Since I initially got sober in 1992 I "relapsed" twice
Something I kept hearing in the rooms was my alcoholism always progressed whether I kept drinking or not. That if I picked up a drink, I would immediately be as badly off as the days before I quit.
This was not my experience.
Now I have seen hundreds of alcoholics where that was exactly their experience, they were completely out of control within 3 days.
For me, the progression started slowly, but within a period of time I was in the inexorable grip of alcoholism. I believe, as per my experience, that it was in fact the first drink that set up the obsession of the mind and the phenomenon of craving, the first time I put alcohol to my lips 30 days went by before my second drink, but the allergy and obsession had been triggered.
With all the will power at my command I couldn't stop taking that drink at 30 days though. The next at 15 days, the next at a week, within a few months it was a few times a week, it took 6 months before I got drunk, but at one year I was right back where I had been all those years before.
It took a year before I started drinking "alcoholically", before I lost control, whereas when I came into the the program I had been drinking suicidally for 12 years, I had been completely out of control for 12 years.
The second time I drank I stopped after 6-8 months, and frankly I had a miracle take place because I had divine intervention, literally, I had something take place where I was able to stop within 10 days of thinking to myself "I think I better stop" because I saw my future. I only felt the first nip of the wringer and something took place where the compulsion to drink was removed from me and I was able to begin attending meetings.
Although I had begun to drink every day, regardless of the promises I had begun to make to myself on many mornings, the full blown insanity and loss of control, while looming and beginning to make it's appearances, hadn't begun yet, but I started to see the tell tale signs and symptoms we all know so well.
The occasional loss of control, the occasional going out for one or two and staying out until one or two.
This always bothered me, because something spouted as gospel in meetings just wasn't true in my case. I didn't drink and all the sudden lose my mind and take up with fast women and dance naked on the bar and buy drugs, as a matter of fact, I would drink moderately for a period of time before my alcoholism got it's inexorable grip on me. (I do need to reiterate that from the time I took the first drink alcoholism has it's claws on me, much as if I plant a seed, although I don't see the tree I planted, it's growing) It was the same with my symptoms.
When I called my friends in AA and told them I was going to come down and hit a meeting, I blew them off the first week, and was already planning to blow them off a second week contrary to my promises to myself and them when literally divine intervention occurred in the form of a Police Officer tapping on my car window as I was past out in my car.
As I got out of jail the next morning in nought but a Tshirt in the pouring rain, lost, out in the country in a strange town, as I wandered around lost and shivering, I recognized this, I said to myself, "OK, I know this, this is pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization." I knew this despair would last long enough to get some meetings under my belt, find a sponsor, and get started on the steps again, for the 8th time.
I consider myself blessed for that, if I hadn't gone to jail I don't think I would have been able to stop. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, much less 3 times. I literally consider it a miracle.
Anyway, I was listening to Joe and Charley go over the Big Book this morning, and I heard something I had never heard the first 20,000 times I heard it.
They talked about the 5 types of alcoholics listed in the Drs Opinion.
The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book.
(1)There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are always "going on the wagon for keeps." They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
(2)There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment.
(3)There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger.
(4)There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written.
(5)Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.
I am sure we are all type 5's here hee hee
Anyway, What they were saying was if everyone in the room started drinking everyone would react differently.
This one would start crying
These two would get in a fight
These folks would kick their heels up and start dancing
Those over there would start chatting each other up and lets say start 13th stepping each other
But what every single one of us would have in common is we would drink to get drunk. That once we put the alcohol in our system, the phenomenon of craving would kick in and we wouldn't know where it would end. That we had the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body, but it would manifest itself differently in each alcoholic.
What we all have in common is we can never drink alcohol safely in any form. We all have the obsession of the mind, although some are daily drinkers, some are bingers, some periodics, and some completely out of control, many of able to go long periods of time without drinking but we always return to it without spiritual help.
I have been all five types LOL
Truthfully, that puts my mind at ease, if that makes sense, I didn't like hearing something spouted as gospel that just flat wasn't true in my case.
OK Carry on
-- Edited by AGO on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 01:42:14 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
This is my 5th attempt getting sober. My sobriety lasted 6 mths, 8 mths, 364 days, and last time was 2 years. Every time the progression was different. This disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful. Way more so than I. In my case, I could never stop once I started. Jail, rehab, and the psych. ward were the only things that allowed me to stop long enough to get my head on straight. It would be nice to have just one, but my track record tells me that I might not live to talk about it. That scares me. Living sober is really cool. Just for today I choose not to drink.
soberdrunk wrote:This disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful. Way more so than I.
