Checking in because it's only appropriate. I never really used to be into alcohol, but rather other drugs of all kinds. I have an extensive family history of both alcohol and other drug problems. So as if it were predetermined I wound up with a bear of heroin habit, and the onto suboxone for nearly 3 years. Tapered down, and as anyone who's familiar with it will know well, the last few mgs are the hardest. I jumped from 0.5mg to nothing, and from then, to sleep, it was something like 2mg ativan, 100mg vistaril, and a fifth of hard liqour just to get to sleep at night. I got accustomed to that, and then, sure enough, on to being pretty strung out on alcohol. Usually it's about a "pint" of hard liquor q.h.s. every night sometimes as much as a fifth or more, in the upper ranges i really feel it the next morning but otherwise it's just about maintaining a baseline. If I have a large amount available, i.e. a "handle" (1.75 L), I wind up in real trouble because without really knowing it I'll readily drink until I pass out which is about a liter or a little more, so I try to buy it in smaller increments. ALso I try to make it a point not to drink on the job but sometimes, especially when I was on a real tear the night before, I need a few nips during the day, but nothing enough to impair me, really again it's about a baseline. On my days off I day drink pretty much as soon as I coherently wake up. After an especially riproaring night, I get tremors. I sleep fitfully without booze and that's with klonipin and ambien already in the picture. I've tried to taper off alcohol to the point where it's only a few beers a night but always I wind up back up around 300-500mL of hard liquor a night. This isn't good for my liver or my all around physicality, I know, it's enough to effect my lab work. Physically honestly I feel more shit than when I was doing heroin daily. It's a hard thing especially since booze is so socially acceptable and ubiquitous, even if I feel embarrassed going to the liquor store buying copious amounts of booze so often. So yeah, I'm a clinical goddamn alcoholic, I don't really know what to do about it ... I haven't been without some kind of drug habit for damn near 20 years. I'm not posting here really looking for advice, I mean, I know all the options. AA isn't really my thing, not because of the religion part, I am actually a religious guy more than people would think, but it's the powerlessness thing, I don't think I'm powerless, I think I'm making bad decisions, even if that makes me an asshole, and probably haven't had enough bad consequences to convince myself that those decisions are bad and that I'm an asshole. It's hard to say. Maybe I was better off on heroin, or more likely, bupe, I know for sure I was more functional. I'm actually considering going back on the latter. I dunno. But yeah, I have a problem, and if you want to go with the twelve, I guess saying that's the first. I wanna check in on this thread regardless because I recognize that where I'm at is not sustainable and where I'm going is a very dark place. So hello and God bless to all of you who are going through or have gone through similar.