Sure, still an alkie.......always an alkie... but a recovered one.

Hopefully, though the grace of my HP, I'll stay a recovered one.


I was a "recovering alcoholic" for quite a while but, much like what happened with my drinking, somewhere you can cross that invisible line into recovered.

In my case, continuing to identify as an alcoholic nearly two years after my last longneck is an intentional and—IMHO—a reasonably self-actualized psychological manipulation. This site and indeed the greater recovery community are replete with those who “go back out” after becoming convinced they are capable of having healthy interactions with alcohol. I embrace the notions I am one drink away from potential disaster and that this condition is most abnormal. Ergo, I disallow my psyche any descriptor I believe my mind could twist into a sense of normalcy.

Not sure if this is where I’ll still be standing a few years from now. But, I’m happy to report it is working for me today!

I am almost a year sober. I still consider myself an alcoholic. I guess I think the opposite of alcoholic is 'normal drinker' (even a once a year drinker would be a normal drinker to me), and that I can never be.

However I do not feel scared or insecure or 'one drink away from a bender' or any other kind of thing. I feel great.

I've been clean and sober over 12 years.
First and far most I am a "Recovering Alcoholic" I will always be a recovering alcoholic.
I have seen too many people relapse that thought other wise. I have also been to funerals of those who thought other wise.

The issue here is that most of the medical research on chemical dependence suggests that, not only is there a genetic and physical predisposition to chemical dependence, but also that, once someone develops a chemical dependence, there are neurochemical changes that occur that increase the probability of relapse. In other words, once one develops a dependence on a substance, they are a "addict" for life, whether they stop using or not.

If i didn't consider myself still an alcoholic/addict i certainly wouldn't have anything to do with other alcoholics/addicts/old heavy drinkers/past substance abusers/whatever etc...they would be the last people i would want to talk to...can you imagine the conversation, i'd be asking why the hell they still went on about it if it was something they did in the past and don't do anymore like going to the loo on a potty, you going to keep telling me in detail about that too?!

I was a "recovering" alcoholic up until the point I completed my last two amends. Now that my final amends are completed, I consider myself a "recovered" alcoholic. Please note, however, that "recovered" does not mean "cured". I will always have a physical allergy to alcohol; I am not "cured" of alcoholism. I have recovered from a hopeless state of body and mind. The mental obsession has been removed. I no longer want to drink. As long as I think as I am thinking and do as I am doing, I believe that I will never drink again. But, I cannot rest on my laurels. I must never forget that what I have is a daily reprieve contingent upon maintenance of my spiritual condition. Susan

I don't drink, and haven't in over three years, because I know I am alcoholic. I will always be alcoholic because I will never be able to have one or two and then leave it at that. It's never concerned me if someone else disagrees with my thinking on the matter.

I would describe myself as someone who used to suffer from alcoholism. For me, the emotional suffering started where the physical suffering (DT's) ended.

I tried abstaining form alcohol for weeks at a time but my obsession to drink only grew worse with each day away from the substance. It was only a Spiritual Awakening the released me from this obsession.

When I say I "used" to suffer from alcoholism, I don't mean to imply that I am cured. I still have the organs and brain chemistry of an alcoholic. What I am trying to convey is the idea that alcoholics don't need to suffer as a consequence of alcoholism.

Even though I can never safely drink again, at this point in my recovery "Not Drinking" has nothing to do with why I am sober today. I have "Recovered" the same attitude towards drinking as I had as a child, before my first taste of it.

I instantly recognize that logic as the Addictive Voice in doctrinal form. The notion that since I once had a dependence, I will have a higher probability of relapse is necessarily suggesting the possible future use of alcohol. My decision to never drink again is absolute and unyielding. Any thinking, imagery, or feeling that supports or even suggests the possible future use of alcohol, ever, is automatically identified and dismissed as wrong, in the moral sense.