In my case, I could never stop once I started.
This is my experience as well, it was more dangerous for me to have things "go well" then it to have it "go badly" in the beginning, if that makes sense
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I believe if I were to just taste alcohol I'd end up drunk. I wasn't a drinker..I was a guzzler!! I don't want to be stupid enough to test that theory! I'm fine not knowing!!! lol
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Rheinhold Niebuhr
Thank you AGO. I'm on Day 10. This is my first real attempt to get sober. All the other times I said, "Woah, I'm starting to drink too much. I better stop for a little while, gain control and then I can go back to controlled drinking." I did that for years! I would inevitably end up in the same place again. One night I just wouldn't stop drinking. I would keep going and going and going. 11 days ago I was in that place again. Unfortunately I ended up in a blackout and in a very dangerous situation. When I woke up the next morning, in my own puke, I came to the realization that I think has saved my life. I realized that I am an alcoholic. Yes, I can control it, even for a long time, but it's when I let it get out of control that's the crux of my disease.
Only in the past week and a half have I started to understand how alcoholism is a "disease". It's that craving, that obsessive thinking about the alcohol. It's a powerful thing. I saw a bottle of wine in a magazine today and all of the sudden I started to convince myself that I didn't have a problem. I could handle just one. I could control it. But there are many differences this time. 1. I have accepted I'm an alcoholic and that I have a problem. 2. I know that I can't ever control this. I can't have start back up. 3. I have a support system in place that I didn't have before. I go to meetings and I come to MIP.
Thank you for sharing this post. I am actually very sick today (w/ pneumonia) so I can't get to a meeting. This was a good way for me to share today.
I totally have to agree with Tessa. I no longer think about enjoying a drink on a hot day or with dinner. Today my alcoholic mind just wants to get totally blasted. I realize that I don't want a drink, I want a drunk. It's this way of thinking that helps me remember that I am without a doubt an alcoholic. Fortunately these thoughts are rare today, and the desire to even pick up has been removed. Miracles do happen!
I totally have to agree with Tessa. I no longer think about enjoying a drink on a hot day or with dinner. Today my alcoholic mind just wants to get totally blasted. I realize that I don't want a drink, I want a drunk. It's this way of thinking that helps me remember that I am without a doubt an alcoholic. Fortunately these thoughts are rare today, and the desire to even pick up has been removed. Miracles do happen!
Brian
Absolutely, that's exactly what this thread is about, thx for responding everyone
AGO wrote:
But what every single one of us would have in common is we would drink to get drunk. That once we put the alcohol in our system, the phenomenon of craving would kick in and we wouldn't know where it would end.
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I appreciate this thread AGO. Just today instead of remember all the times I drank too much I was having thoughts of times when I drank moderately and had a nice time.
It got me thinking about the situations when I can enjoy a drink or two with no problem versus the situations when I drink too much. I realize that thinking like that could lead me back to testing the waters. I believe if I drank again my experience would be much like yours. I would go a good period of time were I didn't have any issues. I would be careful regarding when I drank, who I drank with, what I drank and how much I drank.
I know eventually though I would become less diligent and there would be a time when I drank too much.
Actually before starting in AA a couple weeks ago that was essentially an experience I had. I had for the most part quit drinking for a couple years. Then I made a geographical move and devoloped new "friendships". Most of the social activities I had with my new friends involved drinking. Looking back I see how my drinking and attitude towards drinking progressed over the last couple years. More often than not once I had that first drink I wasn't stopping until I had too much.
In any event, a good reminder of what happens to us when whe get smart and think we can drink and it will be different this time.
