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Old 09-13-2013, 10:48 AM
  # 12 (permalink)  
Pandorable
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 9
I think this is between you and your higher power (or your conscience, if you don't do the higher power stuff). And it's great that you're checking it out here. Just be sure that checking it out here doesn't mean giving yourself an excuse to take it because someone else in recovery takes something that has alcohol in it - I've done that and the results were predictably bad.

There are lots of alcohol-based or alcohol-including things I would never put in my mouth, let alone swallow, including non-alcoholic beer. I do take a tincture every day for a condition for which I have not found another preparation that works (and I have looked and looked!). However, I have not had a drink in a number of years and I know that I do not relapse over this tincture, or at least I haven't yet. Additionally, I am forthcoming about my tincture use with my recovery counselor (30+ years sober, with sobriety I want) and my neurologist, who helps me manage the condition for which I take the tincture, and knows I am in recovery. Putting any alcohol into my body is a risk. However, given the severity of the condition, given that I haven't gotten drunk (or "had a drink") because of the tincture yet, and given that I am able to be honest with myself and others in recovery about my use, it's a risk I'm willing to take.

There are almost as many perspectives on this topic as there are people in recovery. Some of us will drink because of those choices, and some of us won't. Like I recently told my 16-year-old nephew as he left for prep school, the only way to be 100% certain you never end up with an active addiction is to never drink or use any other drug, and that includes alcohol in food and medicine.
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