date is 6/23/10.

To those reading this that are just realizing they may have a problem - this thing progresses in us rapidly because of the surgery.  Get help as soon as you can before you become suicidal, crazy or die from a car accident or fall.  It will take a hold of you like nothing I ever experience in my first 45 years.

Blessings,
Linda

I think I'm lucky....

I did try a few drinks postop, the last one was at Christmas last year. A social drink.

For ME, I was LUCKY, and I truly mean that, that I don't GET from wine what I got from it before my surgery. It used to make me feel warm all over, and give me a glow all evening. I might have had a bottle of wine every week, or perhaps every two weeks, before my surgery.

Postop, no warm glow..... Just 3 oz and WHAM - Drunk! Half an hour later, feeling hung over, ashamed of how senseless I was, and counting those calories. No glow, no gentle warmth, none of the things that I enjoyed about it remained, but it was still a chunk of calories. Heck, if I was goign to indulge in calories, I figured it was probably better to eat cake! (and I can't tolerate mixed drinks, they make me dump)

So i'm lucky that there's nothing pleasant about alcohol. Not anymore. I miss it. But I'm better off without it. I cringe every time I see someone post "how soon after surgery can I drink?" Because a huge proportion of those asking will see no harm in ONE drink, but don't realize that sometimes all it takes is just one to start down the pathway to utter self-destruction. Best not to even try one.

You're very right about not even having one. 

I know, from being a "functioning alcoholic" myself. That it quickly turns into just a full blown piece of **** drunk. That's what happened to me. I went to work everyday, no problem, because I never got hangovers. It went from a few airplane bottles of Crown for a couple years, to a pint of Crown every night, with still no consequences. With the rate I was drinking Crown (I had a very well paying job) I decided to go more economical. I vowed that I would never drink "nasty vodka," I was a whiskey gal through and through.

I started drinking vodka. I started with a pint of mid-level vodka a night and quickly graduated to very cheap vodka. Well, with no issues, drinking a pint, it graduated to a fifth of $5 cheap **** every night, of course with the intention of not drinking the whole thing, it was just more economical to buy it in fifths, I never did buy gallons etc.
I started coming to work with hangovers. And when you drink that much and your hungover, your patience runs very thin. That wasn't good when I worked with animals ******g, ****ting, and throwing up on me every day! (i was a dog groomer) I finally quit that job because I couldn't take the stress anymore. ( I know that there will be many people who say I'm a loser if I can't give a hair cut to a dog without stressing. Trust me, try to do it at a rate of about 30-45 min a dog while their owners are calling every 15 min to see if their done. Just volunteer for a day and see how you do)

I started working for a veterinarian I had worked for as a technician (animal RN) years ago. To me, that was an easy job compared to the other. I also had a piece of **** boyfriend at that time that didn't help. I started having to have "a nip" before work to get me started and out of the haze in the mornings.

Well, from that nip, came calling in sick all the time, to taking "nips" at lunch time. And when I say nip I mean a good 8oz, in one chug. When I didn't have my morning dose of vodka in the morning, (the at least 1000 times I was gonna stop) I would start dry heaving at work, because of DT's. When I would take a **** the bathroom smelled like liquor. I have never heard of someone saying that before, but that's the reality. Your **** smells like liquor. My boss and co-workers knew what was going on, but tried to be patient with me.

My boss actually drove me to 2 of the rehabs I attended, to no avail. I finally did what I always do, drank a fifth of vodka. But, by this time in the game, it only took that one big first drink to make me blackout. First, I walked my new puppy (the one in the avi) down a busy 4 lane main drive at the beach (where I lived on a marina) to the liquor store, begging for money from strangers along the way, because I was broke. I finally got the money, from a college kid that didn't want be the cause of someone not having a good time, and bought my $5 fifth. I was on my way home when I ran out in front of a cop car with my dog and almost got arrested right then, but he let me go because I had not yet drank any. I got home to my apt, which was over top of a business at the marina, and fell down the stairs and had no memory of it. I think I was trying to take my dog outside. A co-worker stopped by to check on me and there I was lying lifeless on the floor at the bottom of the stairs with my dog jumping up and down on top of me. She called the ambulance, and I distinctly remember arguing that I could get in it myself. I woke up in the hosp wit my parents at my bedside praying I would wake up.

