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Living Sober
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2 Staying away from the first drink
Expressions commonly heard in A.A. are “If you don’t take that first drink, you can’t get drunk” and “One drink is too many, but twenty are not enough.”
Many of us, when we first began to drink, never wanted or took more than one or two drinks. But as time went on, we increased the number. Then, in later years, we found ourselves drinking more and more, some of us getting and staying very drunk. Maybe our condition didn’t always show in our speech or our gait, but by this time we were never actually sober.
If that bothered us too much, we would cut down, or try to limit ourselves to just one or two, or switch from hard liquor to beer or wine. At least, we tried to limit the amount, so we would not get too disastrously drunk. Or we tried to hide how much we drank. But all these measures got more and more difficult. Occasionally, we even went on the wagon, and did not drink at all for a while.
Eventually, we would go back to drinking—just one drink. And since that apparently did no serious damage, we felt it was safe to have another. Maybe that was all we took on that occasion, and it was a great relief to find we could take just one or two, then stop. Some of us did that many times.