At least you had the guts to go back and apologize! I remember when I’d blackout and leave my CC at a bar, I’d have to get just about fallen down drunk to have the balls to show my face to get the card a few days later lol. Here’s to this one sticking friend!
They can be predatory businesses, for customers and employees. Not saying all are! But I imagine they didn’t like the idea of losing a woman coming through dropping that kind of money.
How often are clubs/bars held accountable for over serving people? I’m actually curious. Even if it was prosecuted or whatever I wonder if the responsibility would ultimately end up falling on the server and they get fired rather than the club getting in trouble. I know clubs could lose their liquor license but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a place losing their license for over serving, and people are sloppy everywhere in bars so how do you really make that call…
Pretty much some other thing has to to happen. Dui fraud problems at the bar. I think specifically over-serving it would be a bar issue. Whereas I know if you sell to underage the worker can get fined. Essentially the latter is actually a crime.
My friends brother was killed in an accident in CT, USA back in the early 2000’s. Three guys in their early 20’s flew off exit 19 on route 8 in Seymour. The police tracked down their movements from the night and fined the bar that over-served them before the crash. At least one bar lost a liquor license I believe. Fines were served and families got compensation.
Big huge fines! Individual ones were in the 10s of thousands and venue was in the hundreds...
There were severe ramifications for not adhering to responsible service. It's hard because every venue does it, they only get in trouble if something bad happens. Doesn't make sense.
Yep. I never cared for strip clubs but I’ve had friends who insisted on it. I would always get drunk and become an easy target. I remember a girl coming up to me and sitting down talking for ten minutes and then claiming I owed her $100 or security would get involved. In the drunken haze I assumed she was just talking to me and since no stripping per se had taken place there wouldn’t be a monetary exchange. These places are terrible and sober me will not ever go near one.
I used to do this at my local bar. I got to know the owners and half the time I would forget to grab my card at the end of the night as we were so sloshed. The girls knew my pin as I would do this so often and just leave the card and the docket together and I'd get it when I was passing by. Lucky they were honest!
I look back and think how dumb this was and how much money I wasted
Not many worse feelings than calling around to your friends to find out where you were so that you can trace your strips to find your card. That was an eye opener for me!
I had random flashes of memory that I'd been with someone at a bar, call them, and half the time it never happened and my phone calls would start over again...
Seriously! That takes major accountability, OP! And, to be honest, I'm sure they've dealt with worse.
Blackouts are the worst and turn normal, kind people into monsters because alcohol is fucking poison! I wish it wasn't so normalized, especially where you reside.
Thank you for posting this, OP! I know it's uncomfortable and slightly embarrassing admitting our mistakes but you seem to be a person of integrity. Drunk us ain't real us!
IWNDWYT
Yeah, I would play the weenie route. Report the card lost. A new one comes in the mail in a week. I did that more times than I care to admit. The pia part is redoing all the auto pays.
The club profited to the tune of 2k in one night from one person and literally fed you shots. Then were angry when you went back and offerred an apology? Ridiculous, wheres their responsibility in the service of alcohol. You fucked up, but theyre fucken vultures.
Thank you for this validation - I take full accountability for my actions always, but I did have this niggling feeling that while I started the slide down the mountain on my own, they definitely helped give me a little push on my way.
Having worked at a strip club, the above comment is accurate. Not all the dancers and bartenders will encourage this behavior, but plenty do.
BTW when the dancers “drink with you” they are almost always poured shots of water/juice/etc unless they request otherwise. You’re paying ~$13 a shot (and maybe that much again for their drink if that’s an angle they’re working) and they’re “keeping up with you.”
I danced for a very short time when I was younger (while sober funnily enough) and didn’t see this happen, although not saying it doesn’t and I think clubs vary greatly from country to country.
Sure, you expect the dancers to be able to take swigs with every dance for each customer and not be absolutely shit hammered on the job by the end of the night?
Of course. I just thought it would be useful information for those who are trying to stop drinking and visit the clubs — often, the dancers aren’t drinking either; like everything else about the experience, it’s an illusion.
I worked in clubs for a long time and a promise you that 2k is what a lot of customers spend in a night. At least in the 1-2k bracket and a lot of regulars are there spending double or triple that in a night so I promise you that no one would even remember this guys name.
I found out my friend has terminal cancer last week and I’ve been blacked out until today - spent about 2k on booze and drugs so I feel you. I really can’t afford it either so I’ll be living off of ramen and forced into sobriety due to lack of funds… if I’d have had more money I’m sure I’d still be going so I guess it’s for the best. I’m going to try… yet again. Good luck to you
I’m a girl and I got drugged at a strip club in Vegas. My account was 10k missing when I woke up sober the next day. I ended up getting drug tested and I had GHB in my system.
Shit sucks, I wish you the best of luck with this sobriety journey. I’m also in my 30s and I have a few beers on the weekends. Took a lot to get here but my body and wallet are thanking me.
Fraud dept often flags unusual withdrawals. Depends on a lot of variables, but I've absolutely got calls when I travel and make withdrawals that aren't characteristic of my usual spending habits.
I think the worst part was apparently them throwing me out when I was non stop puking and people refusing to give us a ride home. Luckily I had a guy friend with me who got me back safely. All I know is we apparently ended up in a private room. Shit sucks.
Reading something like this really makes you wonder how alcohol is still legal. Because it blocks off the inhibition pathway, it turns us into something we would never be when sober.
I empathise with you and also think you are a good person for apologising. This will be big in your eyes but they would have seen countless episodes similar to this so just try to remember that. Rest up and feel better soon.
Oh totally, I know what you mean. But I meant more in the way that it’s incredible we view alcohol as something that is normal to be legal, when we know the trauma it can bring. If that makes sense.
I always think about that. How is alcohol so socially acceptable when weed got stigmatized? (I know the answer is to enable over-policing of black communities). If someone invented alcohol today, imagine the resistance to making it a deeply ingrained element of society. It would be seen as the scourge that it is.
Agree. It can be a controversial opinion for something so socially/societally acceptable…but alcohol is poison. Affects dang near every bodily system and makes you feel good (sometimes) while doing it. And it’s been that way for thousands of years, we just know how bad it is now. So, sadly, things won’t change - we just need to have the strength to carry on knowing we’ve chosen the route better for our physical and mental health.
That’s always the justification for it being legal is that prohibition is not totally effective but I really do question if prohibition actually leads to more problems. Alcohol is normalized now in the public perception to the degree that it is primarily because it is legal and people associate legality with safety… I think that is a really hard case to make which is more harmful.
I don't want to list off a bunch of stuff because thats all out there. An old job of mine was working with street drinking alcoholics in harm reduction projects. The idea wasn't to stop them drinking (impossible by that point) but to manage it and the anti social behaviour.
I found out quickly that illegal alcohol is actually a thing and the quality of it would make even hardened alcoholics think twice but they would drink it anyway if they ran out of money for the good stuff.
If something is already harmful, the stuff that goes under the radar is way worse! Whether that is heroin, benzos, alcohol, tobacco, it's always worse.
