Made it to the second meeting tonight. I haven't had a drink in 11 days and I feel better. I've still struggled with the "Am I or Am I Not an alcoholic" stuff. I almost feel as though I haven't earned the right to call myself an alcoholic. I listen to the stories at the meeting and I can't even compare my life to what these people have went through. My struggles with alcohol have only been a few months and had minimal impact on my life... or so it seems. No doubt, I abused alcohol, but an alcoholic??? Most people I know would probably laugh at me. I don't know.
The one thing I am certain of is that I want to stop drinking. Then I asked myself if I've had my last drink.... ever? I couldn't answer. I began thinking that maybe when my spiritual life is where it needs to be, a glass of wine or a beer wouldn't be a problem. Then the anxiety, though mild, started building. Really, never have a drink again? Even typing this I almost instinctually stood up to grab a beer from the fridge though I don't have any. Things have settled down not that M has moved out and I'm sitting her alone (my favorite time to drink) and I feel uneasy. I though writing about the meeting would close out a good day, but I suddenly feel uncomfortable and I'm not sure why.
Probably uncomfortable cuz you got an urge to drink and now you have to cope with it. Those thoughts about never drinking ever again are unproductive. Just focus on not drinking today.
Honestly though, when I came into AA...I seriously was ready to say I pray that I never drink again. I never entertained the idea of hopefully drinking normally again. I knew that was out of the range of possibility. I never drank normally in the first place.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Maybe so. I don't want to drink again... guess it was just the realization that I may not be able to and stop at 1 or 2... or that it may become a daily thing again. I know it's unproductive.... I have an overactive brain these days.
I was told not to try and overthink things and that helped. The actual advice was to follow the "brown dot" plan:
Don't drink, don't think, keep putting your brown dot in a chair at meetings and sooner or later your mind will catch up.
I'm still early days (about 100 odd) and my mind is just starting to catch up but if I hadn't had have received that advice I really would struggled early days. I don't know where you are at but my thinking was that screwed up that if I had have let my brain run things it would have ended in tears. I thought I was making sense but I was that far from it that it wasn't funny.
As Pinkchip said just focus on today because it's the only day that matters.
Hey Jasper ,hang in there,we didnt get here overnite ,so "EASY DOES IT!!" About drinking,I personally never had to go there,I knew I could not drink again(unless I needed to reenforce that I could not drink again)it is said in our literature(text)'PERHAPS YOUR NOT AN ALCOHOLIC AFTER ALL.WHY DON'T YOU TRY SOME MORE CONTROLLED DRINKING BEARING IN MIND WHAT WE HAVE TOLD YOU ABOUT ALCOHOLISM> I WOULD ALSO SUGGEST THAT YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO JUMP OFF THE BRIDGE TO KNOW THE FEELING!!Keep showing up,arrest this illness,day at a time,and we promise it will get better!!You definitely do not want to drink again,so "get in the solution" with a sponsor and dig in,we do recover from a seemingly hopeless state of body and mind,based on fit spiritual condition,a daily reprieve remaining God centered and applying the solution in our lives..!!You will you go to any means necessary to do the things necessary to arrest this illness ?,JUST FOR TODAY!,you never have to use again!!! We are here. congrats on 11 days,truly a miracle,,,,,...
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Something to remember about "alcoholism" is it's a two part "disease" with an obsession of the mind coupled with an allergy of the body, an alcoholics body reacts differently to alcohol then a "normal" drinker, how long or how much someone drank has in many cases little to do with one is an alcoholic or not, some are born alcoholic, some have a "threshold" they cross whereupon they "become" alcoholic, we say, once a cucumber turns into a pickle it can never go back to being a pickle again, so many stories we hear in the rooms are very advanced cases of alcoholism, but we watch for are the similarities to our -reaction- to alcohol, in many cases we have a sense of "ease and comfort" when we have a few drinks, and without it, we are "restless and discontent"
The suggestion Mike made is a good one, rather then convince someone they are alcoholic, we let alcohol do that for them, if they have question, try some controlled drinking, one such test is the Marty Mann test, it's based on the fact that many alcoholics can stop for a period of time before they are "too far gone" but what they can't do is drink 2 drinks a night for 10 days, because upon introducing alcohol into the bloodstream the allergy is triggered, and an alcoholic in one or more of those nights won't be able to stop with just 2 drinks
Returning to the obsession of the mind, the first thing alcoholism does is try to convince you that you don't have it, it compares your drinking to others who drink more, it minimizes your drinking and the consequences, it tells you that you are "different" that you only drank too much because of an emotional crisis (frequently itself caused by alcoholism) in short it allows, no it forces you to look at yourself with rose colored glasses of self justification in order to continue to drink
One way alcoholism shows itself is by obsessing when removed from the body, you have shown ample evidence of this, another way is by "rubberbanding" which is after a period of abstinence a series of sprees occur, it's like alcohol would "punish" me for leaving it, that is when I started to learn about powerlessness
something important for me to remember was "self knowledge" about alcoholism availed me nothing, it didn't go away just because I learned about it, it always found ways to make me miserable enough to drink eventually, or placed me in situations where drinking was mandatory somehow
Anyhow, keep coming back and learning about this disease, since it is chronic and progressive if you are an alcoholic it will make it's presence known...the thing we learn to watch for, because we watch other alcoholics do this in the rooms is after a period of abstinence frequently we see someone have one or two one or two times (conveniently forgetting the years or months of misery beforehand) and then convincing ourselves we have it "licked" and that's when it grabs us by the throat and shows us who's boss
So if you truly are a "real" alcoholic and you are "sitting on the fence" there will come a day when you have no defense against the first drink, and one of these scenarios will occur, and you -will- drink (it's what alcoholics do) you will have a little better working knowledge of your condition
another way to learn is to continue to attend meetings and listen and see if you start relating to what is being said, looking for the similarities in how alcohol affected you, rather then the differences, a third way is to approach someone who has a few years in AA and a good working knowledge of the Big Book and ask him to sit down with you and go over "The Doctors Opinion" and "More About Alcoholism" in the Big Book to see if you "Identify" as an alcoholic, thus working step one, without which no real progress can be made in staying sober in a happy and contented way by working the program of alcoholics anonymous
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Good Job Jasper...Continue to keep and open mind and be willing to ask questions and listen to the feedback from recovering alcoholics. Get and read the literature especially the Big Book; cover to cover with an open mind. The disease will convince you if and when you're ready as long as you present no barriers to what is being presented to you.
Ours is a cunning, powerful and baffling disease and defies simple understanding. I didn't drink my way into alcohol compulsion and addiction and I won't think my way out of it other than to think my way to a meeting or a sponsor call or a service to others.
Don't drink and don't think is a very rational philosophy and you will come to a higher understanding of that in time...for now. Support that desire to "stop drinking" and keep coming back to meetings and MIP and the suggestions.
In time that fear of never ever having another drink will diminish to the decision to not drink today and then evolve not drink alcohol again. It works when you work it. The wanting to leap to the refrigerator is part of the unmanagability of the disease. Our spirit wants sobriety and our psyche needs to secure the relationship. The allergy part is alcohol will pretty much destroy everything it comes in contact with; mind, body, spirit and emotions.
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