"I drank, the child was sick and fell into a coma." The poignant stories of women who stop drinking

YURI: Hello everyone! I'm Yuri, a former alcoholic from St. Petersburg. If someone is unable to break out of the alcorism and needs support, we can also communicate through the microphone. Do not be shy, I will be glad if I can support.
If someone tells you that there are no former alcoholics, do not believe it, this is a widespread myth. I decided to write the history of my alcoholism from the very beginning. And it started in childhood...

ALINA: I want to tell you about my love affair with alcohol. Thanks to him, my third marriage is already crumbling!!!)) marriage. They drank together with their first husband, drank only beer, did not look at the degrees. Five seven liters on weekends and 3-4 liters on weekdays. We lived for 10 years and somehow we managed to stop at the end of the marriage, or rather, I almost succeeded. I quit and my husband drank two liters every day, but in a smaller dose. And then my friend from Moscow arrives and ... I went into the gap. The result. A fight with her husband, a tantrum and a divorce ...

TITO: Breaking alcohol addiction. My experience.
Last used - from 23 to 25.09.2016.
On a strict schedule. In the morning, everything that is on fire. Until the shutdown. On Mon 26.09 I felt like a deflated ball, penetrated in one place. I began to come to myself only by Thu 29.09.
All these days knocked out of life, games. Systematic use makes it impossible to achieve goals. Unfortunately, any technique leads to a rigid scheme ...

INGA: Good morning! I don’t even know where to start… apparently I have come to the point that I realize and understand that I need help and support. I always thought that I could handle everything on my own, but apparently this is not the case. I am 33, daughters 1.6. I didn’t drink the whole pregnancy, very rarely wine. As a child, my father drank heavily. My addiction started at 26, but there were no binges. Things got worse after giving birth. Of course, I can refer to post-hearth depression, but I'm afraid that by doing so I am only trying to justify ...

ROMAN: Hello! My name is Roman, I am 47 years old, I live in Moscow and I consider myself an alcoholic. To be honest, such a social status categorically does not suit me !!
My story is banal, but not yet solved, and therefore I come to you for help ...
I'll start my mess with a positive. I have a family, two children (girls 21 years old and 6 years old, I love them very much), a wonderful wife, by the way, who rarely drinks. Things are going well overall! You have your own comfortable housing and your own business…

VLADIMIR: Hello. I’m 24 years old, my story is like this ... It all started at the age of 13, after school I liked to drink a bottle of beer with my classmates, but there was no big craving, we only drank in the spring when it was warm, in winter no one thought about beer .At the age of 14, I tried vodka for the first time, plus polished it with beer, after that I thought that I would never drink again. I was mad...

Helped us:

Anatoly Alekhin
Professor, Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Assistance, Russian State Pedagogical University. A. I. Herzen; MD

The end of February, 1996, a month ago I turned 16. How I was waiting for this number! I thought a miracle would happen, a prince would appear in my life or something like that. But nothing happened. I'm still the same gloomy tenth grader in black martens who desperately wants to look cool.

It's a warm spring day, we hang out in the grove. Four girls and a guy whose birthday we are celebrating. This is my first time drinking champagne - more than a sip, and not in the company of my parents.- it works magically. I feel grown up, relaxed, and I love it! After the first bottle, we start a game: we pass a match to each other using only our mouths. With each round, the match becomes shorter, and the game becomes more exciting. In the end, T. and I kiss. This is more than strange - after all, I never liked him.

Then I did not yet know that to make a person more attractive is an easy trick for Monsieur of alcohol. Soon I will be dancing in clubs and singing karaoke. Steal books, jewelry, candies and chips - just to demonstrate courage and sleight of hand. Lying is no worse than Munchausen. Get acquainted first and immediately offer sex. And also take drugs, run away from a cafe without paying, walk around the cemetery at night and drive drunk - nothing was impossible. We found each other with alcohol. And how did I live without it before?

