DIALOGUE BETWEEN A LADY INTERVIEWER WITH A MALE BEER DRINKER:
Lady Interviewer: Do you drink every day?
Man: Yes.
Lady Interviewer: How much a day?
Man: Around 3 six-packs starting at noon.
Lady Interviewer: How much does a 6-pack cost?
Man: Roughly $10.00 at a deli.
Lady Interviewer: And how long have you been drinking like that?
Man: 15 years.
Lady Interviewer: So with a six-pack costing $10.00, and you consuming 3 six-packs a day, you are spending roughly $900 each month. In one year, you would then be spending $10,800, correct?
Man: Correct.
Lady Interviewer: If in 1 year you spend $10,800 on beer, not accounting for inflation, 15 years puts your spending roughly $162,000; correct?
Man: Correct.
Lady Interviewer: Did it ever occur to you that if you did not drink for the last 15 years, you could have bought a Ferrari?
Man: Do you drink?
Lady Interviewer: No.
Man: So where's your Ferrari?
for my train of thought , only an Alkie thinks like that.
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Rick.
@ 37 I was too young & good looking to be an alkie.
still too young , still got th good looks. still n alkie.
when faced with evidence of my stupidity, my ego strives to undermine it, avoid it, rebuke it, make fun of it, then after the serenity prayer, it shuts up, listens, and accepts it.... progress is evident when this process gets shorter and shorter and acceptance stops feeling like punishment and i become teachable. thanks Zoom jj/sheila
Yeah, I probably could have bought a Ferrari as well, but this story reminds me that my brain is not like others, when it comes to drinking.
I tried an outpatient treatment program before I joined AA, and some of the counseling sessions involved the expenditure of money. It was demonstrated to me how much I could be saving, and how much more I would have available to my needs. But you know what? It didn't make a whit of difference, because I'm an ALCOHOLIC.
Another person might be able to reason themselves out of heavy drinking, but for me it was impossible. I needed the spiritual revelation, the psychic change, that I finally found in the 12 Steps. Only then did I become free of the obsession.
For me, talking about how much money I'm saving comes after the fact of sobriety.
-- Edited by Q on Monday 15th of July 2013 01:31:08 PM
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The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. ---William James
Quite humorous on an old fashioned sort of way. Made me think of the red blooded mysoginist under attack by the temperence worker.
This passage from the Book came to mind.
"We are careful never to show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution. Experience shows that such an attitude is not helpful to anyone. Every new alcoholic looks for this spirit among us and is immensely relieved when he finds we are not witch burners. A spirit of intolerance might repel alcoholics whose lives could have been saved, had it not been for such stupidity. We would not even do the cause of temperate drinking any good, for not one drinker in a thousand likes to be told anything about alcohol by one who hates it."
