My story...
 

I'm turning 28 in just over a month and I recently came to the conclusion that I have issues with alcohol. I'm not sure I'm actually an alcoholic but by some definitions I do believe I am. For pretty much the past 9 years other then a couple short breaks I would go out pretty much every weekend and get drunk. It started off fine but it had slowly gotten to the point where I could not go out and just have a couple drinks. I would get completely smashed and spend money that for the most part I didnt always have. Not only that but sometimes I'd go out not planning on drinking much so I would drive. A drink or two would turn into a full night and I'd just end up jumping in my car and driving home or to whatever bed I'd be sleeping on that night. Nothing bad happened ever (thank god) but about 2 months ago I just woke up and asked myself "wtf am I doing". I could honestly say I could have almost bought a condo with the amount I've spent on alcohol in the past 8 or 9 years.
If we go back about 3 years a couple things happened in my life that ended up pissing me off. I have always had trouble sleeping and these things ended up keeping me up pretty much all night for a couple days at a time. I had been smoking pot socially before that. Socially turned into every day just so my head would be clear and I could fall a sleep. That turned into me pretty much getting home from work and I'd start blazing while eating food (usually chicken nuggets.. burgers.. typical bachelor foods).. That would go on for a couple hours till I'd burn out and fall a sleep. I'm not sure how many months ago (most likely around 4 or 5 months ago) I woke up one day and realized that if I didnt smoke I couldnt sleep. I figured that wasnt a great idea so I quit. Cold turkey. I didnt sleep for a week. Within two weeks I started sleeping better and from time to time was back in the gym.

A while after I stopped drinking was when I started going back to the gym on a regular basis. I started eating better. In general I felt great. I will admit I've become a bit of a loner. I pretty much just go hang out with friends once a week now. Most of them think that I'm just not drinking cuz I'm tryng to get in shape. One or two actually know the whole story and are respectful of me. A couple weeks ago my manager at work actually told me "Penner2k you just seem happy lately.. keep doing what you are doing".. I also came in to grab something wearing a normal shirt instead of my normal work shirt and a couple people commented that I was looking pretty solid. Put a smile on my face. I've now set some pretty high goals which are gonna require me to work my ass off. I've had people say "You can never get big.. You dont have that body type to put on a lot of muscle" and honestly I've told myself the same thing for the past 8 years of me going to the gym on and off. I'm gonna prove myself and everyone else wrong.

I know this comes off as a sort of blog post and really doesnt leave much for people to comment on. I figured this was somewhat anonymous and it was just sorta something I had to get off my chest.

If you have something similar for why you do what you do other then "I wanna look swole to pickup chicks" feel free to post. (I'm not saying their is anything wrong with that) ;)

Keep it up bro.

go to AA, or if you think you can break the addiction yourself just stop drinking cold turkey.. unless you can handle having 2-3 beers on occasions.. without the need of going further

Nothing wrong with being a loner if being constantly around friends means you are doing more damage than positive. Everyone has their sob stories, albeit some are worst than others. Mine is I gained literally 100 pounds in the span of a few years and just recently in the last year and a half I've become a "loner" and lost about 50 of those pounds.

Just keep doing what your doing and in a way you understand not to take things for granted (for example at my peak I took my health for granted and hit the clubs rather than the gym). Live and learn I guess.
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Hey penner,
Good on ya, you got to better yourself and do what it takes and its good to see people respecting what you do.
Same boat I was in... I would go out every night except Sunday and most Monday nights. I was scrawny about 8 years ago. 6'1" 124lbs, i got fed up one day, started hittin' the gym hard, got up to 187lbs in less than 10 months. Slowly stopped going to the gym and went back to going out all the time with the odd 2 month lapse each year of going to the gym off and on. Wouldn't sleep much, be able to sleep, or have a solid 8 - 10 hours and it still not be enough and my weight would fluctuate between 155 - 165. Over the past 2 years I've pushed the partying aside and have been feeling alot better now and i've been making strides, back up to 185 again, at the gym obtaining my goals I set a long time ago and overall my life has made a 180* turn from what it was. Plus my outlook on everything now is positive now, no more moodiness, etc. Life is good.

