I've been in a depression for the past 4 years, and everything I've tried came to nothing. I've also developed a severe case of anhedonia, which means nothing brings me joy.
I haven't felt joy since 2019. I used to be fit, sober, and doing okay, for the age I was. But then all of the running and working out I was doing caught up to me, my lungs kept bleeding from all of the running I was doing, and I spent much of 2019 in a hospital. Then I had testicular torsion, also caused by all of the running I was doing.
It cost my parents $100,000 in hospital fees, so much so that when I coughed up blood for the 6th time, I didn't want to tell my mom. I gained 100 pounds and have lost all motivation to do anything. I resign my days to laying in bed watching YouTube, only getting up to use the bathroom or get food.
Then i work for a bit, and use the money I have to buy alcohol. For the past 2 months, I've been drinking 20+ standard drinks every day. Drinking still doesn't bring me joy, but it gets me close, and I remember times when I was happy when drunk, but it doesn't work now, so I keep drinking, hoping that maybe once, it will do its job.
I've gotten so drunk that I forgot an entire day and spent a week unable to work because I was so sick. I've thrown up as many as 14 times in one day from drinking, and I've thrown up at least 50 times total.
I also suffer from a feeling of nihilism, in that I see no purpose in anything and have lost all hope that I'll ever find joy, be wealthy, or be fit again.
It bothers my parents and my online girlfriend as they're worried about my health, my liver was already unhealthy after I gained all of that weight, and it's only going to get worse as I keep drinking and drinking.
What can I do? And don't say therapy, I tried for years and it didn't help at all
How do I stop drinking?
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Anonymous
(36-45)
1 mo
I don’t know man... in a way I have sympathy for you, but in another way I don’t. I’ve know many, many alcoholics over the years, from personal associates, friends, I’ve worked with alcoholics and knew several when I was in the military, and later when I decided to go into healthcare I had several patients who were alcoholics—some were in detox programs. Others I literally watched die in the ICU.
I don’t think you are aware or familiar with the long term effects of chronic alcoholic abuse that are in store for you.
As your liver becomes more and more sclerotic and liver failure sets in, your body will no longer be able to handle the waste by-products that build-up in our bodies as a natural result of our metabolism. One way we get rid of waste is by urination and taking a crap. There are all kinds of chemicals in that stuff that are waste by-products—our liver works as a filter. In a healthy liver we can metabolize and process waste by-products normally. A diseased liver cannot.
Ammonia is a waste by-product that the liver is normally able to handle. However, a chronic alcoholic with liver cirrhosis cannot. This is a big, big, big, big, big, major, gigantic problem. I mean a problem the size of the sun.
Having excess ammonia in your blood stream and body leads to severe confusion, delusions, and pretty severe personality changes. It will eventually lead to hepatic encephalopathy, and you will get seizures, fall into a coma, and possibly die.
Short of getting a new liver... the only way hyperammonemia is treated, the standard treatment, is drinking Lactulose: a chalky, thick liquid that you’ll have to drink regularly. Lactulose works by binding to the excess ammonia in your body in your gut—then you have to expel the bound ammonia. This is done by crapping. Like you just took a laxative and have to crap and oh no you you just ruined your pants. Yeah.
So your life, with a cirrhotic liver will constantly revolve around managing the excess ammonia that will naturally build up in your body. Otherwise you start to lose your ish...
But oh no! To manage your ammonia you have to take Lactulose, and you’re constantly crapping all the time. Yeah. That’s what long term alcoholism leads to. Sexy, isn’t it?
And THIS is before you end up in the ICU. The life you would have.
At advanced stages, you get something called portal hypertension. Your body and liver can no longer handle the strain of basic functioning, and fluid will build up in your lower belly. I’m not talking about fat or a beer belly. I mean FLUID. Eventually you’ll swell so large that you can feel the fluid sloshing around inside of you if you turn in bed, and it presses against your lungs and heart, making it more difficult to breath. The skin gets all stretched out and it looks like they swallowed two basketballs. The fluid has to be drained off, sometimes LITERS of fluid.
Eventually you’re reduced to some half-conscious wasted mess, lying in bed, crapping yourself from all the Lactulose, sometimes lucid, often confused, breathing shallow, struggling breaths as your own excess fluids slosh around and press down on your lungs and heart.
It’s a pity that wine, beer, and liquor commercials only show the “sexy” side of drinking: young attractive people out partying, dancing, hooking up, finding romance. They never show you someone vomiting over a toilet, or having to take the bus to work because they got a DUI.
Look... if and when you make the decision to quit drinking—and you should—you NEED to do it with medical supervision. Alcohol withdrawal, more commonly known as delirium tremens, CAN kill you. I’ve seen drunks completely flip out and start having auditory and visual hallucinations. I once watched a patient eat an invisible meal, holding an imaginary fork and knife, and he even swatted away an imaginary fly. I watched him eating imaginary spaghetti and twirl it up with his imaginary fork...
