Just a random post. I was talking to my boyfriend the other day who is also in the program. We are both a little over 2 years sober. I said "yeah I wish I could drink socially like other people." Well after giving it some thought and being the alcoholic that I am I realize that I really don't wish to drink socially. I want to drink and drink and drink till there is no more lol. I was finally honest with myself. I know that I am an alcoholic and can not pick up that first one. But to kid myself and think it would be nice to drink socially is nothing more then a lie. Not sure why that was important thing to realize but for me it is. I have the disease of MORE and have to be careful and honest with my self.
Yep, I have no desire to drink socially either. In fact, I really do enjoy drinking socially with other people now as long as my drinks don't contain alcohol. It doesn't matter to me what theirs have in them.
Susie, Those "aha" moments are very important, I think, and obviously this one was significant to you: It got your attention. I used to think I wanted to drink socially, too, but I suspect I was long for the ambience and the romance more than anything. Truth is that I never drank for the taste or the plasure. I drank to get drunk, and I could not see any other reason to drink.
Those words and thoughts of drinking like a normal person dont invade my thoughts, have not for a long time..
With my history and a quick flashback to the Disease taking me into the gutter, all I have seen on liquor bottles for many years, is that Skull and Crossbone that you see on all poisons.
An if that thought entered my mind today, if would be the scariest thought I can imagine....like a good healthy fear of a disease that only wants to see our dimise.
Good that you caught it.....Our Spiritual condition, is what keeps the demon, Alcohol away, just one day at a time....Our Higher Power, whom I choose to call GOD, is the only Power that is stronger that the cunning and baffling, and very powerful disease of Alcoholism....
So good to see you Posting today, and thanks for the Honesty :)...........Very Honestly..:)
I have tried many times after being clean a little thinking "I can handle just one" my last "one" ended up being a month long bender. Thank GOD for AA and all of you people! 3 weeks sober tomorrow!
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Hey Susie -- can totally relate. I still feel from time to time that I can go to the pub and have just one. Even though I cannot consciously remember ever having just one in a pub. "This time it will be different". Uh huh.
I don't feel that today, as like you, I'm honest with myself today. But if I don't work my program, that feeling just is waiting for me outside.
Thanks for sharing, it's good to know that I am not the only one who feels that sometimes!
Social drinking?? OH YEAH - I remember that now, that was when I was out drinking with friends and when someone said, 'I'll have another drink' I would say, 'Yeah SO SHALL I' Nothing social about THAT drinking eh?
If someone was to approach me today and say, 'HEY AVRIL, Great news - take this pill, just one a day, and you will be able to go out and have a couple of drinks and not get into any bad shit, how about it?' I would have to (NO, not HAVE to, but would WANT to) say 'NO THANK YOU'
WHY on earth would I want to do that when I have a life beyond my wildest dreams by comparison? And WHY is it so? Because I have a LARGE group of friends, worldwide who KNOW me, UNDERSTAND me and CARE about me, even those I have never met in real life. If this new pill allowed me to drink 'socially' I would have no need for AA anymore, and my GOD how I would miss y'all.
Stopping drinking isn't ALL sobriety and contented living entails is it? Drink played a small part in my addicition you know, and it took AA and all the wonderful friends I have found in the rooms to teach me how to live life on life's terms.
SOBRIETY VS controlled drinking is a no brainer for me, I am happy to say.
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Serenity is Wanting what you have, not having what you want
Always remember non-alcoholic beers are for NON-ALCOHOLICS
I sooo agree with you Avril......Life is so good I would not dream of messin it up again. With Gods grace and AA I will follow the path he leads me on!!!
Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.
We are like men who have lost their legs; they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We have tried every imaginable remedy. In some instances there has been brief recovery, followed always by a still worse relapse. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet.
This says it all for me. Any kind of thinking about just one reminds me of this great message in our book that we read in our local meetings. When it comes to alcohol the wires in my head sometimes short-circuit and tell me I'm not alcoholic and that just one sounds like a darn good idea! Delusional, yes. Insane, yes. Guess I am an alcoholic. Glad I'm here!
I remember thinking recently- "If I could have just 6 or 8 whiskeys or beers, well that'd be ok. That wouldn't wreck anything." Well, the thing is we have lost perspective on what is too much, at least I have. 6 or 8 drinks is "controlled" for us but in fact, that is enough alcohol to double the legal BAC limit. So at least in legal terms that is still "too much". Social drinking stopped for me when I started getting arrested in bars and started coming out of blackouts in the middle of the countryside not knowing where I was. Inevitably, I would cause or escalate a shouting match or violence...social drinking never ended socially for me. I too never wanted to have just a few. It's all or nothing- that goes with about everything else in my life.