I found a special thrill in hangovers. You drink - and the world is immediately clear, I am weightless, merge with it with every cell and gradually dissolve, as if I were not a body, but a consciousness, a pure spirit. Morning, T. and I are alone in the pizzeria, languidly polishing beer with vodka from a cold pot-bellied decanter. We love each other so much. T. is gentle as a cat, because I have money, and I decide whether to repeat the decanter. I nod to the waiter, T. rejoices.

We have a strange relationship. He is such a typical narcissist. And I, having drunk, each time announced to him that I was leaving. Brought to tears and received emotions. Then she met G. - and left forever. He was caring and loving. Got me hooked on heroin. Then I got tired, and I also left G.. A whirlwind of acquaintances and non-reciprocal loves began to spin (normal guys were not eager to meet a drunkard).

In those years, I was surrounded by many friends - a drinking buddy was easy. But it didn’t matter to me with whom to drink, where and what. I drank with strangers, taxi drivers and cops (thank you guys for not touching me, sorry I don't remember your name). I drank alone, I drank on ICQ, I drank under the radio.

I think I had depression. I didn't belong to myself, I didn't control anything, and I never knew where I would find myself the next morning. I was driven by alcohol. The body roamed uncontrollably around the city, and, believe me, it was a wild adventure. The fact that I'm alive is a miracle, I could have died a thousand times.

And I wanted warmth and peace. Happiness, simple as a sandwich with sugar. I remember wandering with a gentleman, staggering along a dark street from one tavern to another, I looked at the luminous windows and imagined how people live behind them, how early they go to bed and read Jane Eyre under the light of a night lamp. And I remember that aching melancholy - why can't I do it too? Coming home, she laid out the sofa and fell right in her clothes. And dreamed of pajamas with bears. In difficult moments, I disconnected from the outside world and went into myself.. I imagined how I come to visit a fictitious aunt - she lives far away, no one will get to us. In a cozy little house, my aunt is frying pancakes for me, and I look out the window, there is a red mountain ash and a cat is walking. And I don't need anything else. And the aunt asks: “Pour some more tea, Yulechka?”

Alcohol was my medicine, the only remedy that reconciled with reality and gave comfort. I leaned on him like a cripple on a crutch. A sober life seemed dull. But it was worth adding alcohol, and everything flourished. I loved everyone, even myself. Whatever happens, pour alcohol into yourself, and it will be better. And then add - to make it even better, even more pleasant, even more love.

I didn't realize it would be the other way around. I remember how I went for a supplement - alone, to a gas station, because my husband was already asleep, and the shops were closed; how she drank all night, and at five minutes to nine she was already standing in front of the shop door; how she swam drunk and almost drowned; how she was ashamed of her swollen face and hated herself; how it was coded and broken; how with horror I looked through outgoing calls and messages in social networks in the morning. How I was afraid one day to wake up in prison or not wake up at all.

Hangovers were long gone. The next morning, the body did not even take water, every day my stomach hurt. I was afraid to sleep - I went to bed with the light on and the TV on. At least once a week the house is a mess, and I can't get up because my head is splitting, tremors, burned throat, fever, chills, heart and brain behave as if they are leaving me forever. The husband was not happy with this situation, threatened with a divorce. Yes, I myself already understood that the games were over, alcohol would kill me, I had to pull the stopcock. She jerked. I got it on the third try.

The first time was not easy. It seemed that all people knew my shameful secret and made fun of me, miserable. In the grocery store, I trotted through the alcohol section. Once my husband and I bought a 50-gram bottle of rum for soaking dried fruits for a Christmas cake. While we were standing at the checkout, I had a fever due to anxiety - now the cashier will wink and say: “You don’t take something, Yulia. Waiting for more tonight." What a cashier! Having met old acquaintances a couple of times, I pretended that I was not me. I didn’t see my brother for a whole year, retired from all social networks, changed my phone number and email address. I wanted to dissolve or fly to the moon.

Having licked my wounds in solitude and mentally strengthened, I realized that I was tired and no longer wanted to be ashamed. I want to come out and share my experience. So in the fourth year of my alcohol-free life, I started my blog, and every time I jump to the ceiling when it sobers someone up.

