I hope everyone is doing wonderfully today. I have also been posting on another AA related forum and have received some slighty confusing feedback. Some of the members of that group had hinted one has to evaluate wether he/she is truly an alcoholic or if he/she has a drinking problem. While a few days back I was relatively certain I suffer from alcoholism, the attitude of some has forced me to consider, rather, I have a drinking "problem". The generalized basis for these feelings stem from the fact that I do not feel every aspect of my life to be in shambles and I don't always feel a compulsive urge to drink. I simply can trace back all of the "negatives" in my life back to a bottle or a bottle related circumstance. Also, I feel in my heart I could, if not proactive now, slip into a situation where this was a disease. To shorten my post I developed a question that will greatly impact my action over the next several weeks. If one was to conclue he/she has a drinking problem and does not suffer from alcoholism, does that mean that he/she does not belong here. Does it mean that aspects of AA would not be helpful to one with a drinking "problem" as opposed to a "disease"? Or even, if he/she has not reached a dire straits situation with/because of alcohol, are they not worth the support of others with the same goal of turning their backs on alcohol like it has so often done to all of us?
I was once told by my "alcoholism" counselor that he felt if he ever met a man that would be able to "figure it all out" it might have been me. I laugh now at myself when I watch other analyzers try to "figure this all out". I was also told that if I had to do all the thinking the chance were that I wasn't an alcoholic.
I've heard that it's called alcohol "ISm" not alcohol "WASm" and I am glad for all of the input I've received including the definition for the disease...compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body which can never be cure and only arrested by total abstinence." It took me 9 years (alcohol free years) in the program before I got to my own personal assessment which contained events and consequences regarding my drinking that objectively described my condition as alcoholic. I was 9 years alcohol free and my life was soooo much different and better as a result of the meetings and steps, traditions, slogans, concepts, sponsorship etc etc and not drinking (which would have ceased the entire recovery process). The result of the assessment took me into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and made my membership a dual membership. Why AA after 9 years of no drinking? That aspect of this disease which affects my mind, body, spirit and emotions and can result in relapse. That part of the assessment that brought me into the rooms of AA...I've experienced toxic shock on several occasions (3X) overdose. My own investigations (The program/rooms of recovery and college) tell me that if I go back out...I will not enter the practice as where I started but where I left off. Question...I left off at toxic shock; my body has been clean and free of alcohol for 30+ plus years; If I drink again will I survive it or the shock be too much more greater? Any answer to that question to me is moot as I don't do anything and I do as much as I can so that the event will not ever happen. I am convinenced.
If the spiritual 12step 12tradition program of Alcoholics Anonymous is having a profound positive affect on your life for the better...what is the question again?
-- Edited by Jerry F on Tuesday 6th of October 2009 02:43:48 PM
It sounds to me that you are familiar with AA. We come to AA for a reason we have problems with our drinking. While you may not have hit "dire straits", you may hit a bottom that you do not want to hit later on in your life. People in AA have all different typs of "bottoms" they have hit. Some are divorce, loss of job, death, death of someone else from drinking and driving. A person does not have to have terrible things in their lives happen to hit bottom. If you want to find your bottom stop digging. Alcoholism is the only disease that is self diagnosed by ones own suffering. If you are questioning yourself, I would have to say that there might be some sort of problem. I questioned myself for many years but continued to drink and ended up with two DUI's in 18 months. I am now grateful for those DUI's and somehow chose that to be my bottom. If I continued to drink and drive who knows what might of happened: another DUI, killing someone or even killing myself. There are functioning alcoholics, which means they have not suffered and great loss. Have you ever heard of "YET" it means "you're eligible too". The things that you have talked about that haven't happened to you may one day happen. If a person admits they have a drinking problem and attends AA alot of tragic things in there life can be avoided, but remember whether drinking or not drinking at all, life does continue to happen. Allow me to be honest with you. If you are questioning whether or not you are an alcoholic chances are, you are. Something has had to happen to drive you to these forums to get others opinions and maybe you are looking for an answer that you want to hear, such as: you are not an alcoholics. You have come here for a reason and you are looking for an answer(s). I wish you the best of luck. Going to AA and living a good life is not the worst thing in the world you know. In fact I think that you will find that you wish you would have done it long before now.
I found it helpful to read carefully the first two and a half pages of Chapter 3 "More About Alcoholism" in BB, particularly on page 31, "Here are some of the methods we have tried:"(to control drinking). There is even a suggested test for alcoholism if you are not already convinced(by reading in the BB up to that point). I think these thoughts and more are summarized neatly in a pamphlet also.
