I am amazed at how many people take alcoholism so lightly. Many think it's a bad habit. If alcoholism was a bad habit then I would have recovered by practising good virtues on a ongoing basis. But it is not. Alcoholism is a physical disease. I react to alcohol abnormally, because of some change that took place in my body. It is also an emotional disease, because I have a diseased mind. "The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink." pg 43 AA book. I could never understand why I was so restless and irritable, when sober. My emotions were somehow linked to the chemical called alcohol. When I had a few drinks I was normal, not restless or irritated. When I got sober my emotions were killing me. That is why I always drank alcohol. It gave me relief from my troubled emotions. It was no more a question of practising good habits. Changing habits for an alcoholic is like holding back a spring loaded device. When I let it go it springs back. I then give up and say what's the use anyway. I might as well drink. I think it started of as an habit, but I did not realise that it could progress to become a physical, mental and emotional disease. The AA 12 steps are designed not to break a habit, but to identify the problem, describe the solution to the problem and give me a practical daily program to apply to resolve the problem. I simply follow the instructions and let the results speak for itself.
The American Medical Association defines alcoholism as a disease because it meets the same three tenents of any other disease...
1. Chronic - It will rare its ugly head from time to time (with or without the symtom of drinking)
2. Progressive - In the absince of treatment it never gets better, it only gets worse.
3. Potientially Fatal
With these as qualifiers, and my own experience as a alcoholic... I am willing to accept I have a dis-ease... and tried to use alcohol to treat it for many years.
If I merely had a habit, for 20 years, I would have done something about it long before, just like I did when my "habit" of running stop signs got me a few tickets (cost about 300.00).
Instead, over 20 years I drank two marriages, 4 kids, a business, I found two trips to the state penitentary, 20 year absince from family of orgin, nice sleeping quarters in homeless shelters and on the streets, what court appointed attorneys do for a living, why there are padded cells in state hospitals....
Sorry folks, but unless I accept I suffered from the Diease of alcoholism; that I was real sick, mentally, emotionally, phsyically and spiritually... I would have to see my self as simply a full bloomed idiot with a habit. I don't think I was a idiot. The monentary cost, if I were to put a price tag on this "habit" would have been in the millions, both literally and figuritvely. (What was the love of my famiies worth?)
I wasn't a idiot with a bad habit,...
I was a alcoholic that acted like an idiot when I drank. This is when I came up with my bizarre ideas of fun, that others called "insane".
I was not drinking because I wanted to, I was drinking because I had to.
The first drink was like a like a locomotive train... the engine (first one to hit me) smashed any effort to control, and the rest of the train, (drinks) just ran over what was left of me. I don't think anyone makes a habit out of jumping in front of trains. Normal folks with bad habits don't anyways... no more than they take a few drinks as a part of getting ready to go out for a few drinks. Alcoholics like me, need to prime themselves for such events. LOL
John
-- Edited by John on Friday 4th of June 2010 01:53:34 PM
The American Medical Association defines alcoholism as a disease because it meets the same three tenents of any other disease...
1. Chronic - It will rare its ugly head from time to time (with or without the symtom of drinking)
2. Progressive - In the absince of treatment it never gets better, it only gets worse.
3. Potientially Fatal
With these as qualifiers, and my own experience as a alcoholic... I am willing to accept I have a dis-ease... and tried to use alcohol to treat it for many years.
If I merely had a habit, for 20 years, I would have done something about it long before, just like I did when my "habit" of running stop signs got me a few tickets (cost about 300.00).
Instead, over 20 years I drank two marriages, 4 kids, a business, I found two trips to the state penitentary, 20 year absince from family of orgin, nice sleeping quarters in homeless shelters and on the streets, what court appointed attorneys do for a living, why there are padded cells in state hospitals....
Sorry folks, but unless I accept I suffered from the Diease of alcoholism; that I was real sick, mentally, emotionally, phsyically and spiritually... I would have to see my self as simply a full bloomed idiot with a habit. I don't think I was a idiot. The monentary cost, if I were to put a price tag on this "habit" would have been in the millions, both literally and figuritvely. (What was the love of my famiies worth?)
I wasn't a idiot with a bad habit,...
I was a alcoholic that acted like an idiot when I drank. This is when I came up with my bizarre ideas of fun, that others called "insane".
I was not drinking because I wanted to, I was drinking because I had to.
The first drink was like a like a locomotive train... the engine (first one to hit me) smashed any effort to control, and the rest of the train, (drinks) just ran over what was left of me. I don't think anyone makes a habit out of jumping in front of trains. Normal folks with bad habits don't anyways... no more than they take a few drinks as a part of getting ready to go out for a few drinks. Alcoholics like me, need to prime themselves for such events. LOL
John
-- Edited by John on Friday 4th of June 2010 01:53:34 PM
Live-saving quote John. And thanks for this thread gonee -- sooo important for us to realize, but so difficult to accept. That's exactly where the insanity of the first drink comes from: we think that it's just a bad habit, and that like other bad habits, we can control it and everything will be OK. Wrong.
