I may have drinking problems

I think you need to talk to a professional. Go to a doctor, talk to them about anxiety and depression, get a referral for a therapist if you can. Alcohol won't help to solve any of your problems, it will just make things worse.

You are not being annoying whatsoever, you are being honest and you write well, unlike the crap in some other journals here. You already have friends here, it doesn't matter whether we are on a website or in front of you in the physical world. Most people have neither. A person is lucky if they have one true friend in their lifetime. So if you're still young, you certainly are overthinking things and you will find friends you want it or not.

Having worked with patients with substance abuse issues, it does sound like you are struggling with alcoholism.

Friendship is an active process, and the effort should be mutual. You have to reach out, sometimes for no good reason at all.

I randomly called up two of my colleagues last night, and we're having sushi for lunch together.

Don't feel nervous about posting stuff like this. If this feels like a safe space to vent, then that's great!
It's certainly not a good sign if the police are being called, and try not to allow yourself to let this become normal.

It can feel insurmountable to climb out of a pit once you find yourself in it, but it is possible. I had a colleague in a terrible situation, entirely self-inflicted through his cocaine habit. He lost all his friends, he lost his job and he regularly got himself beaten up by talking shit when wasted. Ultra self-destructive.
He disappeared into rehab for a few months, and honestly I stopped thinking about him. Saw him again maybe 8 months later and I didn't even recognise him. There was colour in his face again! He was smiling! That was around 2018, and I now see him semi-regularly as he got another job in the same industry, so we cross paths. He's still clean, he's still happy and he just looks so much healthier.

He was properly at rock bottom, and he got out with some professional help. It can be a really good option, and there are some truly fantastic services who can help.

Do you have family you can talk to about this stuff?

You'll be okay, mate, and it's a good thing that you've recognised how bad your drinking has gotten.

Penguinboy's advice is great.

I reconnected with a Japanese acquaintance from my uni days, and thanks to that I have had two of the best months of my life down in Malta. It is easy to be pessimistic about how people feel about you, but in my experience, a lot of people are happy to see you again even when you doubt they will be. So if you've made ,any kind of connection to someone in the past, don't hesitate to reach out to them, they'll probably be happy to hear that you are thinking about them, and if not you'll find out and no real harm done

My brother worries constantly about how people think about him and gets stuck when he makes "mistakes" in conversations despite being smart, caring, polite, good looking. Sometimes the only thing holding you back is being afraid of making a mistake. Please forgive yourself if you fuck up, it's no big deal my friend

My favorite quote:
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett

Now that i also think about it and look back, i never had any actual friends in my life.

This is how I feel. There are exactly 3 people I look forward to when I see them in college. Two I see several times a week, one only during the exams. But are they really "actual friends"? I don't know. Quite simply, I don't know. Maybe it's because I just have very little time before I gotta catch the bus, so I don't get to hang out with them long enough to really do some fun stuff, like I dunno, shopping or something.

It's a different story online, however, that's irrelevant.
But yeah, I just wanted to say you're not alone in this feeling of loneliness. Please though, do not drink. Try to, over time, cut off alcohol entirely, it's pure evil what it does to your body. I mean, you're already witnessing it.

Overthinking has probably been the source of most times I've felt down. I've rarely felt sad because something bad happened, but rather because I let my intrusive thoughts take over my mind. Don't let that happen. I had a terrible episode of overthinking in December, because I felt ever so slightly jealous of someone. The weather being cold and cloudy all the time didn't help either, stuff was just mega dull and depressing. Through careful venting (not to get overly negative in front of people) and, among other things, a bit of perseverance, I managed to get through.

We all have our own demons, you know. The greatest fight an individual can have is with oneself, and you're having one right now. You can win it, and I don't doubt you will.

Don't underestimate the power of online acquaintances. This is what sustained us socially through the initial stage of the pandemic.

Have you considered *Rotary Clubs*?

If that's directed to me, do not worry. The reason I haven't gone insane yet is because of my online friends. They're just a lot more relatable than 95% of people I know IRL. My main issue with people I physically see every day is that we have no common interests, or if we do, they're too far away and they're not online very much.

I must warn you, a medium-sized rant/vent is incoming. Nobody's under any obligation to read anything I wrote below. I made sure to highlight some important parts in bold.

My family is all about land, cattle, working around the house and in their free time, they like to imperatively narrate my actions or just criticise the same thing for the 900th time. Example: while I cook, sometimes a teeny tiny bit of some ingredient falls on the floor, and just when I pick it up to throw it in the trash, Mum says "Throw that in the trash now". Jesus, woman, I know. You're needlessly wasting your breath. You really think I'd pick something up from the floor to eat it? - every time this happens, I'm moments away from saying something like that but very harsh.

