Posted on 12/11/2004 5:37:20 AM PST by RobFromGa
To Any Person Who Suspects They May Have a Drinking Problem,
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
I just wanted to bump this thread because I think it is one of the most important I have ever read.
"AA will say you'll always have the desire to drink. I wonder if you would disagree?"
I've been sober over 18 years and went to thousands of AA meetings and never heard that. Though, AA has taught me this, once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, which means that I'm never cured, just on hold one day at a time.
I can honestly say that once I truly surrendered to the fact that I could never drink again (safely) without the help of God, that my desire to drink was gone. Which for me, proved to be enormously difficult, I just could not give up that last shred of control, despite having hit bottom. But It was AA, and a very patient sponser, that helped me get to the point where my understanding of God's will for me, and not my own, would bring the release from this long struggle, and it did.
Rob, thanks so much for starting this thread, and passing it on. I believe you've helped some FReepers, and me as well. It's always a good reminder and a spiritual boost when someone openly admits they've choosen to take the first difficult steps towards a sober life. Thank you.
I agree with Kawana and TexasCowboy's take on 'surrender', because for me, my will is the problem. But whatever it takes, whatever works, especially early on is good, and there is no right or wrong, only sober.
To hundreds of thousands of us, the importance is life or death.
"Once you're a pickle, you'll never be a cucumber again."
a pickle is Still a cucumber
Wow, just saw this. Congrats, Rob.
Post #107 bears repeating, thanks kanawa ...
The portion of the Big Book known informally as 'the promises' holds out hope for all sufferers of this affliction.
"If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
.......
We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil as if from a hot flame.
We will see that our new attitude has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected.
We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us.
We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience.
That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."
A tough task, well done!
Well, your post is very very touching. God bless you and may He help you every moment!
I don't drink (I'm mormon) nor am I tempted to drink, but when I go to events or some social gatherings inevitably I run across people who think is 'strange' that I don't drink.
Its essentially social pressure.
Of course I tell them to go to **** (or at least think it), but there is a point to be made...
All the people who read this should be careful about how they treat others, even unintentionally. Accept people for who they are. It can make all the difference in the world for someone who may be struggling.
Exactly!
Thank you for the Promises.
Outstanding, Rob.
Thanks FP.
Eagles Up,
RobFromGa
You are welcome. Thanks to kanawa, too.
First congrats to you and Rob both.
My post wasn't directed towards either, but rather towards everyone else. Especially those who find themselves in situations where they can influence others.
I am basically saying be aware of those around you and be a real friend--by supporting those who may (or may not) struggle.
Old hangouts, old hobbies and old drinking buddies must be dealt with.
And it will take time for even those closest to you to really believe that you really mean it "this time" as compared to all the past times you had said you changed.
Patience is required.
Never understood beer drinking...tasted like what I imagined horsepiss would taste like. Never understood it when the price of buttermilk was so cheap. I am very happy for your victory. Your family will likewise be happy and grateful. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Wise thing to do.
Any offense that might have caused someone was, and still is, irrelevant.
True! If one is making big changes, cut the old baggage loose. Sometimes thats the only way up.
No drunk likes a sober, so friendship with a drunk is not conducive to my serenity.
My post is not directed at drunks vs non-drunks. But rather 'social drinkers' who may not be in either category. The road to hell is a gradual slope, not a cliff.
I think maybe it depends largely on age too...people who are a little older in some ways are better to hang out with than people around the twenty somethings....
Again, I don't drink at all. I am a teetotaler. Not a drop.
If though I go to a social event and people are 'weirded out' that I don't toss a few back... I can only imagine what kind of impact that would have on someone who is struggling with alcoholism.
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