I came into the program willingly, without a dramatic individual instance of bottom or unmanageability. Other than the fact that I was living with unbearable fear and anxiety and exhaughsted from that. I had a breakthough which I now credit to my HP, while reading some material about freedom from alcoholism. Over a 24hour period I recognized that I had been concerned about my drinking and how it was affecting my life for at least a couple of years. I had tried many different modes of self-help and therapy to fix what I felt was problematic for me in my life. I'm not sure when exactly using the alcohol became a central issue, but on 5/30/09 I realized that nothing, no therapy or life situation would change anything until I addressed my drinking. I became sober that day, and I now am grateful to squarely call myself an alcoholic who does not drink.
I also think that AA has a bounty to offer that is truly amazing. This program works and on so many levels for all of us, who come here as individuals in very diverse ways, but can find commonality so easily, if we are open to it. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Welcome from me!!!
PS to anyone- I wanted to add that I read a section in BB yesterday that clearly identifies four stages of drinking levels. It was written for families of the alcoholic. I found it interesting to read it as "the drinker". But it's really meant to help the non-drinker living with the alcoholic.
-- Edited by angelov8 on Tuesday 6th of October 2009 03:46:46 PM
I just went back and read your first Post on September 28th. and without trying to repeat some of the things that you said, just thought i would copy and paste here. - - - - - - - - - Hello, I am in my mid 20's and have decided i need to take a look at AA. This is my first post. I'm not really sure if I need to go to meetings or not yet and thought maybe the online atmosphere might be helpful. I have for almost 10 years been the "life of the party" among friends. While, I don't have an issue with how often I drink, I have recognized I have a severe problem with consuming too much when I do. Almost a year ago I was arrested for Public Intoxication and a few years before that I wrecked a car while drunk. (No charges were filed on that incident) Lately I feel terrible when I drink, both emotionally and physically...usually very disappointed in my decision. Anyways, I am ready to accept I cannot be a social drinker or a drinker of any sort for that matter. Does anyone have some advice for me as a newbie? Also, any others in there 20's that might have things in common? Thanks!
So Braggheim, what has changed in the days since posted, this note about on the first day you came to introduce yourself. You stated you feel terrible when you drink, and most importantly, that you cannot control your drinking after having one drink.
Wrecking a car while drunk and being arrested for Public Intoxication. Sounds like they both qualify to be in the "bottom" catagory to me anyway.
One thing that someone wrote in this thread, jumped off the page, and that is PEOPLE THAT DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ALCOHOL, NEVER WONDER WHETHER THEY DO.
I am sure at your very young age it might be difficult to grasp that you have your whole life ahead of you, and perhaps you see that as sort of a negative, as in 'WOW, I won't be able to drink again, if I am an Alcoholic". Personally I would make a parralel statement to you, if you were diagnosed with another disease, Diabetes, early Carcinoma of some kind, and you would have to be on medication for your whole life to stay in remission, and the good news was that if you followed the medication for remission, you could live a long and very happy life, without question, would you be so questioning about the medication for treatment.
Just some questions and food for thought. "It is an inside Job" that is for darn sure. Only you know the answers inside for yourself. Just remember that this Disease has with it as part of the compulsion, just a way of planting in our minds that, Oh well it wasn't that bad, or I not as bad as some of the other things that i have read about. Well my take is that from the Body of what I copied, my vote on the issue, is that with the two very glaring things, Public Intoxication and wrecking a Car while drunk, do you really really really really really wonder if you should go back to drinking.
Also want to add, that because of your young age, the way I see that, iS you are one lucky ducky to have caught it this early.
I hope, and I Pray too, that you will just really stop in silence and ask yourself - what are your options, to continue drinking..... or surrendering.......
there was a signature for a long time on this Board, that was awesome............"we must surrender to win"
A Big hug to you, feel for you in your stuggle here, but hope we will continue seeing you here as one of our new brothers. The Disease of Alcoholism is not gender biased, and also never has been age biased either.
I may be way off base here, but I have to wonder if this might just be your feeling good about yourself because you succeeded in not drinking this past weekend at the bar. I'm not trying to me mean or brash, but I hear the disease of addiction speaking loud and clear. When I first started AA I did the same thing. I found someone who told me that I wasn't an alcoholic, just a "problem drinker" For me, that was permission to keep going, because the really bad stuff only happens to alcoholics. Guess what? Within 3 years all the bad stuff happened, and many more things that were much worse. I scoffed at all the people in AA anytime they mentioned the word "yet", but here I am. What I thought was only "problem drinking" was just me crossing over the line into full blown alcoholism. Only you can answer the question. Others advice and opinions are fine, but you need to start with your self. Oh, and by the way, the guy that told me I only had a drinking problem died 2 years later from dt's while trying to detox, for what it's worth. Brian
Hey Braggheim thanks for this. There's a tiny part of me that still doesn't want to believe that I'm an alcoholic. That of course, in my case, is my pride and ego.
There's a saying I've heard a few times that I find really helpful when I think like that: "it's better to be in the rooms pretending to be an alcoholic than on a barstool pretending not to be."
