GETTING OFF BOOZE (or DRUGS)

Your are right. With anything I wanted out of my life, I had to be determined to eliminate it. Isn’t it strange that when we want to end something that hurts us, we find excuses for it.

I found I could not accomplish this task alone. So, I put it in God’s hands. A lot of people are sitting there groaning, but, IT WORKS.

We tell ourselves we have the power to accomplish anything, except... Well, if I seriously ask God to take this burden away, and believe with all my heart, it will go.

As with any change, there are tests we go through. If we stay focused, we will complete the process. Oh, sure, there are times, when we are down, and the old “need” hits again.
Staying focused on our true worth, and God, will prevail.

Your letter to your son really moved me. I hope and pray that he will take your advice to heart. I don’t know either of you, but I don’t think you could have expressed yourself any better in this letter than you did. Now, it is up to him to decide what to do with the advice and hopefully he will turn inward. I think you sound like a great Mom.

thanks for the bump. I too wish everyone could handle these things in moderation, but it is not to be.

I was a heavy drinker for about 20 years; a bonafide drunk for the last 10. Six years ago, I joined Alcoholics Anonymous, read the book, worked the program, got a sponsor, and began regularly attending the meetings (still do). On September 24, I will celebrate six years of “happy, joyous, and free” sobriety. If you work the program, it will work for you — 100% guaranteed!

:-)

congrats on six years.

As I said to my husband one day, you drink to celebrate, you drink when you’re sad, you drink when you have been disappointed, you have never faced an emotion without alcohol in your life.

At then end, I drank when I was awake.

Great idea for a thread. I’ve been fighting this for since Sept. 9, 1988.
It started out really tough. I did it cold turkey. The toughest part was realizing all
the friends you thought you had, were in fact just drinking buddies/buddettes. The invites
seem to get less and less, the dinner parties seem to all but vanish. The phone calls
and invites you do get are from your true friends. I’ve only had 3 keep in contact over
the coarse of my “2nd” chance.

Too many car crashes to count, too many mornings waking up and looking out the window
to make sure my car or truck was in the driveway. As stated in earlier posts, it’s
one day at a time. Even for me, after 19 years I still say to myself, OK, I made it again.

Good luck to you, it sounds like you’re past the hard part.
Even tho traps are everywhere, you just need to look back from where you came.

When my friends are all happy and giggly with wine, I am always the designated driver, that can be your role too. Oh well, I like to drive.

You find out who you real friends are/were. And you make new ones. Life goes on, and it is better.

I also went back and reestablished some old relationships that I had let go over the years, and I am so glad I did this.

Thank you, I’m pretty thrilled about it. What impresses me most is that the program really works — if you stick with it. And that means usually attending meetings not just once, but several times a week.

I haven’t had an urge to drink in nearly six years now — but I still go to five or six meetings a week. There are two reasons for that. The first is that AA is not just a stop drinking program, it’s a start living program. In short, it teaches you the life skills you need to succeed — in every area.

The second can best be summed up in something I heard in “the rooms” about three or four years ago: I may only need one meeting a week, but I don’t know which one it is; so I go to six. Works for me!

I’m glad you have found what works for you. And I agree that it is very important to couple a Quit Drinking program with a Start Living program. I would suggest basic Personal Development audio programs as another good source of organized programs for goal setting and achieving.

A few of my favorites are

Jim Rohn. The Art of Exceptional Living
Zig Ziglar. Goals and See you at the Top
Earl Nightinggale. The Strangest Secret

I decided to repost this for any new people who might be lurking and who might not click the link. If you've seen it before, just skip past it.

To Any Person Who Suspects They May Have a Drinking Problem (An Open Letter)

Written Dec 2004 by RobFromGa

I have written this to describe my experiences of the past 14 months as I have worked to resolve my drinking problem. Everyone is different and I do not propose to be an expert on this topic, but I have my own personal experience and I am sharing it in the hope that it might help someone else to solve this problem and change their life.

I have now been sober for 14 months without a drop of alcohol. This is not a long time as compared to over 25 years of heavy drinking, but I also know something else: I am totally confident that I will never drink again.

In that 14 months I have made it through two football tailgating seasons, over a hundred business lunches and dinners, numerous trips to Germany where beer flows like water, parties, picnics, Super Bowls, a Caribbean cruise, several family vacations, ups and down in life, etc. All things that I thought “required” alcohol.

