jazzfish

I just want to be normal. Is that so much to ask?

Yes. In my case, my history, experience, and the evidence all point to the fact that I cannot drink “normally”. The very first time my parents allowed me to have a little New Year’s Eve champagne I drank two bottles. I was 13.

I am now 46, and I have clung to the idea of being a normal drinker like a drowning person clings to a life raft. It is the single most potent idea that has undermined so many of my attempts at sobriety. I had to let it go.

Repeatedly, I had that conversation in my head that said I could drink normally and the result was always the same. I would drink and I would drink alcoholically. For reasons that baffled me, I could not let go of the option to drink. I desperately wanted to be normal.

If I was to get sober and stay sober, then I had to find a way to let go of this idea and be at peace with it. I had to accept that I had a chronic condition that needed to be dealt with to avoid horrible consequences, including possible death. I had to accept that I could be a non-drinker AND be normal. I had to accept that choosing to be a healthy individual with a satisfying life was not going to include alcohol. I had to accept that I could let that option go and survive…and grow…and live.

Today, I am working to redefine myself as a non-drinker. I regularly and purposely remember what it was like being a drunk and I celebrate the good things sobriety brings. Doing this regularly, helps protect me against those occasional pangs to join in the drinking opportunities when they rise up – even if it is just for one, or worse, just to be “normal”.

How did you make peace with letting the drinking option go?

Mirage74

I think I am slowly coming to grips with this. So, Im a little odd because I can't drink normally. We are all unique in our own way, but there are obviously plenty of us that suffer from this affliction. For me, I realize to drink probably eventually means homelessness, jail, or death. Not fitting in with the drinking crowd is the price I realize I have to pay if I want to avoid those consequences.

fini

the peace of letting that option go just kind of "came" when i understood i was a drunk.
when i understood that, in fact, i didn't want to drink normally. i wanted to get drunk.

did i want to be "normal" as far as drinking? oh yes, sure. when i say that, i mean that i wanted to be the person who didn't want more than a drink or two, leisurely, not-focused-on, just a pleasant part of something else.

but the truth of the matter is that i DON'T want to be a normal drinker.
getting that....kinda made me cry, y'know, but the letting go happened there.

jazzfish

fini, I think that you raise a critical clarification between "I cannot drink normally" and "I want to get drunk".

I would like to be that kind of person who can limit myself to two drinks, but what's the point of going through the trouble to go out and drink for only 10 minutes?

davaidavai

I don't think it's ever quite gone, the desire. That's why a lot of people on this site, people who have time, come here day in day out to try to help other people get off the sauce. We need to be reminded how bad it was.

I wanted to be a normal drinker too, but it was really to preserve the possibility of getting blitz on special ocassions or once a week. I don't really have much of a desire to drink two drinks.

mfanch

I did not let the drinking option go. I could NOT stop drinking and STAY stopped. I HAD to have help.

I drank regardless of consequences. I lost family, jobs, did jail time, lost my health, home, and dignity. Yet I still drank.

The desire to drink is completely gone for me. It rarely even crosses my mind. It wasn't about quitting drinking for me, it was everything else that came crashing in when I DID quit. I liken it to slamming on the brakes when the shambles of my life are piled up in the back seat. It all comes flying into the front and into my lap when I quit drinking. When I asked what to do now, I was handed a spoon and told to start digging out. It took time and I got out one scoop at a time. Now I am physically AND emotionally sober. Quitting the drinking was just the very very beginning (the physical withdrawal was the easiest part for me). My addiction was my deliverance and I don't regret it. I am grateful that addiction happened to me. It was my path to my life as it is today.

Mirage74

I don't think I ever wanted to be a normal drinker. For a long time, I thought the amount I was drinking was normal, mostly because I hung around other people who were drinking as much as I did and I thought it was just what people who liked to drink did. If i was drinking with light drinkers, i would pretend to be a light drinker too until i could leave them and go really what i wanted to. It wasn't til later when I started drinking alone that I wanted to control my drinking. Two drinks though? Never. There was a time I would go buy a six pack with every intention of stopping after I finished it. I always went back for more. That's when I started thinking I had a problem. For me the magic number is 6-8. If I could stop after that, even though still probably alcoholic or at least problem drinking, I'd probably still be drinking.

doggonecarl

When I first quit I'm pretty sure I didn't accept not being normal and probably clung to the hope that one day I would be able to drink. But as I did the work of early recovery and my mind was cleared of the denial of alcoholism, I realized that I was NEVER a normal drinker and therefore would NEVER be one. The only option was NEVER drinking. Ever.