At some point, a psychotherapist appeared in my life. Together we found out that I can't express anger, say no, I don't recognize my feelings and I don’t really understand where I end and the other person begins. Sometimes I just recounted my days or the past to her, surprised that she didn't wince in disgust.

There was a feeling that, having tied up with alcohol, I received a box with broken glass at the exit, from which I had to glue a vessel. I wanted it to be beautiful and function properly. Make it so as quickly as possible, because so much time has been wasted for nothing! But I moved slowly and slowly. When despair overwhelmed, she lay down on the sofa, ate chocolate and scrolled Pinterest. Cried and freaked out. Didn't drink. The next day it got easier. I learned that the one who walks slowly will go far, and I calmed down.

Nothing reminded me of alcohol anymore: not only did I distribute glasses and glasses, I excluded all triggers, including the old playlist. I became a vegan, for the first time in my life I looked into myself, found my inner child and tried to love him. In any incomprehensible situation, she meditated. She opened the world of psychology and self-development. I drank a course of antidepressants and B vitamins. I thought, read and wrote a lot about “why people drink”, and gradually my demons began to recede.

Now I'm 36. The last time I drank was 6 years ago. How do I live? Wonderful. Got a cat and pajamas with bears. I don’t want to light up, offer my husband a threesome (thank God, he didn’t agree!), write to incomprehensible people and be ashamed of my actions. No more need to escape into the alcohol dope or hiding in the house of an imaginary aunt. I live here and now, a real life without stimulants, and I communicate with real people. My hands hold the steering wheel and, thank God, they do not shake.

The editors would like to thank Studio 212 for their help in organizing the shooting.

We are waiting for your reaction. Do you have anything to say about what you read? Write in the comments below or [email protected]

After school, I entered the Faculty of Journalism. In the second year, she got married and transferred to a correspondence course: she was too lazy to go to college.

She got married just to get away from her parents. No, I remember being deeply in love, but I also remember my own thoughts before the wedding.

I smoke in the yard and think: maybe, well, why am I doing this? But there is nowhere to go - the banquet is appointed. Okay, I think I’ll go, and if anything, I’ll get a divorce.

I almost don’t remember that wedding: when my parents left, I started drinking vodka with friends - and that’s it, then a failure. Memory lapses, by the way, are also a bad bell.

The future husband at that time lived in the editorial office of the newspaper in which he worked. My parents rented an apartment for us and we started living together.

I have always considered myself ugly and unworthy of love and respect. Perhaps for this reason, all my men were either drinkers or drug addicts, or both. Once my husband brought heroin, and we got hooked. Gradually sold everything that could be sold. There was often no food at home, but there was almost always heroin, cheap vodka or port.

One day my mother and I went to buy clothes for me. July, heat, I'm in a T-shirt. Mom noticed injection marks on her arm and asks: “Are you injecting?” “Mosquitoes bit me,” I answer. And mom believes.

About trying to stop drinking

I took it with hostility when someone hinted at me about my problems with alcohol. At the same time, I considered myself so terrible that when they laughed on the street, I looked around, sure that they were laughing at me, and if they said a compliment, I snapped - they probably scoff or want to borrow money.

Alcohol helped me survive, with it I at least occasionally felt some semblance of peace and joy, but it also brought more and more problems. All this resembled a foundation pit, into which stones flew at great speed.

It must have overflowed at some point.

The last straw was the story of the stolen money. Summer 2005, I'm working on a reality show.

There is a lot of work, the launch is coming soon, we plow for twelve hours a day without days off. And here's luck - for once we were released early, at 20.

00. My girlfriend and I grab cognac and fly to relieve stress in the long-suffering grandmother's apartment.

After (I don't remember) a friend put me in a taxi and told me my parents' address. I had something about $1,200 with me - the money was not mine, “workers”, it was the taxi driver who stole it from me. And, judging by the state of my clothes, he just threw me out of the car.

Thank you for not raping or killing.

I remember how, having once again distinguished myself, I told my mother: maybe I should code? She replied: “What are you thinking? You just need to pull yourself together. You're not an alcoholic!" Mom didn't want to face reality simply because she didn't know what to do with it.

