Promoted to the front page from the user blogs, Toby12321 shares the latest blog of several front page posts this week on the topic of fear. I know from personal experience that sinking feeling in the stomach when one realizes the only thing scarier than living the life of an alcoholic… is living without drinking. Thanks for sharing Toby!
I spent many years wanting to stop drinking but my biggest fear was could I live without alcohol. See, I had a slogan “Live to Drink and Drink to Live”. I firmly believed this. There wasn’t a day went by that I didn’t drink. Once I started I kept drinking until I went to bed or passed out.
I carried a cooler with me all the time. I was never without a cold beer. My days and weekends were planned around alcohol. Back then you couldn’t buy beer on Sundays in PA but eventually they changed the law. Now you can buy beer on Sundays from the distributors. I was known at all the watering holes. You would have thought I had my mail sent there.
To stop drinking meant I would have to learn to live a new life in a very different way. I would have to become an earth person as they say in AA. Until I quit the alcohol I never realized just how many people actually played golf without it. I will tell you that I didn’t get any better at golf from being sober though. In fact I hardly play anymore because it is a very frustrating sport to me. I have enough frustrations at times in life so I don’t go out just to find it.
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The first time I got sober it lasted for two and a half years. Then on a ski trip in CO with a few old friends who still drink I decided I knew how to drink like a normal person. That one drink lasted for a year and a half. It was the worst time of my life. My drinking was worse than I had ever imagined. My last real binge lasted 42 days, yes it did. See, in my later years I had to drink when I woke each morning to be able to function. It was ugly because one drink led to many and there I was drunk again.
Needless to say, one morning I rose and looked in the mirror and said I hate you. I then proceeded to get drunk, called a Rehab and was in a Detox unit by the end of the afternoon. That was one of the best days of my life. I know now I’ll never be able to drink alcohol of any kind again.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m hoping to get to my first AA meeting tonight. I’m terrified. Wish me luck.
Good luck Judi-
Send us an e-mail and let us know how you are doing.
TDA
for such a dysfunctional lot it is absolutely amazing at how efficient we become at long term supply planning and the facilitation of that next drink or hit.
Money, weather, even law enforcement cannot deter us from our goal… only death is an unconquerable barrier when it comes to feeding our disease.
It’s too bad there really aren’t any programs in place to encourage/enforce tangible substitutes for all that “supply” planning & facilitation. It seems to me a lot of the fear that comes with abstaining from an addictive substance is: What to do with ALL THAT TIME? I understand it should be the addict who steps up and finds the appropriate substitution, but it seems that all too often they tend to pick yet another addiction. What are your thoughts?
but your’re right- recovery, learning to live without drinking and drugging, is the hard part. You can force someone to quite using (happens in jail all the time, or when a family forces a loved one into rehab)- but they have to develop the skill and ability to navigate life themself. I think this is why 12 step programs work so well, they give structure to those new to recovery and a path to follow.
Yes, but is the structure you speak of simply replacing time spent previously drinking and drugging in 12 step meetings? And from all that I’ve read, the path they promote is one of self-awareness through an understanding of a higher power….but still no TANGIBLE substitutions. And coming from one whose belief in a god of any sort is tenuous at best, I can certainly understand an addict’s aversion to such a program. I guess what I was thinking was more along the lines of a program substituting addictive behaviour time with the creation of “widgets” or some other such skill development regiment. Something to keep them occupied, productive, and away from their addictive environment.
but actually working the steps. Doing 90 in 90 is a tremendous change from the life of addiction. Just arranging the schedule and transportation can be a full time job for many. Then there is actually working the steps- with a good sponsor, this can be an encompassing program involving much thought, conversation, and even some serious time with pen and paper. Making amends… talk about occupying one’s time!
I know I had serious reservations when it came to the higher power aspect of the twelve steps, but at that point in my life I just pushed on and left it less to faith as I did fate. After my ninety in ninety was up, I didn’t attend regular meetings for many years unless guiding someone new to sobriety. But that first three months did plant a seed for the basis of my own recovery program- and I stayed busy staying sober from that point on.
Programs with widgets would be great. Especially programs with widgets full of experienced, helpful people that wanted you to stay sober- absolutely wonderful. Free- fantastic! I agree totally with you on the need to productively occupy the time once spent seeking and consuming one’s drug of choice- but choices that include a support structure and experienced sponsors as far as I know are very limited.
I too doubt the efficacy of 12 step program as a total solution, they are not going to work for everybody- but they are available for everybody, and can facilitate long term recovery regardless of one’s belief structure- I am living proof of that.
Part of the fantasy I created to give myself permission to keep drinking was the idea that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and be gone. So why not party every day like it was your last one on earth? I said I would straighten out when I got old…like 25, then I hit that and said old, like 30…I Hit that and said….
Eventually, I crashed, but it was not a bus that hit me it was when I finally looked in a mirror and saw what my life really was.
Bill
i am withdrawing now. i am sad and scared
and welcome to recovery.