Alcoholism

Hello. I think the alcohol problem has been passed down through generations in my family. My grandmother on my father's side and her siblings drank, my father and his sister drank. I thought that this problem didn't concern me, because I reach for alcohol on weekends or occasionally, most often during parties or social gatherings. I don't drink during the week, for me it's time for work, duties, sports. If there's a party, I've usually had enough of it the next day. I've had my fun and it's enough for me for a while. However, sometimes I drink up to 10 portions of alcohol at a party, counting each shot, drink or glass of wine as 1 portion. It happens to me that I black out. Sometimes I don't know when to stop drinking. It seems to me that everything is fine, and then suddenly it cuts me off. I've noticed that alcohol sometimes has a bad effect on my emotions. After drinking, I'm more impulsive, I explode more easily and I argue with my partner more often. I'm terribly emotional then. Alcohol gives me a sense of joy and openness - after it I feel more confident and more sociable, which is attractive to me. I simply like to party sometimes. Unfortunately, these positive emotions are sometimes short-lived, and then I sometimes have a terrible moral hangover, like two weeks ago on Saturday. We were at a restaurant with friends and then we ended up in a club. I don't remember the end of the party. I fell asleep in the club. I feel ashamed in front of my friends. Because it's not appropriate for a woman. These thoughts tormented me terribly, even to this day I feel ashamed and it torments me. I would like to understand where my attitude to alcohol comes from and how I can control it better. Is this already alcoholism? I'm afraid I'm addicted. I also suffer from OCD and I don't know if OCD has kicked in now. Lately, this fear of being an alcoholic like my father has been paralyzing me a bit. I constantly have thoughts about whether I am an alcoholic, whether I drink too much, what if I lose control and start drinking every day or black out again. I am constantly searching for information about alcoholism, I spend days googling, asking others, analyzing past experiences. Maybe someone can relate. Thank you for your answers.

zacharyabberton

Date posted: 36w

My experience with alcohol is that the reason I’m interesting in drinking is the same reason I continue to drink. Specifically, if I drink to want to feel better, once I’ve drunk enough to feel that relaxed “giddy” feeling, my concern is now maintaining the drunkness. I feel that I know I’m going to become sober naturally, so I need to drink NOW to make sure I stay drunk, except I only exist in the NOW, not before or after, and so the loop becomes consuming a large amount of alcohol in an incredibly short amount of time, resulting in all of the nasty aspects of being that drunk. There’s an idea of addiction that something becomes an addiction when it impedes upon other aspects of your life. For example, this would be quick stopping to have a drink on the way to an important meeting, causing you to miss said meeting. In this example I would hold the meeting as being more important than the drink, but I simply could not NOT have a drink. I don’t think that’s what is happening here. On the occasions that you drink, which you do choose, I think you may notice that you often drink to excess, which results in a concern over alcoholism. To be blunt, I don’t think you’re an alcoholic; I think you’re concerned about whether or not you are, which results in the OCD loop. With that, it’d be good to look into the different strategies listed for breaking the OCD loop/cycle. I think this also may be the loop you find yourself caught in that results in drinking until blacking out. I would also note that once you’ve begun to black out, your body begins to recognize this and proceeds to blackout earlier in anticipation, so at a certain point you may be drinking a normal amount but the autopilot kicks in and blacks you out anyway. To curb this response is taking a break from drinking and drinking less. If there’s any advice I can give, it’s that while being concerned about one’s drinking habits is a legitimate concern, the obsessing of the concern to the point of the obsessing impeding upon your life is the OCD issue. “I am having the thought that I am an alcoholic and as a result I feel the compulsion to research alcoholism,” not, “I am an alcoholic.” You’ve got this 👍

LunarNova

Date posted: 36w

Should i stop drinking?

zacharyabberton

Date posted: 35w

@LunarNova By all respects quitting drinking would benefit both physical and mental health; however, I wouldn’t be able to make that call for you. I would say if you feel that you should, then go ahead and do so, paying attention to how stopping is having an effect on you. I’d keep in mind the idea that, “There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.” Nothing wrong with drinking in and of itself, but if it’s wrong for you, it’s wrong for you.