I not only accept it, I embrace it.

ersatzmatriarch

for me, i don't really understand or believe in the concept of "normal drinker"... i realize there are plenty of people on this planet that can have one or two drinks and be done, but i don't think that makes them 'normal'.

normal drinking for me was always drinking past blind drunkenness, and i have zero desire to be my kind of normal drinker anymore.

just as i'll never be able to write like shakespeare (and i'm okay with that), i'll never be one of those people who can have a drink or two and be done (and i'm okay with that, too.)

hayley86

Making peace and accepting the fact that i cant drink was the thing that finally set me free and enabled me to get sober. For so long i tried to change what i drank, when i drank, where i drank and how much i drank and it made me completely miserable. I was forever holding on to the idea that if i could just drink socially at weekends that i could have the best of both worlds my health and happiness and the occasional release i desperately wanted it was never like that for me though because i am not a “normal” drinker.

Moderation never worked for me. I would always end up drinking the same amounts as before and trying to limit the amount i drank made me more miserable than if i were to not drink at all. I think i was so scared to accept that i couldn't drink at all because it seemed so final and at 27 years of age the thought of never drinking again seemed completely unrealistic to me but it doesn't now i just accept it. I made peace with the fact that i cant drink because i realized if i didn't stop i would eventually end up dead and i definitely don't want that so it was a clear choice for me to get and stay sober.

When i got through the first couple of weeks of sobriety and i started feeling the benefits i realized i was far more happy being sober than i ever was when drinking and i started to make peace with the fact that drinking for me is just not an option. Like many other people i am one of those who just cant drink. I don't even analyze the reasons why anymore i just accept that i cant. Once i accepted that and it clicked in my head i stopped torturing myself with the idea that one day i might be able to drink again and my life is so much more simple and peaceful now.

rockindog

I am dealing with not ever drinking again after drinking for over 30 years and the past several years, heavily. It is a hard concept for me to get my head around, but, as I have read here over and over, it does get easier over time. That is what I hope for me.

Mark75

I just keep doing the things I love to do... going to a Music Festival today... there's a pretty cool Jam Band playin' this afternoon... I Ride my bike, play my guitar, tinker in the garage, fish... whatever.

Funny thing for me, is that the more I try to enjoy it sober, rather than just enjoying it for it is, the harder it is.

I just live my life. It helped early on to deal with the resentment thing, and it did not happen overnight, but eventually I let it go. I realized it was just pride.

EndGameNYC

Never wanted to drink like a "normal" drinker, and never tried to.

When I relapsed after twenty five years, I had convinced myself that I knew what I needed to do to stay sober, that I no longer needed the help and support I'd gotten from AA for the the first twelve years or so in my sobriety. This ultimately led me to the belief that I could drink safely, that if things got out of hand, I would know how to stop, and that I would drink differently this time. I spent three years in a living hell, losing everyone and everything dear to me in life. Again. In short, I drank again because I wanted to drink.

The only thing that worked for me was getting a sponsor and working the Big Book Twelve Steps. The early part of the book is designed to help us identify with those who drink alcoholically, the daily misery that drinking this way inevitably brings, and the many failed attempts in which we tried to moderate or drink "normally." For people who drink like I do, it's almost impossible not to identify with the accounts we read in the beginning of the Big Book.

This sets the stage for working in the solution which, again, came for me in working the Big Book Twelve Steps. There are also personal stories in the back of the book that made a lasting impression on me.

The only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking. (The words "honest desire" -- as it's described in the Big Book -- were dropped from the introduction to most meetings, since most of us either don't have what we'd consider to be "an honest desire to stop drinking," or we just didn't know.) What's rarely said in meetings is that the primary purpose of every AA group is to teach the Big Book Twelve Steps.

Only after I pushed myself to do all this work was I released from the dangerous and misguided idea that I could drink safely.

JustODAAT

I have struggled with this too, and I also found accepting this reality was a key step for me.

I work a lot with young people, and one of the things I talk to youth a lot about is not trying to choose choices that aren't really choices, aren't really realistic options for you. I try to remind myself that wanting a choice that isn't a choice is a sign of unrealistic and immature thinking. The child who is given the choice of chocolate or vanilla and stamps her feet demanding strawberry is having a tantrum and should not be coddled. That child should just be reminded: That's not a choice.

