Sugah

If I may?

I know no one who came to recovery without fear. I was overwhelmed by fear. A significant part of it dealt with surrendering my reliance on alcohol for something unknown. I did not know how to live without the buffering effects of drugs or alcohol to keep life from rubbing me raw. It had become, in a manner of speaking, my higher power. It had usurped God's place in my life.

In facing that fear and taking the necessary steps (all 12 of them), I found a spirituality beyond my wildest imagination. If you read my signature -- that comes from page 25 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Also, you mentioned in your first post that you didn't know any other priests in recovery. There is an entire series of videos made by Father Martin (I don't remember his first name), a Catholic priest who is not, himself, an alcoholic, but he's worked with a recovery house in (I think) Connecticut that serves only Catholic priests. He explains, in very understandable terms, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and these tapes are well worth seeking out and watching if you're able.

I wish you well, Dietrich. May you find your way.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

CarolD

I know God forgives sinners...if that is what you consider yourself.

However...in my opinion...alcoholism is a disease not a moral issue.
Alcohol caused me to do immoral things.

My alcoholism has been in remission for 18+ years
because I took the action to stay sober.

I see AA miracles in each meeting....and in my mirror.
This could be you too!

Blessings

augustine

Hello Carol and my friends -

When I say taht, that I am a "sinner and a priest" is it usually in the context of explaining that we are all sinners; that temptations of all sorts exist and our freewill means we will always be tempted and my even succumb. As human beings we are imperfect (ie. sinners) all of us, even me. There is sometimes a barrier between priest and parishoner based on the mistaken idea that the priest never makes mistakes. Nobody eants to talk to someone up on a pedestal and I don't belong up there anyway (drinking issues asside). It's one my ways of coming down from up there so we can just sit and talk because who am I but a man with a few extra privleges?

I thought instead of dwelling on my inadequacies tonight I would instead attempt to explain how I got inot this mess.

(Terrific. Now I've got stagefright I'm I'm sitting in a room alone typing. If there was a "laughing at yourslf smile face" down there I would use it now. Unfortunately all I have are hitting over the head wth a ibat and jumping up birthday cakes... Oh, and a guy who seems to be waving away his own gas. I almost used him. I'm glad I looked closer.)

I will start with college because I didn't drink before that at all. When I turned 21 there was a group of us in the pre-seminary program who were also sacristians at our Campus Catholic Ministry. Our job was to clean the chapel every friday after friday evening mass so it was ready for the weekend. I looked forward to Friday's because we would go to mass together, then stay to clean, and afterwards go to a local Irish type pub for fish and chips, play pool and to have a few drinks.

I won't bore you with the details of how that Friday night changed over the year. We had fun and made of great sayings like "Jesus loves a good sinner" and "At least we'll still be able to drink as much as we want". (The latter was in reqards to our impending vows of celibacy. I don't really feel that way at the time, but it was a funny thing to say at the time.) I always seemed to be the guy who needed to be taken home afterwards. The other thing was that I started drinking over lunchtime. I didn't think it was okay to go out every night and drink, but somehow having one or two with lunch was acceptable to me.

What changed everything was a night when I was the driver. I had intended not to drink (since I was the driver), but when I woke up the next day, it was obvious that I had. All I was at the time thought, was angry about having to go get my car. I called a taxi, when out to wait for it and ... my car was there. I had no recollection of even driving it. I keept trying to reason with myself: "well, if I drove, I must have been okay to do so". But another voice said "If you had been okay to drive, you would remember it."

It scared the living daylights out of me. I could have done anything. I might have driven home just fine or I could have been on the wrong side of the street, driving on people's lawns. I had no idea. I decided not to drink for a while after that. It wasn't necessarily going to be permanent, but just for a while.

I ended up not drinking for the rest of college. I didn't drink in seminary either. After I was ordained, I still didn't. I hardly ever thought about it to be honest. If someone offered me a drink of alcohol, I said "no thank you" out of total habit. Other than consuming the Blood of our Savior (which, if you don't know, still retains the character of wine), I didn't drink. For 22 years, I was just fine with that.

About a year and a half ago, a single event, you could call it an accident, changed that. I had married a couple and since I am relatively new at my parish, they invited me to the reception as a welcoming gesture. It was a beautiful ceremony and I thought her family was just lovely. (They are very active in the parish still and have been for years. We are truly blessed by them.)

