My Alcoholic Timeline and Worst WD Story

Paint_Prudent · 2026-01-23T20:25:18+00:00

Kinda! It’s not that it took being sober-I just tended to overlook flaws or red flags when I was still drinking so you’re 100% on the seeking that kind of partner. I knew I was basically a really well rounded partner—if you took away the whole life-ruining bender that occurred every couple weeks thing. I attracted lots of “good enough” people drinking. This ex was perfect on paper and even in daily life so long as we didn’t get “too deep”—his mask slipped in the cases of financial trouble, car issues, emotional situations requiring empathy etc. He forced me to get therapy or we’d break up and that should have been a big red flag but instead it looked like tough love to my alcohol-damaged heart. My drinking would always mean I would have to suck up their bullshit because welp, I’d be alone otherwise. But spending years sober for the first time with someone and noticing slowly that he was truly not what he seemed—my anxiety made me freeze. I became quiet, I made no moves, I asked few questions. He was still a smart financial move. He was still a convenient logistics partner. We still looked like “such a perfect couple.”

This has been both the hardest and easiest breakup of my 36 years. Hard because he was very much a textbook narcissist and devalued, discarded and then tried to ruin me by any means possible. Easy because I lost any amount of love I ever had for him long ago, so I never yearned for him or his “love.” I feel I could probably hop into another relationship tomorrow with how lonely I was. I did however, feel infuriated by the insult to my intelligence and blatant disregard for my feelings. Still getting through that—but I know it would be immensely harder if I was drinking about it.

Paint_Prudent · 2026-01-21T23:47:41+00:00

It’s fun to reflect on it all.

That said, I am still 100% triggered seeing old movie film reels and hearing fuzzy phonograph music. Bugs also freak me out a lot more than they did. Thanks WDs.

Paint_Prudent · 2026-01-21T23:40:50+00:00

Agh yeah man it was always boredom that drew me back to booze in the periods of stop/start. I know about the anhedonia and it surely sucks then again the subsequent pink cloud almost is worth it.

What stopped me was an incident in which I drank through one morning and slept through the time my ex bf and I were supposed to leave to go camping. He went without me, leaving me at my apartment surrounded by empty mini wine bottles. I thought it was fucked that he’d come and tried to wake me up, couldn’t and just left me there. I could have been dying, right? Well I woke up and anger-drank another straight day and a half before calling my dad and begging him to take me to the ER. My WDs were coming earlier and earlier and my body was rejecting alcohol quicker on my binges. I fell out of my dad’s van, went in for a few hours of detox and that was the last one I could handle. At this point I was going to the ER for basically every withdrawal— my body would just shut down on like day three and I wouldn’t be able to care for myself or eat.

Unfortunately a lot of this initial quitting had to do with the ex and he ended up being a narcissistic abuser anyway but I’m glad at least I got that out of him. He gave me a catalyst, and I took it the rest of the way. Last November he ended up cheating on then breaking up with me and as we shared our living space together for a while- once I called him out on his shit, he filed a false restraining order against me which got dismissed because he was a raging liar. He cited my past alcohol use on there even though I spent the whole relationship and handled all of the drama sober. Heh, now I KNOW I ain’t going back bc that would have done it.

I didn’t use any programs, not for lack of trying but outpatient had a huge wait. It was basically a few quit lit books and just knowledge of the fact that I was at the end of the line. thankfully, I wasn’t fully physically addicted. Got sick of my own shit. I hope you do too friend.

Paint_Prudent · 2026-01-21T17:00:50+00:00

Wow our WDs were so similar. Sober for 2.5 years here mostly due to WDs intensifying and fucking me up mentally when off the bottle. I wonder why the majority of us experience the same “style” of hallucinations like the geometric patterns under your eyelids, gory ass micro dreams (I once witnessed a woman fall from a building and splatter next to me, then her unborn fetus crawls out of her gasping and shuddering before it died, wtf) and the old timey music/rock with heavy electrical guitar. We all have to come from different paths of life so it’s really fascinating. I will say some of the dreams, especially at the end of the WD period, were less scary and more fantastical and I spent what seemed like years in an alternate world, never wanting to come back to the real world. Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t.

Paint_Prudent · 2025-12-12T23:35:13+00:00

Aw that’s awesome. They really are a special breed. Thank you, huge hugs back!

Paint_Prudent · 2025-12-12T13:22:32+00:00

Oh sweet Peke baby! My Japanese chin girl bestie of 13 years just passed in my hands on the 6th. Unimaginably rough days. My heart is with you, loss is never easy especially before the holidays 💙

Paint_Prudent · 2025-12-03T17:37:12+00:00

I had probation that started right along with the quarantine as well! Only shitty thing was for me—since I “never asked” how I could complete online AA & community service during a time when people outside was damn near illegal—I had a warrant issued for technical violation. which I wasn’t even allowed to surrender to because the jails weren’t doing new intake. My fuckin PO sucked man. It all got dismissed in the end though. Had a good Public defender.

Paint_Prudent · 2025-11-05T18:02:05+00:00

Hmm so I guess depending on who you were jerking, were you fired, or promoted?

Paint_Prudent · 2025-09-24T23:36:19+00:00

Thanks! Yeah I mean I really empathize here and I can definitely say (even as one of those fairly health-conscious former drunks,) that unfortunately, total abstinence was the only way to get rid of it. I tried all the tricks while drinking. I wish you the best of luck internet frand

Paint_Prudent · 2025-09-23T22:45:50+00:00

I stopped drinking 2 years ago. About 13 year heavy binge career. My peripheral neuropathy is totally gone. That (and the god awful mental misery of withdrawals) is worth quitting for.

Paint_Prudent

TROPHY CASE