Day 4 - I hit rock bottom and found my non-negotiable for drinking (TMI for nausea)

Hi everyone, long-time thinker, short-time participant. To start, I am 4 days sober after about 11 years of daily drinking. Averaging probably 10 to 16 drinks a day. I will reset my badge soon, as I'm guessing I knew this was a problem but decided to ignore it since 2017 and just try and maintain my life without "uprooting" it. Turns out drinking was the weed in my garden.

How I know what I know now:

I'm a 33-year-old man with semi-treated ADHD; I have had a pretty good life with very few complaints. My drinking never caused criminal problems, passing out, violence, aggression, etc. I would become an asshole, goofy, impulsive, selfish, but nothing that would cause concern except the amount. I come from a family of non-drinkers and a family with esophageal cancer and stomach issues on my dad's side. I'm not trying to gross anyone out, so please jump to the TLDR if you don't want to read anything nausea/vomitting related.

Gross part start

I've had stomach issues for a decently long time. GERD, indigestion, overproduction of stomach acid, etc., etc. But it wasn't really an issue for a long time. I started drinking regularly during my senior year of college. That's when the aspiration started to happen. I could predict it, prevent it with pre-sleep vomiting, maybe take a tum and sit up in bed to fall asleep, but it still happened like 2-3 times a month. I did not take issue with it. It was "normal" for me up until this past week. I could make up any excuse in the world to avoid pointing to drinking or binge eating. And for those wondering, yes, I did in fact get aspiration pneumonia 3 different times.

I had been dating Michaela (fake name) for the past 629 days. She has been my world, my partner, and the flower of my garden. We moved in together, we had a mutual friend group, we had everything we could have needed to be happy.

Except drinking. God fucking forbid I go through 3 days of withdrawals in order to avoid fucking it all up.

On Monday, I went to a sports bar near me and got a salad with chicken and a cider. Great. Seems normal. After the salad, I went to the bar and proceeded to order 5 double IPAs, a shot, and an order of egg rolls to go. My girlfriend is at home, so guess what I do to avoid getting into anything? Yup, you guessed it, nothing. I went to my computer, slammed probably 3 more White Claw, and proceeded to eat a meal's worth of egg rolls at 11:30 at night. At midnight, I was in bed. At 2 am I'm in the bathroom puking and trying to cough out the vomit in my lungs. By Tuesday at 3:30 pm I was single.

Gross part TLDR: Drinking was causing extreme stomach, throat, and lung issues, but I kept drinking, and my girlfriend broke up with me.

Gross part end

Obviously this should be my wake-up call, right? Nah, on Tuesday I then went to the store, went home, and chugged 2 soju bottles in my driveway. It solved nothing except making me more emotional and impulsive. I decided that night, while talking to my sister, that I was, in fact, an alcoholic and that I would not be drinking Wednesday. Each day I took it one day at a time, and now it's Saturday without any alcohol.

I'm not sure how this goes for everyone else, but for some reason I had this instinct that I needed to go to every important person in my life and tell them I was an alcoholic. I've (so far) been doing okay. Dealing with a breakup with someone I wanted to share my life with, and quitting an 11-year habit, has been punishing and one of my lowest points in life.

Every time I have to be honest with myself and others, I start to cry, and I can't stop it. I'm going to be honest with you all: I can't see the positives right now, and I'm having a really hard time believing them. All I know right now is to live my new life with intent and purpose. But I know what my body and environment are telling me to do, and I will not be drinking with you today.

Thank you for reading. I wasn't going to post anything, but the closing comments from the daily thread made me pretty emotional and made me feel just a bit more normal, so I felt compelled to share.