I certainly underwent a profound personality change when I entered the rooms of AA, and I've been experiencing a change for the better ever since.
I have a story of my own concerning conditions, and how I and many others think conditions drive alcoholics to drink.
About three years before I joined AA, my drinking had become heavy enough to instill no small amount of worry, so I enrolled in an outpatient treatment program offered by a local hospital. The therapy consisted of various drugs and counseling. The majority of the behavioral therapy included changing my daily living patterns, patterns that were purportedly connected to my drinking.
It didn't work, and after six months, I just gave up on the treatment. I suppose it might have worked for someone else, perhaps a non-alcoholic heavy drinker, but it had no effect whatsoever on my desire to imbibe.
It would be a few more years of drinking and anguish until I hit a bottom hard enough to break through my defenses and allow me to accept the message of AA. When I read the following passage from the Big Book, it became clear to me why the outpatient program hadn't worked: it was trying to change the behavioral and biological conditions surrounding my drinking, in a vain attempt to curb an illness that required a personality change to address...
Here are some of the methods we have tried: Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever (with or without a solemn oath), taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farms and sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums---we could increase the list ad infinitum.
Conditions, conditions, conditions, and none of them ever made a whit of difference to my desire for alcohol. It was omnipresent.
But when I joined AA and began practicing the 12 Steps, I soon underwent the psychic change that lifted my obsession and made me a free man at long last.
-- Edited by Q on Tuesday 18th of June 2013 10:30:48 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
It has often been said of A.A. that we are interested only in alcoholism. That is not true. We have to get over drinking in order to stay alive. But anyone who knows the alcoholic personality by firsthand contact knows that no true alky ever stops drinking permanently without undergoing a profound personality change.
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We thought "conditions" drove us to drink, and when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't do so to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics. It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were.
1. LETTER, 1940
2. TWELVE AND TWELVE, P. 47
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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
Great post Q. Thanks very much. My story is similar. Though triggers hadn't been invented I, with the blessing of my family and friends, tried the geographical cure, which was the old fashioned way of nailing all triggers at once. Then I looked for causes in my upbringing, and then in a last desperate attempt I tried to pin it on a head injury (a very minor one!).
As you suggest, it was nothing external. I went to AA, came to understand what alcoholism is and had that complete psychic change as the result of taking the steps.
As a result I no longer suffer from alcoholism, I have no obsession of the mind which means I am not at risk of activating the allergy. I have been relieved of the suffering for more than 30 years and and remained that way through trying to maintain fit spirtual condition.
There is a downside. It's been that long since I have been able to use alcoholism as an excuse for my bad behaviour. Instead I have to accept that sometimes I'm just an ass (equine variety) and I'm an ass because I have become blocked from my Higher Power. My solution which has yet to fail, lies in steps 10 through 12. A recipe for living that works in rough going.
For me I was born and raised within the disease of alcoholism. My college studies and research and geneaology work reveal me as being genetically predisposed and therefore definitely "turned on" to alcohol by my Grandmother while my mother argued with her not to bring us into the culturally acceptable behavior of wine with a meal. My mother was the daugther of an alcoholic as were her sisters with the exception of one who died in her seventies still doing a gallon of wine a day. It was in our family history and so by the time I started practice in earnest I was drinking because I could and for no other reason. I was 13 years of age 4 years after the turn on by Granny. 24 years later I was saying AA and Al-Anon isn't for me...I'm not like them and my family with most of my friends would also say "you're not alcoholic...you never go down, you can drink forever". I didn't know that wasn't the measurement of alcoholism on one side of the room and a sure sign on the other. I had the symptoms of a problem like others...rages, blackouts, 3 overdoses and more and then to my drinking family I wasn't alcoholic. I accepted that and no one tried to pin my abhorrent behavior on alcohol. Suicidal and homicidal were on pages further into the discovery.