Out of desperation, I still went to encode. I wanted to take a break from the troubles that kept falling on me every now and then. I wasn't going to stop drinking forever, but rather I was taking a sober vacation.

About Pain Peak

I didn’t think about the child (to be honest, I’m still not sure that motherhood is mine), but my mother constantly said: “I was born when your grandmother was 27, I also at 27, it’s time for you to give birth to a girl” .

I thought that perhaps my mother was right: I am married, and besides, all people give birth. At the same time, I did not ask myself: “Why do you need a child? Do you want to look after him, be responsible for him? Then I did not ask myself questions, I did not know how to talk to myself, to hear myself.

About living with sobriety

Alcohol is a very hard form of recreation. Now I'm amazed at how my body could handle it all. I was treated, tried to quit and broke down again, almost lost faith in myself.

I finally stopped drinking on March 22, 2010. Not that I decided that it was on the 22nd, on the bright day of the vernal equinox, that I stopped drinking, cheers. It was just one of the many attempts that led to the fact that for almost seven years I did not drink. Not a drop. My husband does not drink, my parents do not drink - without this support, I think nothing would have happened.

At first, I thought something like this: when he saw that I had stopped drinking, God would come down to me on the ground and say: “Yulyasha, what a clever girl you are, well, finally waited, now everything will be fine! I will reward you now as it should be - you will be the happiest with me.

To my surprise, it wasn't like that. Gifts did not fall from the sky.

I was sober - and that's it. Here it is, my whole life - the light is like in an operating room, you can't hide.

For the most part, I felt lonely and terribly unhappy. But against the background of this global misfortune, for the first time I tried to do other things, for example, to talk about my feelings or to train willpower.

This is the most important thing - if you can’t go the other way, you should at least lie down in that direction, make at least some body movement.

About alcohol traditions

My mother is the daughter of an alcoholic, her father died at the age of 40 from a heart attack. All I know about my grandfather is that he drank and raised aquarium fish. Mom never told me anything - neither about her childhood, nor about her first husband. I think she has a lot of unspoken pain in her soul. I don’t ask: in our family it’s not customary to climb into each other’s souls. We suffer in silence, like partisans, with an expression of love, by the way, about the same story.

I have never seen my mother drunk, which I cannot say about my father. Mom drank like everyone else - on holidays. Grandmothers also drank, preferring strong drinks. I remember these family holidays: kind, cheerful adults, gifts, delicious food, good mood and bottles. Of course, no one could have imagined that I would grow up and become an alcoholic. I saw that all adults drink, and I knew that when I grow up, I will too, because drinking on a holiday is as natural as eating a goose or a cake.

Early, at the age of six, I tried beer (my parents let me take a sip), and at the age of thirteen or fourteen at the festive table they already poured me a little champagne. In high school, I learned what vodka is.

I almost don’t remember my wedding: when my parents left, I started drinking vodka with friends - and that’s it, then failure

My boyfriend introduced me to vodka - we started dating in the 10th grade. I didn't really like him, but everyone thought he was cool. A couple of months later, we were already drinking a bottle of vodka together every day. After school, they bought a bottle, drank it from a guy at home and had sex. Then I went to my house and sat down to do my homework. My parents never suspected me of anything. I quickly developed a tolerance for alcohol - it was bad only the first couple of times. This is a wake-up call: if you feel normal after a lot of alcohol, then your body has adjusted.

How an alcoholic talks

After school, I entered the Faculty of Journalism. In the second year, she got married and transferred to a correspondence course: she was too lazy to go to college. She got married just to get away from her parents. No, I remember being deeply in love, but I also remember my own thoughts before the wedding. I smoke in the yard and think: maybe, well, why am I doing this? But there is nowhere to go - the banquet is appointed. Okay, I think I’ll go, and if anything, I’ll get a divorce! I almost don’t remember that wedding: when my parents left, I started drinking vodka with friends - and that’s it, then a failure. Memory lapses, by the way, are also a bad bell.

The future husband at that time lived in the editorial office of the newspaper in which he worked. My parents rented an apartment for us and we started living together.

