I’m hesitant to post much in this thread, because I have been able to self-moderate after being in the dark for a few years…with the caveat that I remain cognizant of my past and maintain a ‘therefore by the grace of god I go’ vigilance even if the ‘keep going’ voice has pretty much been silenced. But your story roughly aligns with mine.
You can PM me for details or just to talk, but after the birth of our second and while I was in grad school, I self-medicated with alcohol as a means to either numb myself from the stress of home life or ‘time travel’ to the next day. It steadily got worse to the tune of lying/hiding it, and the threat of real consequences by my wife with ‘next time you’re spending the night somewhere else’. I suggest you don’t let it get to that point.
Three things helped me:
1) I started therapy. I thought I’d go in talking about my drinking, but in reality we covered my anxiety / resentment + had an advocate that helped me understand when my wife was being unreasonable (not with the drinking of course, but expecting everything to go according to her plans in life). He helped me learn my root cause wasn’t alcohol necessarily, but my codep / people-pleaser tendencies.
2) I took a long (7 weeks) break, telling myself and my wife that if I couldn’t handle that or I became a ‘dry drunk’…next step was AA. Full stop.
3) I leaned on this community. Cannot stress how helpful it was to hear from Twice ‘I can’t diagnose, but you don’t necessarily strike me as an alcoholic right now’ + keep reading people’s stories here. Huge shoutout to Twice’s time and patience as I hounded him in PMs.
The long break helped me kill my tolerance, and find natural ways to address boredom/stress/anger (like banging my suddenly-happier wife). During that time I was able to really internalize WHY I drank the way I did with my therapist. And having someone who REALLY understood alcoholism (my therapist didn’t drink) was the final leg on that stool…for me.
‘For me’ is the key phrase. I still drink 2-3x a month, but I prefer to have a couple beers over 3ish hours then pop a small THC gummy (wife and I did exactly that last night)…so I may not be the best person to post here or help you, if your struggle is different. I mostly avoid liquor, I always drink a lot of water, try to make sure I eat…because I’ve learned what works for me.
Thursday night a close friend went from buzzed to ‘about to throw up in front of a family at The Crossover’. He was so bad I didn’t trust him alone in an Uber. I ended up driving him in his work truck back to central Austin, ubering back to my car in Leander then driving home. It was a late night but I was glad to help a friend and grateful that kinda scene is behind me. Talking with him about it the next day and his current struggles was strangely helpful to me as well, AA sponsor system makes a ton of sense to me.
So please pardon the huge novel…but your particular story struck a chord with me, and a few years ago it was helpful to read others stories…so if you made it this far and want a (therefore by the grace of…) moderation success story, PM me.