Don’t drink alone

Dear god. Please no. Not again. I’m so tired of being an alcoholic.

I almost never drank alone from 1999 till 2005. There were a tiny tiny number of instances. One in my dorm in 1999 – that was the only time I remember drinking alone until fall 2001. I drank alone and went to bed at noon on october 6, 2001. That was only the second time I can for sure remember drinking alone.

With all the ups and downs of 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 – those were really the only two times I remember drinking alone

Even in 2004, the times I drank on weekends were with old friends also drinking. I didn’t drink on weekdays, and I didn’t even drink on every weekend. I might go out drink on Friday night with friends but then not drink on Saturday or Sunday. I remember drinking alone at a bar on October 9, 2004 – but that was the only memorable time I drank alone

Even in 2005, that no weekday no drinking alone drinking pattern mostly continued. I had terrible horrific events happen in 2005. I may have occasssionally drank alone a few afternoons in say February or March 2005 – but mostly I just smoked cigarettes more and more everyday. That’s when I really went from occasional smoker of only a few cigarettes a day, like maybe only 5 to 10 cigarettes a day – and shifted into smoking fully at least 35 to 45 or 50 cigarettes a day. Really it was two and a half packs a day everyday in 2005. I got so addicted to cigarettes

But despite the tremendous Emotional and personal devastation, then physician devastation – my drinking had only increased a little bit – maybe 10-15% – and most weekdays I still was not drinking alone – I’d smoke a pack or a pack and a half of cigarettes throughout the day at class and work then go home andninstead of drinking Id just chain smoke one cigarette after the other and play video games – until I would usually smoke two packs from when I got off work until bedtime – playing video games alone and chain smoking

But I wasn’t drinking most days. I wasn’t even getting drunk every week. I had one week of day drinking alone in September 14-25 where I just stayed home and drank all day during the devastating storm –

That fall of 2005, my drinking increased but not much when alone – mostly the thing that increased was my smoking

2006 summertime is when for whatever reason my daily drinking increased … I couldn’t smoke around my new teenage girlfriend who was a non smoker and had just graduated high school. She moved in with me literally the same month she graduated high school

So while I tried to hide my cigarette smoking in summer 2006 either when leaving for work or during work breaks or after work but before I went home – I would often just drink a six pack of beer by myself while my girlfriend and I watched dvds at our sparsely furnished apartment

That continued into the fall of 2006, when she started her freshman year of college and lived with me – I drank either a six pack of beer or several glasses of gin and tonic of gin and sprite everyday after work – I was 26 and it seemed like not a big deal that I was drinking several beers or hard alcohol drinks everyday

I think my drinking daily and alone – that is being the only person drinking or actually waiting for my girlfriend to go to sleep so I could drink alone – has been that same way for 13 years now

I also kept on hiding my smoking until spring 2015, when I finally got an ex girlfriend pregnant and she had a baby – she’s a lot a lot younger than me – and was still in school technically at the time she had the baby – although she droppped out that semester when I think she was a sophomore – she and the baby moved in with me after she was released from the hospital – where I had often been out secretly smoking in the parking lot because I was so nervous

But I honestly kinda accidentally quit smoking cigarettes so heavily in 2015 mainly because my duties to take care of the baby cut into the time I used to use to go sneak outside and smoke cigarettes

I didn’t even plan on quitting smoking h******** – it just kinda happened. I was trying to exercise more and eat less junk food in 2015 but deep down – I still really really love cigarettes I just basically never smoke them now.

But my drinking daily – that is every single day since 2006 – has been pretty steady with only a few brief intermissions

I had a 2 week stretch where I didn’t drink in 2014, and would sometimes go where I wouldn’t drink on weekdays and mostly then binge drink on weekends in fall 2014 – with a lot of drinking alone

it pretty much stayed that way a few weeks a year in early 2015 and early 2016 where I’d go a week without drinking then binge on weekends – but after a few weeks of not drinking on weekdays as part of a ln inevitable and repetitive New Years Resolution – to exercise more and eat better and get healthy – then after a few weeks of living clean I’d slide back into drinking alone at least 4-5 days a week – and drinking lots more wine and whisky

It seemed easy as a new dad in 2015 to drink late at night while the baby’s mama was asleep – so I mostly was drunk late at night when I was supposed to be taking care of the baby – often with two bottles of wine or several glasses of whisky

My drinking around the baby patterns continued solidly throughout most of 2016 – with the exception of one almost 30 day period where ai didn’t drink late in the summer – and man I lost a ton of weight that way

2017 early on was the same way with the drinking 4-5 nights a week, sometimes 7 days a week and drinking alone everyday as I had for the prior 11 years – I kept meaning to not drink on weekdays but it never got past maybe 3 days clean before I was drinking – I felt I had to drink every Thursday and every Friday and every Saturday and every Sunday

But for whatever reason, by spring or early summer 2017 I started pounding drinking alone – I’d drink pint after pint of heavy dark beer, then wine, then scotch or bourbon, then who knows what

From probably July 2017 until the present January 2019 – I’d say I’ve never been more than 24-48 hours max without a drink… except maybe once or twice I made it to 60 hours without a drink

Many months of 2017 and 2018 I drank heavily every single day

I drank everyday of The past December, November, and October.. I think I might have had a few dry days in early september …

I’ll buy drinks at a liquor store and drink them in the parking lot before I go home

I’ll drink drinks at a bar where I know no one then drive home drunk again

I’ll drink beers in front of my daughter and her momma at my house even when her momma almost never drinks – honestly the baby’s mama barely looks old enough to even buy alcohol and is often mistaken for a girl in high school – so maybe it’s just she never got used to drinking culture because she was never old enough to go out to bars by herself by the time we first started hooking up and not long after she got pregnant

My baby’s mama was SO GOOD about never ever drinking even a single drink while pregnant I was so proud of her – I’d offer her wine but she’d always say no – so I told her she had to be my designated driver

Honestly that arrangement has been the same since 2015 – she still lives with me and very badly wants to get pregnant again – so she just literally never ever drinks

So I’m always having to drink alone

She asked me what my New Years Resolution was going to be this year

I waited until after New Year’s Day to decide

But I think I’m going to try to not drink alone this year

I think it’s way past time