awesome thread. ill post my contribution a little later tonite or tomorrow

for now, props to getting your shit together. sometimes it takes a hard choice to make the turn for the better. ive gone thru it before. i have friends that have gone thru it, and ive had friends who havent been able to



(sometimes i wish we had a private thread in the sports forum for the regulars. it seems like things like training brings people together. i dont know a single person on here, but i have no problem sharing shit with you guys)

Thanx.. I actually wrote that up and then sat there deciding if I should actually post it or not. I think it was more me just having to write down my thoughts and in the end I decided that everyone makes mistakes and if this thread can maybe help people learn from my mistakes and other peoples mistakes it will do some good.

That is what I need to think. I am doing the cold turkey thing. From there I'll have to decide if I'll drink again. I do believe I should eventually have a couple drinks here and there again to see if I can handle it. If I cant then I need to look into AA.

Its actually starting to get better. With me being a little older I have some friends that are married or are in relationships. It made it a little hard to hang out with them since it wasnt too often that they could go party. I'm trying to spend more time with them.

You realize how bad alcohol can be when you actually stop drinking and see how much better you feel.
I'm still going out like once a week with my friends. I'm just getting really really hydrated when I do go out now though. hahah..

You know I sorta agree with you but I also sorta disagree with you. Anyone that says anything about me or anyone else admitting their mistakes is just insecure. I'm banned from the relationship forum but I do remember there was a confidential thing on there where you could just send your question to the mod and they would post it. Maybe we could have something similar on here.

i dont want to be confidential. i have nothing to hide. it was just an idea for our little sports and recreation 'community' heh.

good job

i can definitely attest to healthier lifestyle = happier life

keep it up!

No point for me to be confidential since a number of people on RS know me...

I'm nearing 31 now and I'm pretty much in the same boat as Penner when it comes to alcohol, except I find its not feeling like ass from drinking that's holding me back in the gym and growth, its the crap I eat while drinking and the lack of sleep from staying out till all hours. I guess I'm just lucky (or unlucky, depending how you view it) that I really don't get hangovers and my income allows for the constant partying without having to worry about it. I just really need to find more hours for sleep, I probably average 4 hours a night, hell last night I only got an hour and a half and I've been at work since 6am.

I usually go out at least 5 days a week to the lounges/clubs, but I still manage to hit the gym hard and heavy at least 5 days a week too. I go out that often not because I feel like I need to drink but the majority of people in my social circle are either stock brokers, stock promoters, club promoters, athletes, actors and Hollywood folk and there's always something going on that usually involves alcohol and partying. It's tricky finding a good balance between work, partying and keeping up with the gym, but what I find works for me is that as soon as I get home, I cook my meals that I eat at work the next day then hit the gym, then that leaves me the rest of the day to do whatever. I'm pretty strict about that, I won't allow myself to do anything else after work until the meals have been made and I've gone to gym. The sacrifice I've made is in the sleep and rest department, which I have no doubts will catch up to me sooner or later.

I workout I guess because it's always been part of my lifestyle. Throughout Elementary and High School, I've been on hockey, basketball, soccer, track & field teams and involved with boxing, karate, bjj and various other forms of martial arts. My goal right now is still to put on more muscle, one of my gigs is as a private security co-ordinator, and while I've been successful at the job, its tough not to feel tiny when a lot of your peers are built like Brock Lesnar or a NFL linebacker when you're only built like GSP.

I came to the realization a few years ago that I really need to cut down on drinking and find more time for sleep if I really want to add size, but so far I still haven't been able to. 5'10 195lbs currently, ideally hope to get to 210lbs at least.

30yrs old and still a perpetual work in progress, still haven't learnt from all my mistakes yet.

