Oh yes! I can identify with this! Back around 28 years ago I had had around seven years of sobriety. Then one winter I caught a severe cold and had to give a speech in a major city. My doctor, whom I had never told about my drinking problem, gave me a strong antihistamine in liquid form which I think had an alcohol base. The speech went fine and at the reception afterwards I figured I needed a little reward for having done a good job and also for having lost around 40 pounds on a crash diet. One reward led to another, not with disastrous results in the beginning but enough to launch me down the slippery slope. The slope got a lot steeper due to problems arising from one adolescent kid. Well you know the rest. Eventually I ended up in the hospital. The folks there detoxed me but didn’t send me to AA. Eventually I had another one or two relapses and went to AA. That started my 25 years of sobriety. I don’t go to AA as much as I used to but I hope I have the sense to go if something inside my brain tells me that I need a little “reward” or maybe something to “cheer me up”! Think about it! Is booze really a “reward”? Does it “cheer” anyone up? It’s a chemical setup. Looks inviting. Like cheese to a mouse- on a mousetrap! The initial “buzz”- that’s the “hook”, and with time the buzz gets weaker and weaker. Eventually comes the “sting” and then the “crash”. A visit to hell- with the aid of chemistry...
W.