Fortunately, I did not have some event that caused me to hit “rock bottom”. (I could have had many rock bottoms but I was lucky). Some people need to lose their job, lose their family, kill or seriously injure someone in a car accident, end up in prison, or many other horrible things that alcohol (or drugs) can cause in order to gather the will to quit. Some people think that “bottom” is the only thing that can make a drinker quit for good. I have met many people who proved to me that this is false, you can make such a decision without going through the horrors. But in some ways it is tougher to take the first step.

In every other way, it is much easier to skip the “rock bottom” step and I hope that this letter helps at least one other person to avoid the lost job, lost marriage or prison route to sobriety.

Last October, I made a firm decision to quit and I followed through on that commitment. But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that I had similarly tried to control my drinking or quit at least 100 times before.

Why was I able to quit this time as compared with the previous 100 attempts? This is a very good question. The only answer I have come up with as to is that this time I was really ready to quit for myself alone. I was truly 100% sick and tired of the way alcohol affected me and I wanted a different life. All the other times I was, in some way, not really ready to control my drinking. The bottle was still in charge. I tried many tactics: I’d only drink on weekends, only drink after 5pm, only drink at parties (almost anything can become a party in such a plan), only drink beer, only drink wine, only drink hard liquor, only drink things I didn’t like the taste of (I know it sounds nuts but I was nuts), only drink every other week, quit for a day, quit for a weekend, quit for a week, quit for “this vacation or event”. I tried every way to quit in the world to stop drinking except the way that eventually worked for me.

If you are reading this and you know someone that has a drinking problem and you want to help them, you must understand that you are at a severe disadvantage. This is a condition of the mind more than a condition of the body and it is nearly impossible to bring another person to a mental place where they can admit that alcohol is causing more pain in their life than the pleasure it brings. Because a drinker can hardly imagine life without alcohol. It is with us at many points of our thinking and decision making process. We make plans around alcohol and drinking, not all of the time but enough.

If this does not sound like you at this point but you still think you might have a problem, I am not going to tell you that you are OK with your drinking, I will only say that you don’t have the same problem that I was facing so my experience may be of little value to you. I do know people who can go for long periods with nothing at all, then they “binge” and drink to pass out. This is obviously a problem, but not the problem that I have experience with. For 25 years I drank to excess. I often did not get "drunk" but I was always under the influence. For many of those years I drank daily, sometimes starting at 6am and going till 2am the next night. I am not proud of this but it is the truth.

As a problem drinker, you probably associate most of the “fun” you have in life with alcohol in some portion and are worried that without alcohol you will become a dull, bored person with no joy in life. You probably think that there are some things where you will always have to drink to enjoy. I know I worried about that, and I can assure you it is false. You will enjoy life more when you quit, at least that has been my experience. Even that Caribbean cruise and college football tailgating.

I first started drinking in High School. I don’t feel that it is necessary to recount the whole story but I drank to blackout on a number of incidences. Other times I just got really drunk and did stupid things that put my life at risk. I drove many times when I had no business on the road, and it would not have taken much to have had a series of events happen that would have changed my life for the worse. In college, I made good grades at a top Engineering school, while drinking heavily. It was a joke that I would study with a bottle of Jim Beam next to my desk.

As I got into the business world, and specifically into sales, drinking is a daily part of business life. At least that’s what a drinker thinks. And for people who do not have a problem controlling it, drinking is a wonderful part of life. The occasional party or business dinner and a few social drinks to move the business forward are great. But I was never able to do that—for me it was five, ten, fifteen drinks. Into the late hours, with not enough sleep, feeling like crap the next morning when I should have been at my best. Then repeating the same behavior each night. And I was very successful, and I thought drinking was part of the success.

I rationalized that with my talent, the drinking was part of who I am, and that even at 50% I was still more capable than most others so it wasn’t necessary to control myself.

I know this is getting long so I’ll get to the point: One Friday last October I was driving down the road. I hadn’t had a drink in two days and was in one of my “quit drinking the rest of the week” attempts. Rush Limbaugh announced that he was going to a Rehab Center for his drug addiction to resolve his problem. This for some reason got through to me. I called two people that I am close with and told them that I was not going to drink one drop of alcohol until Rush came out of treatment. (Telling these people I had made this decision helped me).

