wpainterw

This is why I tried but failed to recover from alcoholism, by “going it alone”. As my previous threads have sometimes indicated, the closest analogy I know is rock climbing. I am no rock climber but I have always been interested in, and fond of, mountains. And I have visited one, known as the Eiger, a few miles south of the little town of Interlaken in the Swiss alps. One takes a little cog railway which circuitously goes up into the mountains and finally arrives at the little town of Kleinescheidegg. Towering overhead is the Eiger, its North Face a vertical expanse of sheer rock. For years it has been a favorite challenge to climbers. It is said that in a few places one may come upon a frayed rope, still attached to a piton, where, during the Nazi years, a climber may have fallen to his death in a failed attempt to prove his macho charisma, perhaps even trying to “go it alone”. Many books have been written about it, as well as one best selling movie, “The Eiger Sanction”, featuring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy.
I found that my recovery from alcoholism was a little like that. For forty years I tried to “go it alone”, reading books and, from time to time. seeking advice from “counselors”. I never sought the help of other recovering alcoholics. I sought to “learn” about alcoholism by reading and talking to persons who said they knew how it was done. From time to time I failed. I fell off the cliff, sometimes endangering the lives of others when I attempted to drive under the influence. No one died or was hurt. But it could have happened.
There are a few differences between the Eiger and my recovery. Although, near the top of the Eiger, there is a ridge of snow where the climbing is easier and far less hazardous, this is only a small part of the climb, which is largely vertical rock face. I found that, although the earlier stages of my recovery were difficult and hazardous, my snowy ridge began much sooner, and as I proceeded, the climb became less steep, less risky. Near the top it tended to level out, the sun was shining and my life became happy. I looked back at the way I had come and I realized that, through all those forty years, I should never have tried to “do it alone”. Books and counselors were not enough. I needed to rope up with other recovering alcoholics who had become more expert than I, more expert at actually “doing it” rather than talking about it, “advising” me. They were my “higher power”. If I had tried to climb by myself no other “higher power” could have saved me, no God, no feeling of being “one with the universe”, no “Tao”, nothing. I needed the help of others, I needed ropes, crampons, pitons, and all the paraphernalia of modern rock climbing. And, as I climbed with others, the ascent became easier, the way smoother. I did not endanger myself or others, who may have stood watching below.
Can you climb from alcoholism alone? The choice is yours. I couldn’t. In retrospect I was wrong even to try.
(You can Google “Eiger” to see it. You can even see a brief movie of a real expert accomplishing a “speed climb” and “going it alone”. A far cry from the “old days” of climbing!)

W