Ahhh...the fact that you identify a recapitulation of the preponderance of medical research over the past 30 years as the "that logic of the Addictive Voice in doctrinal form" is interesting, because the "logic of the Addictive Voice" is in fact a stock phrase taken from the "work" of Jack Trimpey. In other words, what you are doing is substituting one vocabulary of chemical dependence (which is in fact the vocabulary of chemical dependence that has the largest volume of empirical support) for another vocabulary of chemical dependence (the creator of which explicitly packages as "[c]leanly divorcing AVRT from science, clinical thought, and religion, the The Art of AVRT takes AVRT to the next phase, exposing the AV in the world around us").

That is not to say that behavioral therapies, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, or addictive voice recognition therapy, don't mediate successful recovery without resorting to a spiritual solution. However, denying chemical dependence is influenced by the physical state of the brain and, as of yet cannot be cured, is a bit like denying that obsessive-compulsive disorder does not neuroanatomical and neurophysiological correlates, despite the decades of research that have demonstrated just that..

Many looked on over the years while I spiraled ever deeper into the abyss and did nothing. I won't do the same. This is my penance, my amends, if you will.

I'm mindful that I can't save everyone, but perhaps a few...

I do not deny that I got this from Trimpey's writing, or that I am using AVRT, hence my name on here. It is, however, quite effective. Instead of interpreting the statement "there are neurochemical changes that occur that increase the probability of relapse" as "well, I guess I'm doomed, I'll be relapsing sooner or later, because that is what alcoholics do, even if they quit," I see it as a potentially dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy (for me) if taken to heart, and I react accordingly.

There will be no relapses.

I did not mean to imply any malfeasance on your part when I mentioned that your source was Trimpey. I apologize if I was not clear to that effect.

Is there any research performed by an uninterested party that corroborates your claim?

The fact that some people may use the disease model of addiction as an excuse for relapse does not mean that the model itself is flawed. You are arguing from an alleged consequence in order to invalidate a model that competes with the Addictive Voice model.

The fact that schizophrenia has neurobiological correlates does not excuse schizophrenics from managing their disorder once they are made aware of it.

Evidence?

My experience was i had plenty of sympathy and enablers over the years who i listened to, in hindsight, because i didn't really want to stop drinking...i had all the you can do it, you don't need help you just need to stop drinking BS and i nearly killed myself on my wave of denial...not good!

It is effective as a defense against anything that suggests or promotes future drinking, and I just demonstrated how it is used. Any suggestion of future drinking, ever, regardless of the source, automatically puts me on the alert.

You are the one that alluded to medical research without citing anything, not me. That said, there is evidence that the vast majority of alcohol-dependent individuals, as per the DSM-IV, quit on their own, which is precisely what I did. See, for example, this article from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism:

NIAAA: Alcoholism Isn't What it Used To Be.

I am not arguing anything here. I am demonstrating why it does not apply to me.

I don't need to provide "evidence," not that I could, since the future has yet to occur. I abstain as a consequence of a moral imperative. I have made a personal moral commitment to lifetime abstinence. For me, any further drinking, in and of itself, would be immoral. I am as confident that I will not drink again as I am that I won't be doing other things which I consider immoral.

The disease model of alcoholism does not imply that one cannot manage one's alcoholism on one's own, just that there is a identifiable pathological state that is correlated to the behaviors.

There is no way for me to know with certainty that I will not be infected by germs, but I can know with a reasonable degree of certainty that I will not be drinking again. Perhaps I might if someone put a gun to my head and said "drink this whiskey or you eat a bullet," since the moral imperative to live would take precedence, but that isn't likely to ever happen.

I'm sorry. I edited my post with a less flippant and rhetorical question.

But again, alcoholism is not a moral failing; it is a physical disease. Your assertion that quitting is merely an issue of establishing a moral imperative has very little empirical support.

We do have to remember in this discussion that there is a BIIIIIIIIG difference between the alcoholic and the heavy drinker...i know a few guys who drank more than me at the bar all the time i was around in the last 5 years of my drinking (navy divers were the worst;-)) who quit almost overnight and haven't picked up again...i can't tell anyone if they are an alcoholic or not that's for them to decide but, for sure, if they are then no way will they be able to just abstain and live anything more than a miserable existence dry...like all the times i stopped drinking for months at a time eventually i would think well my life pretty much sucks without booze might as well suck with it!