It's merely one of the issues I have with my parents. Why can't my parents simply treat me like they treat other people in their life, i.e. with respect and sane assumptions? It really feels like playing a game that has a bug and never turned off the "tutorial mode" where EVERY time you do something, you get a popup on how to do it.

Naturally, because of that, I don't even talk to them all that much. The only interaction I have with them is the usual micro-talk (e.g. after breakfast, Mum asks me & my bro if we ate well... I hate that so much because it's so damn repetitive), or informing them I'll be going outside for a walk, or debating/arguing about my life decisions, which they naturally heavily disagree with. When they ask me why I don't talk to them much, and I say the exact reasons, the whole conversation becomes yet another pointless argument where both parties never reach an agreement. Usually their argument is that their parents treated them the same, or it's something they personally disagree with based on some dogma, usually influenced by religion. These problems will end once I move into a place of my own. I can't stand them, yet I have no other choice.

Thankfully, other family members are not annoying whatsoever. My brother, cousins, grandparents, they're alright. I like spending time with them.
Now, onto people I see other than my family: college friends. They're alright. We study software engineering, but honestly, most of them are more meant for marketing, or will end up working as teachers. Nobody has any interest in gamedev, maybe except two people, but that's fine! My problem here is that I'd love to hang out with these folks, but I physically can't. I'm too far away from them.

I'm too far away from the people I like, and too close to the people I'm not at all interested in. That puts me in quite a nasty situation, because I don't have a job, and thus no money to actually move out. That may change this year, so I should become a little happier I hope. But you know who's always close to me? That's right, online people. Not even close friends, keep in mind. Random people in a public Discord server also count, and most voice chats in my experience have been very fun. I feel safe and comfortable around those people. We have common interests, and most importantly they treat me with a whole lot more respect than the two I have to deal with every day (my parents).

I should've maybe written all of this in a journal of its own, but I'm sorry, the closer I am to finally solving some of these issues, the less I can afford to contain them. I got to experience the 10 days away from my parents, with my significant other, and the temptation to just run away from "home" is sweeter than ever before, but I must resist it for now. I don't want to do something stupid based on emotions, kinda like I did now.

I apologise to Jamie for derailing the journal's comments section.

No need to apologize. I live on the other side of the coin--my son is 16, and I am the parent.

I was a micromanager back in 2020, but I've learned my ways and I pretty much leave my son alone. Back in 2022, I went to the extreme on the other end--I barely acknowledged his existence. I stopped talking to him completely, and I simply provided room and board so he doesn't die.

I believe I struck a happy medium now, talking to him regularly without annoying him. I don't ask him to practice violin anymore, and I certainly don't force him to read Chinese books with me.

Perhaps one day he will regret it, but he can never say that I didn't try to put him on the right path.

The hardest thing about parenting is to watch your children fail and not say a word.

Parenting is quite a learning process for both parties involved. The most important thing I learned about my parents is, in Mum's own words: "I didn't know better", when I once criticised her parenting. The convo went something like this:

Her: "You should know how MY parents treated ME!"
Me: "Oh yeah? Is that an EXCUSE to treat your kids the same way?"
Her: ...
Me: "Is that... a valid excuse?"
Her: "I didn't know better."

Soon after that, she started to cry, and I'm hoping she took a moment or two to think about things during that pause. For me it was a bit eye-opening: if you're used to a system where discipline equals violence (physical and verbal), and the one above you is always & always right, and one day you finally step into power, you'd never actually think what you're doing is wrong.

The hardest thing about parenting is to watch your children fail and not say a word.

I once tried to tell my mum that she shouldn't run away from this inevitable thing. I told her I don't like her micro nanomanaging, and that I just want her to stop reminding me of the most basic and common-sense things that I already know. She essentially told me "But I don't want you to make mistakes and suffer because of them", and what I told her (I believe) gave her a slightly new perspective:

"If you don't let me suffer right now, I'll suffer a lot more later in life because I won't have learnt how to deal with it."

And you can't just teach someone to deal with failure without them ever experiencing it.
Irrational fear of failure guarantees it later on.

Either way, I am glad to hear you've found some balance, especially that early on. It'll take me and my parents maybe a couple more years to reach it, but I imagine once I move out, they'll realise I can do fine on my own and our relationship will improve. Maybe. I hope.