I did, and went to CA for yet another stint in a dual diagnosis rehab. Meaning they specialized in mental illness (which I already knew I had) and addiction. I did really well and met a friend from Delaware that was like my long lost best-friend. He had been in more rehabs than me! This was my last chance and his too. I did wonderfully and decided to stay in CA, and go to a sober living facility. After about 3 weeks I came home. I went to visit my friend in Delaware and his husband. At that time I wasn't drinking, just taking lots of benzo's(klonipin), and everything seemed o.k. I went home and started living with my parents. I started finding ways to get liquor again. Saving up dollars from money my mother would give me to donate to the AA meetings I'd attend. An addicted mind is a very sick one, and pretty damn smart. I learned from all my encounters that most addicts are very smart and cunning.

Two years ago in March I got a DUI in a large college town around here. I was going to visit an old friend and decided I'd sneak and get alcohol before I got there. My DUI was, as follows, in my mom's new car, with my dog, at a railroad crossing, by rear-ending a bus filled with members of the D.O.C. That's the Dept of Corrections, yes a bus full of inmates, 19 of them. And, of course, all of them claimed to be injured. My blood alcohol level was way past the legal limit. I mean WAY. To this day, I am driving my car with an alcohol detection system in my car. Which means I have to blow in it to start it, and blow in every few minutes while I'm driving. I had to pay to put it in, and every month to get it calibrated, then put back in my car. I will be finished this December.

So, there's my story of being a "functional" alcoholic, to a piece of drunk **** I have not had any alcohol in a year. Yes, I drank after that DUI and all the money and heartache it caused, I just didn't drive. I absolutely do not drink now. The smell makes me nauseous. So, for those of you who made it through this whole long response, thank you. I usually do not talk about this part of my life because it's over and in the past. Here are the lessons that you should take from all this.... If you function now, you won't sooner or later. I have lost everything that I worked my ass off for since I was 15. A great job, great home, good money to just spend for me and those I love. Oh and I can't forget that I've lost almost all my friends, all the lovers and boyfriends I had at that time. No person in their right mind wants to be with a drunk. Only an alcoholic themselves and probably so that you will make them look like they're the sober one. And the most important thing I lost is trust. Trust from my family and the trust in myself as a decent human being.

I'm starting to regain all that back, the trust anyway. Oh, you may be asking what makes me think I won't turn into that person again? Well, while we were in rehab in Malibu, CA the T.V. show Intervention was filming a show about my wonderful friend Chris from Delaware. His husband got them to do that as a last ditch effort. Chris did great, while he was in rehab, but when he got home, things started to get as bad as they were before. He went to a work farm rehab this time, which he swore he wouldn't do. Why boil yourself in the hot sun working while your trying to get sober. I agreed. Well, around Sept a year ago, I got the call from Chris's husband that he had killed himself. I couldn't cry for him at that time because I knew exactly how he felt and was glad for him that he was free from that evil demon chasing him through life.

They still show that episode of Intervention sometimes. I caught it just a few months ago. And that is why I know I will not drink again. Or maybe I will in the future. But, I'll always have the memory of Chris and that damn Intervention show to remind me of the consequences. Thanks, Chris.

quick edit to change a $ symbol

 Wow, that's heavy stuff, girl.    Thanks for sharing that and keep fighting the good fight.

Anni,

Thank you for sharing your story.  You're a brave woman.  I'm very sorry for your loss. 

Thanks for being transparent and sharing, I sure wish more folks were, it sure *might* help somebody make some different decisions.

Thanks again.

Thanks, Julie. I just know, a lot more than most, about what alcohol can do to a person. I know what I lost and what my friend lost. What he lost hurts the most. It can happen to anyone, don't think it can't, alcohol will kill you slower than most drugs. The problem is that any "junky" can get it at the corner store.

wow, Anni, big hugs to you & keep on one day at a time. I'm glad you are not doing that any more.