Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This a thread for recovered alcoholics, recovering alcoholics, alcoholics not quite ready to quit, and problem drinkers. This a thread to share advice, vent, and provide emotional support when things are difficult. I am Rachel, I am an alcoholic, I'm not quite ready to quit yet, but that point in my life is coming very soon.

Big hug! My name is Devlyn and I'm an alcoholic. I didn't go through the famous program that uses that phrase, but I quit drinking cold turkey in 1986 and haven't had a drink since. I am finally at a point in my life where I am comfortable around alcohol, I even make wine for cooking and gifts. There is no temptation for me anymore.

The longer you let alcohol work on you, it will start to fog your mind from the fact that you even have a problem, this is why alcoholism is called "The disease of denial". The earlier in the disease you decide to fight it, the better your chances of survival. Take your life back.

Hugs, Devlyn

I'm not an alcoholic, drugs were my thing.. But, please, quit the booze before it totals your liver. Watching a loved one die of liver failure is not at all pleasant.

I'm basically trying to get through the denial phase right now. Its emotionally difficult to learn that you are one of "those people."

I also have a lot of anxiety/depression. Having the anxiety/depression thing, gender dysphoria, and being an alcoholic is a really difficult, because each problem just feeds into another. Just the cutting the alcohol won't solve the anxiety/depression or gender dysphoria, anti anxiety drugs won't solve the alcoholism or gender dysphoria, and transitioning won't solve the alcoholism. i'm also late for stuff all the time and it pisses people off and lost my last job because of it. I also probably have Asperger's to some degree. I feel like a walking case of problems.

I am going to have an alcohol free weekend. I don't know if next week will be alcohol free, but this weekend will. This is where I am going to start. Its not as dramatic as throwing out the shot glass and dumping the bottle down the drain, but its somewhere to start. I am going to need you people for emotional support though. I'm already a little nervous, but i will be able to do it. I can get over the jonesing with a little support, but i don't know what to do about the anxiety. any advice?

I started out by sneaking alcohol from my Dad's stuff when I was 15. It was one of many things that I did to keep the GID induced suicidal thoughts at bay. I had already dealt with them once when I was 10. I was able to chase them off. But, they came back a few years later. Then, it was as much drinking and drug use as I could do to keep from killing myself.

Once I turned 21, I became a fairly heavy drinker until I was around 26. By that point, I gave up the alcohol, but I was still doing drugs. Then, when I was around 34, 35, I picked up drinking again. But, this time, I could actually control my drinking and not get completely wasted all the time. I would only have a pint once or twice a month at the most. But, I had to give up the alcohol once and for all a couple of years later. I was suffering from severe panic attacks and the medications I am taking to keep them away do not play nice with alcohol.

So, now, it's no street drugs or alcohol for me. The prescription stuff doesn't get me high. It just gave me my life back.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 08, 2015, 06:35:03 PM
I am going to have an alcohol free weekend. I don't know if next week will be alcohol free, but this weekend will. This is where I am going to start. Its not as dramatic as throwing out the shot glass and dumping the bottle down the drain, but its somewhere to start. I am going to need you people for emotional support though. I'm already a little nervous, but i will be able to do it. I can get over the jonesing with a little support, but i don't know what to do about the anxiety. any advice?

Just do something else, keep your mind off it. Is there anything you've been meaning to do but couldn't find the time?

Hugs, Devlyn

MJ agrees with me mentally, but it seems really mild compared to alcohol and prescription amphetamines (which I don't really like, and have never been able to stay on them because my heart races, I'm hyper-sexual, I pee way too much, and I get in this OCD-like state). Anyways I'm going to need something to deal with my anxiety, and it is going to have to be something other than alcohol. One of my trans sisters went from from alcohol to MJ, t'm thinking of trying the same. Quitting alcohol will still suck though, but I need to do it.

i started writing my last post before you posted. BTW, I can read books,that will help distract me.

Rachel, I was a heavy drinker most of my life and after retirement it became a serious problem. This January I came out to myself as transgender and with that came forgiveness and the ability to love who I am. I decided that I wanted to take care of my self and that meant losing 45 pounds and quit drinking forever. So Rachel, I will give you this advice: You cannot "try" to quit drinking, you must get your mind right and decide that you "will" quit drinking.
I wish you the best.     Hugs,  Stanna

Quote from: Stanna on July 08, 2015, 10:09:58 PM
You cannot "try" to quit drinking, you must get your mind right and decide that you "will" quit drinking.