Typical alcoholic logic: he never takes responsibility for what happens to him

I remember in detail one day from that period. We were visited by a couple of my classmates. At the height of the booze, we go to a cafe, where we run out of money, and a classmate leaves a gold ring as a pledge. We go outside to catch a taxi. A police car pulls up in front of us. We are drunk, my husband has an open bottle of champagne in his hands. They want to take the guys to the department, and I, being so brave, declare that I have acquaintances in the traffic police. I go around the car to write down the number, winter, slippery - I fall, look at my leg and understand that it is somehow strangely twisted. In a second - hellish pain. The cops immediately turned around and left, and I ended up in the hospital. For nine months with two broken legs.

One fracture was difficult. I had two operations, they put the Ilizarov apparatus. At the same time, I continued to drink, even while lying in the hospital - my husband brought port wine. Somehow she got drunk, being in a cast, fell and pierced her lower lip with a tooth. But in my head there was no causal relationship between what happened to me and alcohol. I thought that it happened by accident, that I was just unlucky, because anyone can fall, and indeed, “the cops are to blame for everything.” The typical logic of an alcoholic is that he never takes responsibility for what happens to him.

About memory lapses

My first husband and I divorced a couple of years after we got married. I fell in love with his friend. Then another and another...

When I was twenty-two, my father's friend invited me to write scripts for a youth series. It was in all respects a pleasant job: I wrote at most a week a month, and the rest of the time I walked and drank. In the same year, my grandmother died, leaving me her apartment, in which I made a real hangout.

In a relatively sober state, fear and anxiety are the main feelings of those years. It's scary when you don't remember what happened to you yesterday. Just once - and consciousness wakes up. You can find your body anywhere - in a friend's apartment, in a hotel room, on bare ground outside the city, or on a park bench. At the same time, you have only a vague idea of how you got here, and you have no idea at all what you have done and what the consequences will be. You're just scared and dark. Why is it dark? Is it still morning or is it already evening? What day is today? Have your parents seen you? You start checking the phone, but there is no phone - apparently, you lost it again. Trying to put the puzzle together. Does not work.

About trying to stop drinking

There was a time when I thought about committing suicide, but after making a couple of demonstrative attempts, I realized that I didn’t have enough gunpowder for a real suicide. I considered the world a disgusting place, and myself the most unfortunate person on earth, it is not clear why I ended up here. Alcohol helped me survive, with it I at least occasionally felt some semblance of peace and joy, but it also brought more and more problems. All this resembled a foundation pit, into which stones flew at great speed. It must have overflowed at some point.

The last straw was the story of the stolen money. Summer 2005, I'm working on a reality show. There is a lot of work, the launch is coming soon, we plow for twelve hours a day without days off. And here's luck - for once we were released early, at 20.00. My girlfriend and I grab cognac and fly to relieve tension in the long-suffering grandmother's apartment. After (I don't remember) a friend put me in a taxi and told me my parents' address. I had something about $1,200 with me - the money was not mine, “workers”, it was the taxi driver who stole it from me. And, judging by the state of my clothes, he just threw me out of the car. Thank you for not raping or killing.

I remember how, having once again distinguished myself, I told my mother: maybe I should code? She replied: “What are you thinking? You just need to pull yourself together. You're not an alcoholic!" Mom didn't want to face reality simply because she didn't know what to do with it.

I didn't get sober, I just didn't drink alcohol.

In honor of the encoding, my parents gave me a trip to St. Petersburg. The three of us went and stayed with my relatives. Parents with them, of course, drank - how could it be without it on vacation. I couldn't bear to see them drunk. I somehow could not stand it and said in a rage: “Well, why can’t you not drink at all?” Petersburg saved me. I ran away in its rain, got lost among the canals, and then I definitely decided that I would return here to live.

I lasted a year and a half on encoding (it was standard hypnosis encoding), and my affairs seemed to go smoothly: I met my future husband, there were much fewer problems at work, I began to look decent and earn money, stopped losing phones and money, I got my license, my parents bought me a car. But almost every day I drank non-alcoholic beer, and my husband drank alcoholic beer with me. I didn't get sober, I just didn't drink alcohol.