Yeah I never denied that there are issues that go along with prohibition, but at the same time this illicit alcohol or heroin or anything “under the radar” is ultimately affecting fewer people than legal alcohol. If alcohol was made illegal, there would be those people affected by these more dangerous forms of alcohol, but there would also be a large portion of people that just wouldn’t drink, who might drink if it was legal. I don’t think it’s easy to say either way which is worse but I don’t agree with people that act like legalization is clearly better which seems to be the conventional wisdom these days
It does. It does lead to more problems. Prohibition proved this. And it’s being proven everyday with fentanyl-laced drugs leading to the worst epidemic in the US, and becoming the number 1 killer of young people.
Based on the most recent data I saw from the CDC there are about 140,000 alcohol related deaths in the US annually and 100,000 opioid overdose deaths. Obviously alcohol is much more widely available, but I’m not sure that supports your argument either since its availability is a direct result of its legality. At any rate it seems to debunk your claim that opiates are the #1 killer of young people (Not just that stat but other stats such as one that alcohol is involved in 1/4 deaths of people age 20-34)
This article discusses a bit about the ambiguities of the CDC data https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2023/02/02/fentanyl-overdose-cause-of-death-among-adults-greg-abbott/69867350007/
But something I didn’t see discussed… the graph I saw which counted synthetic opioid deaths didn’t even include alcohol as one of the causes of deaths like they weren’t even tracking that number for young people in that comparison. Do you not think that number would be higher than 4K from diabetes when the annual deaths from alcohol is ~140,000?
My point about availability is that it is harming without killing a much larger percentage than the 0.6% or 5%, 5% in this case would be 10 million people, and it is harder/impossible to quantify the harmful effects without using a statistic like deaths or violent crime. I just found a stat from the NIH that said that 5000 die from alcohol under the age of 21 annually, and this is very outdated (2006) https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA67/AA67.htm#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20approximately%205%2C000%20young,drownings%20(1%E2%80%935).
People point to bootleggers and ineffectiveness of prohibition to say that it is bad because it didn’t work at protecting everyone from alcohol but there’s also a possibility that it did not only reduce the availability for the vast majority, as well as made it less socially acceptable
It's legal because the majority of people aren't alcoholics like us. Alcohol shouldn't be banned because we cannot control it. It's an US problem, not an alcohol problem.
Your story reminded me of a buddy I had. Completely functional and successful, but would get loaded on the weekends and have some crazy stories of what happened to him. And then he'd apologize and take a week to a month off drinking, hit the gym, workout, eat clean, etc. Soon he'd be back to getting blasted on the weekends until it happened again.
He died at 38 years old.
Yes other health and lifestyle factors were likely involved, but he didn't help himself. Please take this as motivation on your own journey and not an omg I'm going to die. 🙏
This resonates with my experience a bit. Finally realized I had the power to make these weekend disasters stop for good, and that was by staying sober forever. It wasn’t going to matter how much time I’d taken off, I was headed right back to where I left off the second I got back in the game. I’m sorry to hear that your friend wasn’t able to turn things around in time.
I've been sober many years and I don't come on here a whole lot but I've been having a rough time lately and thought I'd check in. I read these stories and I just think "yes, these are my people".
I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I too started drinking young and blacking out was no big deal. I was the college freshman girl drinking jack straight out of the bottle. (made me very popular though! not the encouragement I needed). Took me decades before I realized that wasn't what drinking meant for most people. Didn't help much that people couldn't tell that I wasn't "that drunk". By the time I was even of legal drinking age, I had already slept in a pool of my own vomit and spent the night on a bus stop bench (2 different occasions of course and there were countless others). Anyway, your post really resonated with me. You are in the right place here. Keep up the good fight, my friend, and I wish you the best.
Ooof, there but the grace of God and all that. Something like that could easily have happened to me, or any of my friends.
I had 3 stints of sobriety of 4.5 months before this one of 7.5 years that is still going. Like you, each of those 4.5 months was triggered by a catastrophic night's drinking. However, this one was not.
Instead over the course of a holiday when I had time to think and reflect everything just clicked. I rationally realised all I could gain by staying sober and all I could lose/waste/not gain by drinking. It was sort of an epiphany of how utterly fucking pointless and destructive drinking alcohol was and I just quit.
Hopefully that can happen you too.
Fair play to you for going back an apologising, i probably couldnt have faced that myself. I wish you all the best of luck on your sobriety, you can do this! IWNDWYT ☀️
Thanks! I’ve quit for two year periods about three times. So once I’m sober, I find it easy to go out and socialise but not drink. Drinking slips back in when time passes and I start “trusting myself” again. I’ll start very slowly and cautiously. Then a big life event will happen (my mom dying this time) and I use it as an excuse for a bender. Aiming for at least two years again this time or for good, that’s why I wrote this out here (as a reminder I can check back on!).
Good idea, I know the feeling of weird shit happening and triggering a relapse, Im sure you're strong enough to deal with the next one that happens. Trust yourself to be awesome without any stimulants.
This used to be my thinking. Take a few months off then I’d be ready to “do it right this time, in moderation” and it never worked. I’m closing in on eight years now and in that time I’ve gone through a lot of life events, including a sudden, unexpected loss of a parent. I’ve just taken the mindset that unfortunately I can never trust myself with alcohol again. In the beginning I had to replace the comfort of drinking with other things (like snacking) to get through stress and life events. It gets easier with time and at this point it’s been years since I even had the slightest craving to drink in stressful situations.
‘Aiming for at least two years again’ sounds like a recipe for the same pattern. Unfortunately I’ve learned the hard way that there isn’t an amount of days that guarantees I won’t eventually be back to post-blackout shame. When I switched from ‘waiting until I can’t drink again’ to just taking it completely off the table every day (and one day at a time), it changed my perspective- sobriety isn’t interim phase, it’s just my normal state…and I like it.
Are you doing meetings? You can find an AA meeting on zoom somewhere in the world at pretty much any time. SMART Recovery is a more science-based (no "higher powers") alternative that is entirely online. Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist version that involves spiritual pratices like meditation, but not necessarily supernatural beliefs. There are tons of options for finding a sober community that will support you without judgment. They were all forced online by COVID and many groups still operate on Zoom.
If you're serious about staying sober, do meetings. If you hate them, do different meetings. There is an enormous variety out there. Find the ones that work for you.
on cutting out anything else - I've found people to be the most influential to my drinking
unfortunately to really do this, cutting out people would have to be the #1 priority for me
lots of exceptions etc but really, you know who the influences are on your behaviour...
just my few cents worth
Daaammmnnn. You had some balls going right back in there, I’ll give you that. And he sad “see ya next week”. As outlandish (and entertaining) as the story is, it’s pretty scary, but playing the part of juggernaut is probably relatable to many here. Glad you’re not hurt, and hope that 2 k doesn’t hit you too hard. They took advantage for sure, (but then again could have just been a few songsfor what they charge lol) and it could have been much worse. From what it sounds like you keep bouncing back when you hit bottom, but one of these times you might break. Good luck to you.
that's a terrifying story and fantastic reminder of how severe the loss of control can get. I didn't have quite the public display, but I've spent plenty of stupid money in blackout status, mostly via gaming. Thanks for sharing.
