Originally Posted by
langkah 
.... But we pay for that illusion in our usual coin of trouble shame sickness and regret and soon have again very good reasons to make another ironclad decision and go through the process again.
.... We wind up not able to stand drinking for very long and are unable to stand not drinking for very long.
.... It's an error many new people make that those who are sober just wanted to do that of our own accord for honorable reasons. Not so at all.
A more correct view is that we did it because we felt like you do.
Langkah, how well put.
What common "praise" it is to hear from others, that they "want what
you/they have", i.e. the "strength" and "virtue" it took to "do the right thing!" What is overlooked is that us sober folks
did have what
they had, exactly has you have so well described above. We just got sick, or tired, or both, and decided to stop the madness.
I'd bet there are few of us here who would be clean and sober if drugs and/or alcohol had
continued to deliver what they
appeared to deliver when we first discovered them. Who would not continue to use a "miracle drug" or the "elixir of life", if those things continued to appear miraculous and wonderful to us?
We just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Me? I wanted to
live again, because what I was doing was not that.
NC and others still struggling, as has been said above, as "logical" beings, it's difficult and often prohibitive to take the "illogical" path of quitting drugs and alcohol, insofar as our basal human drives are concerned. Almost NONE of us did so by virtue of wanting to live a more "virtuous" life. Ha! Far from it.
Many people make their declarations for sobriety while inebriated, a cruel irony since it is the altered state that provides the fuel behind the statement. It's the "I'll worry about it tomorrow" mentality talking, since it's easy to make declarations while buzzed.
What it takes is not logic or virtue, but
bovine determination, to forge through days of misery you are sure to encounter as you quit drinking. You've got to be damn sick and tired of drinking to put up with that. The decision to be a non-drinker cannot be contingent upon "as long as I feel good."
Thanks for that insight, Langkah.
NC, we
were where you are. It's lots better not to be there anymore.
FT