Sobriety

I passed fourteen years of sobriety last month without a single person commenting on the milestone. These days- nobody expects me to drink, nobody worries if I’ll make it home, they depend on me. Everyone forgot I was an alcoholic… and it made me very happy.

Last weekend however, it turned out some people did remember.

I was presented the card below at the recovery meeting I started over two years ago at the methadone clinic. On the inside of the card they mentioned something even more important to my recovery than length of sobriety, they thanked me for all the meetings… and it made me very happy.

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I posted a blog on anything. I have tried to make comments on TDA's posts from time to time to stay in the loop. Today is a special day for TDA (it's not actually today but soon) and I thought I would write my own post and hope it worthy enough for him to post on the front page so he could take a little break today or tomorrow from writing. As you can tell he is pretty adamant about keeping the site updated every day - no matter how he feels physically, mentally, or what demands the rest of the world has for him. He knows this is part of his recovery and that it must come first.

I owe him thanks for my own sobriety and can't tell anyone enough about how much he helped me when I was still a suffering alcoholic. I can honestly say I probably would not have become sober without his help and concern. He took care of so much for me when I simply couldn't .

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Recovery doesn’t just happen because one stops drinking and using drugs; especially in the beginning, it takes diligent hard work and sacrifice. I think this may be the hardest lesson we have to learn as alcoholics and addicts new to sobriety, that even though now sober we continue to think function, and make decisions with a "diseased" brain. Quitting is the easy part, it’s staying sober that is the real trick.

Those in AA say to change people, places, and things. A therapist might say it also requires cognitive behavioral training. A pastor might say that it takes faith and finding one's spirituality. And they would all be right. One has to proactively work a recovery program, consciously setting aside time and resources not only to stay clean and sober, but to maintain a healthy and progressive mindset.

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We have to develop a set of tools and routines to achieve sobriety. These tools help us learn about ourselves and the routines assist us in staying productive (and out of trouble). But we shouldn’t stop there, these methods we develop during our recovery can be used for so much more.

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Survey says... DUH! ”

"In a study of 2,750 men and women, researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that the sexes showed some key differences in symptoms of problem drinking. For example, men more often reported problems like bingeing or getting into fights, but women were more likely to report feeling depressed or guilty about their drinking. ~ CNN.com Health”

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When this video was forwarded to me by a frequent visitor of this site, I thought from the title it was going to be funny. I mean, come on now, a YouTube video titled "Drunk Monkeys" has high potential for hilarity. Leave it to a cynical and introspective alcoholic like myself however to frame this video in a less than jocular fashion.

I guess it was the narrator describing how the island monkeys raided the local bars that made me twinge with an internal wince, "they have learned to be sneaky". It was from this point on that I viewed the monkeys in this video as if they were just actors on the set of “My Life”. The sneakiness, the bump and run, and the falling down drunk: Act I. Act II, and Act III of my life story that was always followed by an encore.

Paging Dr. Killjoy… well here’s your video anyway. Enjoy it, if you can.

That's right, time for a little honesty out their my fellow alcoholics and addicts. I have been participating in some discussions with a few of my brethren in an effort to produce some anecdotes that would help explain the power of addictions to those not afflicted. One of these has already been the subject of a blog here (But I'm a Good Parent), and it generated a few spirited discussions at the meeting hall. The subject of this one will be just as painful to reflect on, but if we are to better explain addictions to others we must explore and revisit our past actions together in recovery.

I wanted bad things to happen. I wanted tragedy, death, and misery; if it didn't happen on its own, I would often cause it myself.

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If I have heard it once, I have heard it a thousand times. “At night I have trouble turning off my thoughts” or “when I try to go to bed my mind just starts racing” are just a few renditions of this standard complaint for alcoholics and addicts”

I know I said it a million times myself. I thought I was crazy... no, actually I WANTED people to think I was crazy. I remember I used to joke with an old girlfriend about why every night I would drink myself into a stupor. I would say it was to slow down the racing thoughts, until the old TV sign-off screen was the only thing left in my mind and I could drift off to a fitful sleep.

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In June of 1794, over 1000 Indians attacked a small fort in the Northwest Territory (now Ohio) engaging less than 300 Americans led by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. Their point of defense was a makeshift defensive structure named Fort Recovery. It was built over the same ground where a few years earlier over 700 American soldiers had died in what could easily be described as a massacre. This time however, the wooden timbers of their ad-hoc wilderness fortress provided a place of safety in which the soldiers could rely upon their training and mutual support to repel the enemy marauders; Fort Recovery held and became a turning point in history described by some as the opening of the West.

I have my own Fort Recovery, and it's called a routine. General Wayne, considered an early adopter of “basic training”, drilled his troops so they would react in a proper manner in the heat of battle while protected by the walls of Fort Recovery. In a similar sense, my routines provide a defensive structure of normalcy that serve as a shield and grounding influence when life events get messy.

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Everyone needs to laugh, so count this post as a humor in recovery posting. Yeah I know it’s a stretch, but I had to put this on so thanks Cute Overload.