BAM! You nailed it!

That's exactly right. Once you do that, then it's easy to stay off of it for good. I've even been around the same people that I was around before when I drank, etc. I COULD do it if I really wanted to. But, nope. I don't want it or need it at all these days. Been there, done that.

Best thing my dad ever did was quit drinking.  The result was that I had a dad... that was so great.  Anything else I might hold against him pales in comparison.

My quit date is 48 hours from now. I hope I'm not being too impulsive, but I need to make a change. I will also be getting a haircut soon so I can get a job so I can make progress with my transition, I'm not de-transitioning, but I am having a setback :'(. The next year or so will be emotionally trying in the extreme.

Hey, so I am 24 hours from my quit date. I am a little nervous and kind of want hugs and some advice for dealing with the first little while. thanks.

I cannot let a combination of 7 atoms destroy my life.

so it looks like i have less than 11 hours before the quit date.

less than 6 hours to my official quit date.

You can do it, Rachel!

Well, it looks I am now at my quit date.

Go Rachel! :) It sounds like you are on quite the journey and I know the road is hard because I am living some of it too.

I have been pondering quitting quite a lot lately.  It makes me do stupid things and especially lately causes me to get angry for inconsequential reasons quite a lot lately.  I have tarnished academics, my body, work, relationships, and straight out time with this nasty habit.  One very weird effect, is that drinking actually increases my dysphoria in the immediate days post-op, especially the next day.  I am on an especially long attack of dysphoria right now after drinking 2 week ago, and further drinking since then (the fourth) has not helped it.  Drinking has ruined a lot of things in my life, and I want to try quitting; though these are just words, and to mean something they have to be action.  I also want to quit drinking to see whether doing so alleviates my dysphoria to a level that is manageable.  Consuming my day/ days after each night of drinking with fantasies about living as a woman and feeling out of place in my body is no way to live.  Sometimes, I wish I quit when I started cognitively recognizing this trend about 5 years ago.  If my dysphoria had continued in sobriety, I would, I like to think, be at a stage in my transition where I felt comfortable in my body and social role.  As it stands, that didn't happen and the drinking and negative actions related to it continue.

Lots of hugs!
Ashley

We are all backing you Rachel... best wishes

hugs
Katy

So some good news, in spite of feelings of GD eating at me throughout the day, I was able to avoid the bottle.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 11, 2015, 11:02:09 PM
So some good news, in spite of feelings of GD eating at me throughout the day, I was able to avoid the bottle.

Good. Keep it up!

Well done Rachel  :eusa_clap:
So proud of you

hugs
Katy

There ya go! The longest journey begins with a single step.  :)

Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: rachel89 on July 11, 2015, 11:02:09 PM
So some good news, in spite of feelings of GD eating at me throughout the day, I was able to avoid the bottle.

Awesome!  Sometimes I "self-medicate" with marijuana... when it starts to impact my life, I quit for a while.  In the first few days after quitting, GD hits the hardest.  When we use chemicals to dull the pain, the pain seems sharper once the chemicals are gone.   It gets better.

Recovered alcoholic here...four years clean and counting.

I'm not sure what I call myself.. a problem drinker?  I think and behave like an alcoholic around alcohol.. but I don't physically depend on alcohol to function.  I have had gone to AA in the past, and I felt overwhelmed with their stories and experiences, since I could not really relate to theirs.. I just felt overwhelmed, so I stopped going to AA.

I drank some yesterday because of feeling angry and frustrated about the gender dysphoria and how going to the gym doesn't help eliminate the gender dysphoria completely.  It started when someone asked me for my name and I blurted out my birth name instead of my chosen name.. my anger grew and grew after that.. and I ended up reaching for alcohol.  Ugh.  I tend to tell myself that choosing alcohol is better than my self-harm habit since it's very negative.  But either one is very bad for me.  I was lucky with yesterday choosing a beverage with a lower alcohol percentage, but still it's no good especially since I'm on medication and I need to quit drinking again.