-- Edited by Sid on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 06:00:41 PM
I'm glad that I got all my (hopefully) relapses over with in the first two years before I was able to get 90 days. Thinking about drinking these days would come right after contemplating stepping in front of a bus. I haven't had a hangover since I was 29, and trying to imagine it at 50 yo is unthinkable, ouch! On topic, I do remember having about 80 days and drinking. I bought a 6 pack of beer and by the 3rd beer I was staggering. It was scary because, usually I could drink 6 beers before feeling impaired, and it would take 10 or more, in a 3 hour period, to get to the point of slurring or staggering. So for sure, my tolerance was lowered considerably after stopping for nearly 3 months. It's scary to think what a couple mixed drinks would do now. I'm just not interested in being out of control, which I believe is a "normal" thought process, in regards to drinking, except most people can think along these lines after having one or two drinks, when for us it's off to the races. That's why it's sooooo important for us to grasp the concept, accept that we just can't pick up that first drink. It's easy, "I just can't drink, so I don't"
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 06:06:38 PM
I'm glad that I got all my (hopefully) relapses over with in the first two years before I was able to get 90 days. Thinking about drinking these days would come right after contemplating stepping in front of a bus. I haven't had a hangover since I was 29, and trying to imagine it at 50 yo is unthinkable, ouch! On topic, I do remember having about 80 days and drinking. I bought a 6 pack of beer and by the 3rd beer I was staggering. It was scary because, usually I could drink 6 beers before feeling impaired, and it would take 10 or more, in a 3 hour period, to get to the point of slurring or staggering. So for sure, my tolerance was lowered considerably after stopping for nearly 3 months. It's scary to think what a couple mixed drinks would do now. I'm just not interested in being out of control, which I believe is a "normal" thought process, in regards to drinking, except most people can think along these lines after having one or two drinks, when for us it's off to the races. That's why it's sooooo important for us to grasp the concept, accept that we just can't pick up that first drink. It's easy, "I just can't drink, so I don't"
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 06:06:38 PM
Actually, one thing that was frightening was that tolerance never did return fully, but after I "lost control" the drinking remained the same as if I still had that tolerance.
Before getting sober, I could drink 30-40 drinks a night, none of them singles, which I would do while working.
So after a year or two when I was "full blown" again, after I had started drinking, you know on the nights I would lose control, my mind/body would drink like I would drink while I still had the same high tolerance and the truth is a dozen triple tequilas would propel me to a blackout but I would continue drinking like I could still drink 30-40.
I would get very very ill. I actually turned about the same color as this forum lol
I do have to say it maybe sped up my bottom.....maybe
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I must have been more advanced, because of all the drugs that I had done from an early age. I could only drink beer, for fear of blackouts, from about 23 yo on. If I had drank say 3 beers and someone gave me shot or shooter (1.5 oz.) I would almost immediately black out. It was like a trigger to central nervous system saying "lights out" lol. I pretty much knew I was an alcoholic at age 16. The last 13 years I was just riding the train till it jumped the tracks, knowing that I would walk into AA like my Mother had done 15 years before I got hear. She'll have 35 years this december.
I must have been more advanced, because of all the drugs that I had done from an early age. I could only drink beer, for fear of blackouts, from about 23 yo on. If I had drank say 3 beers and someone gave me shot or shooter (1.5 oz.) I would almost immediately black out. It was like a trigger to central nervous system saying "lights out" lol. I pretty much knew I was an alcoholic at age 16. The last 13 years I was just riding the train till it jumped the tracks, knowing that I would walk into AA like my Mother had done 15 years before I got hear. She'll have 35 years this december.
That started being the "norm" the last year of my drinking (during my first relapse), one night I could drink a dozen, one night I would drink one or two, one night I would do a shot and black out before the first empty shot glass hit the bar.
I never knew which one would occur, the frightening thing about the "blackout" nights, the blackout would occur exactly at the first drink down at the bar, but I would find evidence of hours and hours of drinking and frequently wake up with "empties" all over my house and cigarette butts in my ashtray with lipstick on them.
Leading to what I called for years "The AA double take" where I'd be walking through a meeting and see a girl who would look incredibly familiar, so I'd be walking staring at her trying to figure out where I knew her from and I noticed she'd be staring at me with the same puzzled expression on her face.
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
That's funny, I never experienced that. But I did frequently hear about how friendly I was with one of my buddies wives. How embarrassing. Want to trade? lol
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Tuesday 6th of April 2010 07:04:49 PM
As far a Relapse occuring again, ever....almost turns my stomach, seriously. I have a history of over 7+ years of those relapses, and seems like if I recall how they would go, there was never any predictability to the time it would take til it ended in a complete drunk. I would at times, in relapse, have a glass of wine at dinner with my husband, well we would share the bottle, then go to bed, get up and go, put in a full days work in San Francisco, long commute up to UCSF, where I had a job, that I really loved, but look out for the week ends. sometimes 24/7 starting on Saturday, til mid Sunday when I would try by best to pull it together, not drink and repeat.Those were the light weight ones, others were not very pretty at all. So I believe with all of the almost uncountable times I relapsed into the disease, I could have been one or all five that you wrote about.
