YankInHolland

First of all, given the fact that I'm on a whopping 3 days of sobriety, I might not be the best person to take advice from. However, I strongly believe that I, given your situation, would make every effort to tell your family BEFORE your trip of your new life choice. Ask them for some understanding and support, and if you can't get it in advance, consider cancelling your trip.

I guess I'm to the point where I'm simply going to tell my friends and family that "this is how it is now". Those that support me will remain my friends. Those that refuse probably weren't my friends to begin with, and will be treated as such. The bottom line is I'm sick of tap dancing around this issue.

In my ongoing stuggle with "functional alcoholism", I've found that the main reason people reject your new sobriety is based on their own feelings toward their own use/abuse. Many of my "friends" don't want me to label myself a drunk, because they consume as much or more than I do/did.

Hope this helps. Like I said - consider the source (me).

ps. I've been in NL for 1.5 years.

Dan

An alcoholic sobering up is a powerful mirror.
Our friends and familiy members who have reason to react the way they do either take a long hard look at their reflection, or add an extra layer to their denial filters.
Pretty much what I saw around me, anyway.

jlo34

Additionally, before you go on your island trip; I would check a directory and look for AA meetings. AA is world-wide and you never know; you may need a meeting to re-group. Your Higher Power is always listening to; I suggest prayer, lots of it and always give yourself an out. Are you a strong swimmer?!??!?!?!? HA HA

Jen

Pick-a-name

No Thanks; Sorry, I can't.......if you do feel the urge to come up with a "reason", why not something like: "doctor's orders.....I have a medical condition" or something vaguely true like that.

I don't drink anymore and a No, and then changes the subject usually works; not feeling like one right now.........have a ginger ale, etc and who will know if anything is withit or not?

Good luck; and enjoy a great visit and that beautiful part of the world!

Lively

I have never hit bottom. I am well aware though, that if I pick up drinking again I will sink lower than ever and eventually something terrible is going to happen. I decided I didn't want that to happen and that is when I decided to quit drinking and guarantee that if anything bad does happen, it will NOT be because I'm a drunk.

minnie

But Lively, you must have hit YOUR bottom, otherwise you wouldn't have stopped drinking. Surely?

AndrewBeen

Minnie: well, by definition we have all hit some existential bottom in our lives, a point lower than all others. The question here is that, looking back, was our low point (do date) the immediate precursor of our determining to seek lasting recovery?

For me I don't think it was. When I think back on the very low points I needed the booze too much. My recovery was just me getting sick of living like this.

minnie

Oh, I can totally understand what you're saying because when I decided to leave my alcoholic ex, things weren't nearly as bad as they had been a few moths prior. Like you say, I was sick of living like that. Actually, I think I had many bottoms (just to give you a nice mental picture!). I had the bottom that led me to SR, the bottom that led me into Al-anon 4 months later and the bottom that led me to leave 3 months after that. In fact, I've just had another one and decided to exit the partnership that still I have with my ex.

Right, I'm wibbling now and it's late, and I can't argue semantics at the best of times.

AndrewBeen

Minnie: well, by definition we have all hit some existential bottom in our lives, a point lower than all others. The question here is that, looking back, was our low point (do date) the immediate precursor of our determining to seek lasting recovery?

For me I don't think it was. When I think back on the very low points I needed the booze too much. My recovery was just me getting sick of living like this.

nutz

it's a bottomless pit, an abyss

The question is...how many of us actually wanted to get clean and sober
the first time without alternative motives or the problems/pain to go away.
not the actual drinking and using.
How hell can we answer that ?...we were wacked out of our being.
NUmB & halucinating,delusional or what terms you what to use.
It was beyound our comprehension.

my ex-wife last words to me.
"I love you....but are you still drinking?" that pissed me off and many other
crazy shiet i had going.
It took me 10 years after being clean and sober to decifer her riddle.
Too freaken simple !!!!

there's something about grace..this too was beyound my comprehensions.
How the hell did I get up one morning in my car , 100 miles away from home
without any money, but un hurt ?

chip

I quit drinking because I wanted to quit. My quiting wasn't really at a personal low, so I have no great story to tell...Like Yankinholland, i'm sure some of my friends will say "oh you wern't so bad.." etc.. I have no story about crashing my car or whatever. Like Andrewbeen, I'm just sick of living that way. My wife has told some of our mutual friends, and she has just said "Chip has just had enough, and decided he has no more room in his life for drinking". She's happy because with the money I save on booze, I've decided to hire a cleaning service to keep our house clean.
chip

Music

Actually, I had plenty of bottoms when I was drinking, I just didn't recognize them as being bottoms. Like the time I was puking at 4:00 PM, kneeling in someone else's urine in a bar in Hong Kong wearing my dress white uniform. All I was really doing was making room for more beer 'cause I had another 12 hours of drinking left. Like the time I came home from a cruise and my wife had discovered I'd been unfaithful while I was gone and I made excuses for my actions. I was just out drinking you know? These are just two examples but they happened time after time and each one was degrading and completely against every moral teaching I'd ever learned from my parents. But, I excused them as just being part of the "good time" I was having drinking. The only bottom that counts to me today is the one I experienced on the day I went to my first AA meeting as an alcoholic and asked for help. Sure, I could say "it wasn't that bad." But, it was bad enough for me at the time it happened and I have no desire to find out how bad it can get. At least not today.

