Living Sober
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Plainfield, New Jersey USA
Posts: 491
Living Sober
Right here, right now we are going to discuss some methods we have used for living without drinking. You are welcome to all of them, whether you are interested in Alcoholic Anonymous or not.
Our drinking was connected with many habits--big and little. Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves. Others were doing habits--things we did, actions we took. In getting used to not drinking, we have found that we needed new habits to take the place of those old ones.
For example, instead of taking that next drink--the one in your hand or the one you've planned on--can you postpone it until you have read this thoroughly. Sip some soda or fruit juice, instead of an alcoholic beverage, while you read. A little later, we'll explain more fully what's behind this change in habits.
After we spent a few months practicing these new, sober habits or ways of acting and thinking, they became almost second nature to most of us, as drinking used to be. Not drinking has become natural and easy, not a long, dreary struggle.
These practical hour by hour methods can easily be used at home, at work, or in social gatherings. Also included here are several things we have learned not to do, or to avoid. These were things that, we now see, once tempted us to drink or otherwise endangered our recovery.
We think you'll find many or even all the suggestions discussed here valuable in living sober, with comfort and ease. There is nothing significant about the order in which this is presented. It can be rearranged in any way you like that works. Nor is this a complete listing. Practically every A.A. member you meet can give you at least one more good idea not mentioned here. And you will probably come up with brand new ones that work for you. We hope you pass them on to others who can profit by them.
*Here are two cautions which have proved helpful:
1. Keep an open mind: Perhaps some of the suggestions offered here will not appeal to you. If that is the case, we have found that instead of rejecting them forever, it's a better idea to just set them aside for the time being. If we don't close our minds to the permanently, we can always go back later and try out ideas we didn't like before---if we want to.
In recovering from alcoholism, we found that we needed a balanced diet of ideas, even if some of them did not look, at first, as enjoyable as others. Like good food, good ideas did us no good unless we made intelligent use of them. And that leads to our second caution.
2. Use your common sense: We found that we have to use plain every day intelligence in applying the suggestions that follow. Like almost any other ideas, the suggestions here can be misused. Take the slogan "Easy does it." Some of us have found that we could abuse this sensible notion, turning it into an excuse for tardiness, laziness or rudeness. That is not, of course, what the slogan is intended for. Properly applied it can be healing; misapplied, it can hinder our recovery. Some among us would add to it: "Easy does it'--but do it!"
It is clear that we have to use our intelligence in following any advice. Every method described here needs to be used with good judgement.
What I am writing about is not drinking. We have found that for us recovery began with not drinking--with getting sober and staying completely free of alcohol in any amount, and in any form. We have also found that we have to stay away from other mind-changing drugs. We can move toward a full and satisfying life only when we stay sober. Sobriety is the launching pad for our recovery. In a way this is about how to handle sobriety. Before, we couldn't; so we drank.
Expressions commonly heard in A.A. are "If you don't take that first drink, you can't get drunk" and "One drink is too many, but a thousand is not enough."
Many of us, when we first began to drink, never wanted or took more than one or two drinks. But as time went on, we increased the number. Then, in later years, we found ourselves drinking more and more, some of us getting and staying drunk. Maybe our condition didn't always show in our speech our gait, but by the this time we were never actually sober.
If that bothered us to much, we would cut down, or try to limit ourselves to just one or two drinks, or switch from hard liquor to beer or wine. At least, we tried to limit the amount, so we would not get to high. Or we tried to hide how much we drank.
But all these measures got more and more difficult. Occasionally, we went on the wagon, and did not drink at all for a while. Eventually, we would go back to drinking--just one drink. And since that apparently did no serious damage, we felt it was safe to have another. Maybe that was all we took on that occasion, and it was a great relief to find we could take just one or two, then stop. Some of us did that many times.
But the experience proved to be a snare. It persuaded us that we could drink safely. And then there would come the occasion (some special celebration, a personal loss, or no particular event at all) when two or three made us feel fine, so we thought on or two more could not hurt. And witrh absolutely no intention of doing so, we found ourselves again drinking to much. We were right back where we had been.--overdrinking without really wanting to.
Such repeated experiences have forced us to this logically inescapable conclusion: If we do not take the first drink, we never get drunk. Therefore, instead of planning never to get drunk, or trying to limit the number of drinks or the amount of alcohol, we have learned to concentrate on avoiding only one drink: the first one.