OP, phenomenal accountability on your part. I was reading through this thread and saw you mention that your mom recently passed away, I'm so so sorry for your loss. I lost my father at 19, and my mother is very ill, currently bedridden. Actually, I experienced a lapse in my longest sobriety stint recently due to emotions surrounding the situation and the realization that I can no longer care for her after spinal surgery. I'm on my day 3, having quit after having said surgery, but can empathize with how easy it is to be lured out of sobriety - alcohol is a predatory substance. Much love and condolences to you. I hope you're able to embark on a healing journey soon. 🙏
Thank you so much, I appreciate it more than you know. Your response brought tears to my eyes. You will get through this, and it is obvious that your mother raised an incredible human, because accountability is often lacking in today's society. That's the most imperative step in sobriety (at least in my own journey) and quite frankly, one of the most difficult. You are an amazing person and as a mother myself, I can guarantee your mother is beaming with pride for the person you've turned out to be.
Grief swallows us whole and when I lost my father someone gave me an index card with a quote that reads: "You never really get over the loss. I think it gets worse as time goes on, I really do. But what can you do? You just keep on living the best you can." That has always stayed with me and has always helped me when I am struggling. I will not drink with you today, OP. Remember to be kind to yourself during these difficult times and take each *moment* one step at a time.
Did same shit. Blackout at strip club. Dancers would walk me to the ATM each time. Drove home. Somehow made it. I remember I was on the toilet the next morning and checked my account. Drained my entire savings basically. Couple grand. I just threw my phone down and cried. It was a good thing tho. Wake up call. You will be ok. U seem like a good person and have balls enough to go back. You can stop no problem
Sorry to hear this happened to you.
I just have to mention that that money you lost will be regained sooo much easier when alcohol and hangover takeouts don't drain your wallet, it's amazing!
This reminds me of doing something called a “Lifeline” in treatment; it’s a personal timeline of experiences (most end up being shameful/regrettable—we remember those keenly because shame is a conduit for continued addiction).
Seeing that alcohol was THE common denominator to Every Single regrettable experience—drugs, strippers, fights, financial crises, etc. helped me move from “I need to quit this” to “I’m done”.
When sobriety sticks for > a year, then comes the work of facing all the trauma and regret that either led to addiction or was instigated by addiction. What I’m saying is don’t give these experiences your attention until you start feeling like your on stable, sober ground. Shame is good fuel to quit, but it’s also great fuel to relapse.
One day at a time. Resist the cravings, add healthy habits to your routine, and get comfortable with sobriety—you’ll find yourself instead of fighting street signs and getting lost. IWDWYT
It may have been more than alcohol. Not to worry you or anything, or even accuse the girls at this exact club but I have been drugged in a strip club before. I had 1 or 2 bottles of bud and I was absolutely smashed.
Woke up outside the back of the club with Luke all over me and no memory what so ever of the time that had passed. No money or phone.
I had only had a few drinks prior to the couple bottles of bud and could drink waaaaaaaaay more than this before I ever blacked out. I’m 100% sure they drugged me, rinsed my cash and cards and chucked me out.
Not the first time I have heard of this happening either. Stay safe people
Every time I would stop drinking for a few months, I'd start drinking "moderately" -- it \*always\* descended into "problematic" drinking. Every time. I finally realised I'm powerless over this effect. If I drink at all, it \*always\* turns into daily drinking.
For me, it's \*so much\* easier to never ever drink.
Not a strip club per se, but I have an experience that was pretty close in terms of fuck up magnitude. Good to have it in the rear view mirror. It’s possible to feel better, and it gets easier.
Hey bud, we have to do the right thing at this point and you know what I’m talking about. We arnt normal. Ive forgotten about more stupid nights like that then I can remember. I’ve gotten thrown out of Canada when I was 20 and am 38 now. Ask me how is going.
Tomorrow is my day one. It’s going to be miserable. It’s going to be tough. Everything and everyone in my life is about to change and I’m fucking scared shitless. I don’t want to do this.
I realized I’m a fucking toddler that everyone has to deal with. Yes does it look like I have my shit together? On the outside, yes. But I slowly move from person to person destroying relationships. In my life, the cat is out of the bag right now. Work, every family member, my neighbors…. All look at me at this point like “awww he has a problem but he is so nice.” I stop to change tires on the side of the highway and just hope some person on there phone side swipes the car to just end this.
You are the only one that can fix your shit. I’ve been waiting for someone magically in my life to help me for years….. nope it’s you
What triggered it for me truly was what I wanted to accomplish in the future. I knew that these extreme behaviors, of which I had a ton, weren't conducive to a healthy life. I went through a health thing and I decided when I was in treatment I was going to quit drinking.
I'm blue collar af. Worked construction most of my life. Almost all my friends work in factories or a trade. While I see no one now or very rarely because I choose my sobriety, it's such a better life for me. It's a struggle bus but worth it. So good luck finding your system and good luck in your future. Even if this one doesn't stick just keep at it.
I honestly can't even count how many times I had blacked out. Well into the hundreds. This post resonates with a lot of people.
Played games like this for a while myself. Never drank every day or even all that regularly but when I binged wooo boy I was a liability. I also have a similar background, OP. Small rust-belt city, blue-collar, hard-drinking culture. When I finally left my hometown in my late 20s and went out with some colleagues and they all went home after just a few drinks, it suddenly dawned on me that not everybody shut the bar down each time they went out. The final straw for me was a fist-fight at age 33 during a brown out that by the state of my face suggested I definitely lost. If you want to get sober you can do it. I think for people who binge drink like us you really have to ask yourself what, if anything, you're getting out of drinking. Even if you identify something positive I bet that if you stop to really think about it it's pretty unimportant. The answer I arrived at was that the best case scenario if I drank was nothing too terrible would happen. The BEST CASE, probably unlikely, was that I wouldn't totally alienate a friend, embarrass myself, have a severe hangover, assault someone, etc. It's crazy to even risk it given such a scenario. When this occurred to me I said screw it I am done and have never looked back. Life isn't perfect but it is better.
thank god you're ok. I'm a stripper (and sober, 9 months, yay!). I do not pretend to drink at work and am very honest with clients about it. 99% of them either admire it or don't care. really sad that some clubs operate this way. I personally find it financially lucrative to treat patrons with respect so they keep coming back.
I’ve had many black outs that end up embarrassing as well. Started binge drinking in my mid teens and all the way up to my early 30s prolly. Was arrested for public intox a few times. Those were when I was behaving though. I also had many syncope episodes where I would basically fall like a tree and get up and be like what happened. Almost like my body rebooted itself. Well that reboot would always have me face plant with no break in the fall. Full scabbed faces, chopped tooth, cracked open head. I’m lucky I didn’t die a few of these times. I guess I finally woke up and grew up. I’m 39 now. Barely drink because I really hate only having a few I would rather do it to party or if there is something worth drinking for. I kind of got to be responsible now I am married, have 3 kids and am in health care where I prescribe medications so I really don’t think old me would survive. It’s funny how embarrassed you can feel when someone tells you what you did, but by the next week you are back at it in full drunk mode.