While at the wedding party, one of the members of the Groom'ss party thought it would be funny to offer me a drink with alcohol in it. When I told him I didn't drink, he said it was a non-alcoholic drink. I said thank you and drank it. It didn't taste like it had alcohol in it at all. I kick myself now, but ... to be honest, even after I discovered the prank (I'd had three of them and it was totally obvious what was going on) I wasn't particularly concerned about myself. I was more worried about the man's deceit and when I spoke to him and the groom about it I remember saying something like "I'm fine, but that was irresponsible. You don't know why I don't drink. It just so happens I just don't enjoy it, but what if I'd been a recovered alcoholic? "

The bride's family was terribly embarrassed by the incident and I promised them as well that I was fine, I wasn't angry, and I didn't want it to spoil anything; I used to play pranks too when I was younger. I got a ride back to the rectory and everything WAS fine.

Except it reminded me that I DID enjoy drinking. I was actually glad it happened at first because now that I had outgrown my youthful stupidity of the past, I wasn't going to have to worry about thinks like driving my car drunk. I thought what had happened at the wedding reception was God saying to me "See, you're fine. You worry too much."

After that I would sometimes enjoy going out for a drink with a friend and remembering how fascinated I'd been with sophistocated drinks like martinis when I was in college (I never liked the taste of beer - the traditional college drink) I got some barware so I could make them at home. Within a few months a shaker and the vermouth were too much of a bother and now I just drink straight vodka everyday.

I still see that family on Sundays. Sometimes I want to tell them what happened, but I never do. Instead I sit here trying to remind myself that putting vodka into the water cruet so I can pour it into the chalice with the wine and have a drink at the altar during mass tomorrow is a BAD IDEA. Not only is it just... horrendous, but it would invalidate the consecration.

It keeps popping into my head as a very clever thing to do. There are times when I think alcohol has nothing it and I've simply gone mad.

Pax,
Dietrich

Tazman53

Father please try and understand that alcoholism is not a morale flaw, it is a disease! Yes it is a disease that initially we do have a choice in whether or not we drink, but once we have that one drink we lose all control, early in our disease it may be just that one drink that night, it may be 5, or it could be 20!!!

Alcoholism is the only disease science knows of where one of the primary symptoms is a denial of the disease itself, I did this for many years, always convincing myself that I could not be an alcoholic because I haven't (Insert here anything one decides only an alcoholic would do)! Well alcoholism is also a progressive disease, it always gets worse as long as we drink, it never gets better, we can stop drinking for 10 years and if we start agin our disease picks up right where we left it at 10 years before.

Father I would love to be able to sit and talk with you face to face, to share with you my walk into sobriety.

Father are you ready to admit that you are powerless over alcohol and that your life is becoming unmanageable? I reached the point in my drinking where I was able to do that.

Father do you beleive that a power greater then your self can restore you to sanity? I did and after 40 years of drinking I can today say that the God of my understanding has restored my sanity!

Father are you ready to turn your will and your life FULLY over to the care of God as you understand Him. I have turned my will and life over to the God of my understanding to the best of my ability and not only has the urge/need to drink been lifted from me, but today I am happy, joyous, & free!

snowgoose

Fr. Dietrich, you feel yourself in a hopeless situation just as so many of us did. The fact that we could somehow stay away from a drink One Day At a Time means that you can, too. But you may need the tools of the Program that we call AA at this point. I did although I am considered a high-bottom drunk. You don't have to be miserable and conflicted.

It is not easy at first - your disease probably progressed on you during those years when you weren't drinking - but if so many of us can do it, so can you. It helps so much to know that you are not the Lone Ranger; you're not even the only one who is in the position of being a Roman Catholic priest.

Best from the Snowgoose.

nandm

I think most everyone who is one this board can relate to wondering at some point in their drinking if they have gone insane. I know I did. I wondered how in the world with the knowledge of what I had seen as a paramedic I could turn around and drive drunk. Or how I could drink until 3 or 4 in the morning and then go to work at 7am, I am sure still drunk and work on people who were sick or injured. But there was something in me driving me that I had no control over. I did things that were quite insane and I thought things that were insane. The definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over despite getting the same results." I think that for most alcoholics that defines their lives while drinking. The solution is to find a way to stop the insanity (the drinking).

I have been praying for you and know you will find a solution. Take care and please keep us posted.

Judith

Cathy31

Can you perhaps go to another parish for your meetings?

Good luck - keep posting, keep sharing, you are so welcome!

Cathy31\x