In effect, instead of worrying about limiting the number of drinks at the end of a drinking episode, we avoid the one drink that starts it. Sounds almost foolishly simplistic, doesn't it. It's hard for many of us now to believe that we never really figured this out for ourselves before we came to A.A.. (Of course to tell the truth, we never really wanted to give up drinking altogether, either, until we learned about alcoholism.) But the main point is: We know now that this is what works.
Just for Today------I am Sober
Our drinking was connected with many habits--big and little. Some of them were thinking habits, or things we felt inside ourselves. Others were doing habits--things we did, actions we took. In getting used to not drinking, we have found that we needed new habits to take the place of those old ones.
For example, instead of taking that next drink--the one in your hand or the one you've planned on--can you postpone it until you have read this thoroughly. Sip some soda or fruit juice, instead of an alcoholic beverage, while you read. A little later, we'll explain more fully what's behind this change in habits.
After we spent a few months practicing these new, sober habits or ways of acting and thinking, they became almost second nature to most of us, as drinking used to be. Not drinking has become natural and easy, not a long, dreary struggle.
These practical hour by hour methods can easily be used at home, at work, or in social gatherings. Also included here are several things we have learned not to do, or to avoid. These were things that, we now see, once tempted us to drink or otherwise endangered our recovery.
We think you'll find many or even all the suggestions discussed here valuable in living sober, with comfort and ease. There is nothing significant about the order in which this is presented. It can be rearranged in any way you like that works. Nor is this a complete listing. Practically every A.A. member you meet can give you at least one more good idea not mentioned here. And you will probably come up with brand new ones that work for you. We hope you pass them on to others who can profit by them.
*Here are two cautions which have proved helpful:
1. Keep an open mind: Perhaps some of the suggestions offered here will not appeal to you. If that is the case, we have found that instead of rejecting them forever, it's a better idea to just set them aside for the time being. If we don't close our minds to the permanently, we can always go back later and try out ideas we didn't like before---if we want to.
In recovering from alcoholism, we found that we needed a balanced diet of ideas, even if some of them did not look, at first, as enjoyable as others. Like good food, good ideas did us no good unless we made intelligent use of them. And that leads to our second caution.
2. Use your common sense: We found that we have to use plain every day intelligence in applying the suggestions that follow. Like almost any other ideas, the suggestions here can be misused. Take the slogan "Easy does it." Some of us have found that we could abuse this sensible notion, turning it into an excuse for tardiness, laziness or rudeness. That is not, of course, what the slogan is intended for. Properly applied it can be healing; misapplied, it can hinder our recovery. Some among us would add to it: "Easy does it'--but do it!"
It is clear that we have to use our intelligence in following any advice. Every method described here needs to be used with good judgement.
What I am writing about is not drinking. We have found that for us recovery began with not drinking--with getting sober and staying completely free of alcohol in any amount, and in any form. We have also found that we have to stay away from other mind-changing drugs. We can move toward a full and satisfying life only when we stay sober. Sobriety is the launching pad for our recovery. In a way this is about how to handle sobriety. Before, we couldn't; so we drank.
Expressions commonly heard in A.A. are "If you don't take that first drink, you can't get drunk" and "One drink is too many, but a thousand is not enough."
Many of us, when we first began to drink, never wanted or took more than one or two drinks. But as time went on, we increased the number. Then, in later years, we found ourselves drinking more and more, some of us getting and staying drunk. Maybe our condition didn't always show in our speech our gait, but by the this time we were never actually sober.
If that bothered us to much, we would cut down, or try to limit ourselves to just one or two drinks, or switch from hard liquor to beer or wine. At least, we tried to limit the amount, so we would not get to high. Or we tried to hide how much we drank.
But all these measures got more and more difficult. Occasionally, we went on the wagon, and did not drink at all for a while. Eventually, we would go back to drinking--just one drink. And since that apparently did no serious damage, we felt it was safe to have another. Maybe that was all we took on that occasion, and it was a great relief to find we could take just one or two, then stop. Some of us did that many times.
But the experience proved to be a snare. It persuaded us that we could drink safely. And then there would come the occasion (some special celebration, a personal loss, or no particular event at all) when two or three made us feel fine, so we thought on or two more could not hurt. And witrh absolutely no intention of doing so, we found ourselves again drinking to much. We were right back where we had been.--overdrinking without really wanting to.
