12 stupid steps

Hi Richard,

Yes, it is incredibly important to talk about it, because not wanting to face the existemce of a problem, and trying to conceal it, is one of the symptoms--like hiding bottles in the apartment so no one will know how much i drank, (they knew anyway).

I once calculated i drank more than 96% of the male population per week. I guess the other four were in line at the liquor store in front of me.

There is no doubt bacardi had a major fiscal crisis when I went for treatment.

I am not trying to be John Wayne, but there is a certain stigma attached to this, and I don't want people to characterize me only in terms of my most vulnerable moments.

However, soon I will be discharged from the out patient program, and I know without some sort of support network, I will be on a slippery slope.

In the out patient program, the majority of people are heroin addicts, with a few cocaine addicts, and ometimes that makes it a little akward.

Many people do not realize just how addictive alcohol is, or ever answer the strange puzzle as to why so many people are able to use alcohol without turning into someone like me.

The other point about alcohol addiction is that unlike most other addictions, it is FATAL. Once the disease part has taken hold, there is generaly only one outcome.

One of my favorite quaotes is " everyone starts out as an individual, but in the end they all end up the same".

Thanks for your responses and I hope to hear from you soon.

After I got sober, my wife asked me why I drank like I did. I told her I drank to become invisible. She looked at me kinda funny and said. “Speed, you were a lot of things when you had a load on, but invisible wasn’t one of them.”

I told her I didn’t drink to become invisible from her, I drank to become invisible from me!

I didn’t much care if my wife saw me $#%^ faced, I didn’t much care if my children saw me passed out on the living room floor. I didn’t much care if my neighbors saw me taking a leak on my back tire after a night out.

But when I got sober, I didn’t want anyone to know that I was in recovery, that might be a bit embarrassing. I found out I was not alone in that either. Other guys felt the same way, and would park around in the back so no one would know that they were attending an AA meeting.

We are funny that way.

Cyclopentadiene, You are right about the fatal aspects of this disease. An otherwise healthy junky will not die withdrawing from heroin. It ain’t any fun, but it won’t kill you. But although it isn’t common, an alcoholic can die by quitting abruptly.

What isn’t uncommon at all is dying of active alcoholism. If we keep drinking, things just get worse. And no matter how bad they have gotten in the past, they can and will get a whole lot worse.

This disease ain’t foolin’. It will kick the toughest guys straight to the ground, and then under it.

Stay the course my friend, stay open minded, and stay willing to grow.

Richard

Richard,

As I mentioned in another post, if I had continued to drink, I would have died--if not already be dead. Thoug I have no liver disease, my heart has been enlarged. So if i continued to drink it would have killed me within a few months.

I had reached the point where it was imminently fatal. Withdrawel was no picnic either.

I drank because I was an alcoholic, and that's what acloholic's do. it became a full time job. One guy I knew who was a junky said if this is afull time job, I quit.

You're right about not wanting people in on being sober, though most the time it didn't matter when we were drunk.

No, there is no fooling with this. It isa mean, vicious, tenacious disease.

Cyclopentadiene, I don’t know you from Adam, and I ain’t making any predictions about your recovery, I hope it runs as smooth as silk, but understand that there are guys with all the health issues you have, that still convince themselves that a drink is a good idea.

“mean, vicious, tenacious” Oh, you bet. The Big Book calls it cunning baffling and powerful. I might add the word patient.

This, for me is where the spiritual experience comes in. I have been relieved of the obsession. I don’t think about drinking, or think about not drinking. I have simply been removed from that fight. It is no longer an issue for me. And I tell this power greater than myself thank you every day.

That simple gift is why some guys are so insistent about the steps. In doing them I found the solution to my alcoholism, and the solution to a lot of other problems as well.

But like I said before, it ain’t the only way, but it is a solid path we can walk for the rest of our lives.

Richard

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the response.

Some of the steps do sound reasonable. However others do not.

I think the most surprising thing about it, as you put it, is how patient it is. After several attempts to put it under control, it would always pick up after it left off--no matter how long I was i sober. It took virtualy no time at all to reach the old level of abuse in a twinkling of an eye.

There is no doubt that the mental obsession is a hard thing to break. A lot of it is having activities, which you reasonably *would* have done if you did not spend so much time being a drunk, like meeting normal people, having normal conversations, and moving forward in life.

A lot of that has to be learned, (and I do not say relearned).

It turns out while I was getting drunk, other people were growing up--at least a few. We all know the sad reality about that.

But I think a critical point where a lot of people stunble is they have to leave most of their old life behinnd, the most important part of which is weird attitudes about life.

Scott

Scott,

I got nothin’ to sell, and I got no dog in your hunt, but in your last post you said, and I quote, “Some of the steps do sound reasonable. However others do not.”

Could you elaborate on that?

Later on in your last message you hit on something that I believe is very important. Leaving the old life behind. Around the meetings I sit in on they have an expression that goes like this. “We need to abandon our old playmates and our old playpens.”

If I keep hanging out in bars, just to prove to my buddies that I don’t need to drink, I will eventually pick up that first in a long and painful string of drinks.

I am an alcoholic! That is what we do. We drink like fishes.

But it ain’t easy. It is the only life we know. Luckily we have alcohol kickin’ our a##es every day as the needed motivation.

My grand sponsor used to tell me that his alcoholism was his greatest asset, without it, he would never have grown up.

Richard

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your response.

I think some of the steps come across as abdicating one's respomsibility, and a certain rejection of the self. And i have certainly found that one of the most difficult things has been accepting that the other self is which I rejected.

I also don't want to make ammends to some people, or be that sorry, and I prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. I know what i did.

I also don't really want a sponsor. Though i know on the one hand accountability is a good thing, I also don't want to have my life invaded by someone, nor judged.

I was also abandoned by nost the people I knew when I finally managed to stay dry. I thought i could drink a little bit, or only on special occasions. But it always ended the same way. I am certain some people can.

I am not one of them.

I don't go to bars. I don't put myself in those situations. I think there are different levels of saying no. At each level it gets progressively harder. As they have very convincignly explained in rehab, a relapse happens long before someone has that drink in front of them.

Sometimes people relapse because they make a mistake, and then have to figure out what the mistake was. But if you can see it coming, it's way better to refuse to take a small step in that direction--especially once you are finally convinced it can not go in any other way.

Scott

Scott,

If your method of dealing of alcohol is working for you, my hat is off to you. I tried many things to stop or control my drinking. Eventually, I found that nothing worked. I went to AA, did what they suggested, and have not had to pick up a drink for many years. If I could have used anything else to control my drinking, I would have done it.
Good Luck,
Jim S

cyclopentadiene wrote:I don't go to bars. I don't put myself in those situations. I think there are different levels of saying no. At each level it gets progressively harder. As they have very convincignly explained in rehab, a relapse happens long before someone has that drink in front of them.

Sometimes people relapse because they make a mistake, and then have to figure out what the mistake was. But if you can see it coming, it's way better to refuse to take a small step in that direction--especially once you are finally convinced it can not go in any other way.

Scott

Very good input !!!

My problem was the bars. well and eveything in it.

cyclopentadiene wrote:I don't go to bars. I don't put myself in those situations. I think there are different levels of saying no. At each level it gets progressively harder. As they have very convincignly explained in rehab, a relapse happens long before someone has that drink in front of them.

Sometimes people relapse because they make a mistake, and then have to figure out what the mistake was. But if you can see it coming, it's way better to refuse to take a small step in that direction--especially once you are finally convinced it can not go in any other way.

Scott

Very good input !!!

My problem were the bars. well and everything in it.