I wished I had a positive way to manage my anger without drinking.  I get angry and frustrated when I think of my dad's drinking and how my mom allows him to drink like that.. My dad is an alcoholic pretty much.  He can't live a day without alcohol.

Alexander

i'm a lot like Alex_or_Ben when i drink. I don't really get withdrawals or thing like that (at least nothing super obvious), but I pretty much go overboard when I do drink. when I don't feel like there is anything I can do about GD or get upset in someother way, I just drink. Sometimes it can seem like its is better to feel nothing, than having to put up with GD sober and feel sad and disgusted.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 12, 2015, 07:18:57 PM
I pretty much go overboard when I do drink.

That's how I was back in the day. I would suck down at least a fifth (sometimes two) a night once I became of legal drinking age and moved out on my own. But, eventually, I said: "This is just ridiculous" and I just quit. Sure, if I wasn't doing drugs in addition to drinking. I don't know how I would have been with the withdrawal thing.

So, I made through the weekend without alcohol.

Congratulations! One day at a time Rachel. For me, it took a couple months to get rid of the monkey on my back telling me that you can have just one drink, that won't hurt anything. But having decided that I was not "trying" to quit drinking, but that I was "done" drinking, my resolve got me through the rough patches. Now I no longer feel the desire to drink again and that is a wonderful thing.
I wish you the best with your struggle. Believe me it will get better.
Hugs, Stanna

I think I have identified how I get looped into these week long binges sometimes. This doesn't apply all the time, sometimes i just drink simply because I want to or because i'm an alcoholic. The going out and drinking to much "for fun" isn't where my problem would be unless i were to get behind a wheel or something like that (I'm already  terrible driver when awake and sober). Lately there has been nothing fun about my drinking, its not more fun than getting I am morphine for a broken leg, even if it feels better, the situation still kind of sucks. I notice myself self-medicating for anxiety and GD. I know how to manage the GD, but the resources to do it aren't really there at the moment. I feel that the GD and anxiety play into each other, but I am self-medicating for the whole anxiety aspect. I need something better to cope with anxiety, whether it be a legitimate medication or talking to a therapist, or various other techniques. My anxiety started around 4:00-5:00 this afternoon. I am sorry but I have self-medicated with alcohol again.

Quittin's hard.  Keep trying, you'll get it!  As they say, the first step is recognizing that you have a problem.  Understanding the patterns that lead to problem drinking, as you've mentioned here, is a necessary step to breaking those patterns.

being an addict sucks. It just sucks.

Hey Rachel. Firstly, Yay for you on confronting your addiction! I had to quit drinking just shy of four years ago now. I had been drinking alcoholicly for the better part of a decade, most of my 20's and into my 30's. I started around ten or eleven  and had abused the stuff through my teens. It was one of my biggest coping mechanisms. Quitting was the hardest thing I had ever done and it still feels that way. It was so worth it.

The first weeks are the toughest but you can do it. Starting this thread was a brave step. I used a secular non 12 step peer support group to help me. I know we can't share links here so if you want the organization's name pm me. They have online forums and face to face groups worldwide.

It is difficult to deal with the flood of anxiety that comes when you drop the bottle. All the stuff you self medicate for is increased by extra anxiety from the chemical change your brain is going through. I ended up with a bad case of insomnia. To combat it and to feed the dopamine receptors in my brain that were crying out for their fix I exercised. Not heavy stuff. Walks, bicycling and basketball were my go to sources.

Anything you need, ask. Most of all keep working. Even if you slip, don't give up or feel defeated. Relapse, believe it or not, is part of recovery. Disentangling your psyche from the binding grip of addiction takes time. You have the strength, this is within your power. Go girl go! We are here rooting for you!

thanks for the advice, but the whole anxiety thing started before I picked up the bottle.

so I am beginning to be ale to make a distinction between times I am having an anxiety attack and times I just want to have a drink. yesterday, I had a pretty bad one and self-medicated with alcohol accordingly. So the good news is that I am not in the middle of an anxiety attack right now, but the bad news is that I still feel like having a drink. I am  hoping for no more anxiety attacks this week, so I can just confront my urge to drink without also having to deal with an anxiety attack. I don't think I am ready to deal with the anxiety attacks sober, but I am realizing it is possible to not drink when I am not having an anxiety attack.