eb123456789

Date posted: 24w

False Memory Cheating Fear, Drinking

Hello all, I’ve dealt with various OCD themes and compulsions for pretty much as long as I can remember. In some periods of my life the thoughts and compulsions have been particularly severe, but I’ve also had years where I’m able to keep it under control. This has made me worry I don’t actually have OCD, especially because I haven’t been doing consistent therapy and my therapists have gone back and forth on whether I have OCD. In the past few years, I’ve struggled immensely with false memory ocd, and right now I’m going through probably the most severe episode of my life. I love my boyfriend with all my heart. A few times that I’ve gone out drinking I’ve had the thought before “what if I lost control and cheated tonight” and it’s bothered me severely. Two times before, it’s gotten to the point of convincing myself that because I talked to a man that meant I had cheated on my boyfriend and just couldn’t remember. It has never turned out to be true. About a month ago, I went out with friends and had too much to drink. I was really ashamed of myself the next morning, particularly because I always try to drink cautiously now that I know it can trigger my anxiety. I am ashamed to admit I do not remember the very end of the night getting in my uber and going home. I woke up anxious and extremely worried and immediately started off by worrying if I could have tried to kiss my friend and not remembered. I called him and was immediately reassured nothing had happened, I simply drank too much and went home at the end of the night. I started feeling better, but then remembered a moment I had been in the bathroom. I remembered chatting with people in line about how long the line was, and then being in the bathroom on my phone. I then felt like I remembered people knocking and saying to myself “that wasn’t that long” and leaving. There is nothing concrete that I remember that in any way indicates I cheated, and in fact I have texts with my boyfriend from the whole night telling him I loved him. My friend told me that the only time I was ever apart from him was about 5 minutes and that when he came back I was in the same exact spot he left me in. However, when I remembered being in the bathroom, I thought to myself “what if you cheated on him in the bathroom”/ “oh my god did you cheat on him in the bathroom” and then a series of images of me performing sexual acts popped into my head. I’ve poured over my memory and truly do not remember meeting anyone, talking to anyone, or even finding anyone attractive that night, but the fact that I was drinking makes me worried I’m just forgetting and these images could be real. I’ve been constantly ruminating on these fears for the past month, to the point that the only relief I feel is when I’m able to fall asleep. I’m a law student and it’s becoming extremely difficult to keep up with my classes. I’ve been google searching, asked chat gpt for advice, confessed my fears to my boyfriend, asked for reassurance from pretty much everyone in my life, and even emailed the bar asking for security footage (which I know all sounds insane). I’m a naturally guilty person and feel bad about small things, so I really don’t think I would be capable of cheating and then nonchalantly texting my boyfriend, but these images feel so real that it’s terrifying. I’ve also seen a lot about how I would “just know” and that begins to scare me because then I think “you do just know, you did it” even though I really don’t think I did. I know these posts are not supposed to be for reassurance seeking, I’m just so exhausted and feeling really depressed. I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar and has any advice. I’m also wondering if images can feel more real the more you ruminate on them or if it’s a sign of memory. Thank you so much for listening.

jankie1226

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 17w

did i cause a tragedy

this weekend, i went out with some friends who were staying with me from out of town and i drank too much. because of my job and mental health i very proactively limit how much i drink but i got caught up in the fun of the moment and drank past my limit. this morning, i woke up to a message from my boss about a tragedy that happened in my community this past weekend. my mind is rapidly trying to draw connections between me drinking too much and this tragedy. my ocd is trying to convince me that i caused it while i was drinking and that i just don't remember it. anyone else experience things like this? i'm trying not to seek reassurance but it's getting difficult!

Imsexybutimi...

Date posted: 12w

Do I have ocd

Hey, so idk if I have ocd, I would like to think I’m a very self aware person but I don’t wanna self diagnose at all, lmk what you guys think. So pretty much my whole life since I was young I remember having irrational fears im sure it was all trauma induced but when I was a kid I thought my father was poisoning me until I asked him, he started crying and was so shocked that I could ever even think that, my parents broke up when I was legit fresh out the womb, mom worked two jobs and disciplined me, dad let me do whatever on the weekends and got me snacks so I was obsessed with him so obsessed that it was mandatory for me to kiss his picture 20x everyday before school. Growing up I always felt followed by cameras or like someone out there was recording me waiting for me to do something embarrassing to expose me in front of the whole world and my life was over 🤣🤣 I thought my abusive ex bf was stalking me through my I phone camera after we broke up and it would truly stress me out, it made me believe that it was the reason he never reached out again bc I probably looked ugly in the camera he was stalking me through. If I fall out with a friend Ill over analyze everything to see if I did anything wrong and god forbid while I’m self reflecting I realize I did something wrong I feel like an evil person, verbatim the people I fall out with is bc they’ve done me wrong in some way and it has to b something hurtful or repeated mistakes for me to really stay away for good, so I’ll beat myself up for making mistakes with another person who’s made the same amount of mistakes if not more and in most cases I always fall short, and this when I question if it’s ocd or I’m just to self aware and see the ugly in me bc I’m not perfect and it’s just makes me feel so unsettled but again that’s a normal feeling and the next step is to forgive yourself and do better moving forward, not obsess over it like your trying to convince yourself you’re a good person. I’m also hot tempered and will say hurtful things when I’m mad I’m definitely a crash out in the way, you push my bottoms way too many times and I will shred you, and I’ll say things ik will hurt you and that’s just so low, then the anger goes away and I have to face the guilt, which makes my “ocd” 100x worse, it almost feels like I have to do everything right to not trigger it yet again I don’t have the self control to do it all right, I actually have a lot bpd tendencies again not diagnosing but I’m just trying to understand my brain. I worry about dying, getting a terminal illness. uti turning into kidney infection then into cancer kind of thing, knowing that life in general can b tragic is so scary to me, like what will be my story? What will be my life experience?. I believe that people see right through me and discuss it amongst each other, I always tell myself I am not that important but I can’t seem to shake it off sometimes. When I would break up with my ex I would have pre written paragraphs ready to b send if he ever decided to reach back and I would do this to make sure I didn’t forget a single thought, that every point i felt I need to prove was there, and that bothers me bc do I want win an argument or fix the issue. All of these feelings make me feel so pathetic and embarrassed people move on with their lives and I’m still stuck on something that happened 3 yrs ago. Then I’ll get manic get a tattoo, change my hair, go out clubbing do what I can to b the sexy young girl that I am and it helps in the moment but it worsens my mental after the euphoria is gone. I’m currently staying home, not going out, have only 1 friend so I feel like ocd progressively got worse now, I don’t remember it getting this bad in a while. lmk what you guys think don’t judge or think I’m embarrassing I’m actually so cool and if have to convince you I’m cool I will LMFAOO no but fr help

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Alcoholism

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