MY story is much like every alcoholic, we never sought it out, it just happens gradually over time, and we are blinded by it when someone mentions we may have a problem. I am currently a 43-year-old man who is just now able to see the problem from others perspective, any time before I would just brush off the suggestions and solutions from friends and family. I started drinking like a normal person around 24 years old, and that continued for about a decade with no issues. I slowly started to have a drink every night and then it started to increased to 2 drinks and so on up to some nights five. Now this was just during the week and on the weekends, I would start to drink not long after I woke up, not because I needed it, I just wanted to, and football days got even worse. As with most of us I always had an excuse for my drinking, well I am not violent, never been arrested or had a DUI, never even as much as pulled over while drinking. Eventually I had gotten up to a full 175lt on Saturday and Sundays, but I was still pretty much under control during the week. I never missed work, I was never hung over and I was working a high paying job working with millions of dollars a day with no mistakes. I knew it was getting bad when I started making a drink just to drive into work or going out at 3pm for a late lunch which was just a trip to the liquor store to grab a pint and have it gone before I hit the parking lot only to go home and drink more. Once COVID started I was actually sober for the first tme in over a decade and I felt great, but as we all know as alcoholics that I can have one thought starts to creep in your head. I made it about 6 months, and BOOM it hit me, I could have one for sure and I drank for one month and started to remember how great I felt sober. I ended up drinking for one month and stopped again and this is when the real fun started. Now onto the damage I had caused during my 20 years. I never ruined any relationships although I did weaken some of them, always with a chance to redeem myself. When I had stopped drinking in July of 2020, around day 5 I had started to feel “Weird” is the best way to describe it, but I would find out in a few hours what that would entail. I started to have severe hallucinations during that evening, I didn’t even know where I was at. I had friends sitting on my dresser, I head with a body of a spider trying to steal my wife, and of course my solution was to have a drink and maybe they would go away. As you can guess they did not, and it only got worse the next day as I could hear family who was thousands of miles away on my deck and laughing at me through the window, I went to smoke and two old ladies were sitting in my car trying to steal it, even my neighbor came to check on my and assure me no one was there, so I blinked and they were gone. I made it through the night but the apparitions again were waiting for me in the morning as I started work and I even left a memo on a word doc to please leave me alone and again that did not work. I knew I was in trouble and called 911 for my self and I remember getting to the hospital and telling the doctor to ask my Mom these questions as I could not answer them coherently and that was the last thing I remember. I woke up 7 days later being told I barely survived and my liver and kidneys had been in complete failure, the only reason I did not end up on dialysis is because my wife begged for one more day, and with the help of doctors over all those days my body responded, I am a lucky one and ended up back up at 100% function and no damage in both. Of course I knew were the vodka was hidden and I tried to drink the next day and was caught red handed. Side note I have one memory before the day I walked out, and if you also want to embarrass yourself in front of other grown adults, try shitting your pants because you cant stand up and your legs give out. Undeterred as any alcoholic would be, this small bump in the road only stopped me for a few months, obviously because everything was running at 100%, this would lead to my nxt hospital trip. This will be a short one, but a warning this was the most painful thing that had ever happened to me and I shattered my leg a few years prior. I had woken at 3am to severe pain in my abdomen and of course once again my brilliant solution, not to wake my wife but to go to the basement and try 2 drinks for “pain management”. When my wife woke up she found me writhing in pain balled up asking to please let her take me to the hospital, but I was worried about the doctors because I had drank. By 2pm she forced me to go, with no idea what was wrong I sat for hours vomiting, dry heaving and a BP 0f 220/160, once they saw that after a few hours I was rushed back and diagnosed with pancreatitis, specifically of the necrotizing version. I was once again warned about my health but failed to listen. I made it the next few years gradually making it to a full 1.75 liter 7 days a week. Again I had tried to stop, but instead of hallucinations I blacked out and woke up in the hospital once again. I only have one memory until I woke up as a normal patient, I ripped my IV’s out shouting I didn’t belong there and was leaving, as the nurses laughed at me noting I only had a gown on, no phone and no idea where I was, and I quote “ this is not like the movies you can not just walk out of the ICU like this, as two very large men stepped in my way as I said “OK, I will stay for one more day”. Again I woke up days later to find out once again I cheated death, I was. Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes due to my pancreas damage and I had entered the hospital at 1380 glucose level, a normal high is 150. I once again stopped drinking for a few weeks and my friends even tried an intervention, I know it is because they care but its hard to listen to a room full of other drunks that just had not realized it yet. This time I HAD it, I did not, I started drinking and was begged to go to rehab. Again, I drank for almost a year at the same 1.75 at 7 days a week for almost a year and finally made the decision on my own when a new medical problem erupted on the scene, neuropathy in my left leg and both feet. I was told by the doctors that I had a chance to reverse it but only if I stopped, I made my appt that day when I returned home. I will not get into the rehab story, but I stayed for 29 days, it worked since there was no access, and once again I felt great. I made it 6 months, and this time I just said to myself be sensible, so I started with just 1 mini bottle, then two, then 6, and then a pint which evolved to 2 pints per day, not much for me but a lot for most. This leads us today, I just got home from detox, which if you have never been to one, it is not fun and it is not supposed to be. I was lucky to find a great facility close to home this time and not across the US. I did my detox, and started outpatient immediately as I know I CAN NOT do this alone. I plan to finish the 8-week program and continue on after that for the support. Also try not to shit on yourself in public like I did, it is not fun! I hope everyone can find a good place, and it is OK to fail, almost no one makes it the first try, but you have to recognize when any addiction starts to creep up and seek any help you can find so you do not fall back into that hell, eventually leaving everyone that loves you behind. For what it is worth, Iove all of you, and I hope you have others in your life that can provide the same, it may take time to rebuild relationships, but they are rarely gone forever.

-JP