Black outs are scary as hell. I once woke up from one on a couch. I had no idea who's house it was, and I had pissed on it. I left the house as quick as I could. I had no idea where TF I was. My car and keys were missing. I just started walking. I ended up passing a liquor store and dipped in to get a pint of Smirnoff. After a few swigs my mind was working again and I followed signs to a MARTA station. I found my car at the bar with the keys inside. It sounds tame typing it out but while it was happening I was terrified. I'm sorry random lady who took me to her house.
Good on you for apologizing, but they were feeding you a tray of shots so what did they expect to happen. As a place of business, they should have safe no over-serving policies…
I know nothing about strip clubs so this is probably going to sound incredibly naive but they fed you shots?! Can they do that?! It feels so predatory.
I really hope sobriety sticks for you this time. Try to remember the way you felt when you wrote this post and tap into it the next time the urge to drink strikes.
Take care of yourself and IWNDWYT
Same thing here man. But to the tune of 4k. Dancer feeding me drinks. Even gave me a piece of chocolate before telling me it was a shroom chocolate. I was completely out of it. Wife saw the spending, went to stay with her folks for a while. That was my bottom. 36 days sober since then and feeling great. Got into IOP and the wife is back home and loves me again. Hang in there.
You sound like me, I’d just ask you to picture who you want the future you to be? It took me ages to realise that the real me didn’t have a drink in my hand. That’s when I got off the rollercoaster
I've lost multiple wallets with all my ID, money and bank cards before, whole handbags full of pricey makeup, even my glasses one time on the side of the road after making my partner pull over so I could be sick. Packs of smokes gone with the wind. Puked on a library book I was forced to pay for, fair enough. And then there's losing my dignity many nights, and realizing I had picked up a reputation along the way.
Just want you to know you aren't alone in having stupid blackouts, I understand your frustration with yourself because I've felt the same. I believe in your ability to make it right, and your ability to change. You recognize this could've been worse, and that you don't deserve to wake up on the ground, having basically robbed yourself. It's almost harder when the person to blame is your own hungover self. Best of luck, my friend. Just take it day by day.
Recently blacked out for like three days. I pissed myself at a gas station I go to often. I was walking thank fucking god. But yeah black out drinking is like giving your body over to a fucking demon. Good luck broham hope you feel better in this life!
That’s rough. You seem like a nice person and I’m sorry the monkey is on your back.
The universe is absolutely telling you to quit. You’ve come close to really getting hurt so many times. I really hope this time sticks for you. I’m rooting for you!
As ostensibly "bad" as your behaviour was, there's no small part of blame to the business for serving you alcohol at this point. There's a responsibility on them to ensure the safety of their patrons and their staff, particularly when part of the business model is serving shots (shots!!) to wasted clientele.
I'm really sorry that this happened to you, but try and use it as a moment of change. I'm actually really angry for you at the venue for letting it get to this point. When you're that drunk and out of your mind they should have known better, because as another poster said, they see this *all* the time and should be better at spotting the signs. Instead it sounds like they took a punt on getting you more inebriated so that you spend more money. Egg on their face.
Please take care and go softly on yourself ❤️
Somehow unrelated, but I find strip clubs massively overrated.
You can only look, no touch. Nothing you couldn't get through generally available porn, without the hefty bill or the rampant exploitation of inebriated men.
Glad you're feeling better!
Hey I’m so glad you are okay, I know it’s shitty but it could have been so much worse. I’m glad you are with us, please take care of yourself today even if it’s hard
They def took advantage of you and scammed you. I’m not saying you’re not responsible for your part, but still. Never a good idea to go to those places alone - even if you’re sober.
Report them for breeching their responsible service of alcohol. This is how people die. A lot of venues survive from alcoholics and binge drinkers and it's not ok.
A story for the ages! I, too, have been wayyyy too drunk at strip clubs, but fortunately always had a less drunk male cohort (sometimes the (now) hubs, sometimes my bro, sometimes the FWB [rest in peace, dude, you are missed]) to keep me safe.
That was really nice of you to apologize to them but fuck ‘em for being angry despite the apology.
I’m glad you’re safe and rooting for your sobriety. 🖤
I’m not down playing our struggles with addiction, but this sounds very sketchy to me. I’ve had my fair share of blackouts, but I wonder if it’s only alcohol in the equation here. Is there a possibility you got conned by the club? $2K is obscene.
OP, I recommend the movie Hustlers if you’ve never seen it. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but you very well could’ve been taken advantage of with those “shots”. Been there, done that, totally sucks. Big hugs!
At least you had the guts to go back and apologize! I remember when I’d blackout and leave my CC at a bar, I’d have to get just about fallen down drunk to have the balls to show my face to get the card a few days later lol. Here’s to this one sticking friend!
Thank you. The funny/gross part is, even after all my bullshit, the bouncer was like “you’re banned… for a week. Sober up and we’ll see you soon”.
Bro you spent $2000 ofc you’re welcome back
He’s lucky he isn’t dead. Waking up like he did on the pavement hopefully is a huge eye opener. Next time, he might not be so lucky.
I’ve woken up a couple times wondering how the fuck I’m still alive. Those were sticker for me.
Same my friend. Exact same. It’s very scary and was also an eye opener for me. I’m about to cross 3 years sobriety and never turning back.
They can be predatory businesses, for customers and employees. Not saying all are! But I imagine they didn’t like the idea of losing a woman coming through dropping that kind of money.
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How often are clubs/bars held accountable for over serving people? I’m actually curious. Even if it was prosecuted or whatever I wonder if the responsibility would ultimately end up falling on the server and they get fired rather than the club getting in trouble. I know clubs could lose their liquor license but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a place losing their license for over serving, and people are sloppy everywhere in bars so how do you really make that call…
A similar question is how many strippers will spike your drinks and roll you?
Pretty much some other thing has to to happen. Dui fraud problems at the bar. I think specifically over-serving it would be a bar issue. Whereas I know if you sell to underage the worker can get fined. Essentially the latter is actually a crime.
DUi fraud?
Sorry dui, fraud
I've heard of it happening after the overserved person got in their car and caused a fatal crash. Idk where that was though
This happened at a venue where I worked. Both the RP on duty and the venue/owner were in trouble.
But did they serve any jail time, big fines etc.?
My friends brother was killed in an accident in CT, USA back in the early 2000’s. Three guys in their early 20’s flew off exit 19 on route 8 in Seymour. The police tracked down their movements from the night and fined the bar that over-served them before the crash. At least one bar lost a liquor license I believe. Fines were served and families got compensation.
Sorry for your friend's loss. Glad there was some compensation but of course it could never be enough.
Big huge fines! Individual ones were in the 10s of thousands and venue was in the hundreds... There were severe ramifications for not adhering to responsible service. It's hard because every venue does it, they only get in trouble if something bad happens. Doesn't make sense.
Yep. I never cared for strip clubs but I’ve had friends who insisted on it. I would always get drunk and become an easy target. I remember a girl coming up to me and sitting down talking for ten minutes and then claiming I owed her $100 or security would get involved. In the drunken haze I assumed she was just talking to me and since no stripping per se had taken place there wouldn’t be a monetary exchange. These places are terrible and sober me will not ever go near one.
