MIRecovery

For me it is not about, "I won't drink." It is about, "I can't drink."

I can't drink because every time I do I go right back to were I was. I don't care how I slice or dice it I have never figured out how to be a successful drinker and 100% of my experience shows me I never will.

I posted this as response in a previous thread and it keeps rattling around in my head.

For me there is a critical distnction here. When I say I won't drink there is no logic, there are no painfull memories, nothing to remind me of the horrors of alcoholism.

When I say I can't drink it brings up the question, why? The "why" varies between people, relationships, employment, health, legal, the list goes on and on.

I can't drink because alcohol controls me I don't control it so if I want a great life alcohol just can't be a part of it

least

For me, now content in sobriety, I don't want to drink.

MIRecovery

I totally agree but I think the "I don't want to drink" phase comes after you have seen enough of the benefits of sobriety to know not drinking is a much better life. At least for me that took about 2 years so I hung on to I can't drink

thomas11

I believe however you arrive at the end result of sobriety or not drinking is a technicality. The success is still the same. Interesting point though. I am pretty early in the process, but my mindset is that I don't want to drink. I certainly could, nothing is really stopping me. But I think about it, and I get this guttural reaction of how awful it tastes and how horrible I feel the next day. Nothing about it at the moment appeals to me. I hope it stays that way.

Dee74

Thanks MIR

Like others have said we all approach this differently.

The fact is I can drink, anytime I like...



but I can't do that and be the man I've worked so hard to be, or keep the life I've worked so hard to get...

so...I can't drink - and happily I have no desire to

D

MIRecovery

I believe I don't want to drink is a much healthier and more mature perspective.

The problem was for quite some time I did want to drink and I knew it. I didn't want the consequences but I did want to drink. I traveled the alcoholism road to almost the very end so it is possible my experience is different than other or maybe I was sicker. Who knows but I do know I have no desire to drink anymore but every once in a while and for a few seconds a drink still sounds good

FormerWineGirl

"I can't drink" came first. Now, I still can't drink, but I also I don't want to drink.

MIRecovery

Dee, you should run for public office. You took 4 posts blobbed them together and kept everyone happy. You are amazing. There are a bunch of Americans that are none too happy with the available choices. How about Dee for president. We need a good Aussie in the Whitehouse

Dee74

I'm not eligible MIR - non US citizen

D

JoeCree

That's what Canadian Ted Cruz says. If he can, and Obama being born in Kenya, well you never know

MIRecovery

Alcoholics never follow the rules why start now. We will convince them you were the love child of some famous US citizen. How about J Edgar Hoover's illegitimate son. Has plausibility i think

MIRecovery

I believe I've hijacked my own thread. Now that takes special talent

Bailey3

I'm afraid to drink and, for now that's where I need to be. I look forward to the day I can be comfortable in my sobriety though.

IvanMike

Yes, Dee is a master.

I can see the perspectives of all of the posters.

For me, using is always an option, it's just a very bad one.

What I can't do is use just one. I figured out that today I have a choice, but once I choose to participate with my disease, I don't necessarily get to choose when to stop. That is how I have come to understand my powerlessness over my addiction. I can't ever excise that part of me from the rest of myself, and that's just another facet of my powerlessness.

Now that I have stopped, I have the power to choose if i will use, or stay clean. I get to make this choice every day.

Soberwolf

Excellent thread Mir I loved it when you said you hijacked your own thread I laughed and D for president for sure has my vote

FarToGo

Brilliant thread guys! Made me think deeply about "want" and "can't", then made me laugh out loud about the love child stuff. SR is such a good place to be.
Everybody loves you Dee, well deserved.
xx

bemyself

I agree, great topic MIR. Yeah, I've spent years now doing the slicing and dicing on this matter of semantics - and it's not 'mere' semantics, like we're trying to write an academic paper, all abstract. This is life or death stuff, potentially, what we tell ourselves about our drinking: both while we're doing it and then, much more importantly IME, when we stop and want to STAY stopped.

Given what I've learned so far, after nearly 7 years I think of detox / rehabs, relapses, over and over until very recently (21 days today), I know that my AV is so f*(&T^ing cunning, it'll play on ANY aspect of my life: my physical state, especially recently as my disabilities are really kicking up their heels; my mood states; my mental state; my spiritual state, such as it is. As we all know, any or all of those aspects of daily living are fertile grounds for the alcoholic / addictive brain to just go OFF like a firecracker....or whisper and wheedle in our own voice, as if coming from the core of the Self; ergo, it tells us, 'this is the truth for me right now; it's what I want and need'. Erk! Note the use of 'want' and 'need'. Erk!

Ergo, I've had to develop a host - a veritable army, ffs! - of words, mantras, breathing techniques, etc etc etc etc to enable me to reach out when it starts, to pick up the phone or whatever is required to break the spell, and FAST. For, with some horror, I've come to see how my saying 'I don't want to drink' or 'I can't drink' or 'I will not drink', or 'I don't drink', whichever types of qualifier I put on the verb 'drink'....my mind can, as it has on countless occasions - and will again, start to debate the finer points of each one. And I mean forensically, as if I was a particularly clever barrister trying to logic-chop and totally befuddle some poor witness for the defense. And soon enough, sure enough, I'm eventually - sooner if not later - grabbing the car keys and wallet.........and we all know what happens next.

So, yeah, I now have to rigorously force myself if necessary to get out of that head and pick up that hundred pound gorilla phone, to call my sponsor / mentor, rehab, anyone. Being an analytical type, I have to go literally against my own lifelong grain, and physically take action. Make the body work to shift my thinking, for beyond thar be dragons if I stay in my thinking.

Again, fab topic. I remember so often thinking, oh, this is all just semantics.....but it sure as hell is beyond language when I realise and laser in on this much more focussed / life or death sense. And I have to keep practising, like having a little sabre at my side: razor sharp and ready to draw!

Meraviglioso

Interesting. I don't know if you have looked at my rehab thread but buried in there somewhere was one of the most interesting things I learned and heard here, one that has made great impact on me. At our group specialising on alcohol the psychologist said we shouldn't say or think "I can't drink" because it is not true- we can, it is legal, relatively cheap, easy to find and we can go out and buy it and then consume it anytime we want.
We should also not say "I don't want to drink" because sometimes, even years from now, this may be a flat out lie. We might fight cravings in early recovery and want to drink despite knowing full well the disaster that awaits us if we do. We might be years down the road of sobriety, celebrating a wedding or a special anniversary of our own when a tiny thought bubbles up and we want just that one glass of champagne to make a toast.
What we should say/think is "I choose not to drink" Because that is both truthful and puts the power in our own hands. Nothing outside of us is stopping us (I can't, my hands are tied) we are making a conscious decision to do what is right for ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our addiction and our loved ones.

I am not sure if others feel the same way, but it really resonated with me and is the terminology I have since chosen to adapt when referring to why I don't drink alcohol anymore. I choose not to. Period.

freshstart57

Meraviglioso, I agree with this 100%. This is what has worked for me. I like to put it this way - I have chosen not to ever drink. I chose to empower myself to make this rational choice. This is a completed action in the past. It was an event, and that event is over. The question has been asked and answered permanently and unconditionally. Done. Finito. Fait accompli.

360startstoday

I second this....

(Let the birther outrage begin!)