The 4 critical signs you’re a high-functioning alcoholic
Hi there I’m Deryck recovery coach & founder of Beyond Booze an incredible holistic online program for getting and staying sober.
Today I wanna talk about the 4 critical signs that you’re a high-functioning alcoholic.
How do I know what this is? Because I was one.
I was drinking 2 bottles of Vodka a day and still running my successful media business
Right up until the day before I ended up on life support with acute pancreatitis and 20% chance of survival.
Sounds Crazy Right. How can a person function with this amount of alcohol in their system?
But if you’re anything like me you build up a tolerance that allows you to drink obscene amounts of booze and still carry on with your life as if its quite normal. Though you and I both know that it gets
Harder and harder to actually function and do your job, and hide it from everybody.
You know the one thing that I CAN guarantee is that one way or another you’ll get found out by family or friends, peers, a run in with the law or your health fails significantly.
Let me briefly tell you how it all came crashing down for me…
Then just talk about story around Leading up to ICU 2009,
Financial pressure, Million $ Mortgage, 60-70h weeks, deadlines, lifestyle, Keeping up appearances.
It was starting to catch up with me and unfortunately those days I was a traditional male, didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to get help, at the same time it was getting harder and harder – Strategy – Drink
Family life & marriage failing. It had been failing for a while but again it never got dealt with. I was not a violent drunk, and no one knew the degree I was drinking, my then wife would absolutely not have known the volume I was drinking because I hid most of it. Again, only way I felt I could deal with the anxiety and unhappiness was to Drink.
All that leading to Monumental Stress & Anxiety
Deadlines mean exactly that, we kill ourselves to meet deadlines. Strategy – Drink
Feeling ashamed to ask for help,
not wanting to go to AA, or focus group or seek medical advice and the like and just continuing to ignore the growing problem. This is the one of the biggest things because hiding is where the disease loves to live & thrive.– Strategy – Drink
SO all this added up over time then it was the
Secret drinking, self medicating and the volume was massive 1.5 litres of Vodka from around 5am and then a bottle of red wine at night to cap it off & finally ICU on Life support:
I’ll tell you what it was like to spend time in an ICU on life support facing possible extinction in my next video
(14 days on life support from Alcohol abuse) but I can tell you it wasn’t pretty.
So, here are the 4 critical signs that you’re a high-functioning alcoholic:
#1/ Tolerance…you need more and more for the same effect
#2/ Cravings…you can’t stop thinking about it and function before you have a drink, physical and emotional, overwhelming desire to stop the mental chatter
#3/ Loss of control…what I mean by this is starting to make careless decisions that are not good for you or others. For me, I had a running with the law I lost my DL for drink driving for 9 months and this had a major implication not only for me but I actually had to change my sons school to be closer to my home which I felt terrible about but this is what I mean, you start to loose control of your behaviour and decision making and get into trouble.
#4/ Withdrawals…the shaking hands which is a sign for others, the nausea, anxiety, and night sweats/poor sleep – had to drink more often to get them stop…I used to always have a bottle of vodka hidden in my office disguised in another bottle…It was my own business so I didn’t feel so bad about it but obviously things were getting out of control!
Honestly, even if just ONE of these is true for ou right now, if you don’t do something about, you’re travelling down a slippery slope. I certainly don’t wish my experience for anyone.
So fast forward to today, in order to be sustainably sober today ( so
I have no cravings or desire to drink whatso ever anymore) I have spent 100’s & 100’s of hours and 1000’s of $$’s in my healing and recovery; with coaches, psychologists, my doctor, counceling, wellness programs and
Today it is my mission to help others perhaps who are or were in my old shoes to kick addiction to the curb and get & stay sober using transformational coaching and holistic wellness strategies.
I get you & you are not alone. There is hope… and support….. and practical tools that do work.
So Register for my FREE training to getting and staying sober@ beyondboozeprogram.com/webinar
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