When I'm drinking and drunk and craving, everything is sacrificed on the altar of my addiction. Some things are sacrificed entirely - my health is a mess, so is money, my aspirations. Some things are sacrificed in part - this is the myth of the functioning alcoholic - my career, for example. Being a successful professional in a highly competitive city at a highly competitive job - oooh what a "functional" alcoholic I am. BS. Truth is that I'm barely scraping by, the bottom always ready to drop out. Truth is that the hill I've been running down towards the skid row drunk that my Beast wants me to become only has gotten steeper and steeper over time. I'm not doing my best at work. I'm not the father or husband or man or son or friend or citizen or anything at all that I could be.
Can so relate to this. Many parallels my friend. I understand now - as I've been reflecting on life - that being an alcoholic doesn't just include the time with ethanol in my blood. It's the complete me, the complete package.
For me, my sober time was usually - sometimes to a high degree sometimes to a lesser degree but always to a degree - simply an exercise in managing whatever damage was going on as a result of drinking. Spiritual, psychological, professional, relationships, self care, etc. Sometimes I'd manage better than others. But the overall trend line was definitely on a negative trajectory. Hence the AA phase "our lives had become unmanageable." Bingo.
I think I understand at least a little what the nature of alcoholism really is and why - for me - it's imperative that I work the 12 steps so that I can make changes to the underlying issues.
I have no sense of obligation when I'm a selfish, self-pitying, pathetic drunk. No sense of civic duty. No obligation shown towards my family. And just because when I get sober I lament how badly I have treated my wife or my kid or my self means nothing - just another hungover pity party.
From the Big Book, p.62, Chapter 5 'How It Works'
"Selfishness -- self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity..."
To be honest, I'm seeing for the first time just how deep this thing goes in me - and while that's good news on one hand - it's scary as **** on the other.
Best-
B