How I Stopped Drowning in Drink

Wall Street Journal ^ | March 16, 2012 | Paul Carr

[nickcarraway]

What's the secret to getting sober and repairing the other broken parts of an alcoholic's life? It starts with setting your own terms, writes Paul Carr.

For years I'd told myself I wasn't an alcoholic. I never drank alone. I didn't wake up with fierce cravings, and sometimes I went for one or two days without drinking. A need to drink all day, every day, was never my problem.

My problem was that once I had a drink—whether it was at 7 p.m. or 9 a.m.—I couldn't stop until my body shut down and I passed out in a pile on the floor. I still had plenty of friends and still managed to hold down a job, but my relationship with alcohol was very obviously different from most people's. I was an alcoholic.

As of Saturday, the counter on my website says "878 days." Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I had my last alcoholic drink. Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I declared—very publicly—that my drinking had passed the point where it was funny, crazy or even merely dangerous. In fact, my addiction to alcohol had reached a stage where it was highly likely to kill me.

Enough was enough. So I decided to quit. But I didn't do it in the typical way.

For one thing, I didn't go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Not a single meeting. I have several friends who attend AA and have found it to be a highly effective way to quit. I have plenty of other friends who attend AA meetings every morning and are blind drunk every night. I almost attended a meeting at the suggestion of a friend, but first I decided to read the organization's Twelve Steps, the program that members must follow. The first step was enough to confirm that this form of

[freedomlover]

Try that when you keep going back to a smoky AA meeting where almost everyone else is chain smoking.

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Honestly, I think you will be hard pressed to find an AA meeting that allows smoking in the room any more.

FWIW

[Secret Agent Man]

Come up to Wisconsin.

[GSWarrior]

In my experience, once one has broken the cycle of his or her addiction, a next logical step is attending Co-Dependent Anonymous meetings to help acquire skills needed to repair/maintain relationships.

It has worked for me.

[freedomlover]

I didnt know that. I live in GA and dont know of any here and the last smoking session I was in was in SC a few years ago and they were about to phase it out, I thought SC would be a last bastion.

I quit smoking two years after getting clean 6 years ago. Smoking was MUCH harder and I occasionally still miss a cigarette.

I would not go to a smoking meeting.

[evangmlw]

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