Yeah. That’s alcohol withdrawal. And he was in a hospital.
We ended up having to call an emergency code on the guy when he tried to leave and get into his truck. He could have killed someone.
Anywho, good luck man. And if I were you, I’d take up a physical hobby. Do something with other people. Running alone... well it can be very self-destructive in a weird way. You can do too much of it, and A LOT of people who get crazy into cardio are really running with their demons, or from them. And so they just grind and grind and grind and wear themselves down. In a weird way, it is masochistic—the person takes a sort of pride in how much they can make themselves suffer through a workout, but eventually all things catch up to you.
Go train jiu-jitsu. It’s social, you meet people, it’s a skill that you can get better at, it involves a a lot of problem solving, and you gain satisfaction in how you progress. 👍
Basically you’ve just exchanged a quick death for a slow death. But if lying around in bed all day drunk is what gives you pleasure (though we both know it really doesn’t) just keep on doing what you’re doing. Eventually that cirrhosis and the ammonia will become an issue. Sooner or later, the check will come due. 🤷♂️
I've thought about starting a business in brewing whiskey, but who the hell is gonna invest money so that a drunkard will have his business making alcohol?
I've decided that I'll take things one step at a time. I've heard that for addicts to get over their addition, suddenly stopping all together doesn't quite work, gradual reduction is more effective.
So instead of buying 2 bottles of whiskey, and finishing them in 3 days, I'm now getting one bottle of whiskey, and making it last 5 days.
Then I'm going to make it last a week, then 12 days, then 18 days, and so on, until I get over it😊
12.8K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
I think that you need a lot more help than my advice will give you. Truthfully, it all boils down to you. Do you really want to stop drinking? Do you want to turn your life around? You are still a young person and you can regain your health and you can stop drinking. Like anything else in life it is not easy but you have all the tools to do it.
You are a former distance runner. You have probably got up at 5AM in January to go out and put in your miles before you went to work. You know how to fight through fatigue and pain. You are not as helpless as you think.
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1 Reply
Asker
1 mo
I did all of that running by playing airsoft, so I was running around crouching, sliding, ducking and sprinting, for hours and hours and hours while wearing 20 pounds of gear and carrying a 10 pound airsoft rifle
I've made a plan to stop drinking, I've seen that addicts relapse when they stop all together, but see success when they phase the substance out, gradually.
So instead of consuming 2 bottles in 3 days, I'll now be consuming ONE bottle, every 4 days. A week from now, I'll extend that to a full week of consuming only one bottle of whiskey.
Then to 10 days, then 14 days, and so on until I'm only consuming 1 standard alcoholic beverage per day, or even less😊
There's a pier near me that allows people to fish without any of the licenses and permits. That sounds nice, given how much I like fishing in RDR2 Online.
There are catfish, bluegill, and such in that lake, and my father was gifted a fishing pole by the steel company he works at, I'm going to ask him if I can use it to give fishing a try. I feel a bit of loss and despair, whenever I kill animals, which I've only done in hunting, of course, so I know that when I cut off the head of the fish I catch, I'll feel guilty, but that guilt will go away when I realize I've got meat that would've cost me $15+ per pound, and instead, I got it for some patience.
In the meantime, I'll keep delivering food as I workout the math on what type of business will be best for me to start😊
You should join Alcoholics Anonymous if you want to start somewhere. You are an alcoholic and you cannot ever get drunk enough to wipe out your life. You need to stop drinking, period.
Overdrinking leads to depression. I would suggest you see a psychiatrist who could give you medication to help you stop drinking. There are various prescriptions.
I'd also suggest you leave your house and start walking every day the weather is good. It's spring, so it should be a fine time to start. Start off walking for 10 minutes. Add 5 minutes every other day until you're walking about an hour three to four days a week.
You're very young to be doing NOTHING. Why aren't you in college? Why don't you have a skill you're working on developing such as electrical work, plumbing, HVAC?
It sounds like you have OCD. You ran so much you caused yourself to get sick. There's no reason to overdo anything. You overdo running, drinking. You go from being fit to being nearly dead.
You DO need therapy. There is no other cure for you. And it sounds like you need permanent medication for anxiety and depression. Until you admit that alcohol, depression, which is a result of too much alcohol, and your OCD in combination have ruined your life, and until you are READY TO ACT TO CHANGE your situation, you have no future.
Stop wasting your life and be your own advocate. Start taking care of yourself. What you're doing now is slow death. And remember, you have to find a therapist who works WITH you. Sometimes that takes you going to several. The same is true for medications. It will take TRIAL AND ERROR.
Put on your big boy pants and work toward being healthy ALL over. This will take time and effort. Stop wallowing and start living.
