taking the first drink
I was thinking about this last night.
Having changed a great deal in the last 6 months or so, i have a much different understanding of the word sober compared to the word dry. For me sober means that you have had a drastic personality change in yourself and continue to do daily work on yourself to maintain sobriety and, the most important, is a close conscious contact with your HP (in my case God). Dry means, to me, simply abstaining from alcohol...
Sober to me also means a lot more, means i can go where i want, sit with who i want and do what i want without any fear of drinking. It also means that i have been resotored to sanity.
But if someone had tried to explain the sanity thing to me and had said i was insane before i would have laughed and said yeah great whatever mate!
Looking back i have known for some time that i had a drink problem, even would admit at times that i was probably an alcoholic...let's say it was one of those times when i had decided alcohol was ruining my life and was determined to quit drinking, time is irrelevant could be half a day sober or half a year...so the theory is that i quit drinking and everything will get better and the only problem is the alcohol...
So during these times i am sober or dry, whatever...then why did i drink again if the problem is alcohol? Let's say that i had gone without alcohol for 3 months that time on willpower and, to some extent, the compulsion to drink had gone what made me, sober/dry, pick up a drink again? Physically the alcohol is out of my system.
Imagine having a conversation with a non-alcoholic friend about this,
Insane Me: I have not had a drink for 3 months but am dying to have one now, and there is a party on sat night
Sane Friend: Then go but have one or two, can you do that?
Insane Me: Well i haven't been able to do so in the past, and this is based on the last 10 years of experimenting
Sane Friend: Ok well is your life any better without drinking?
Insane Me: Oh yeah much better, i have money, people like me more, my relationship is better, i feel great, i have a new hobby...it's all good
Sane Friend: Well just have a coke then, i'm not going to be drinking because i am drinking that Saturday...you shouldn't drink
Saturday comes and i am drunk, my friend dropping me home...riddle me this if i am sober/dry why did i pick up that first drink, how insane have i got to be to do this knowing what will happen...and if i keep doing this sober/dry then clearly there is something wrong inside of me, so why don't i see that this is the case? Cunning, baffling and powerful, maybe denial? Nope i think it is just the plain and simple fact that i was insane.
I was so focussed on the insane things i would do when drunk, and failed to see that i would do the most insane things when sober/dry...e.g picking up the first drink...i mean how far gone was i that i could not see how insane my sober/dry behaviour was...i guess it begs the question can an insane person really see they are insane...well no obviously not!
If anyone is offended by the word insane, replace with mentally ill or spiritually ill...
So another question how do you get an insane dry alcoholic to see they are insane and to get some real help and to stop trying to do this by themselves...