Non-alcoholic beer is a ticking time bomb. Someday it will be replaced by alcohol, and then the dynamite will work. One evening, when my zero was out of stock, I decided to try the regular one. It was scary (in case of admission, the encoder promised a stroke and a heart attack), but I'm brave.

Encoding is a good thing on one condition: if you put yourself on pause, start changing your life, actively develop towards sobriety, solve the problems that led you to alcoholism. It is important to move in the other direction.

Having decoded, I, as they say, reached for alcohol. It was a huge - even by my standards - binge. Alcohol returned to my life, as if it never left it. Six months later, I found out I was pregnant.

About Pain Peak

I searched the Internet for stories of women who also drank and gave birth to healthy children.

When I found out about the pregnancy, I was not at all happy, but I promised myself that I would stop drinking and smoking. Gradually. I managed to slow down by giving up my favorite strong drinks, but I couldn’t stop drinking completely. Every day I promised myself that I would quit tomorrow, and I searched the Internet for stories of women who also drank and gave birth to healthy children.

At the seventh month of pregnancy, a placental abruption occurred, I had an emergency caesarean, the child died, and I went into a binge, devoured by guilt for drinking and refusing to lie down for preservation. Blaming yourself was commonplace. He did it, he confessed - and you can live on without changing anything.

At that time, I already had a very severe hangover, I was seriously afraid of delirium tremens. Now it is already difficult to describe this state… You cannot do anything. The head is cracking. Grabs the heart. It’s hot, it’s cold, you can’t lie still, your body twitches, you can’t eat and drink, you throw yourself on vitamins - nothing helps. You can’t fall asleep without light and TV, and even with them it doesn’t work very well - sleep is intermittent and sticky. And a huge anxiety, one that is bigger than you: something is about to happen.

I remember sitting in a car with a friend, and I said: my husband forbids me to drink, I probably have to quit, otherwise he will leave. Girlfriend nods sympathetically - hard, they say, you understand. It was August 2008: my first attempt to tie myself.

About living with sobriety

Alcohol is a very hard form of recreation. Now I'm amazed at how my body could handle it all. I was treated, tried to quit and broke down again, almost lost faith in myself.

I finally stopped drinking on March 22, 2010. Not that I decided that it was on the 22nd, on the bright day of the vernal equinox, that I stopped drinking, cheers. It was just one of the many attempts that led to the fact that for almost seven years I did not drink. Not a drop. My husband does not drink, my parents do not drink - without this support, I think nothing would have happened.

To my surprise, it wasn't like that. Gifts did not fall from the sky. I was sober - and that's it. Here it is, my whole life - the light is like in an operating room, you can't hide. For the most part, I felt lonely and terribly unhappy. But against the background of this global misfortune, for the first time I tried to do other things, for example, to talk about my feelings or to train willpower. This is the most important thing - if you can’t go the other way, you should at least lie down in that direction, make at least some body movement.

The first year of sobriety is hard. You are so ashamed of your past that you want one thing: to dissolve, to go underground. I took my husband's last name, changed my phone number and email address, retired from social networks and distanced myself from friends as much as possible. All I had was me, who drank away fourteen years of my life. who didn't know herself. For the first time I was alone with myself, I learned to talk to myself. It was unusual - to live completely without anesthesia, to be inseparably present in your life, without hiding or running away. I don't think I've ever cried so much in my life.

A couple of years before I stopped drinking completely, I became a vegetarian. I think the recovery process started exactly when I first thought about what (or rather, who) I eat, about the fact that in the world, besides me, there are other creatures who live and suffer, that someone else could be worse than me. Asceticism appeared in my life, which developed me and made me stronger.

Sometimes I remember myself and I don't believe that it was me and not the character from the movie "Trainspotting". Thank God, I was able to forgive myself and finally begin to treat myself well - with love and care. It was not easy and took a lot of time, but I managed (with the help of a psychotherapist). The next step is to develop, albeit slowly and slowly, but go forward every day.