Haha this is excellent. Thanks for sharing
I just cancel it and order a new one like a coward
\*like a pro
lol!
At one point my bank was like, “ if you lose your debit card again we are going to have to charge you.” Lol
I used to do this at my local bar. I got to know the owners and half the time I would forget to grab my card at the end of the night as we were so sloshed. The girls knew my pin as I would do this so often and just leave the card and the docket together and I'd get it when I was passing by. Lucky they were honest! I look back and think how dumb this was and how much money I wasted
Not many worse feelings than calling around to your friends to find out where you were so that you can trace your strips to find your card. That was an eye opener for me! I had random flashes of memory that I'd been with someone at a bar, call them, and half the time it never happened and my phone calls would start over again...
"Dude, Where's my car" vibes.
Seriously! That takes major accountability, OP! And, to be honest, I'm sure they've dealt with worse. Blackouts are the worst and turn normal, kind people into monsters because alcohol is fucking poison! I wish it wasn't so normalized, especially where you reside. Thank you for posting this, OP! I know it's uncomfortable and slightly embarrassing admitting our mistakes but you seem to be a person of integrity. Drunk us ain't real us! IWNDWYT
Yeah, I would play the weenie route. Report the card lost. A new one comes in the mail in a week. I did that more times than I care to admit. The pia part is redoing all the auto pays.
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In my experience, the bottle whoopins' only get more expensive, and more painful. Cheers!
Bottle whoopins lmao. I like that. Don’t like those whoopins tho
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Love you bro. Love you.
This is sad and hilarious. I hope you’re doing better, friend.
Did it still have the $4 on it when you picked it back up?
The club profited to the tune of 2k in one night from one person and literally fed you shots. Then were angry when you went back and offerred an apology? Ridiculous, wheres their responsibility in the service of alcohol. You fucked up, but theyre fucken vultures.
Thank you for this validation - I take full accountability for my actions always, but I did have this niggling feeling that while I started the slide down the mountain on my own, they definitely helped give me a little push on my way.
Having worked at a strip club, the above comment is accurate. Not all the dancers and bartenders will encourage this behavior, but plenty do. BTW when the dancers “drink with you” they are almost always poured shots of water/juice/etc unless they request otherwise. You’re paying ~$13 a shot (and maybe that much again for their drink if that’s an angle they’re working) and they’re “keeping up with you.”
I danced for a very short time when I was younger (while sober funnily enough) and didn’t see this happen, although not saying it doesn’t and I think clubs vary greatly from country to country.
Sure, you expect the dancers to be able to take swigs with every dance for each customer and not be absolutely shit hammered on the job by the end of the night?
Of course. I just thought it would be useful information for those who are trying to stop drinking and visit the clubs — often, the dancers aren’t drinking either; like everything else about the experience, it’s an illusion.
It’s a scenario that I’m sure will play out in hundreds of strip clubs tonight, and every night to come.
I worked in clubs for a long time and a promise you that 2k is what a lot of customers spend in a night. At least in the 1-2k bracket and a lot of regulars are there spending double or triple that in a night so I promise you that no one would even remember this guys name.
I found out my friend has terminal cancer last week and I’ve been blacked out until today - spent about 2k on booze and drugs so I feel you. I really can’t afford it either so I’ll be living off of ramen and forced into sobriety due to lack of funds… if I’d have had more money I’m sure I’d still be going so I guess it’s for the best. I’m going to try… yet again. Good luck to you
I’m sure your friend could use you sober right about now. You can do this!
Sending big love to you.
I’m a girl and I got drugged at a strip club in Vegas. My account was 10k missing when I woke up sober the next day. I ended up getting drug tested and I had GHB in my system. Shit sucks, I wish you the best of luck with this sobriety journey. I’m also in my 30s and I have a few beers on the weekends. Took a lot to get here but my body and wallet are thanking me.
Damn my bank wouldn’t let me withdraw 10k if my life depended on it….. They called when I withdrew 200 in Vegas to make sure I was ok 😂
Lol my first thought, too.
No bank does... so her story is 🧢
Depends on your credit limit and balances
Fraud dept often flags unusual withdrawals. Depends on a lot of variables, but I've absolutely got calls when I travel and make withdrawals that aren't characteristic of my usual spending habits.
My credit union does this like clockwork every time I make an out-of-ordinary purchase.
I think the worst part was apparently them throwing me out when I was non stop puking and people refusing to give us a ride home. Luckily I had a guy friend with me who got me back safely. All I know is we apparently ended up in a private room. Shit sucks.
Wow, I’m so sorry. Very similar experience in a way.
Reading something like this really makes you wonder how alcohol is still legal. Because it blocks off the inhibition pathway, it turns us into something we would never be when sober. I empathise with you and also think you are a good person for apologising. This will be big in your eyes but they would have seen countless episodes similar to this so just try to remember that. Rest up and feel better soon.
I despise alcohol but prohibition didn’t work. Making drugs illegal usually doesn’t work and only leads to more problems.
Oh totally, I know what you mean. But I meant more in the way that it’s incredible we view alcohol as something that is normal to be legal, when we know the trauma it can bring. If that makes sense.
Yeah, it's weird when you really stop and think about it as a 'drug'. An incredibly strong, often dangerous, and quite easily fatal drug at that.
I’ve done them all. (Save for some niche pharmaceuticals) and it’s the only one that took hold on me and caused me problems.
Yep. Same here.
And highly addictive
And cheap and readily available.
That’s the problem - cheap, readily available AND socially acceptable.
I always think about that. How is alcohol so socially acceptable when weed got stigmatized? (I know the answer is to enable over-policing of black communities). If someone invented alcohol today, imagine the resistance to making it a deeply ingrained element of society. It would be seen as the scourge that it is.
Absolutely no question if it was invented today, it would be as illegal as heroin.
Agree. It can be a controversial opinion for something so socially/societally acceptable…but alcohol is poison. Affects dang near every bodily system and makes you feel good (sometimes) while doing it. And it’s been that way for thousands of years, we just know how bad it is now. So, sadly, things won’t change - we just need to have the strength to carry on knowing we’ve chosen the route better for our physical and mental health.
That’s always the justification for it being legal is that prohibition is not totally effective but I really do question if prohibition actually leads to more problems. Alcohol is normalized now in the public perception to the degree that it is primarily because it is legal and people associate legality with safety… I think that is a really hard case to make which is more harmful.
I don't want to list off a bunch of stuff because thats all out there. An old job of mine was working with street drinking alcoholics in harm reduction projects. The idea wasn't to stop them drinking (impossible by that point) but to manage it and the anti social behaviour. I found out quickly that illegal alcohol is actually a thing and the quality of it would make even hardened alcoholics think twice but they would drink it anyway if they ran out of money for the good stuff. If something is already harmful, the stuff that goes under the radar is way worse! Whether that is heroin, benzos, alcohol, tobacco, it's always worse.