Maybe this is not a proper question, but how old are you? What are your hobbies? What do you like to do regularly? Are you in college? Sometimes the social medium we spend our times in is quite important.

In my experience, three of the most damaging or constructive aspects to a social life are fear, ego and perfectionism.

Fear - to avoid social interactions because they might disturb your feeling of being safe, or might reveal a face of yourself you didn't even know you had. How many times do we tell ourselves that we'd handle well a situation, or we'd do the right thing, or that we'd never treat badly a person? Unfortunately, social situations puts that to a test. And it is probably healthier to expect that not everything can go to plan and that you can't 100% satisfy everyone. We might also form an idea in our head of who we are, and again that is put to a test in social interactions and we might dread the moment that image could be shattered. Fear of being hurt, fear of not knowing how to handle a situation... Fear is also a good thing by keeping us away from a dangerous situation. Fear has many aspects. It's what makes us avoid, but it also keeps us safe.

Ego - now I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know very well the definitions, the difference between ego, personality etc. But I think we each have a sense of what our ego is. I'm a firm believer of balance, or at least knowing what the balance is and juggling the extremes on an informed basis. Ego is that "me" feeling, the strive for appreciation, being proud, working on yourself, taking care of yourself, self-respect, forming and projecting an image of yourself, protecting your way of life and integrating every new experience into 'your way'. If ego was rated on a scale, at one end I think it would be egotistical behavior and at the other we'd have altruistic, sacrificial behavior. Sacrificial behavior could probably bring you many friends in the short term, but in the end you could end up being resentful, or even worse - loose the respect of your friends. Egotistical behavior could bring you admiration in the short term, and quite possibly even respect if you really put in the work in your area of interest. But in the long run, friends will figure you out and will start avoiding you by seeing you as a nuisance that requires constant attention. Ego is a delicate balance. It's that wall of resistance we put forth in our interactions with the others. A strong wall will prompt people to admire it for a little while and then go away, and a weak one will invite everybody to piss on it.

Perfectionism - ah, our good ol' friend. The source of all procrastination. The mother of the undone. If we combine perfectionism with a good dose of fear and ego - we have the perfect concoction for social isolation -> because perfectionism doesn't function only in our work, but also in our social choosing. It goes something like this: "I don't like that person because he/she doesn't like what I like" or "Pff, she's a cat person, I'm a dog person!" or "I just don't understand how he can wear those clothes" or "how can this friend still be religious in the era of science" or "this guy listens to Joe Rogan, what a boomer!" or "she's too leftist for me" etc. The thing is, at the other end would be sloppiness or excessive casualness. Paradoxically, a high dose of perfectionism will trigger fear doing anything, essentially making us sloppy in our work. Of course, socially this could mean befriending people from any category: even morally questionable ones. So perfectionism-casualness is another scale we need a balance on. Perfectionism is our social filter.

But these are our own internal parameters which we can adjust through experience. These parameters have been largely formed through our childhood, but they can change. That's why, supposedly, we're more intelligent than other primates. It's obvious that we also need a terrain, a field, an arena - where we can put these parameters to a test and then go back to the drawing board.

It's not easy being in a position with few friends, but it's also what you make of it. Keep your chin up, smile, and do the next step you see in front of you. Have a welcoming stance with anyone, learn from everybody, and expect nothing in return. Also keep in mind that we learn our whole life.
Adults look like adults, but are in reality mostly the same kids inside with more sophisticated ways of social behavior.

There's not really any advice we can give you on making friends. However, if they aren't calling you after two or three weeks, call them. The only way to keep friends is to put an effort into it. If you aren't calling them, they might start to think that you don't care.
Judging from the posts you make on this site, you are pretty deep into the modding. This is actually more of a benefit than you would think because it makes you interesting without tying up a conversation. That's mainly because people will find it interesting but at the same time, it's a little too complex to go into detail about. Trust me, I know.
The honest truth is that whether you're being honest about yourself and your issues or not, whatever you're doing is probably the problem. You can't throw yourself at people, but at the same time, you can't be reclusive, either. I have similar issues, although almost certainly not on the same level as you. I am tactless, I will ignore social cues, and I will be generally unlikable to new people. But I have still managed to gain friends. Hell, maybe communities like this are what you need. The only difference between an in-person friend and an internet friend is what resolution you see them at. I'm a big part of the LambdaGeneration community and it's very rewarding.
My point is that all you need is to consider your approach. And as stereotypical as that advice sounds, it wouldn't be a stereotype if it wasn't true. Here, if you really need someone to talk to, consider DMming me on Discord. I'm CaptainQuirk26#9013.