Also, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. It's doesn't say anywhere that you *have* to be alcoholic, or even, strictly speaking that you have stopped drinking. Just a desire to step drinking.
In my case, drinking has caused me so much horror and pain that, whatever the label I apply to myself, I have that desire to stop drinking.
While a few days back I was relatively certain I suffer from alcoholism, the attitude of some has forced me to consider, rather, I have a drinking "problem".
I'd say that alcoholism is a drinking problem as well as a living problem.
The generalized basis for these feelings stem from the fact that I do not feel every aspect of my life to be in shambles and I don't always feel a compulsive urge to drink. I simply can trace back all of the "negatives" in my life back to a bottle or a bottle related circumstance.
well that's simple enough, all the negatives stem from a bottle.
Also, I feel in my heart I could, if not proactive now, slip into a situation where this was a disease.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease. You can arrest the progress at any point you want, or you can continue and get all the yets.
To shorten my post I developed a question that will greatly impact my action over the next several weeks. If one was to conclue he/she has a drinking problem and does not suffer from alcoholism, does that mean that he/she does not belong here.
The ONLY requiremetn for membershiop is a desire to stop drinking. There might be many people in AA who do not consider themselves to truely be an acloholic but recognise that I simply can trace back all of the "negatives" in my life back to a bottle or a bottle related circumstance. Sound familiar?
Does it mean that aspects of AA would not be helpful to one with a drinking "problem" as opposed to a "disease"?
Aspects of AA help anyone willing to learn - ref: AlAnon!
Or even, if he/she has not reached a dire straits situation with/because of alcohol, are they not worth the support of others with the same goal of turning their backs on alcohol like it has so often done to all of us?
C'mon everyone is worthy of support. How low do you want to go before you accept the help and support. This is a downward spiral that ends in Insanity, Incarceration and ultimately in the grave. Step of the treadmill early, you lucky young feller.
Braggheim
Basically, it sounds like you had a good time in a wet place, think you can control it and are now gearing up to go for a drunk. Go to meetings, talk to sponsor, work the steps>
Oh by the way, when I came into AA I had a drinking problem. I had that drinking problem for several months until I learnt and proved to myself that my drinking problem was alcoholism. I was a binger, but gradually the binges got closer until life was one long binge. I too could look back and see that almost all of my problems were bottle related and the ones that weren't sure weren't helped by the bottle. Yes, I had some good drinking days but it wasn't long before I was chasing the buzz that I never got. Basically I got to the stage where I had no control of my actions after the first drink. I didn't lose my licence, I didn't go to prison, I didn't lose my job, there are so many yets to come. I don't want them. My bottom might be higher or lower than others. It hurt enough for me and that's all that matters.
-- Edited by bikerbill on Wednesday 7th of October 2009 03:51:36 AM
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
There's a saying I've heard a few times that I find really helpful when I think like that: "it's better to be in the rooms pretending to be an alcoholic than on a barstool pretending not to be."
SteveP,
I really find this a helpful phrase. I will write this down and read it often.
Toni,
Thanks again for a response filled with love and support. To answer your question of what has changed over the last few days, it was mainly some of the feelings I was having based on some replies on another website. I really had been hit with the attitude of unless I was a complete wreck of a drunk I didn't belong with members of AA. I know today that I will have to take posts with a grain of salt and pick out the good from the bad. I suppose I'll have good days and bad with this for many many years. P.S. I don't view 26 as so young. It seems rather, I am much too old to continue making bad decisions and drinking like a frat boy!
Reffner,
I can just say that i appreciate what you are pointing out and I'll take it under consideration. I don't feel I was happy about "surviving" a night at the bar as much as happy at the realization that I still enjoy my friends minus the liquid buffer. Thanks for pointing out that possiblity though.
To all,
I don't want anyone to feel from my posts that I am trying to hide from a problem or even justify ways in which I may not be an alcoholic. I'm simply trying to get to know everyone and get some answers to questions along the way. I truly don't feel my drinking is at the level many of you have described and I may (used loosely) not need AA. What I do know is my drinking has hit a level that I am uncomfortable with and for that reason alone I will continue to learn how to "beat" the disease and grow as a person with the program. Belong or not I'm gonna hang around and stay sober. Thanks for caring.
Belong or not I'm gonna hang around and stay sober. Thanks for caring.
Stick around, like it says the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. The programme and the stuff I've learnt in the fellowship has been and still is the best stuff I've had since birth.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
"Belong or not I'm gonna hang around and stay sober. Thanks for caring."
Your last words felt just like a little music playing in these ears.
By the way, when you said 20s, I thought I read early 20's, my error.
Just want to add, that when I still had so much to lose, my own husband would say to me ALL the time, "Toni, you drink too much, when you drink, just cut down, and I DON'T think you are a real Alcoholic". I do believe that most, well in my case anyway, I would take the easier softer way anytime, or my disease sure wanted that, in those compulsives voices that agreed with everyword he said.