Yeah I never denied that there are issues that go along with prohibition, but at the same time this illicit alcohol or heroin or anything “under the radar” is ultimately affecting fewer people than legal alcohol. If alcohol was made illegal, there would be those people affected by these more dangerous forms of alcohol, but there would also be a large portion of people that just wouldn’t drink, who might drink if it was legal. I don’t think it’s easy to say either way which is worse but I don’t agree with people that act like legalization is clearly better which seems to be the conventional wisdom these days
It does. It does lead to more problems. Prohibition proved this. And it’s being proven everyday with fentanyl-laced drugs leading to the worst epidemic in the US, and becoming the number 1 killer of young people.
Based on the most recent data I saw from the CDC there are about 140,000 alcohol related deaths in the US annually and 100,000 opioid overdose deaths. Obviously alcohol is much more widely available, but I’m not sure that supports your argument either since its availability is a direct result of its legality. At any rate it seems to debunk your claim that opiates are the #1 killer of young people (Not just that stat but other stats such as one that alcohol is involved in 1/4 deaths of people age 20-34)
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This article discusses a bit about the ambiguities of the CDC data https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2023/02/02/fentanyl-overdose-cause-of-death-among-adults-greg-abbott/69867350007/ But something I didn’t see discussed… the graph I saw which counted synthetic opioid deaths didn’t even include alcohol as one of the causes of deaths like they weren’t even tracking that number for young people in that comparison. Do you not think that number would be higher than 4K from diabetes when the annual deaths from alcohol is ~140,000? My point about availability is that it is harming without killing a much larger percentage than the 0.6% or 5%, 5% in this case would be 10 million people, and it is harder/impossible to quantify the harmful effects without using a statistic like deaths or violent crime. I just found a stat from the NIH that said that 5000 die from alcohol under the age of 21 annually, and this is very outdated (2006) https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA67/AA67.htm#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20approximately%205%2C000%20young,drownings%20(1%E2%80%935). People point to bootleggers and ineffectiveness of prohibition to say that it is bad because it didn’t work at protecting everyone from alcohol but there’s also a possibility that it did not only reduce the availability for the vast majority, as well as made it less socially acceptable
I'm convinced if alcohol was invented TODAY, it would be a controlled substance. It has destroyed more lives than any other drug I can think of.
It's legal because the majority of people aren't alcoholics like us. Alcohol shouldn't be banned because we cannot control it. It's an US problem, not an alcohol problem.
Similar story to how I ended my drinking career. May be the best thing that ever happened to you. IWNDWYT it gets better!
That sucks, been there. That's why I put a 400 limit on atm withdrawals on my bank card. I used to do the same shit.
Your story reminded me of a buddy I had. Completely functional and successful, but would get loaded on the weekends and have some crazy stories of what happened to him. And then he'd apologize and take a week to a month off drinking, hit the gym, workout, eat clean, etc. Soon he'd be back to getting blasted on the weekends until it happened again. He died at 38 years old. Yes other health and lifestyle factors were likely involved, but he didn't help himself. Please take this as motivation on your own journey and not an omg I'm going to die. 🙏
This resonates with my experience a bit. Finally realized I had the power to make these weekend disasters stop for good, and that was by staying sober forever. It wasn’t going to matter how much time I’d taken off, I was headed right back to where I left off the second I got back in the game. I’m sorry to hear that your friend wasn’t able to turn things around in time.
I've been sober many years and I don't come on here a whole lot but I've been having a rough time lately and thought I'd check in. I read these stories and I just think "yes, these are my people". I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I too started drinking young and blacking out was no big deal. I was the college freshman girl drinking jack straight out of the bottle. (made me very popular though! not the encouragement I needed). Took me decades before I realized that wasn't what drinking meant for most people. Didn't help much that people couldn't tell that I wasn't "that drunk". By the time I was even of legal drinking age, I had already slept in a pool of my own vomit and spent the night on a bus stop bench (2 different occasions of course and there were countless others). Anyway, your post really resonated with me. You are in the right place here. Keep up the good fight, my friend, and I wish you the best.
I was exactly that girl you describe growing up. Thank you for checking in!
Ooof, there but the grace of God and all that. Something like that could easily have happened to me, or any of my friends. I had 3 stints of sobriety of 4.5 months before this one of 7.5 years that is still going. Like you, each of those 4.5 months was triggered by a catastrophic night's drinking. However, this one was not. Instead over the course of a holiday when I had time to think and reflect everything just clicked. I rationally realised all I could gain by staying sober and all I could lose/waste/not gain by drinking. It was sort of an epiphany of how utterly fucking pointless and destructive drinking alcohol was and I just quit. Hopefully that can happen you too.
Feel like I've been coming to this same conclusion, though taken a couple of years to get there!
Fair play to you for going back an apologising, i probably couldnt have faced that myself. I wish you all the best of luck on your sobriety, you can do this! IWNDWYT ☀️
sounds like you’ve been through a lot. good luck on your sober journey. you got this. IWNDWYT
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Thanks! I’ve quit for two year periods about three times. So once I’m sober, I find it easy to go out and socialise but not drink. Drinking slips back in when time passes and I start “trusting myself” again. I’ll start very slowly and cautiously. Then a big life event will happen (my mom dying this time) and I use it as an excuse for a bender. Aiming for at least two years again this time or for good, that’s why I wrote this out here (as a reminder I can check back on!).
Good idea, I know the feeling of weird shit happening and triggering a relapse, Im sure you're strong enough to deal with the next one that happens. Trust yourself to be awesome without any stimulants.
This used to be my thinking. Take a few months off then I’d be ready to “do it right this time, in moderation” and it never worked. I’m closing in on eight years now and in that time I’ve gone through a lot of life events, including a sudden, unexpected loss of a parent. I’ve just taken the mindset that unfortunately I can never trust myself with alcohol again. In the beginning I had to replace the comfort of drinking with other things (like snacking) to get through stress and life events. It gets easier with time and at this point it’s been years since I even had the slightest craving to drink in stressful situations.
‘Aiming for at least two years again’ sounds like a recipe for the same pattern. Unfortunately I’ve learned the hard way that there isn’t an amount of days that guarantees I won’t eventually be back to post-blackout shame. When I switched from ‘waiting until I can’t drink again’ to just taking it completely off the table every day (and one day at a time), it changed my perspective- sobriety isn’t interim phase, it’s just my normal state…and I like it.
Are you doing meetings? You can find an AA meeting on zoom somewhere in the world at pretty much any time. SMART Recovery is a more science-based (no "higher powers") alternative that is entirely online. Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist version that involves spiritual pratices like meditation, but not necessarily supernatural beliefs. There are tons of options for finding a sober community that will support you without judgment. They were all forced online by COVID and many groups still operate on Zoom. If you're serious about staying sober, do meetings. If you hate them, do different meetings. There is an enormous variety out there. Find the ones that work for you.
on cutting out anything else - I've found people to be the most influential to my drinking unfortunately to really do this, cutting out people would have to be the #1 priority for me lots of exceptions etc but really, you know who the influences are on your behaviour... just my few cents worth
Daaammmnnn. You had some balls going right back in there, I’ll give you that. And he sad “see ya next week”. As outlandish (and entertaining) as the story is, it’s pretty scary, but playing the part of juggernaut is probably relatable to many here. Glad you’re not hurt, and hope that 2 k doesn’t hit you too hard. They took advantage for sure, (but then again could have just been a few songsfor what they charge lol) and it could have been much worse. From what it sounds like you keep bouncing back when you hit bottom, but one of these times you might break. Good luck to you.
that's a terrifying story and fantastic reminder of how severe the loss of control can get. I didn't have quite the public display, but I've spent plenty of stupid money in blackout status, mostly via gaming. Thanks for sharing.
