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
Have I ever been in charge of my life? When my answer was yes, then I have to look at where being in charge got me. (15 years of heavy drinking) If no, that was probably the times I was drunk. That's certainly not being in charge.
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.
True. We are given choices. What had I chosen for 15 years? I chose to drink. God didn't make me drink - I did that all on my own. God's will is that I, as an alcoholic, stay sober. Until I realized that I could not understand that I was surrendering to the idea that God didn't want me to drink. I wanted to!
Now I know that surrendering to God's will is accepting his choice that I don't drink.
That is the core of my personal philosophy and my Conservative polical viewpoint comes straight from this philosphy.
Once again, I had to look where my personal philosophy got me. Where did yours get you?
Surrender is not capitulation. It is accepting God's will (that you not drink and screw up your life every day) for you. It is a concept that I never thought of before AA. It took me awhile to realize this. It doesn't come overnight.
Congratulations! I pray for your continued success.
LOL!
I don't know how many people I've heard say that in meetings!
They were always glad the door swung both ways.
So, to most people, starting to feel drunk is like the way I feel if I take an antihistimine that makes me feel drowsy. Kind of muffled, and fuzzy, and not quite myself. OTOH, when I feel that way from Alcohol, I'm just getting revved up.
Course there are plenty of people that like to get drunk and be somebody that don't turn out to be alcoholics.
Bump.
I know I was certainly powerless over alcohol. No matter how bad the drinking got I always went back. No matter how many times I tried to stop/quit/slow down/not drink for a week/ not drink today I always went back. It wasn't until I accepted the idea that I was powerless over alcohol could I begin to let go of it. Because of alcohol's control over me I could not see the steps I needed to break that control.
It's kind of like quicksand. The more you struggle the more you sink. When you let yourself relax you can stop sinking and gradually come out of it.
It is a humbling concept. One that takes some time to accept. When I did, though, the sense of freedom was immeasurable. I felt as though reborn - with all the capabilities of a child. I had to learn to live without alcohol. I had to learn to deal with others without alcohol. I had to learn to love without alcohol. Not easy tasks but one made all the more easy with help from those that have been there and more often than not, knew what I was going to do and say before I did.
From your previous post.
THat is why this year I vowed to not drink untill after new years. I made this decision about a week ago. It seems quite a coincidence that I would see your post just now.
Only you can judge if you are an alcoholic. You may not be. If, however, you identify with 'robfromga' and others on this thread who have admitted to being alcoholics, than it's time to pay attention.
God bless you and keep you safe during the holiday season.
Ray
Bump.
Do not do this alone. Seek help and be with someone who can help.
I can agree with this definition, as I stated before I believe that our spirit is a gift from God, and that we can either choose to build it up or tear it down.
The surrender that they talk about at AA in my area sounds more like giving up responsibility to God for our sobriety as something that is "out of our control". I reject that notion because I am in total control of whether I choose to poison myself, it is I who pours the drink and swallows it. God gives me that choice to make.
If surrender means to accept that God desires us to build ourselves up rather than destroy ourselves, then I can accept that definition. I have agreed with Him on this point and do not plan to ever drink again.
I know that if I allow myself to be in charge of moderating or controlling this substance, I will likely fail and it is not worth it. So I choose to remove all choice from myself, I am a non-drinker. I ask God to help me in carrying this out.
Another way that I look at it is that my license to drink alcohol has been revoked permanently due to reckless "driving". It was my own fault that I lost the privilege, not someone else.
It most certainly is not BS when you admit that your addiction has completely taken over your life. You actually DO get power when you admit your powerlessness.
bump
Sounds like the beginning of a great Christmas tune! (just kidding). I really appreciate your input, I am looking forward to learning more from all of you. RobfromGa
I believe that I am powerless to "control" (or moderate) my use of alcohol, but that I have total control over whether to let it in my body again. That is a big difference.
If you are able to control your use of alcohol to your satisfaction, then you are not an alcoholic by definition, as it is a self-diagnosed defect.
Joining many others to wish you success.
I always thought I could stop drinking whenever I wanted to, but I liked the slight burning of my tongue with the first sip, the cool feeling of it going down my throat, the smell and the taste, that's why I didn't want to quit, so I told myself.
Finally fed up with struggling by myself to quit and worried my kids would have to be pulling me out of a bar when I was eighty, I admitted to God I could not do this by myself and begged him to help me, HE DID!
Since I stopped almost 4 years ago, I've tried drinking twice and surprise, surprise, I can stand none of those things now.
My own sister thinks this way.After being on a binge for a week.Get this,She says if your thirsty drink water!!! I look back on that and laugh.Our own mother died from drinking and she thinks the worst thing you can say to an alcoholic is your powerless!
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