How do I stop drinking?
In the beginning
Let me tell you, when it comes to quitting alcohol, I tried everything. And I’ll get into the specifics, but I want to talk about how I arrived at the decision to stop drinking in the first place.
There were two decisive moments in my alcoholic life: one was when I realized that I was an alcoholic; the other was when I decided to quit drinking. And it took years to get from the first one to the second.
I knew I had a problem with alcohol ever since I was 17. At one point, I smuggled a bottle of cachaça into my bedroom and would drink sips from it during the day. Eventually, my parents smelled the booze in my breath, caught me and took the bottle away. They grounded me, but it never occurred to them that I had a medical problem. Even then, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. Maybe I was just exaggerating. But it was clear that I didn’t have a healthy relationship with alcohol. And does anybody, really?
The medication
In 2013 — I was 26 — I went to my shrink and told him “I think I’m an alcoholic”. I had just finally recovered from a long, severe bipolar episode and though I was feeling great, I kept drinking as if my life depended on it. He agreed that I needed help and I started on disulfiram. In case you don’t know what it is, disulfiram gives you unpleasant symptoms if you consume alcohol. The goal is to keep you away from the first drink. It worked great for a couple of months until I joined a large beer company and suddenly the urge to drink was everywhere and all the time. Eventually, I went off disulfiram because I was drinking again with no regard to the unpleasant and potentially dangerous effects of the medication.
Later, I tried Naltrexone and Bupropion, which would have worked great if I was really committed to quitting. But I wasn’t, so they didn’t. In 2014, I had another severe depressive/manic episode and again in 2015. Each one more dangerous and severe than the last. But, the last one was the worst of all and alcohol was a big part of it.
The downfall
Between January and July of 2015, I could barely function. I was always late for work and was constantly absent. Depression put me on autopilot. I was kind of able to go to work and see my family on the weekends, but I was always waiting for that moment late at night when I could open a bottle of beer and numb myself. I just didn’t know how to exist anymore. To this day, I don’t think that my therapist and my doctor fully understood the depths and danger of my situation. At one point, I asked to be hospitalized. My doctor believed it was not necessary. What saved me from death and suicide was my innate ability to self analyze and my deep conscious of self. Even though I was on the brink of pushing myself into inexistence, a small voice in my brain was always telling me: “You are sick and this is not real, you are sick and this is not real, please wait, please wait”. So I waited.
On Sunday, July 5th, 2015, I put myself in grave danger but I was able to avoid the worst. Luckily, the damage was controlled and the next day I woke up relieved to be alive, but terrified of what could have happened. It was a Monday and — unsurprisingly — I did not go to work. But I did call the local Alcoholics Anonymous office and went to my first meeting that same night. I have been sober ever since.
So, how do you stop drinking?
Well, I may have lied to you. I don’t really know. If I knew, I would have rejected alcohol after my first sip of whiskey. But alcohol bewitches us into believing that we need it in order to look and feel normal. So, I can’t really tell you how to stop drinking. You will have to find your way. But, I can share some of my learnings and what worked for me. I hope that it will give you food for thought and help you navigate the rocky road that is sobriety.
The first and most important thing is to believe and accept that you have a problem. If you don’t believe that you are in fact an alcoholic, you will never really search for help or take it seriously. Alcoholics Anonymous have a questionnaire that can help you determine if you are abusing alcohol. As I mentioned, the first step of any twelve-step program is to accept your condition as an addict. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is the first step to enlightenment.
From the Tao Te Ching: “In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added and in the pursuit of enlightenment, every day something is dropped”. As you research your condition, your questions, your fears, and the possibilities that lay ahead, you will read and learn and try to make sense of it all. But your real life will be lived only when you drop that weight that is pulling you down.