So now to a little levity, if you have a jar of Pickles in your house, if not, as an experiment, you might want to buy one. And everyday, go to the frig. and look at those pickles, and ask yourself, if you think you could ever turn one of those Pickles back into a cucumber.
I have always had a fondness for that saying "Once a pickle, cannot go back to being a cucumber" It makes it so easy to understand. And when the day comes when anyone cannot control the amount of alcohol that goes in them, after the first drink, they have become the proverbial Pickle.
When we are heavy drinkers, there comes this day that the ability to stop simply vanishes, and we chase that desire to go back to having control over the next drink, and to that great high that we use to have too, but for most of us, it never happens, and then the diagnosis of BECOMING an Alcoholic.....is now a fact, not fiction.
Just so darn happy that you have made a decision to stick around, and in the Meetings think you will discover so much about this awesome Program.
I was once told by my "alcoholism" counselor that he felt if he ever met a man that would be able to "figure it all out" it might have been me. I laugh now at myself when I watch other analyzers try to "figure this all out". I was also told that if I had to do all the thinking the chance were that I wasn't an alcoholic.
-- Edited by Jerry F on Tuesday 6th of October 2009 02:43:48 PM
Funny, when I heard this I was told that if I have to do all that thinking chances are I AM an alcoholic??? Well, whatever, I don't know any 'problem drinkers', 'Heavy drinkers', or binge drinkers who constantly question their drinking EXCEPT those who come into the rooms of AA, and I firmly believe that No-one gets here by accident or by mistake. I came in and out the doors for 7 years before suddenly reaising I am an alcoholic, and thankfuly, I was taught how to live in the solution rather than the problem.
In the words of one of my fave Shirley Bassey songs - I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses.....and I am what I am because I SAY I AM. I sponsored a girl a few years ago who tried her damndest to convince ME I wasn't really an alcoholic, turns out I was not in a position to sponsor someone at the time, since she ALMOST convinced me, I was asking myself ; 'Hey, she could be right you know' and thank God I spoke to MY sponsor who quickly sorted me out and I had to end the sponsorship relationship until I was strong enough in recovery to see that what she was saying was absolute blarney.
AA doesn't say you have to be an alcoholic to join us, the preamble says the ONLY requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, and this could be any drinker who is sick of getting into trouble everytime they drink, even if they are a problem/bout drinker.
-- Edited by Avril G on Wednesday 7th of October 2009 11:41:25 AM
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
Heya Braggheim. Like I said before in other posts...what you are doing is a great thing and will stop you from having more of those "Yets." I was a problem binge drinker for a long time and then just over a year period it did get to the point of drinking every other day, then every day...blah blah you know the rest. My thoughts on the matter are if you are the type of drinker that drinks to get smashed and things go out of control, it is alcoholism lying in wait to get worse and worse. It took me 20 years of drinking to get to the point of surrender and things were soooo bad then. I just pray that you never have to go through it. A dirt low rock bottom is not a requirement for AA...Like Bikerbill said "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." I strongly feel "problem drinking" is a misnomer for alcoholism in denial or alcoholism that has yet to progress to complete insanity. Who knows when it will happen...but it will. So, I do read a healthy fear of alcoholism in your writing and that is what I would stick with.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Boy, have I wrestled with the heavy drinker/alcoholic debate...lol. Like you, I'm in my mid 20's (26) and have faced the fact that my drinking has gone way beyond frat-boy standards, or any other semi-acceptable heavy drinking norm. I too got in a car wreck because i was drunk and sped off without charges. I too got arrested for PI about 1 and a half years ago. Always in the wake of such incidents or any other horrible blackout violence, I am convinced that I am not just a heavy drinker but indeed alcoholic. If sufficient time passes between "incidents" the question arises in my head- "Has this all been blown out of proportion? Let's just calm the rhetoric down a little"......Fact is, not everyone in AA is "alcoholic", but that distinction can be quite small imo, and really does it matter? If you want help with your drinking then by all means seek out whatever means you want. Having been on your side of this conversation on more than one occasion, I can tell you that drinking despite fairly serious consequences (arrests, car accidents, violence, etc) doesn't really suggest much other than drinking still outweighs the risks, in your mind.
I haven't read the other responses, so forgive me if i am repeating something-
Alcoholism isn't defined by ones' "incidents". If when you start drinking you can't stop, then that is more than "heavy drinking". If one keeps drinking despite repeated consequences, then that is also more than "heavy drinking". I don't always crave alcohol, but I do crave it and that is the important part.
I know that I'm an alcoholic...ya know how I know for sure? Because despite all I've told you, and despite all MY consequences (jail 2x, hospital, rehab) I'm still drinking.