Lively

Yes, I suppose you are right Minnie. I went as far down as I was willing to go. I had risked everything I was willing to risk. I was lucky. My health appears to be in tact. I didn't seriously hurt anybody and I didn't lose anything I can't get back, except time.

I guess that's what I meant by I had not hit bottom. I realized I had gone as far I did relatively unscathed and that would not last forever. I didn't want to go that far.

Gr8ful1

Chip,
It can and will get much worse, if you choose to keep digging/drinking. That's the inevitable for us alki's. I know from experience that each and every time I experimented (went back out (aka: drank one more time) after months and even years of sobriety) it did get much much much much much worse quicker than I could've ever even imagined.

We've hit bottom when we quit digging. Don't let your bottom be 6 feet under.

chip

Sean-
Amen. I don't want to hit a bottom. I'm stopping now, at my age, before I've really screwed up horribly. I was a "functional" alkie, but the line between function and dis-function was becoming blurry..... I realize now that "functional is just a phase" (as stated by our friend, earlybird). If I start drinking again, I'm sure I'll just pick up where I left off......waiting to hit that bottom hard.
chip

2dayzmuse

That is for sure. I had to learn the hard way. I wouldn't recommend it, but I had to find out for myself. I wouldn't listen to anyone. I thought I could handle it. Boy was I ever wrong. I picked up where I left off and then some. The building momentum of the beast's progressive nature is astonishingly horrifying. I kid you not.

j'ade d'arcy

I think the thing with bottoms is there isn't just one. There are many levels and more levels underneath those first ones. I thought I had hit bottom many times, and bounced down even further. Then I would use those bottoms to justify my using even more, things were so bad why not keep on using to dull the pain of slow suicide. Which led to more badness and on and on.

It's a vicious cycle. Thankfully, it's not impossible to break it.

I've witnessed what this disease does first hand with my family, but I still clung to that illusion that it wouldn't happen to me. I would be the one that would be able to use and not abuse. Not likely.

I think what's even scarier about bottoming out is that some people never come back. They disappear into the disease and never return. They go missing, get institutionalized, or die.

My thoughts are with all the people who suffer from this illness. And with the ones left behind.

Gr8ful1

I Ditto what 2dayz said. The progression is incredible. It's like the beast is hiding and thirsting to destroy us while we are sober. Just lying in wait for us to get off our game and pick-up just that one little time, when no one is looking, when no one will know.... "Oh what's one beer, one cocktail, one joint?" Cunning, Baffling, Powerful, and Patient.

The beast, that too is how I like to term my disease. It truely became a reality the last time I chose to pick-up with nearly 3 years of sobriety under my belt. The beast became truely "real". Alcohol became an object, a thing with a life of it's own, it was very scary and I was incredibly pissed off at what it did to my life and what it was trying to do- tear my family apart, destroy me completely, kill me in a slow methodical way.

Luckily for me/us, there is an answer. Recovery is possible if we choose to use the tools that have been presented us by those who have gone before us.

Chip, I would highly reccomend picking up a Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous Text you can get for about $5 at an AA meeting), read the 1st 164 pages and see how well you relate (I know I did many times), then go to the stories section called "They stopped in Time". When I re-read the BB when I got sober 10 months ago, the words in the 1st 164 just jumped out of the pages at me, it was incredible.

Hey chip, really glad to see you here at SR.

chip

Jade,
I've been thinking alot about other people who suffer from this disease. It is a cruel and slow death. The end result is death, but it's slow. The addiction gradualy wears people down, tightening it's grip slowly....holding people in a state near death for years first. Nasty stuff. I want none of it!!!
chip

2Dayz,
I take your word for it. I found out time and time again that what I think I know about alchohol is wrong. For two years, I've tried to go from heavy to moderate drinking....
chip

Sean,
Thank you. I did get the big book, and I really can relate. I love the language and the way it reads. I like the feeling of being part of a movement (AA). I'm getting into this....and I need to. I had a "beast" of a habit on my hands, and I know I am weaker than my addiction. I seriously need God's help to stay on the right path. It was slowly killing me, but destroying my entire "personhood" first. I did catch it early, and I'm glad. God willing, I will not drink again.......
chip

Gr8ful1

Hey Chip, glad to hear it.

When I was working on step 2 last December I read something that really struck me. It goes something like this:

" We (fellow addicts or alcoholics) relate and understand each other so well because our minds, our brains, actually recognize the other alcoholic as being Real. Our brains have a more difficult time in recognizing and therefore relating to those people who have not experienced our plight."

wait just a minute, I'm going to go get exactly what it said:

"A rational, thinking, concious mind has no trouble with the idea that each person, thing and force has a separate and distinct existence. We can say (and believe), "I am. You are. He is." However, the subconcious or unconscious mind often rejects this idea. It says, "I am, but you exist only as I think about you." Extreme? Hardly. One of the most powerful tools in the 12-step programs is the process by which one alcoholic/addict identifies with another. First, this identification consists merely of recogniznig that ther are other people who exist independently of our own minds. Then the process goes further. It identifies another alcoholic/addict as a similar human being.

Not trying to confuse you chip, but it really made an impact on me when I read this and really opened me up to the help that the people in AA and in Recovery based programs offered.

Also, one more thing. You don't have to quit drinking for the rest of your life. Just do it for today. It's much more managable. Don't get ahead of yourself.
Take Care,
Sean