I told myself that after thirty days, I would decide whether I would drink again in a more controlled manner or stop completely. I did not have the luxury of taking the time off from work to enter treatment, but since Rush was going in, he was in there for both of us.

I did not attend AA (although I will talk about AA later) but I was clearly at the first step of their program. It is a very simple concept:

I admitted that I had a drinking problem and that I wanted to do something about it. I can tell you that if you are really at that point then you can fix yourself. If you are not at that step, then there is nothing that anyone can do to help you and I hope that you stay alive, and intact until you reach that point.

After about a week of sobriety, I stopped thinking about alcohol very much. I threw myself into work and tried to start losing weight as well. By the second week I made the decision: “I WILL NEVER DRINK AGAIN” and I wrote that in my journal. I recognized that a bottle of booze is an inanimate object that is simply poison to me and that it cannot force itself into my body. I have the control over whether I use my arms to bring the poison to my lips. And I choose not to allow that to happen ever again.

I have noticed that there is an inner “voice” that I have (he stays fairly silent now) that in the beginning used to put thoughts in my mind like: “surely you can just have one, you’ve been good”, “it’s a beautiful Fall Day, surely you could just do the social drink”, “you’re in the Caribbean for Gods’ sakes, shouldn’t you at least have one Margarita to celebrate your sobriety”. When my mind lets the inner voice talk, I quickly reassert control and think about the serenity that I have found since I quit drinking.

I need to stop writing now, the family is waking up, but I will write another letter tomorrow morning which describes these 14 months and what other tactics I have used in my sobriety.

I hope that this helps at least one other soul out there. Feel free to post questions or suggestions.

FReegards, RobFromGa

Chapter 2. Is there any value in AA or similar Twelve step Programs?

As I said previously, I am sharing it in the hope that it might help someone else to solve this problem and change their life. There is also a another reason for sharing my experience, it is my way of giving back some small part of what has been given to me by others. If I can help one person to find the peace that I have found by helping them to explore their addiction, it will have served its purpose. And writing this is a way to help crystallize my own thinking on what has worked for me, and what has not.

If you are out there and worried about your drinking, the first piece of advice I gave yesterday was to make a decision to stop drinking for at least a long enough time to make a final decision about whether to quit for good. At this point you only need to admit to yourself that alcohol is something that you cannot manage as well as you would like, and that you are going to do something about it.

I will again make the disclaimer that this is MY experience, and I do not have so much pride as to think that I have one way that will work and that all others ways are wrong. Now back to our story, where I had made the decision to quit and I was in the first 30 days of sobriety (Rush was still in his rehab center).

Nothing much eventful happened through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I was spending a lot of time reading about goal setting and self improvement, and I was a different person through those holidays. I actually did not have any urges to drink and it was a wonderful season.

Near the end of the year, I was talking with a friend who I knew from past experience was in AA. He knew I had quit drinking and he asked me whether I had been to an AA meeting. I told him that I hadn’t and that I didn’t really feel like it would do anything for me. He told me that I should keep an open mind about it and that I might find value there.

He told me something that stuck with me. He said that I appeared to be doing well in my sobriety but that I was not out of the woods and that I would never be 100% safe. He told me that I needed to build up a layer of resistance around myself that was so thick that the worst possible scenario of events would not cause me to resort to drinking. My paper-thin resolve was not going to be enough to see me through this problem.

I disagreed with him somewhat, because as an alcoholic we tend to know everything, and be right about everything, but I did make a goal for myself after the new year to attend an AA meeting.

So, on January 6, I went to my first AA meeting at a place near my house. It was pleasant enough and the people at that meeting were friendly. For the first time, I was able to tell my story to a group of people who understood exactly where I was coming from. It was stunning that you could be so open and free with things that you would never tell another living soul, and yet here you are in a room full of strangers and you spill out part of what is inside you. And there are others there that nod their heads, and hug you and give you encouragement because they have been there before you.

I made a deal with myself that I would go to at least 30 meetings over the next 90 days and see what I could learn. I live near Atlanta, so I decided to go to one of the main AA places, and I found a group of people that are from all walks of life, on a given day 50-100 of them. This became my home group and I have been to a lot of meetings.

I would strongly urge any person who feels they have a problem with drinking to attend an AA meeting in their area. There are many types of meetings, in my experience there is a short reading for the day from one of the AA books, and then you just go around the table and share your thoughts on that topic. If you don’t feel like talking, you pass, simple as that. In the group that I am in, there are people there who have been coming for twenty-five years or more and they have seen it all.