Such repeated experiences have forced us to this logically inescapable conclusion: If we do not take the first drink, we never get drunk. Therefore, instead of planning never to get drunk, or trying to limit the number of drinks or the amount of alcohol, we have learned to concentrate on avoiding only one drink: the first one.
In effect, instead of worrying about limiting the number of drinks at the end of a drinking episode, we avoid the one drink that starts it. Sounds almost foolishly simplistic, doesn't it. It's hard for many of us now to believe that we never really figured this out for ourselves before we came to A.A.. (Of course to tell the truth, we never really wanted to give up drinking altogether, either, until we learned about alcoholism.) But the main point is: We know now that this is what works.
Just for Today------I am Sober
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Plainfield, New Jersey USA
Posts: 491
Instead of trying to figure out how many we could handle--four?--six?---a dozen?--we remember, "Just don't pick up that firsrt drink." It is so much simpler. The habit of thinking this way has helped hundreds of thousands of us stay sober for years.
Doctors who are experts on alcoholism tell us that there is a sound medical foundation for avoiding the first drink. It is the first drink which triggers, immediately or some time later, the compulsion to drink more and more until we are in drinking trouble again. Many of us have come to believe that our alcoholism is an addiction to the drug alcohol; like addicts of any sort who want to maintain recovery, we have to keep away from the first dose of the drug we have become addicted to. Our experience seems to prove this.
USING THE 24 HOUR PLAN
In our drinking days, we often had such bad times that we swore, "Never again." We took pledges for as long as a year, or promised someone we would not touch the stuff for three weeks, or three months. And of course, we tried going on the wagon for various periods of time. We were absolutely sincere when we voiced these declarations through gritted teeth. With all our hearts, we wanted never to be drunk again. We were determined. We swore off drinking altogether, intending to stay off alcohol well into some indefinite future.
Yet in spite of all our good intentions, the outcome was almost inevitably the same. Eventually, the memory of the vows, and of the suffering that led to them, faded. We drank again, and we wound up in more trouble. Our dry "forever" had not lasted very long.
Some of us who took such pledges had a private: We told ourselves that the promise not to drink applied only to "hard stuff," not to beer or wine. In that way we learned, if we did not already know it, that beer and wine could get us drunk, too--we just had to drink more of them to get the same effects we got on distilled spirits. We wound up as stoned on beer or wine as we had been before on the hard stuff.
Yes, others of us did give up alcohol completely and did keep our pledges exactly as promised, until the time was up....Then we ended the drought by drinking again, and were soon right back in trouble, with an additional load of new guilt and remorse.
Although we realize that alcoholism is a permanent, irreversible condition, our experience has taught us to make no long-term promises about staying sober. We have found it more realistic--and more successful---to say, "I am not taking a drink just for today."
Even if we drank yesterday, we can plan not to drink today. We may drink tomorrow--who knows whether we'll even be alive then? --but for this 24 hours, we decide not to drink. No matter what the temptation or provocation, we determine to go to any extremes necessary to avoid a drink today.
Just for Today------I am Sober
Doctors who are experts on alcoholism tell us that there is a sound medical foundation for avoiding the first drink. It is the first drink which triggers, immediately or some time later, the compulsion to drink more and more until we are in drinking trouble again. Many of us have come to believe that our alcoholism is an addiction to the drug alcohol; like addicts of any sort who want to maintain recovery, we have to keep away from the first dose of the drug we have become addicted to. Our experience seems to prove this.
USING THE 24 HOUR PLAN
In our drinking days, we often had such bad times that we swore, "Never again." We took pledges for as long as a year, or promised someone we would not touch the stuff for three weeks, or three months. And of course, we tried going on the wagon for various periods of time. We were absolutely sincere when we voiced these declarations through gritted teeth. With all our hearts, we wanted never to be drunk again. We were determined. We swore off drinking altogether, intending to stay off alcohol well into some indefinite future.
Yet in spite of all our good intentions, the outcome was almost inevitably the same. Eventually, the memory of the vows, and of the suffering that led to them, faded. We drank again, and we wound up in more trouble. Our dry "forever" had not lasted very long.
Some of us who took such pledges had a private: We told ourselves that the promise not to drink applied only to "hard stuff," not to beer or wine. In that way we learned, if we did not already know it, that beer and wine could get us drunk, too--we just had to drink more of them to get the same effects we got on distilled spirits. We wound up as stoned on beer or wine as we had been before on the hard stuff.
Yes, others of us did give up alcohol completely and did keep our pledges exactly as promised, until the time was up....Then we ended the drought by drinking again, and were soon right back in trouble, with an additional load of new guilt and remorse.