The only real choices I have with alcohol are organizing my life around being sober or organizing my life around getting drunk. Anything else is not a choice for me, and when I wish I had other choices and wallow in how unfair it is and blah blah blah I remind myself I am nothing more than a toddler having a tantrum and I shouldn't coddle myself.

But I have to remind myself a lot, so I can connect to what you are saying and send you my support.

LadyBlue0527

Hayley said it perfectly. The only thing that I can add is that on the day that I quit I knew that if I didn't that all that I had worked for was going to come to an end.

Therefore there was no longer an option to drink. All attempts to control my drinking had been exhausted and I had no other choice than to realize that I was powerless. Alcohol had won.

Then I realized, NO, I WIN. I'm done. I had said it many times before but this time was different, I knew I was being honest with myself and what I was saying was the truth. I wasn't just speaking the words.

I can't describe the peace and relief that washed over me at that very moment.

fini

ja, would have been nice to just WANT two drinks, but it just isn't me.

what's the point of drinking for only ten minutes? i wouldn't know. i'd refuse to do it. if there wasn't enough to "do the job", i wouldn't start. knowing there was only one or two, that the "limit" would be imposed from outside, i wouldn't start. much much easier for me even way back when to not drink at all than to drink a couple.

so, see, i've been lucky. knowing i don't want a drink, i've not fallen prey to that crazy idea that some people get, or the AV they hear: comeoncomeon, you can have just one!

how is it going, Jazzfish?

fini

People who relapse usually do so because they accepted the things they could have changed.

Jazzfish...what do you mean by that?

what things? how do we know just what it is we should/need to change? what kind of things is this referring to?

and in case you get the impression i'm into semantics or arguing technicalities in language or something similar (this might come up again; usually gets mentioned when i try really hard to understand something and appear super-picky about words), let me just say that it's not so, and that when it looks that way it's because the conversation is such that i'm trying to figure out my own "truths". and i appreciate the push to think about this stuff that comes from statements such as this.
conversations such as this one and the "underlying issues" one are a great help to me that way, but if it's intrusive, please ignore.

fini

Not fitting in with the drinking crowd is the price I realize I have to pay if I want to avoid those consequences.

hiya Mirage,

what happens if you change the c to z?

not fitting in with drinking crowd is the prize...how does that sound?

fini

When I relapsed after twenty five years, I had convinced myself that I knew what I needed to do to stay sober, that I no longer needed the help and support I'd gotten from AA for the the first twelve years or so in my sobriety. This ultimately led me to the belief that I could drink safely, that if things got out of hand, I would know how to stop, and that I would drink differently this time.

EndGame,
hearing this...well, may i ask if this conviction of yours gradually grew over those last thirteen years or if it was always there in the back of your mind the entire 25 years you didn't drink?

or, sigh, maybe in hindsight we/you could see it was always there but at the time we/you were really not aware of it?

glad you made it back.

EndGameNYC

Great question, fini.

When I first got sober, I was fortunate that my cravings were neither frequent nor intense. They subsided almost immediately. This remained the case for the entire twenty five years I remained sober.

When I stopped relying on AA about twelve years in, and probably before then, my way of thinking, my attitude and my behaviors gradually changed for the worse. I gave myself a pass on several occasions because, in my mind, I deserved a break for having stayed sober for so long. Over time, cutting myself some slack became more and more a way of life for me. This all happened very slowly, though there were times when I was aware that my attitude about things was changing. Having stayed sober, and not having a desire to drink made me feel that these subtle but important changes were okay.

When I picked up the drink, I wasn't experiencing cravings, but I very much wanted to feel the effects of alcohol. I was under no external scrutiny, having retired most of my sober friends over time. I truly believed that I could drink safely after so many years. And virtually everyone I knew, including my family, only knew me as a sober person. Not being connected to AA, and not hearing all the terrible stories about relapsing following long-term sobriety, I was immune to my own complacency and my distorted thinking. And I long since was unable to recall with sufficient force the misery I put myself through before I stopped.

I've been asked about this many times, and I don't recall ever having a conscious plan to drink. Fact is, up until around the time of my relapse, I maintained not just a healthy sense of fear about alcohol, but a longstanding dislike for it.

When I finally drank, it was because I wanted to drink. There were no external or nefarious forces in play, besides my own alcoholism and my alcoholic thinking.