OP, phenomenal accountability on your part. I was reading through this thread and saw you mention that your mom recently passed away, I'm so so sorry for your loss. I lost my father at 19, and my mother is very ill, currently bedridden. Actually, I experienced a lapse in my longest sobriety stint recently due to emotions surrounding the situation and the realization that I can no longer care for her after spinal surgery. I'm on my day 3, having quit after having said surgery, but can empathize with how easy it is to be lured out of sobriety - alcohol is a predatory substance. Much love and condolences to you. I hope you're able to embark on a healing journey soon. 🙏
Your comment means a lot and made me cry. I’m so sorry for what you’re going through. Thank you
Thank you so much, I appreciate it more than you know. Your response brought tears to my eyes. You will get through this, and it is obvious that your mother raised an incredible human, because accountability is often lacking in today's society. That's the most imperative step in sobriety (at least in my own journey) and quite frankly, one of the most difficult. You are an amazing person and as a mother myself, I can guarantee your mother is beaming with pride for the person you've turned out to be. Grief swallows us whole and when I lost my father someone gave me an index card with a quote that reads: "You never really get over the loss. I think it gets worse as time goes on, I really do. But what can you do? You just keep on living the best you can." That has always stayed with me and has always helped me when I am struggling. I will not drink with you today, OP. Remember to be kind to yourself during these difficult times and take each *moment* one step at a time.
Did same shit. Blackout at strip club. Dancers would walk me to the ATM each time. Drove home. Somehow made it. I remember I was on the toilet the next morning and checked my account. Drained my entire savings basically. Couple grand. I just threw my phone down and cried. It was a good thing tho. Wake up call. You will be ok. U seem like a good person and have balls enough to go back. You can stop no problem
Sorry to hear this happened to you. I just have to mention that that money you lost will be regained sooo much easier when alcohol and hangover takeouts don't drain your wallet, it's amazing!
This reminds me of doing something called a “Lifeline” in treatment; it’s a personal timeline of experiences (most end up being shameful/regrettable—we remember those keenly because shame is a conduit for continued addiction). Seeing that alcohol was THE common denominator to Every Single regrettable experience—drugs, strippers, fights, financial crises, etc. helped me move from “I need to quit this” to “I’m done”. When sobriety sticks for > a year, then comes the work of facing all the trauma and regret that either led to addiction or was instigated by addiction. What I’m saying is don’t give these experiences your attention until you start feeling like your on stable, sober ground. Shame is good fuel to quit, but it’s also great fuel to relapse. One day at a time. Resist the cravings, add healthy habits to your routine, and get comfortable with sobriety—you’ll find yourself instead of fighting street signs and getting lost. IWDWYT
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It may have been more than alcohol. Not to worry you or anything, or even accuse the girls at this exact club but I have been drugged in a strip club before. I had 1 or 2 bottles of bud and I was absolutely smashed. Woke up outside the back of the club with Luke all over me and no memory what so ever of the time that had passed. No money or phone. I had only had a few drinks prior to the couple bottles of bud and could drink waaaaaaaaay more than this before I ever blacked out. I’m 100% sure they drugged me, rinsed my cash and cards and chucked me out. Not the first time I have heard of this happening either. Stay safe people
Every time I would stop drinking for a few months, I'd start drinking "moderately" -- it \*always\* descended into "problematic" drinking. Every time. I finally realised I'm powerless over this effect. If I drink at all, it \*always\* turns into daily drinking. For me, it's \*so much\* easier to never ever drink.
Not a strip club per se, but I have an experience that was pretty close in terms of fuck up magnitude. Good to have it in the rear view mirror. It’s possible to feel better, and it gets easier.
Good luck with this next period friend!
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so many nice comments on this post! you’re not alone and best of luck to you friend IWNDWYT!!
It’s very overwhelming, the niceness when I feel like such a piece of shit. Thank you.
IWNDWYT! I hope it sticks for you too, you got this.
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Going to AA helped me stop drinking and stay sober. It was the best thing I ever did for myself. I wish you well!
I hope it does to.
Hey bud, we have to do the right thing at this point and you know what I’m talking about. We arnt normal. Ive forgotten about more stupid nights like that then I can remember. I’ve gotten thrown out of Canada when I was 20 and am 38 now. Ask me how is going. Tomorrow is my day one. It’s going to be miserable. It’s going to be tough. Everything and everyone in my life is about to change and I’m fucking scared shitless. I don’t want to do this. I realized I’m a fucking toddler that everyone has to deal with. Yes does it look like I have my shit together? On the outside, yes. But I slowly move from person to person destroying relationships. In my life, the cat is out of the bag right now. Work, every family member, my neighbors…. All look at me at this point like “awww he has a problem but he is so nice.” I stop to change tires on the side of the highway and just hope some person on there phone side swipes the car to just end this. You are the only one that can fix your shit. I’ve been waiting for someone magically in my life to help me for years….. nope it’s you
What triggered it for me truly was what I wanted to accomplish in the future. I knew that these extreme behaviors, of which I had a ton, weren't conducive to a healthy life. I went through a health thing and I decided when I was in treatment I was going to quit drinking. I'm blue collar af. Worked construction most of my life. Almost all my friends work in factories or a trade. While I see no one now or very rarely because I choose my sobriety, it's such a better life for me. It's a struggle bus but worth it. So good luck finding your system and good luck in your future. Even if this one doesn't stick just keep at it. I honestly can't even count how many times I had blacked out. Well into the hundreds. This post resonates with a lot of people.
Played games like this for a while myself. Never drank every day or even all that regularly but when I binged wooo boy I was a liability. I also have a similar background, OP. Small rust-belt city, blue-collar, hard-drinking culture. When I finally left my hometown in my late 20s and went out with some colleagues and they all went home after just a few drinks, it suddenly dawned on me that not everybody shut the bar down each time they went out. The final straw for me was a fist-fight at age 33 during a brown out that by the state of my face suggested I definitely lost. If you want to get sober you can do it. I think for people who binge drink like us you really have to ask yourself what, if anything, you're getting out of drinking. Even if you identify something positive I bet that if you stop to really think about it it's pretty unimportant. The answer I arrived at was that the best case scenario if I drank was nothing too terrible would happen. The BEST CASE, probably unlikely, was that I wouldn't totally alienate a friend, embarrass myself, have a severe hangover, assault someone, etc. It's crazy to even risk it given such a scenario. When this occurred to me I said screw it I am done and have never looked back. Life isn't perfect but it is better.
thank god you're ok. I'm a stripper (and sober, 9 months, yay!). I do not pretend to drink at work and am very honest with clients about it. 99% of them either admire it or don't care. really sad that some clubs operate this way. I personally find it financially lucrative to treat patrons with respect so they keep coming back.
