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
Good post, Rob. I personally just asked myself, "Who's running this show - the bottle or me?" When I admitted that it was the bottle, it ticked me off enough to pull my head out of it. Sure makes life easier...and more fun. Good luck!
Thanks for the post Rob. I'm at that crossroad right now and your letter is an inspiration.
I am unquestionably a binge alcoholic. I drink 8 to 12 beers in a night 2 to 3 times a week. I too, like you used to, find myself scheduling things around my "hangover days" and have no doubt my productivity would multiply, allowing me to do what I always wanted to do - work for myself.
I'll take your words of wisdom and hope that I can "jump on the wagon" and stay there.
If I do finally make the leap, I'll ping you.
If any of you have any suggestions about how to handle this and maybe contact Jim Robinson and see what he feels about this. I am not sure how he would see this. We should probably get together and make a concerted query to Jim to see how he feels about this.
There are a lot people who could use the simple daily contact with others in recovery. I sure can.
LOL, I would hope not, and I hope you know I was just teasing. :)
There is no need to try to "jump on the wagon". Just contact your local AA (I know - that means someone else will know about your drinking) and the "wagon" will come an pick you up. Or, at least it will stop and you can climb on board. Best move I ever made.
Seven years for me come Spring.
I had reached a state were I felt things were out of my control and I had no one to talk to. A chance(?) meeting with an old acquaintance I had not seen for quite awhile, resulted in him asking me if I was willing to go to any lengths to resolve my problems. When he said that, I knew immediately that, yes I was. Accepting that my way wasn't working, I finally reached out to others and to my Creator. The ensuing years while not free from the everyday problems of life have been a continual unfolding of blessings. Each year brings new joy and spiritual inspiration. It just keeps getting better and better. I never would have dreamed of the wonders that were in store for me.
Alcoholism is truly a disease that must be self-diagnosed. Until you realize the nature of the problem advice from doctors, spiritual councilors or friends will have no effect.
For me AA was a boon. To talk with people who knew what I was going through and that could offer sound advice was something I desperately needed.
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."
Good for you.
Here at home Mrs. TC entered a intensive out-patient program last week to quit drinking. After nearly totallying the car three times, I asked if she was waiting to kill someone before getting help.
I may post more later.
Please put me on your new ping list--thanks and congratulations!
If I'm tempted to exceed two drinks, I have learned to ask myself, "Do I really want to do this?" The answer is always "no".
I think alcohol does something different for some people. I have a couple of family members with drinking problems --- alcohol seems to give them something I've never experienced. I can have a couple drinks --- but they never make me feel better or think I'm happier or more popular, or make me forget about the bills. It's easy to choose a cup of coffee over alcohol when coffee gives a more positive effect.
Good for you, Rob. I hope things work out for you.
My DH DID have to hit rock bottom (I had him removed from our home and we were living separately for 6 months) before he shaped up. He's been clean and sober for 16 months now and doing well. 9 weeks left to go in court-ordered classes (he went to an out-patient rehab to get sober first, then this) and he's back to being the man I fell in love with 14 years ago.
I was so uninformed! It really is a prgressive "disease" when it gets to a certain point. Personally, I think self-control has a lot to do with it, but once you're that far into it, you do need help to get out of it and your poor brain and body do need to be detoxed, big time.
So, all is well here. I have great faith that he's totally on the mend and this will not be a problem for us in the future. And yes, he wants to live a clean and sober life now. This isn't something I'm imposing on him. He knows what he has to lose for himself; it's not just losing me and his son.
torchthemummy, I do this as well. Rob, please add me to your ping list.
Wonderful account.
Where do "non-alcohol" beer and wine come into the picture? I imagine one has to keep away from them as well?
I can summarize the current thought on your question.
Alcoholism is a bio-psycho-social-spiritual condition. In other words it has factors of all of these.
We can demonstrate it biological component thru a number of ways.
The genetic factor has been demonstrated thru what are called "twin studies". As you probably know identical twins are genetically identically, the result of a splitting of a single fertilized ovum. What was done in the 1950s and 60's was researches went to the Scandnavian countries, which have had socialized medicine since before WW II. This gave them a centralized database to work from. They looked at identical twins who had at least one parent who was diagnosed with alcoholism. They then looked at only those that had, for whatever reason, be separated shortly after birth and raised in separate homes - one in a home with practicing alcoholics and the other in a home where there was no identified alcoholism.
This attempts to control for the "nuture" effect. What they found was in the children raised in alcoholic homes 43% of those children were alcoholic by middle age. Additional they found in the children raised in non-alcoholic homes - 43% of the children were alcoholic by middle age!. There are over 400 English language studies of this type recorded in the literature since the 1950's, all with similiar results.
Additionally from the biological and psychological angles we have to look at the long-term effects of chronic alcohol and drug poisoning on the human brain. Recent work by Dr. Terrance Gorski in this area has demonstrated pretty definitely that this damage can take anywhere from 7-11 years to fully heal. During this 7-11 years the alcoholic's reasoning, memory and perception is qualitatively impaired as demostrated by psychological testing.
Socially the alcoholic develops a drug/alcohol centered social life and value system/personality that must be systematically addressed. This is the primary function of support networks such as AA/NA/CA and the 12 Steps.
Since man is a synthesis of body and spirit one must also address the spiritual maladies of alcoholism. In short - pathological self-centeredness - what AA has always called "self-will run riot". The 12-steps of AA/NA/CA are also heavily involved in this area - in fact the 12th step tells us the process of recovery is primarily a spiritual process: "Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps..."
From a Christian perspective the alcoholic indulges in the sin of gluttony and "that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin" (Jn 8:34).
The truth of this is born out in the remedy of AA which at it core can be described as "one alcoholic staying sober by helping another alcoholic to do the same". So as Christ teaches - love for one another is the solution.
In fact this method of recovery - the 12 steps - based on the core of one alcoholic helping another is the only modality of treatment that has had any signficant level of success in treating perhaps one of the most complicated and destructive maladies known to man.
Great story Rob.
It's been 16 years for me. I was hallucinating from DT's while I watched the Bush-Dukakis election returns.
I knew from that time that I was a former alcoholic. I never considered myself to be recovering. I was recovered from the beginning.
I realized the source of my confidence when I was preaching a church service last summer and we sang the hymn that quotes from II Timothy 1:12: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Congrats and stay strong !
22 years with the help of God and AA. Life keeps happening so stay close to those that know. Put me on your Ping list.
There is a commonality felt by those who have had a good look at our their destruction and chose another way. This commonality cuts through all income levels, race, creed or religion. I can sit with individuals who are gay, poor, rich, any religion you can imagine, political bent, sex, thieves, judges whatever; and they are my brothers and sisters. It is one of the greatest gifts to know that we are all children of God and to be humbled to know that they, any and all, are my salvation.
Put me on it, I'd be interestd in those posts.
TC, my mother went through one of those programs about 15 years ago and has been sober (more or less, with a couple slip-ups) since then. She was as sick as alcoholics get. Best of luck to you and your wife.
I'll touch on my experience with this tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.