Rachel - you have already taken the first few steps toward improving your life by stopping a habit that's going to eventually kill you. There is more than one way to sobriety - find the one that works for you and stick with it - if you have a slip up forgive yourself and just get back on the wagon again. You started drinking because of <reasons>, and if you can dig down and figure out what those reasons are and then deal with them that will really help you stay off the sauce. Like many others here I've also been down this road and dealing with my feelings that resulted from me being trans was my cause for drinking - I transitioned and the need to get plastered every night vanished. This is a tough monkey to deal with and I wish you well on your journey to a life without an alcohol dependency.

heres one:

When my dysphoria and depression (related to an ex, she broke up with me for not being a girl even though she new I was trans. Then it turned out to be a lie and it hurt me badly) I had a horrendous alcohol problem to cope. Didnt go more than an hour without booze, on one session nearly hospitalized myself with more than 30 units spread over one day. It was then that I realized how out of control it was getting and decided to call it quits till i sorted my life out and got things into a better place.

Now I enjoy periodic home brewing of low alcoholic mead, which I drink on special occassions and the occasional drink (like a liqeur coffee) but I Relearned self control in spite of what some folks shoved in my face that alcoholics can never drink again.

That said, I dont drink much anyway, messes with my sparring

so I am sort of doing okay today, at least with not drinking. I managed to overcome an urge to go get a bottle whisky last night and I am okay for tonight. I am still dreading the next anxiety attack though. 

That's fantastic! Try not to think about the next anxiety attack though, find positive distraction. You've got this.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 16, 2015, 01:47:55 AM
so I am sort of doing okay today, at least with not drinking. I managed to overcome an urge to go get a bottle whisky last night and I am okay for tonight. I am still dreading the next anxiety attack though.

Stay strong<3
These things don't last, the effects of alcohol on your body does, everytime.

My grandfather, father & brothers were all alcoholics. I try not to drink as much because in that aspect I am very much the same as them (keep drinking carelessly)
It's sometimes very hard because my social life tends to revolve around drinking and music generally.
Since quitting all other drugs i've had a period where I grabbed the bottle far too easily.

Working on that :3...

Okay that's great Rachel. Keep taking it one day at a time. You can do this.

So while I have been far from perfect rom the time I started this thread (I don't want to be a hypocrite), My overall alcohol consumption from the time I started my 'quit date" is down from the past few weeks. Before I would drink no less than the equivalent of 3 bottles of 80-proof liquor and sometimes as much as the equivalent of 5.5 bottles in a week. My consumption level is now at 2 bottles in a week. It is far from a healthy level especially considering I can consume a fifth in less than 24 hours. I found another trigger for my drinking is anger. The last episode of drinking was triggered by extreme anger and sadness about being unemployed. I do not think 2 bottles of liquor in a week is in any way healthy, so I realize that I have to find better ways of dealing with my worst emotions than alcohol.

Quote from: rachel89 on July 17, 2015, 12:53:03 PM
So while I have been far from perfect rom the time I started this thread (I don't want to be a hypocrite), My overall alcohol consumption from the time I started my 'quit date" is down from the past few weeks. Before I would drink no less than the equivalent of 3 bottles of 80-proof liquor and sometimes as much as the equivalent of 5.5 bottles in a week. My consumption level is now at 2 bottles in a week. It is far from a healthy level especially considering I can consume a fifth in less than 24 hours. I found another trigger for my drinking is anger. The last episode of drinking was triggered by extreme anger and sadness about being unemployed. I do not think 2 bottles of liquor in a week is in any way healthy, so I realize that I have to find better ways of dealing with my worst emotions than alcohol.

Well, look at it this way: At least you are cutting back on your drinking. (Even though you do seem to drink a lot. But, I've been there too. So, I can relate.)

If you could get to the point where you get it down to 1 bottle a week, that would be good. But, it may take you a while to get there. Old habits die hard as they say.

But, I think that, given time, you can conquer this demon once and for all. It may not happen overnight. But, it can be done.

You are no hypocrite, you are doing really well in fact. Being aware of the problem, working on it in a way that works for you and examining your motivations are the keys. You have all of them and you are using them so well. Just keep going, we are all here for you!

