Ranger

BB - As I have seen it used, the “pink cloud” construct does not suggest that sobriety is contingent upon good feelings. Rather, “pink cloud” binds continuing, meaningful sobriety with one’s ability to cope when the rain inevitably falls. Since the average addict has sh!t coping skills, “pink cloud” suggests a recovering addict does well to sandbag while the sun is still shining. What does it mean to “sandbag”? The answers are as varied as the folks on this wonderful board…AA, AVRT, SMART, therapy, charity work…the list goes on and on!

Also it’s interesting to note that despite all the hubbub about the pink cloud’s legitimacy, “pink cloud” psychology can be found everywhere from new religious converts to cancer survivors. Critical here is that “pink cloud” psychology is not a universal experience. Like so many things on SR, it’s the broad brush that offends.

Anna

I never experienced the pink cloud. I had a lot of guilt and shame when I stopped drinking and I had so much work to do to try and repair my relationships and figure out my life. I did, however, have hope for the first time in my life, and a tiny blip of peace.

sugarbear1

I've felt content since I stopped. I'm no longer anxious or depressed. Some days aren't great, but I've lived through so much, nothing I can't move through. No, I won't allow fear that "I'm on a pink cloud" (as has been suggested by meeting naysayers) interfere with my contentment. And, no, I haven't lost all my "defects of character" and I am lazy more often than productive. Soon enough, I hope to rejoin The World Of Work!

Terminally Unique

Why does sobriety have to be meaningful, though? Can't it simple be? More importantly, is a meaningful existence a precondition for sobriety, or is sobriety a precondition for a meaningful existence? In the former case, we have a reason to drink, and in the latter case, we have a reason not to.

I am aware that "sobriety" is a loaded word in recovery circles, and often refers to a higher plane of existence rather than the absence of intoxication, but I tend to believe that life needs to be meaningful. Living sober is simply a way of removing a huge impediment towards a meaningful existence.

This is true. Better to make a plan for the bad days while the going is still good.

HuskyPup

My pink cloud comes and goes. It is usually never sunny everyday; sometime it rains or snows or hails, and that's fine, too.

Ranger

Tip toeing around semantics, i'll say I don't believe sobriety is necessarily meaningful or continual. That these conditions are not givens is exactly why I use the qualifiers in the first place.

Being sensitive to false dichotomies, I believe two things to be generally true:

1. It is a helluva lot easier to make a meaningful life for onself after the cessation of drinking than trying to piece together the kind of life that would make someone want to stop.

2. Happy people are less likely to drink than the unhappily sober.

HuskyPup

This reminds me of a kind of corollary: The unhappily sober tend to make me want to drink more than the happily sober.

After hearing a lot of grumbly, old grouches at a meeting, it is not inspiring. I don't drink as a result, but I think, "Sheesh! All those years sober, and so dour! 20 years, my entire adult lifetime spent, and all these frowning faces!" I do not let it 'make' me drink, though it seems the least inspiring aspect of going to meetings.

Sometimes, after the prayers and stuff, I think they should tell a few jokes, just for a sense of balance.

Terminally Unique

OK, I'll agree here, and the "continual" qualifier certainly makes sense in light of the coming rain analogy. Still, I think that to expect sobriety to be meaningful beyond the immediate benefit of not having a poisoned mind, and the problems that entails, can set one for disappointment.

In that frame of mind, one can easily think "well, I'm sober, and life still sucks, so why not have a drink?" when the rain inevitably comes. Indeed, this happens all too often, and is probably why people warn of falling off the "pink cloud" in the first place.

This is true, and is precisely why the self-improvement instead of quitting game that many people engage in never works.

Only if they have left the option of drinking on the table by making happiness a condition for sobriety, rather than the other way around.

Terminally Unique

Many have forgotten the reason for quitting in the first place, which is to be able to live, and have resigned themselves entirely to slumbering "in recovery" forever. Those who forget that recovery is a means to life, and not an end unto itself, tend not to be very cheerful.

Ranger

Absolutely, the logic of an addict is something to behold.

As far as I'm concerned, the newly sober are done a disservice by those who try to sell sobriety as an end unto itself.