The psychological industry was saying that Alcoholics drank because they had problems and the behaviorist were saying Alcoholics have problems because they drank. I wasn't alcoholic. When I finally had no excuse not to sit with people in 12 step recovery I chose Al-Anon Family Groups. My wife was alcoholic/addict so it was her fault and I didn't know what the hell and alcoholic was or what alcoholism was and didn't know that I didn't know. God loves me and one example of that was we use to read the AMA definition of alcoholism at the start of every Al-Anon meeting I attended (90+in 90). Compulsion of the mind; allergy of the body, can never be cured; can only be arrested by total abstinence; alcoholic affects everyone they come into contact with and has but three choices...sobriety, insanity or death...that took care of what my wife was going thru and it justified alot of her behavior. I wasn't there to do an inventory on my drinking style or choice and I started to learn about them and her and then I decided to take in college because I had a deeper curiosity than others in the room and when I graduated I was asked to become a behavioral health therapist because for me I agreed that if you didn't take the first drink (behavior) you wouldn't get drunk and your personality wouldn't be affected by alcohol.
It was my VA psycologist who helped me to identify my alcoholism as he helped me to connect the dots between my consequences and my drinking and I was learning. I also came to understand that not all of us are created equal. I remember earlier treatment by a neurologist who took me off of all of my prescripts because "most people cannot even stand up under this load of drugs much less drive and walk into this office"...I remember the diagnosis of chemically tolerant and added that to the definition of alcohol as a "mind and mood altering chemical". I had some major AHA!!s and then the physical proof from my own body. I rarely got drunk and I did turn a sickly shade of yellowish/green color. See alcohol is also an anesthetic...it diminishes feeling and urges and see while lots of my drinking famil and friends use to head to the bathroom to take a leak I rarely ever did...I just didn't feel the urge..physically or mentally and so my body made the decision to store the urine under my skin. I wasn't like everyone that's for sure...none of my family and friends had the same Oriental glow about them as I did. I even had a ludercrous explation for it and couldn't use it anymore because 5 years into the Al-Anon program alcohol free...my natural tan came back. When I changed my behavior my color changed. After 5 years in program my personality changed...I went from being my own higher power to having a group to rely on and a sponsor to trust and walk with and a God of my own understanding who was always there for me...drunk or sober...drinking or not.
I'm a former behavioral health therapist who use to work with the addicted the drunk and their families and friends and associates. I was taught in recovery that if I would change my behaviors my thinking and feelings and intentions would change. That has been true for me. I finally took the AA assessment questionaire 9 years after I stopped drinking. It was a deeply honest search which revealed 3 overdoses the last one which put me right at the door of death. I was drunk I felt and I wasn't alive. All voluntary choices were taken from me and I recognized 2 remaining functions my breath and a heartbeat and a question I had never ever considered before "did you have that one ounce to much"? I never counted ounces...it wasn't ever important before and then the wait until I had the function to crawl to the bathroom not to urinate but reguritate...pure alcohol and blood. I was told by the nurse who reviewed my anonymous assessment that "whoever this assesment belongs to needs to be in inpatient recovery immediately or the next time they drink they die". That nurse entered Al-Anon about the same time I did and the next day I was at my first for real for me AA meeting. I sat in the corner, in the dark. I knew everyone in the room because of my therapy and when it came to me I could not speak...I could not Identify and they did the most magical supportiive compassionate thing I've had happen to me...they stopped the meeting until I did...Hi...my name is Jerry F and I am alcoholic. When I stopped drinking I got sober...when I got sober I became a worthwhile compassionate loving and supportive man. I have never lost the compulsion to drink; I just don't respond to it. Mahalo Akua
Jerry: I also spent a year going to Al-Anon meetings before I made it to AA. I mean, it HAD to be somebody else's fault, right??
I wonder how many AA members have taken that path...
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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
There are more "doubles" today that you can shake a stick at...I'm grateful that HP led me along that way...In fact I am beyond grateful...for the wider focus. ...