Rest is the most important thing when it comes to growing.
I think part of my problem has been the fact that a lot of my friends are people that work in the nightlife industry. If they arent working they are partying. I swear 90% of the people that are in that industry are alcoholics.
I dont know what to say though. What are your priorities? You say you you want to put on size. Well how badly do you want it? Maybe if before you would grab dinner with your friends before going out just still do that. Dont drink (since if you are anything like me once it starts its hard to stop).. Then after dinner just tell them that you gotta go. You can either tell them the truth or you can make up some excuse but honestly if you are having to make up excuses or they bug you about the truth (tell them that you need more sleep to put on the added size you feel you should have for your job) then are they really your friends?
Its one thing if you are a 19 year old and ALWAYS leaving early. But at 30 your friends should understand that in order to move forward in your life you need to make sacrifices...
You might even realize that some people really arent really your friend.

Hopefully this helped a bit.
Good luck

I'm always impressed by the quality of your posts 7, but how do you function with that little sleep ?

not many people understand, how much effort is put into body building, i see it all the time, i started when i was 20 i think maybe 19, one day i saw a pic of some dude that was pretty jacked and i was like shit i wanna be like that he look amazing no homo, from then i teched my self what to do, reading like a maniac on the forums and books and magazine, for every day i would read then go to the gym, learnt what to eat and such, for years, not many people understand that bb is a long time thing, people ask me all the time at the gym not to sound cocky, o man i want huge arms what should i do for biceps and abzzzzz, these are the people that never make it. there is a ton of passion in bb and its not something you learn over night. i have been doing it SOLID for 3 years and i think i am still at the tip of the iceberg. i fell proud tho from what i have gained in the las 3 years or so from my own teachings, sure i have dropped lots of stuff in life, like going out and making it rain at the clubs lolz, but i way rather be doing this for sure.

i had the same ambitions at that age (i think most guys do, right?). body building is an addiction though - there is never such a thing as big enough. there is always someone bigger than you out there and the bigger you get, the bigger you want to be. i used to subscribe to muscle and fitness and max muscle and would do exactly what it said that ronnie coleman and the rest of them was doing and thought that i was on the path to macho manliness. as i further educated myself though (still well in the process BTW), i began drifting more towards functional fitness cuz lets face it - cardio and core fitness will do way more for your general well-being than all the deadlifts, bench presses and sqauts that you could ever hope to do. to each his own though. if you have a goal whatever it may be, don't let anyone stand in your way from achieving it.

That's my problem, its not really friends not understanding or making me stay out, its that I enjoy the social aspect of being out almost just as much as I enjoy being in the gym and wanting to gain size. It's more me being torn between 2 things I love doing. LOL like I said, a work in progress and still making mistakes. I think after July, I'm going to try to take a month completely off drinking / partying and see how that goes, should be doable since I'll be starting on a new film that'll keep me at work most of the days.

Thx, I'm not entirely sure either, I think my body has unfortunately gotten used to functioning with minimal sleep and adapted.

Are you planning on going into any bodybuilding shows at anytime?

i tell myself no, but you never know maybe in like 5 years or something, a couple of my buddies have done it and it is very draining to put your body at a show level, but man do you ever look fucking shredded

sizzle chest- i do understand the whole addiction thing and never satisfied with your body, its rare to see me in a t-shirt even in the gym i dono what it is i just think people pick you apart, i am a lil self conscious yet i can dwarf most ppl its weird.

penner2k.....i totally understand...i used to be just like you...

you just need self control..
think to yourself....what am i gaining/losing from going out and drinking...what could you be doing instead.

keep it up....hit the gym hard and have a good night's sleep..
i love the way i feel after a non-drinking night + good rest + healthy food..

keep it up penner!

REAL talk.

People always hated on you but I always thought you were a good member.

Keep it up.

.

Now I'm curious as to what orange7 said that hal0g0d would edit the message.

nothing about any of us, just a stupid comment as always, no need for it in this thread

ahhh...fond memories of heated debates between real 0 guage power wire and welding cables :haha:

penner : guy in the avatar = your goal ?

the dude in his pic is on a whole diff level of body building, roids couph, not to shoot you down penner im sure you can hold you own but u know what i mean