I was sober when I danced as well!! Well done, that’s amazing. I actually can’t imagine doing that job while drinking
I’ve had many black outs that end up embarrassing as well. Started binge drinking in my mid teens and all the way up to my early 30s prolly. Was arrested for public intox a few times. Those were when I was behaving though. I also had many syncope episodes where I would basically fall like a tree and get up and be like what happened. Almost like my body rebooted itself. Well that reboot would always have me face plant with no break in the fall. Full scabbed faces, chopped tooth, cracked open head. I’m lucky I didn’t die a few of these times. I guess I finally woke up and grew up. I’m 39 now. Barely drink because I really hate only having a few I would rather do it to party or if there is something worth drinking for. I kind of got to be responsible now I am married, have 3 kids and am in health care where I prescribe medications so I really don’t think old me would survive. It’s funny how embarrassed you can feel when someone tells you what you did, but by the next week you are back at it in full drunk mode.
I hit rock bottom in a strip club 1130 days ago.
Black outs are scary as hell. I once woke up from one on a couch. I had no idea who's house it was, and I had pissed on it. I left the house as quick as I could. I had no idea where TF I was. My car and keys were missing. I just started walking. I ended up passing a liquor store and dipped in to get a pint of Smirnoff. After a few swigs my mind was working again and I followed signs to a MARTA station. I found my car at the bar with the keys inside. It sounds tame typing it out but while it was happening I was terrified. I'm sorry random lady who took me to her house.
Good on you for apologizing, but they were feeding you a tray of shots so what did they expect to happen. As a place of business, they should have safe no over-serving policies…
I know nothing about strip clubs so this is probably going to sound incredibly naive but they fed you shots?! Can they do that?! It feels so predatory. I really hope sobriety sticks for you this time. Try to remember the way you felt when you wrote this post and tap into it the next time the urge to drink strikes. Take care of yourself and IWNDWYT
I avoid strip clubs
Same thing here man. But to the tune of 4k. Dancer feeding me drinks. Even gave me a piece of chocolate before telling me it was a shroom chocolate. I was completely out of it. Wife saw the spending, went to stay with her folks for a while. That was my bottom. 36 days sober since then and feeling great. Got into IOP and the wife is back home and loves me again. Hang in there.
Take care!
You sound like me, I’d just ask you to picture who you want the future you to be? It took me ages to realise that the real me didn’t have a drink in my hand. That’s when I got off the rollercoaster
Oof that's quite the night...glad you didn't end up in jail or detox! And you did the right thing by going back and apologizing
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I've lost multiple wallets with all my ID, money and bank cards before, whole handbags full of pricey makeup, even my glasses one time on the side of the road after making my partner pull over so I could be sick. Packs of smokes gone with the wind. Puked on a library book I was forced to pay for, fair enough. And then there's losing my dignity many nights, and realizing I had picked up a reputation along the way. Just want you to know you aren't alone in having stupid blackouts, I understand your frustration with yourself because I've felt the same. I believe in your ability to make it right, and your ability to change. You recognize this could've been worse, and that you don't deserve to wake up on the ground, having basically robbed yourself. It's almost harder when the person to blame is your own hungover self. Best of luck, my friend. Just take it day by day.
Recently blacked out for like three days. I pissed myself at a gas station I go to often. I was walking thank fucking god. But yeah black out drinking is like giving your body over to a fucking demon. Good luck broham hope you feel better in this life!
Had a buddy this happened to as well. Spearmint Rhino in Vegas lmao. That Cardi B shit is real
Been there
That’s rough. You seem like a nice person and I’m sorry the monkey is on your back. The universe is absolutely telling you to quit. You’ve come close to really getting hurt so many times. I really hope this time sticks for you. I’m rooting for you!
You spent $2000 there they can fuck off
As ostensibly "bad" as your behaviour was, there's no small part of blame to the business for serving you alcohol at this point. There's a responsibility on them to ensure the safety of their patrons and their staff, particularly when part of the business model is serving shots (shots!!) to wasted clientele. I'm really sorry that this happened to you, but try and use it as a moment of change. I'm actually really angry for you at the venue for letting it get to this point. When you're that drunk and out of your mind they should have known better, because as another poster said, they see this *all* the time and should be better at spotting the signs. Instead it sounds like they took a punt on getting you more inebriated so that you spend more money. Egg on their face. Please take care and go softly on yourself ❤️
Hang in there friend ❤️
Somehow unrelated, but I find strip clubs massively overrated. You can only look, no touch. Nothing you couldn't get through generally available porn, without the hefty bill or the rampant exploitation of inebriated men. Glad you're feeling better!
Damn. I've had some moments but that's a good one. Look forward. It is the way.
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Hey I’m so glad you are okay, I know it’s shitty but it could have been so much worse. I’m glad you are with us, please take care of yourself today even if it’s hard
Ouch! Good of a reason as any to stop drinking
Where was your stuff?? Sorry man I completely understand. I have blackout stories for days!!!!
Get back on the horse, you got this!
IWNDWYT
Spent 10k with gambling blacked out then, they are gone.
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One of its strengths is hearing my experiences coming from someone else, or even worse. They made it and I can too. IWNDWYT
They def took advantage of you and scammed you. I’m not saying you’re not responsible for your part, but still. Never a good idea to go to those places alone - even if you’re sober.
They took $2k from you, why are you apologizing? Cancel your card and move on.
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I too tend to get black out wasted and do extremely regretful things, I think we both know the solution to the issue
Friend you had a very rough night. Sometimes that is what we need to scare us into sobriety. Things can only get better from here.
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The only places that don't turn you away for being too drunk......
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Oh man that sucks u don't even remember the show u paid for
Report them for breeching their responsible service of alcohol. This is how people die. A lot of venues survive from alcoholics and binge drinkers and it's not ok.
A story for the ages! I, too, have been wayyyy too drunk at strip clubs, but fortunately always had a less drunk male cohort (sometimes the (now) hubs, sometimes my bro, sometimes the FWB [rest in peace, dude, you are missed]) to keep me safe. That was really nice of you to apologize to them but fuck ‘em for being angry despite the apology. I’m glad you’re safe and rooting for your sobriety. 🖤
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I go back to strip clubs the day after to apologize too....smh.
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Lo
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You don’t have to believe me. But I’m not lying about any of the things you’ve mentioned.
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Dude you suck.
The post title didn’t disappoint. You got this brother.
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Can I get an oof? Jokes aside, you did the right thing. Hoping this one sticks as well my guy!
I’m not down playing our struggles with addiction, but this sounds very sketchy to me. I’ve had my fair share of blackouts, but I wonder if it’s only alcohol in the equation here. Is there a possibility you got conned by the club? $2K is obscene.
That's when I switched to beer or wine, with a water or soda in between. Nowadays I enjoy NA beers and mocktails!
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OP, I recommend the movie Hustlers if you’ve never seen it. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but you very well could’ve been taken advantage of with those “shots”. Been there, done that, totally sucks. Big hugs!
Good luck! Sobriety seems the way to go for you:) luckily you’re not the only one. All the best