Although we realize that alcoholism is a permanent, irreversible condition, our experience has taught us to make no long-term promises about staying sober. We have found it more realistic--and more successful---to say, "I am not taking a drink just for today."
Even if we drank yesterday, we can plan not to drink today. We may drink tomorrow--who knows whether we'll even be alive then? --but for this 24 hours, we decide not to drink. No matter what the temptation or provocation, we determine to go to any extremes necessary to avoid a drink today.
Just for Today------I am Sober
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Plainfield, New Jersey USA
Posts: 491
Remembering that alcoholism is an incurable progressive, fatal disease
Many people in the world know they cannot eat certain foods--oysters or strawberries or eggs or cucumbers or sugar or something else--without getting very uncomfortable and maybe even quite sick. A person with a food allergy of this kind can go around feeling a lot of self-pity, complaining to everyone that he or she is unfairly deprived, and constantly whining about not being able, or allowed, to eat something delicious.
Obviously, even though we may feel cheated, it isn't wise to ignore our own physiological makeup. If our limitations are ignored, severe discomfort or illness may result. To stay healthy and reasonably happy, we must learn to live with the bodies we have. One of the new thinking habits a recovering alcoholic can develop is a calm view of himself or herself as someone who needs to avoid chemicals (alcohol and other drugs that are substitute for it) if he or she wants to maintain good health.
We have evidence our own drinking days, a total of hundreds of thousands of man-or-woman years of a whale of a lot of drinking. We know that, as the drinking years went by, our problems related to drinking continually worsened. Alcoholism is progressive. Some physicians expert on alcoholism tell us there is no doubt that alcoholism steadily grows worse as one grows older. (Know anyone who isn't growing older?)
We try to never lose sight of the interchangeable fact our alcoholism, but we learn not to brood or feel sorry for ourselves or talk about it all the time. We accept it as a characteristic of our body--like our height or our need for glasses, or like any allergies we may have. Then we can figure out how to live comfortably--not bitterly--with that knowledge as long as we start out simply avoiding that first drink (remember) Just for Today.
A blind member of A.A. said his alcoholism was quite similar to his blindness. "once I accepted the loss of my sight," he explained, " and took the rehabilitation training available to me, I discovered I really can, with the aid of my cane or my dog, go anywhere I want to go quite safely, just as long as I don't forget or ignore the fact that I am blind. But when I do not act within the knowledge that cannot see, it is then I get hurt, or in trouble."
Just for Today---I am Sober--and I Pray
Many people in the world know they cannot eat certain foods--oysters or strawberries or eggs or cucumbers or sugar or something else--without getting very uncomfortable and maybe even quite sick. A person with a food allergy of this kind can go around feeling a lot of self-pity, complaining to everyone that he or she is unfairly deprived, and constantly whining about not being able, or allowed, to eat something delicious.
Obviously, even though we may feel cheated, it isn't wise to ignore our own physiological makeup. If our limitations are ignored, severe discomfort or illness may result. To stay healthy and reasonably happy, we must learn to live with the bodies we have. One of the new thinking habits a recovering alcoholic can develop is a calm view of himself or herself as someone who needs to avoid chemicals (alcohol and other drugs that are substitute for it) if he or she wants to maintain good health.
We have evidence our own drinking days, a total of hundreds of thousands of man-or-woman years of a whale of a lot of drinking. We know that, as the drinking years went by, our problems related to drinking continually worsened. Alcoholism is progressive. Some physicians expert on alcoholism tell us there is no doubt that alcoholism steadily grows worse as one grows older. (Know anyone who isn't growing older?)
We try to never lose sight of the interchangeable fact our alcoholism, but we learn not to brood or feel sorry for ourselves or talk about it all the time. We accept it as a characteristic of our body--like our height or our need for glasses, or like any allergies we may have. Then we can figure out how to live comfortably--not bitterly--with that knowledge as long as we start out simply avoiding that first drink (remember) Just for Today.
A blind member of A.A. said his alcoholism was quite similar to his blindness. "once I accepted the loss of my sight," he explained, " and took the rehabilitation training available to me, I discovered I really can, with the aid of my cane or my dog, go anywhere I want to go quite safely, just as long as I don't forget or ignore the fact that I am blind. But when I do not act within the knowledge that cannot see, it is then I get hurt, or in trouble."
Just for Today---I am Sober--and I Pray
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