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8 Reply
Asker
1 mo
I've tried every medication there is, none of it helps. And I went to enough college, I hated it, and there's nothing I want to work towards
So, you really don't WANT to stop drinking and you don't want to have a life. Then there's nothing anyone can say to you. You don't want to help yourself. You want to stay as you are, miserable. Good luck with that.
I don't want to stay miserable, i want to become strong, successful, and make my parents proud to have had me.
But I don't know how I can ever do that. I've thought about opening a whiskey distillery. The manual labor it will require at first will get me into shape, and give me a start on being something.
But I'll need an investor to buy me a place to get started, and what investor would buy a place for a worthless old drunkard like me?😞
Do you hear what you're saying. You're an alcoholic and you want to open a whiskey distillery? So you can have a business that supplies you with alcohol?
You need to go to an addiction clinic. It usually takes alchoholics or drug addicts at LEAST a half a dozen times before they become sober and sobriety takes a lifetime of vigilence.
There are simple ways you can get into shape that have nothing to do with any business or job. Just start walking daily. Stop DRINKING into drunkenness. Alcohol is nothing but empty calories. It supplies no nutrition and it also changes you brain function and causes irreversible brain damage.
it CAUSES depression. First you have to STOP DRINKING. Until you are committed to doing this and being in a sobriety program and finding a psychiatrist and psychologist to support you and outside help, such as Alcoholics Anonymous or something similar, you are not committed to helping yourself. You have to keep at this and try, try again.
But find a job that has nothing to do with drinking. If you want manual labor, work in construction, or become a personal trainer. That'll help you lose weight. But you cannot be a drunk anything.
You are in denial about what you need to do. That is No. 1, become and stay sober. Go through whatever program will aid you in this single goal. Other things will fall into place AFTER you are sober.
Nothing of any consequence can happen until you stop drinking and get emotional and medical treatment to help you. Of course it won't work if you don't want it to, and you keep finding new ways to keep alcohol nearby: a job in a distillery! This is a twisted joke...
If a friend said these sames things to you, wouldn't you believe they weren't serious about altering their life. You need to try again and if you fail, try again.
Otherwise, you're in denial about the hard work you have to commit to and do.
And this is BULLSHIT. There are millions of people who succeed at this. STOP DRINKING, stop drinking, stop drinking. You are depressed and hopeless because YOUR ARE DRINKING AND ARE DRUNK. You will NOT feel the same when sober. And bit by bit your life will improve.
It won't happen quickly and you will more than likely backslide and have to start again. If you are cognizant of all these hills and valleys you'll have to work through, you will become well. You cannot do it alone. Dry out and clean up. This is your only hope.
Otherwise you are committing slow suicide. It's not normal to want to die by alcohol. Ask your parents to commit you to a program to help you. I don't care if this is the fifth time. Do it again until it takes.
I've decided that my best course of action for getting rid of my alcohol addiction is to take it a step at a time. So instead of consuming 2 bottles in 3 days, I'm now buying one bottle, and making it last 4 days.
Then a week from now, I'll make that same bottle last a full week, then 10 days, then 14, and so on until I'm consuming 1 standard drink per day, at most😊
In the meantime, I'll be delivering food while working the math on opening a business. Something rural with manual labor and selling to local markets sounds quite nice. So does being my own boss😊
Go to rehab, find a new therapist or new therapy type ( group, art, dance etc), clean up your surroundings and social circle and either make it a goal to ween off or go cold turkey. And if weightloss is something you want to do as well instead of running to avoid the lung issues, try, yoga, pilates, weights, etc other non heavy cardio alternatives, and change the way you eat. I'm not a therapist but to me you sound depressed and need a jump start off in a new direction
something is fake. you say you have depression but depression pills are forbidden with alcohol and cause worse side effects. so if you are on such pills STOP buying alcohol bottles and drinks etc. pour into the sink any such alcohol items you have now. even the ones hidden around the home! just stop buying!
You go to one of those meeting, sit in a circle, and when they call you, you stand up and say. "Hi, I'm Bruce/Brice, and I'm an alcoholic" you drink coffee.
After the meeting you go to the Albertsons store, and get a bottle of "Old Loud Mouth'
My advice; make the active decision to stop drinking, and then find friends who don't drink.
Once you put it in your mind that you're done with alcohol, not drinking is much easier than it seems. When I stopped drinking, I truly lost interest in alcohol.
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0 Reply
Anonymous
(36-45)
1 mo
Think if it this way, with the money u save from alcohol, you could donate it to the Trump team and make America a better country. A win-win for both
0
1 Reply
Asker
1 mo
The federal government is too corrupt and powerful, not even Trump can make a difference
It's funny, I was born with cystic fibrosis, and for all my life, I was certain that would be what kills me. But now it's going to be fatty liver disease, once I get it, cause I'm certain it will happen, which how much I'm drinking
