OMG, he is catching up!!

Funny how that goes eh? Nobody seemed really interested, not much traffic or questions, and BOOM! Icehouse in da house. I have done a lot of searches over the years, but I still think it's the best thread out there for people who are/were suffering from both.

It's like one of these horrible math/logic riddles, where the relative distance will always get smaller, but I will never catch up!

Wide-O, your wife is doing amazing well being down to 4 smokes. You deserve much of the credit too by encouraging and supporting her. Good job!
Yes, I remember you telling the story about your counselor talking about those who struggled so with their alcoholism only to win that battle but to have the smokes take them out. It is a powerful story. I am cutting down but don't want to get too uncomfortable since I still struggle with my sobriety and that must remain my first priority. I have been vaping a bit and that may just be the tool to go from my ten cigs to zero. It is helpful but not nearly as satisfying.

It depends on the device you use. Seriously.

And darned: I did miss to note a milestone: 100,000 cigs not smoked 3 days ago. I wasn't paying attention. 100K Whoops!

Wide-O, I see you edited your post so I deleted mine in reference to. Congrats on your smoke free days and cheers to your good health. You have done amazing things during your recovery. Who says people can't change. You are an inspiration!

Yeah, sorry about the edit. And thanks.

In the last 2 hours or so, for the first time in over 5 years, I have read the notes I made while I was in rehab. It is... so weird. How much you forget over the years, and how fast it comes back with just a few written words.

Things I had completely forgotten, like suffering from pneumonia for a good part of my stay there. Or how they searched my car and found a pill - which was a forbidden painkiller, but luckily, they saw the expiry date (it was in there from a holiday trip 6 years earlier, fell under the mat in the boot/trunk). Punishment would have been having to stay in without visits for 10 more days...

The rules, the people, the feels, the fear, it all came back like in a movie.

Frightening, confronting, I don't have the words to describe how much effect just reading those scribbles had. I'm shaking a bit.

I now wonder if I shouldn't keep a diary as a rule. You forget so much - bad things especially it seems - when you don't write them down. Just a few key words is enough to paint the picture.

(but to be fair, there are some words with exclamation marks that give me no clue what so ever. )

Many notes about the neuropathy too, about other stuff that went wrong with my body. Oh, and my dad officially died from pneumonia when he was in treatment for his alcoholism, so, you can imagine how that effected me at the time. I had completely blanked that out of my current memory. But I was literally scared to death.

All the people who started with me, the ones that didn't make it, the coming and going of new people. I kept notes on everyone, on when they either relapsed or disappeared (or died).

What a trip... I'm glad I waited this long to go over them.

My daughter has my notes from Rehab stay #1....I have still not seen them. Maybe someday...

Hello all,
This is my first post on here. I am 35 and have been a fairly heavy drinker for 10 years with 2 periods of 2 years off so 6 years ish of 60ish weekly units sometimes more some weeks less. For 4 months now every morning and sometimes in the night I awake with numb third and forth fingers. I have no symptoms during the day. I had bloods by the doctor all fine apart from very low Vit D and slightly high choresterol. I have really cut down on boozing for the last three weeks and have seen some improvement. The doctor said he thinks it may be a trapped nerve and I’m booked into the physio in 3 weeks. The night after a heavyish drinking session (maybe 4 glasses of wine) it’s much worse. Should I stop drinking now? Or do these symptoms not sound like alcoholic neuropathy? I don’t think I’m an alcoholic and can go days without and can have one of two drinks and am not complused to have more. It is very destressing to me at the moment to think that I won’t be able to have a glass of wine with dinner any more. I’m now taking Vit d and multivitamins but without much improvement. I still have numb fingers at night! Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks

Hey Muso, welcome here.


It's hard to say; in the best case, it is just a trapped nerve. That is something a specialist can find out.



But... if you feel immediate effect from not drinking for a while, you might want to give drinking a rest for a couple of months, and see if it goes away completely. If you then decide to test the waters again, you will find out soon enough if alcohol was the culprit.


Best advice I can give is to be as honest as possible with yourself, and not get hung up on words like alcoholism. There are almost as many types of alcohol abuse as there are types of people.


To be fully clear: neuropathy can have many causes, and alcohol is just one of them. It's best to read up on all those causes in the neuropathy section, but it sounds like you already suspect it could be linked to alcohol if I'm not mistaken? If so, not drinking for a couple of months will most likely give you a straight answer.

2769 days sober

It's warm. It's cold. The heat and AC needed on the same day.

Feeling pretty good...