There are many things that I received from the people I met at AA.

First, and most important to me, I lost a sense of loneliness that I had always carried but not known that I was carrying. Let me explain. This is not the kind of loneliness that comes from being alone. I always had people around me, and I was not alone physically. I was alone in my problem. I did not realize fully that my drinking problem is a “normal” thing for millions of people, and that I was able to grow from their experiences as well as my own. I did not need to lose my family to hear that story repeatedly. I did not need to lose my job, I could hear others explain that pain to me from all walks of life. I did not need to go to prison—I talked with people who are just out of prison.

I also talked to people who were just like me, in that they did not hit a hard “bottom”. This is both a curse and a blessing because some will say that you need that terrible pain seared in you to keep you from thinking you have been “cured”. So, the first thing I got from AA was the knowledge that I am not a freak, that I have a problem shared by many, and that everything that I have done wrong isn’t close to as bad as it could get if I start drinking again.

Just hearing the emotional stories of people who had quit, and who are now coming back to AA and admitting that they had started drinking again is enough for me to build my armor against a relapse. I learned that one can learn through the experiences of others as it pertains to alcohol, and there is intense value in doing so.

The second main value that I got from AA is spiritual growth. I had not given any real thought in over twenty five years to God, and my relationship to him. The AA program is built upon the concept of a Power greater than ourselves who helps us with our problem. I have always believed in a Creator and so this part I was OK with.

Now let me say right now that, at least at the AA meetings I attended, there is no one going around checking up on people and keeping tabs on what step you are on, and how well you are doing. In that respect, this is a self-paced program, you move at your own speed, you pick out what works for you and you leave the rest for later. That was my approach. I did not dismiss anything out of hand as incorrect-- I just looked for ways to apply what they were saying to what I believed.

It is time for me to do some other things this morning (I think I will go to an AA meeting) so I’ll close for know. Sometime soon, I’ll write the next part of this. Thanks for reading this far…

RobFromGa

Note: Someone asked about Non Alcoholic beers. I stayed away from them for the first six months, but then I saw President Bush drinking one on his campaign plane, so I figured what the heck. In the past eight months, I have had probably four occasions that I have drank three or four of them and it has not been a problem for me so far. I have not brought them home by stocking the fridge with NA beers and chugging a twelve pack every night. I also do not go to bars and drink them while everyone else gets plastered, that would be tough to handle for me. But if I am in a setting where a few NA beers are appropriate, I drink them and I don’t think it has harmed me. Your mileage may vary.

Chapter 3. What’s God got to do with it?

As I stated previously, the AA program is built upon the concept of a Power greater than ourselves (our “Higher Power”) who we surrender to in order to solve our problem. I have always believed in a Creator and a higher power is not a problem for me, per se. But many people come to AA with no belief structure at all and they are encouraged to find their higher power where it can be found. Many use the “AA group” as the power in the beginning, after all it is a group who have been down the path before and have confronted and “solved” the addiction problem.

My problem was not in identifying the Higher Power, but with the concept of “surrender”. The big question in my mind this past year was: am "I" in charge of me, or must "I" give up control? I always have thought that we were given free will to do what we wish with our lives and that we have responsibility for our actions. That is the core of my personal philosophy and my Conservative polical viewpoint comes straight from this philosphy.

But we were given much more than free will. We were given our wonderful mind which can think and reason. It is truly an amazing creation, and it is quite unfortunate that we are not given an Operators Manual about how to use it most effectively.

But even more amazingly we were given a spirit or soul which can dream and plan and which is not “physical”. I think that this is the core thing about human beings—our bodies are chemicals assembled together, our minds are complex physical processing/storage facilities, but our “spirit” is what makes us who we are. Our spirit is a collection of information, experience, beliefs-- it is a pure information "state". And it is a gift.

We either challenge our spirit to do greater things, or we lose hope and allow it to wither and die. I could not and still do not understand the concept of “surrender” that they are talking about.

I listened and I did not attempt to hijack the program, but instead I chose to take from it the good that I got from it.

In early March, I wrote in my journal:
“don’t try to change AA to fit my world view- not everyone is the same as me and AA may be the only hope for people in different circumstances. Don’t destroy that for others, I have no program to offer them in its place.”

