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Old 07-06-2011, 05:52 AM
  # 64 (permalink)  
SteppingItUp
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: ParadiseOnEarth
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I am not a hard drinker -- I am something else, which is a real alcoholic. If you are a hard drinker and you have found an approach that works for you, I am happy to hear it, and I wish you well.

However, if you are a hard drinker rather than a real alcoholic, I might ask you to consider that it could be harmful to tell real alcoholics, many of whom are just beginning to seek help, that they are just like you, that they will be fine if they just do what a hard drinker does to stop, and that alcoholism, as I know alcoholism to be, can be overcome by "thinking my way out of it according to my own will power," or other suggestions similar to those found in your signature.

If I had listened to that kind of information, through my own wishful thinking or the ongoing alcoholic delusion with which I came into recovery, I believe it could have helped to keep me very sick. Alcoholism is a frequently fatal illness; I pray that you take this into consideration in the new line of morality that you suggest is managing to keep you sober. Just as I won't tell a stomach cancer patient that he doesn't need treatment because my own stomach problems cleared up the good old fashioned way at home, I propose that the fact that you may be a hard drinker does not mean that alcoholism doesn't exist, or that treatment for non-alcoholics will ever be sufficient for real alcoholics when the graveyards are full of people who prove that theory to be tragically flawed.

If you are a hard drinker, I'm sure your experience can be very helpful to other hard drinkers -- I would support you in that all the way. On a similar note, if you are so sure you are not a real alcoholic, perhaps it would be best to allow real alcoholics in recovery to show real alcoholics what has worked, and continues to work, for them. There is a solution, it works, and it's a life saver for others as sick as I have been.

Best wishes to you in all ways.
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