Old 08-04-2017, 09:06 AM
  # 11 (permalink)  
2ndhandrose
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Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 2,338
A few years before I quit for good, I was diagnosed with something that would definitely preclude drinking.

I was not happy about this but it obviously wasn't the "hint" that I needed to quit alcohol for good. Nope. I remember lamenting to my best drinking friend, "I feel ripped off because now I will never have a chance to have "one" glass of wine with dinner or "one" baileys and coffee on a chilly winters day. Or "one" drink with co-workers at the end of the day. I felt like the chance/choice to drink normally was being taken away from me. How unfair!!!!!

And then, oh happy day, my health crisis resolved and I went back to, not "one" drink with friends, but you know, 1000 drinks with friends.

Because that is how I drink. If I could have drank "normally" I would have been drinking normally all along. I didn't decide to drink with alcoholic fervour anymore than I could have made a choice to drink normally. I am not wired to drink normally.

Like I said, that was a few years before, yet another health crisis involving my liver, reared it's head, once again. By this time, my drinking had progressed to the very not fun stage. The stage where the euphoric buzz had changed to just a mushy, awful feeling in my entire being whenever I drank. Thank God, I was finally ready to believe that drinking never worked for me and it never will work for me.

Once I understood that fact, I was set free.

I am not sure if my rambly story will be of any use, but I do know the feeling of "if only's" and "why can't I".

Keep working on your sobriety, your recovery, your life. Someday, I hope, you will be like me now, where I look back on my sad laments and have nothing but gratitude that I see it completely differently now.

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