But I do not pretend that I have gotten to where I am today alone. I have already said that I was helped by other people in the AA group. I was also helped by many alcoholics before that chose to write about and find solutions for this character defect. I also have received help from God in many ways:

1. I asked God to help me in coming closer to him, and to understanding his purpose for us.

2. I periodically count my blessings- I make a list of those things that I was born with or that have come into my life through nothing I did to deserve them- my life, my liberty, my country, my health, my wife, my intelligence, my parents, my children… the list can be quite long when you start thinking about it. All of these things were given to me and could have been withheld.

3. I ask him to keep me safe from those forces that would harm me, not only as it relates to drinking but that is a big one.

I do not want to sound too cocky in all of this and I fear that it may sound that way. It may even be true-- it is a difficult thing to see in oneself, especially for someone with a big ego like me. I just really believe that we were given the tools to deal with our problems. And the main tool that we are given is our ability to make decisions (spirit) and take action (mind and body). God is helping me by giving me the tools, and helping me to dream the big goals, and He is keeping the adversaries at bay.

I continue to go to AA meetings at least a couple of times a month but not to keep me from drinking in the short term, but to increase my commitment to not drinking in the long term. I also go to share with people who are just joining and to give something back. And I am still learning and open to new thinking on this, even if I sound totally sure of myself.

I just keep it to myself about the issues I have presently with “One Day at A Time” as a long-term strategy. I recognize that the 24 Hours at a time method has worked for millions and given them their life back. Especially in the beginning it makes it possible.

I welcome comments from those who think differently on this subject, and I am not trying to say that what works for me works for everyone or is the only way to go. But if anyone else has tried to solve this problem through AA, and had problems with “surrender” then maybe what I have said here will help them resolve the issues. And I hope it will help me too!

I leave you with a quote from the Tao Te Ching (Chapter 4)

"With patience tangled cord may be undone,
and problems which seem insoluble, resolved.

When untangled by a cutting edge,
the cord in little pieces lies,
and is of little use."

So, I don't expect instant results, and I am not in a big hurry. I recognize that am closer to the beginning of this story than the end, I really understand that! And I know that I am not out of the woods.

Thanks for listening to my story (so far). FReegards,

RobFromGa

PS: The book "A Million Little Pieces" by Frey is excellent novel (loosely autobiographical) about recovery.

The AA Big Book is also excellent, as is Living Sober.

What would you tell a friend

Goodbye. The best thing that you can do is tell him to stop drinking and then make yourself unavailable as a soft landing pad for his failures. He needs to make new friends in a sober lifestyle. He associates you with his drinking life. I know it sounds harsh but I've been there ... on both sides.

The drunk will often transfer the reponsibility for quitting to the friend. The support system/friendship will eventually crumble under the strain and the drunk will be alone. AA and other support systems are no secret, if the drunk really wants to quit he knows where to go. If he makes it, it will be because he wants to. So skip the babysitting make the drunk face the cold hard world from the beginning. It will save time and heartache.

Thank you for posting this, Rob. And, no negativism here.

Someone may already have posted this and, if so, I apologize for duplicating their post. But, anyway, here goes.

My daughter - an attorney - has several clients who are addicted to alcohol. She told me of a drug named "Campral" which assists in warding off the cravings that alcoholics experience. Whether this works for other drugs or not, I cannot say.

Perhaps this information will help someone out there who needs this kind of help. As with any drug, you should first discuss this with your physician and you would probably need to do that anyway in that Campral is very likely available by prescription only.

My son is licking (always an ongoing process) this problem.

Massive amounts of OMEGA-3 help with the detox and mood swings.

See omegabrite.com.

Also take plenty of the supporting suppliments (C and E are especially important) for better absorption.

God Bless and good luck.

All of us who are defeating these addiction demons, and enjoying doing so, should help those still struggling to see that there is a GREAT LIFE on the other side of the bottle. A GREAT LIFE, undiminished, and BETTER.

Very good words and thanks again for this thread. Waking up without a trace of a hangover is so wonderful. Thanking God for the sunrise for nigh on five months.........

I’m not sure I understand your advice. Are you saying that a sober person who has a friend ask for help in quitting should turn around and shun them? If so, I completely disagree.

I will add another thought because Tiki’s post was so good;

Getting drunk is someone else’s idea of fun, not mine, though I was gullible to it.