I'm a drunk
I am going to look at AA. After sleeping on it, I think I can do this with support of my church, husband and friends without inpatient. I still function, but live feeling shame and guilt that I let this problem happen to me. I'm supposed to be a "Christian" and just feel like a hypocrit that I have this double life going on! It is hard to write this, but if it helps one other person NOT try that first drink after surgery it is worth it to put it out on the line. I could lose my job for this....but my health and sanity are more important at this point. Thank you for all the supportive replies both privately and on this thread. I"m also picking up a size 4 swim suit today and gonna start doing water aerobics in the evenings again to ease boredom and chronic pain (part of the reason for drinking). I would do this surgey again in a heartbeat, but wouldn't try that first drink 3 months out. Love ya all!
Heather
Heather
I went to a Perry Stone conference at my church and really prayed that night. I felt like God took away the desire right then and there. But I started going to New Beginnings on Friday night at our Church. It is for anyone with addictions that want a new beginning. I love it and it has helped tremendously. I have been sober for 6 weeks this Saturday. I know what you are going through, and it got pretty bad. Just keep your faith and keep moving forward. I will be praying for your recovery.
I have struggle with this as well. Go to this site: www.itsnotaddictiontransfer.wordpress.com and you will find information that will be comforting and scary. It is written by a woman (can't recall her name at the moment) who also posts here and had RNY. She posts on the addiction transfer group too - that's how I found her.
She talks about nutritional deficiencies affect your feelings of well being at 18-24 months out and people turn to substances to help feel good again. She has a list of amino acids and other supplements that she takes on the blog and says it has made a huge difference for her.
I started taking pretty much everything she suggests (not in as high a dose though) and have to say that it has really made a difference in how I feel about wanting a drink. I was struggling to not drink during the week, ie., I could do it but it was very hard and I thought about it a lot. I have allowed myself to drink on the weekends but may stop that too because it seems when I start it is hard to stop. My body just doesn't give me signals like it did before RNY. As of Monday went to not drinking effortlessly, so I think she may be on to something.
good luck to you - you are absolutely NOT alone. If you google "bariatric surgery and alcohol" you will find websites with people, hundreds of them, with the exact same issue. Didn't have a drinking problem before RNY, have one now. I felt so much better after finding others with the same issue, especially because this is a subject no one really wants to acknowledge. Everyone wants to focus on the euphoria involved with losing the weight and anything negative is shunned.
You can overcome this! You have to. Being a RNY patient, you have a very high risk of liver failure and early death if you keep drinking "like a drunk". My mantra is "liquor or liver? Liquor or life?" That helps me - plus I know someone who died of liver failure recently and she was only in her 30's and had 2 young children - very very sad.
Post again and let us know how you are doing regardless of how you approach tackling this. You will find support here.
Amelia
She talks about nutritional deficiencies affect your feelings of well being at 18-24 months out and people turn to substances to help feel good again. She has a list of amino acids and other supplements that she takes on the blog and says it has made a huge difference for her.
I started taking pretty much everything she suggests (not in as high a dose though) and have to say that it has really made a difference in how I feel about wanting a drink. I was struggling to not drink during the week, ie., I could do it but it was very hard and I thought about it a lot. I have allowed myself to drink on the weekends but may stop that too because it seems when I start it is hard to stop. My body just doesn't give me signals like it did before RNY. As of Monday went to not drinking effortlessly, so I think she may be on to something.
good luck to you - you are absolutely NOT alone. If you google "bariatric surgery and alcohol" you will find websites with people, hundreds of them, with the exact same issue. Didn't have a drinking problem before RNY, have one now. I felt so much better after finding others with the same issue, especially because this is a subject no one really wants to acknowledge. Everyone wants to focus on the euphoria involved with losing the weight and anything negative is shunned.
You can overcome this! You have to. Being a RNY patient, you have a very high risk of liver failure and early death if you keep drinking "like a drunk". My mantra is "liquor or liver? Liquor or life?" That helps me - plus I know someone who died of liver failure recently and she was only in her 30's and had 2 young children - very very sad.
Post again and let us know how you are doing regardless of how you approach tackling this. You will find support here.
Amelia
This happened to a woman that used to work for my agency, who had RNY surgery (for some reason, this is more likely to happen to those who have RNY). Luckily, we're a counseling agency and she was the secretary to our psychiatrist. He got her in to a weekend detox program, where they detox you while you're uncnscious. After that, she entered a program where she went to a group for several hours a week, along with AA. She left our agency several months later because she moved an hour away. I hope she's still doing well.
(((HUGS))) I was dealing with that for a while. It also started when I was in pain Mine were due to ulcers.. I ate - was hurting - I dunk some alcohol - I was better for while. Then I would drink some more. My body got so used to the drinks.. after dinner, before dinner. I stopped eating solid foods unless I knew I have some alcohol.
It end up to be almost daily drinking, then daily...
Giving it up was not easy. But I did it. One thing that helped a lot was to removing all alcohol from the house and get busy. To help me sleep - I used 1 or 1/2 of benadryl before bed (as needed). Exercise, lots of water, green tea and vitamins. B - lots of B-complex.
And even now - I only really miss it after I eat my dinners (usually more food and more dense food).
Good luck.
It end up to be almost daily drinking, then daily...
Giving it up was not easy. But I did it. One thing that helped a lot was to removing all alcohol from the house and get busy. To help me sleep - I used 1 or 1/2 of benadryl before bed (as needed). Exercise, lots of water, green tea and vitamins. B - lots of B-complex.
And even now - I only really miss it after I eat my dinners (usually more food and more dense food).
Good luck.
Hala. RNY 5/14/2008; Happy At Goal =HAG
"I can eat or do anything I want to - as long as I am willing to deal with the consequences"
"Failure is not falling down, It is not getting up once you fell... So pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again...."
I'm doing a little copy & pasting here, but this is my story in short form. Yes, this IS the short version!! Please read and take to heart what happened to the life I worked so hard for. If you ever have ANY questions or need to talk to someone, just PM me. Believe me, if you think you've done something so bad or are too ashamed to tell anyone....I bet I did worse!! Hope this helps in some way....
Post Date: 5/10/11 6:13 pm
Last Edit: 5/11/11 9:34 am
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
I only strive to be, the kind of person my dogs think I am! 
Of the choices we are given, it's no choice at all....
Post Date: 5/10/11 6:13 pm
Last Edit: 5/11/11 9:34 am
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
I only strive to be, the kind of person my dogs think I am! Of the choices we are given, it's no choice at all....
I only strive to be, the kind of person my dogs think I am! Of the choices we are given, it's no choice at all....
-Patty Griffin
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