I woke up today and had a revelation that probably most people here already know. This is: the reality that alcohol's damage is caused by much more than just what happens when we are actually drunk. I never really understood this until very recently.
When I was younger, I used to get full-on, belligerently drunk on a regular basis. Like many, I would say stupid things and do stupid things, and was somehow convinced that the alcoholic behavior was compartmentalized in those moments when I was actually drinking. The rest of the time, I was level-headed and rational.
As I got older, however, I tried to moderate my drinking, convinced that I wasn't a "real" alcoholic if I could stop drinking before I blacked out. Now, instead of getting wasted, I was obsessing over the night's 2-3-4 drinks. I was avoiding food so that I would get drunker, avoiding evening social situations, and lying to myself about having "conquered" the disease because now I was drinking in moderation - still waking up hungover, of course, but only after 2-3-4 drinks.
What this taught me is that alcohol snakes into our lives and wraps its fingers around us 24/7, and pulls us down into the darkness under a million difference pretenses. Even if I'm not drinking heavily (for someone who used to down 2-3 bottles of wine a night), I was still obsessing and looking for the high.
I am also blown away when I make an inventory of the other things I have done to drink. It is such a complex and awful web.
Anyway, I hope you all are well. I know I haven't posted on this site in a few weeks, but I have found that I really need the space to help maintain my sanity (and sobriety). The past two weeks have been challenging, and just clicking into this space and reading the posts was wonderful.
Thank you all for being here.
-Adam
__________________
When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.-Paul Brunton
Great to see you around Adam ... ... ... keep in mind that the alcoholic's mind is centered around defective 'thinking' ... most notably, I will only have one, or at the very most, two ... ... ... it's sounds like a noble gesture and something easy to do ... but then the craving starts and we lose all ability to reason ... and again we wake up wondering what just happened? ... ... ...
For me? ... I discovered that I must change the very way I thought ... my old ways of thinking always led to the same results ... until I changed my thinking, I found myself back at the same starting point every time ... as they say, my best 'thinking' got me to the rooms of AA ... it's where I belong ...
In 'The Doctors Opinion', he states that unless this person experiences a 'total psychic change', there is little hope for him ... ergo, here I am ...
Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Understand Adam...not allof the returns are inevitable...the great majority never make it back and for us who do some of us ask...are miracles inevitable. Do your part.
