It's silly, but my skin has become a call to sobriety.

It's been pretty easy to ignore the seriousness of how much I've been drinking until lately. Somehow managing to be a decent wife, mom, and full-time college student while also drinking a half of a fifth of vodka almost nightly has served as positive reinforcement for a terrible habit. Although, if I am totally honest with myself, I would have to painfully admit that I missed two days of clinicals (ironically enough, I am going into an allied health field while destroying my own health) because of a weekend bender, and I have gone to class hungover more times than I can remember. I usually don't remember going to bed each night. I am a complete mess, but I am pretty good at hiding it.

In the last few weeks, I have gotten red, burning, itchy, dry patches of skin right under each eye. At first, I blamed it on something new I used to remove my eye makeup, but I am beginning to think it is my system screaming at me for drenching it with alcohol every night. It's probably not a coincidence that my eyes feel and look much better on the rare mornings following a sober night. Also, I have been dealing with an annoyingly itchy patch of what I think is seborrheic dermatitis or psoriasis on the back of my head for the last several months. A few times, I have gotten a mild case of hives on my chest after a night of heavy drinking. I've never had problems with my skin before, but it seems that my skin is leading a revolt against me. I'm in my early 30's, but even my smile lines have been looking extra wrinkly lately.

Dr. Google is leading me to believe that the skin problems are outward manifestations of my liver getting angry about getting soaked with liquor for the last few years. Apparently, alcoholics have a high occurrence of psoriasis and the like because of the autoimmune problems caused by chronic alcohol use.

I've been in denial about my drinking affecting my health, but I can't deny any longer that these skin issues are probably directly related to alcohol abuse.

I'm not sure if I'm willing to go to AA or not, so I just thought I'd start here. I've lurked in the past, but now I need some serious support. I don't want my little girl to grow up with a rotten alcoholic for a mom, and I don't want to kill my liver. I probably need that thing.