In the summer of 2010, my husband and I quit smoking. I started meditating. Every free minute I read affirmations and convinced myself that I could handle everything.

Three years ago I started. At first, it was something like a diary for me, a platform for reflection: I wrote because I felt an inner need. At first, no one read the blog, but, one way or another, it was a statement about myself - I am, yes, I drank, but I was able to quit, I live.

Beautiful wealthy women come to me, they have husbands and children, and everything seems to be fine. Only every day they secretly drink a bottle of red wine

Then I realized that sitting and reflecting is the same as doing nothing. Because there are thousands like me. They are just as helpless, they do not understand how to stop the war within themselves. Therefore, now I am consulting for people with similar problems. Everyone has different degrees of addiction: beautiful wealthy women come to me, they have husbands and children, and everything seems to be fine. Only every day they secretly drink a bottle of red wine. It is not customary to talk about this, but almost every second person in our country drinks with one frequency or another. That is, drink regularly. And few people admit it to themselves.

I did not want to be ashamed of myself and my past - it bothered me, I felt not free. So I plucked up the courage to talk about alcohol addiction so that alcoholism would no longer be treated as something shameful or top-secret.

I'm being honest: I'm not a psychologist or a narcologist. I am a former alcoholic. And I, unfortunately or fortunately, know too much about how to stop drinking and how not to do it. I try to help those who have realized for themselves that they want to live soberly and are ready to do something for this. In this case, the more information, the better. Therefore, I am here and share my experience - how I drank and how I live now.

Thanks to the photographer Ivan Troyanovsky, stylist and cafe "Ukrop" for help in shooting.

Chronic alcoholism is an incurable disease, but some manage to achieve a stable remission and stop drinking alcohol. Others gradually descend down the social ladder until they finally degrade. Most addicts make attempts to stop abusing alcohol, which are not always successful. For those who are accustomed to go on a long binge, the stories of alcoholics can give an impetus to stop drinking alcohol as soon as possible.

The story of mother Nastya, tragic

Nastya was born in a village not far from a large regional center, went to school, then went to a pedagogical institute and left home for several years. She then returned to her native village as a teacher. But during this time, the family has undergone major changes.

Her mother, Vera Nikolaevna, worked all her life at a local agricultural enterprise as a milkmaid. The use of alcohol in the team was the norm for men and women, and the latter sometimes competed with the stronger sex in terms of dose. They were not limited to holidays and weekends; in the evening, alcohol was always present at dinner.

Nastya saw the problem of her mother, but persuasion, threats did not help. The woman did not consider herself an alcoholic, she did not want to hear about treatment or coding. Binges became frequent, the appearance at work in a state of intoxication was part of the norm.

Local village alcoholics began to appear in the house. But by that time, Nastya had already married and lived separately on a nearby street. She stopped trying to help her mother cope with the disease. Only after another drinking bout did she complain of feeling unwell and abdominal pain, and asked to be taken to the hospital. The examination showed that the woman has cirrhosis of the liver in an advanced stage. After her condition improved, she was discharged home with a recommendation not to drink alcohol.

But Vera Nikolaevna could not stop. The medicines and diet prescribed by the doctor were forgotten after a week. Binges continued, after which each time it got worse. Other people began to notice this. The skin and eyes took on a yellowish tint, for some reason the stomach grew, and the palms turned red. Mental disorders appeared, after drinking a woman could talk with an invisible interlocutor, she became aggressive.

It all ended one morning when, after drinking heavily, she did not wake up. The daughter, sensing something was wrong, went to visit her, called an ambulance, which pronounced her dead. An autopsy showed cirrhosis of the liver, ascites, which caused a huge belly, as well as signs of multiple organ failure. This is how alcohol can lead to death, only six months have passed since the diagnosis.

Only an insignificant part of alcohol deaths is associated with lethal poisoning. The main contribution of alcohol to high mortality in Russia is characterized by the following data: 19% of deaths from cardiovascular diseases (including heart attacks and strokes), 61% of deaths from external causes, including 67% of murders, 50% of suicides, 68% of deaths from cirrhosis of the liver and 60% of pancreatitis.