Well all those shorter types of relapses ended when we moved to Seattle, an it was when I finally began to evaluate my own inability to stay away from the relapse triggers, there were all based in Coda stuff, but I did not know anything about Codependancy.....anyway I just gave up on the whole idea of trying to do something I simply could not do. and that was to stay sober for any length of time. It was a very fast slide down into the basement of this Disease.
In all those years I did attend AA Meetings too, loved the Program, and recall using the Rooms as my Higher Power, I had had some negative memories of the Catholic Church, and I truly believed that the God they spoke of, did not want me.
I had always known (or so believed then) that I was a very self destructive person....old learned behavior, like worthless, lazy as shit, and so very worthless, that sometimes I wondered if I had a right to be here. Well that was a long time ago, and did have to, after real recovery began for me, 19+ years ago, that I did need a REAL Spiritual relationship,as well as some long term therapy, if I was to survive, and get out of my suicidal ideation I had lived with, just under the surface. And that is what Happened. am thinking of something very powerful that Tessa said in her Story, that it does not matter where you came from, it only matters what you do with your life today, and I have that. a life of freedom from the Disease, only with the Grace of God still filling my days, never ever forget that. It was my HP that removed all those negative feelings of less than, and that has never changed, the opposite is something that was strickly God Given. like a good sense of Self esteem, a sense of humbe confidence in my life that is the exact opposite of how I spent the first half of my life.
And yesterday, when listening to that Speaker that was Posted, Tom, I listened with a fine tuned ear as to what he said about the Disease and how it can creep up on you, as it happened to him in the airplane, and there you are, sweating bullets, and only the Prayer of Help me God can stand in the way of you and a drink.
Was reading this long and was thinking maybe I need to leave a good part of my history out of it, then why would I do that if it is part of who I was, to now, who I am.
Scott Peck, in his Book, Further Down the Road Less Traveled, dedicated a Chapter to Alcoholism, calling it The Sacred Disease and stated in the Book, that his thoughts were that we just need God more that some others, I liked that cause for me that sure seemed to Fit.
Agree with Dean's philosophy, I would think of having a drink right next to a loaded gun to my head, with my finger on the trigger. And because I am no longer suicidal, that won't be happening....
In truth to God, I would rather be dead first, then drink.
I cannot comment on slips as I have never found it necessary to relapse "YET".
I cannot thank enough those that did for doing the research for me. I always pay close attention as to what they thought led up to a relapse and for assuring me that it has not gotten any better out there. Thank you!!
I also experienced a sharp drop in my tolerance to alcohol in my last days of drinking. Most of my drinking was characterized by drinking a quart of bourbon daily. I could drink almost everyone under the table. Then my liver started to fail and I found myself blacked out and totally hammered on just a very few drinks. I could not understand what was happening. My sick mind convinced me that I must be out of practice so I tried more and more to recapture the old tolerance but it never improved. I kept getting drunker on less and less. Then I came into AA and have not drank since. I have no desire whatever to find if I would have regained some of my tolerance.
I know I have another drunk in me but I doubt that I have another sobering up in me.
Larry, ------------------------ Once you are a Pickle You can't go back to being a Cucumber
For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
My experience is this goes away two ways
One was introducing alcohol to my system, phwoot, it was all gone
I drank while sleepwalking, led to 5 years of hell, I got up in the middle of the night and did a shot and went back to bed, in the morning I thought it was a dream.
The second was stopping working steps 10, 11 and 12
Moving to an isolated area without meetings and living on a property and working with my family for a few years (3 alcoholics, an insane Codie and a junkie) bringing my codependent and family of origin issues to full blown insanity didn't help either.
I believe what we have is a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition, because I have lost mine before and the insanity returned.
It's a strange place to be, being able to "see" sanity and remember it, but being unable to get back to it.
My experience is that "swinging door" that goes both directions in AA is anything but, that trying to get back sometimes that door is locked.
I have seen it happen to others, and had it happen to me, so I am glad I slipped through a crack and made it back.
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