One of my "rage points" is where I'm told I do not have enough experience to do even factory work. I do poorly in interviews because I don't have a lot of experience, I am shy, I have effeminate mannerisms, I have long-ish unruly hair, I think they look at my facebook and see all my trans and political stuff, and I am usually nervous, i can do mind numbing factory work (its better working over a deep-fryer any day). in fact I  kind of like the not taking work home-with-me aspect of the factory, and would probably still do factory work even if i had a degree because I can not do well in a where social ability matters more than getting a certain quota of parts finished. What caused me a lot distress on my last job was being in the closet, even though people saw through it, ut didn't know what my issue was. I only sat with women at lunch, would discuss things that are more stereotypically feminine, was pretty shy, and another woman noticed that I shave my arms and it became a discussion at break. I worked from mid-October to mid-April, and I cannot seem to get into another factory. What happened today was that i was overwhelmed by rage and sadness. I wish I could force people to hire me. I don't know what to do at this point.

 I don't know what to say about your work situation. If I hadn't lucked into my field (art handling) I would be in your exact boat. I have never gotten a job I interviewed for and I have no degree.

Anway, this is not about me.

Rage is a difficult one too and I have had a hard time with it myself. Sometimes booze just made it worse instead of masking it. Is there anything you can do to vent that rage in a healthy way? I have often found solace in punk music. Or a nice private place to do some primal screaming, perhaps a quiet field at the end of a long walk? I often use exercise or write in a journal. Or draw, make music or cook a big meal.

Heading toward sobriety is all about finding your trigger and rewiring it to a healthy behavior. You have found a few triggers that's the big step. Everything else you can do slowly. Baby steps. Don't rush yourself but don't relent either. I believe in you.

Another thing is  that I have begun to understand is that I was always at high-risk for alcoholism. The first risk-factor is familial history of alcoholism over generations, second is that I probably have Asperger's syndrome to some degree and that a lot of people with Asperger's are alcoholics/problem drinkers, and third is that I am a transsexual, which puts person at risk of alcoholism because of minority stress. Sometimes taking notions of "morality" out of an issue helps me understand my own problems better, and helps take down down defense mechanisms that help me deal with a serious issue. That being said, I am still far from solving my own problem.

I took to adictions like a duck to water myself. But, and this is an important one, one in ten people becomes addicted to alcohol. The same percentage occurred in animal populations studied by researchers over the years, including bees. At most it is a genetic predisposition to dopamine. That is the chemical your body releases to your brain when something good happens. Addictions (everything from gambling, excessive eating, excessive exercise, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol through the hard drugs) release this in greater quantities than healthy activities. That's all, you are not to blame. The other things you listed may just be compounding factors. There are alcohol addicts because alcohol is highly addictive, plain and simple. It is not your fault.

Root causes and triggers are the chains that bind you to the source of the addiction.

So its been a while since I last posted on this thread. I am doing a lot better with the drinking, although not entirely perfect. Looking back, especially during the year before transition after I realized i would rather be female but couldn't do anything about it even if I knew what to do, where I realized there were times where I was half hoping I would drink and drink and not wake up. I never really got close to that point, but I realize that one of my motivations for the heavy drinking (other than using it as a poor substitute for therapy and legit anti-anxiety drugs) was a feeling that I had nothing to live for no matter how successful or unsuccessful I was in the game of life. I remember the feeling of "I wouldn't need to drink if I were just born a female" or "my life would have been a lot happier if I had just been born female." Being a little more out has helped me cope with the not using alcohol all the time by giving me more space in my life where I can be myself.

Update: Its been a very long time since I've posted on this topic, but I'm feeling better with HRT, a new job in my near future, and I haven't drank for what will be two months a week from now. Despite still being in a not great life situation, the HRT has kept my anxiety attacks in-check compared to what I had pre-HRT, so alcohol is less needed as a coping tool than it was before. I'm pretty much past the phase of knowing I need to do something but not being able too, to having gone more than a few just days or a week without drinking. I'm not going to say I won't ever drink again, but its nice not waking up feeling bad all the time.

That is such wonderful news! Congratulations! I'm glad you have found what works for you.