Igor's story, criminal

For Igor, addiction to alcohol was the reason for imprisonment. He started drinking alcohol as a teenager, but despite this he studied well at school. He entered the school, but could not finish it, he was expelled for addiction to alcohol and absenteeism. Igor was always capable, he studied quickly, so he found a job at a construction site, and then began to go to work in Moscow.

Returning home was always accompanied by week-long binges, there were friends who were happy with free alcohol. This happened regularly for several years. Work trips also began to be accompanied by active alcohol abuse, but cheap alcohol, beer or cocktails were bought to get euphoria.

Igor received his first term for a drunken fight in which he severely injured his friend. He served 3 years, was released early for good behavior. But after returning home, the old way of life also returned. Job trips alternated with weeks of hard drinking.

Igor's mother did not differ in exemplary behavior and also often abused alcohol. The son's reaction to this was sharply negative, Igor often cursed with her, sometimes used force. He was annoyed by strangers in the house, feasts with an abundance of booze. He himself tried to drink alcohol outside the home.

One day, returning late at night, Igor found his mother in a state of intoxication. He, too, had been drunk for several days. The behavior of the woman seemed unacceptable to him, he began to aggressively argue with her. In a fit of rage, an ax fell under the arm, which Igor set in motion.

The neighbors called the police, Igor asked them about this in the morning. He did not try to hide and fully realized his guilt. Now Igor is serving a sentence, alcohol is now unavailable. Reading helps to fill the void, and before, alcohol was a favorite pastime. Igor regrets his act and hopes that after his release he will not return to this habit.

According to experts, about 70% of murders in Russia are related to alcohol. The MIA figures give a somewhat lower figure of around 50%, but this is likely an underestimate, as many suspects mistakenly believe that alcohol intoxication is an aggravating circumstance.

http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/alkogol/alkogol.pdf

Paul's story is hopeful

Paul's family is the most ordinary. He is an only child, he was not deprived of the attention of his parents, he grew up, dreamed, went to school, then moved to a big city, where he tried vodka for the first time at the age of 16. While studying at the institute, drinking occurred only on weekends. The field of its completion and the appearance of stable work came to the realization that you can not wait for Friday evening, but on any weekday, have a little drink before bed.

Gradually, alcohol began to appear in the house every other day, then every evening. Sometimes Pavel got a hangover in the morning at work, but this did not harm labor relations. Only relatives interfered, who claimed that he had problems with alcohol. Pavel shrugged it off and believed that he could stop at any moment.

Gradually, they began to take him for his own in the surrounding drinking establishments, interests disappeared, all thoughts came down to one thing - to drink. If acquaintances told that they had gone on vacation, Pavel automatically counted how much alcohol could be bought with this money.

The day of enlightenment came six months ago, when on the third day, after drinking heavily in a state of severe withdrawal, the realization came that there was no further way. There was an inexplicable feeling of fear for my life, which led to the acceptance of the problem. Pavel realized that he could not cope on his own and turned to his parents, with whom relations had already been ruined.

Parents helped, gave money for coding, and Pavel found a narcologist himself according to the reviews of those who had already given up alcohol. The coding was successful, euphoria in the early days helped to fight cravings for alcohol. But then the desire to drink constantly pestered, sometimes intensified. It was very difficult to fight him, depression set in. Saved conversation with a psychologist and antidepressants.

Now Pavel is gradually returning to normal life. He restores relations with relatives who turned away from him because of addiction, tries to show his best side at work. In a sober life, he realized that alcohol turned him into the dregs of society, and his appearance was disgusting. Now the situation is changing for the better. Pavel is sure that there will be no more place for alcohol in his life.

Conclusion

Alcohol dependence and regular binges reduce the quality of life. They increase the likelihood of serious illnesses that the dependent person is not able to cope with, because. To do this, you need to stop abusing alcohol.

At an early stage, you can stop, the disease will remain, but will go into a remission phase. In severe cases, a gradual degradation of the personality awaits, and death can be a consequence not only of illness, but also of crime.

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