lessgravity

Recently with the summer weather, social situations and life in general alcohol has made its regularly scheduled appearances. A date night out with my wife, friends over for a dinner party, major stresses with family health and work, some work gatherings - all occasions where booze was present if not prevalent. Although I never dealt at all with any serious temptations or thoughts about drinking, I did experience my little AV demons doing their bullsh-t dances in my head re: how nice it would be; how I was missing out; how I was odd and different from all my friends and family; wistful whispers of the sweet oblivion that I've given up for good.

At this point it's almost a Zen state when I have these thoughts - they do effect me, but I see them for what they are - mere thoughts. They can't get me to go anything, at best they come and go like a passing cloud - they color the landscape of my mood or my day for a moment and then, after I acknowledge them and laugh at even the thought of drinking - they are gone. All our thoughts are like that, in the end. Thoughts of drinking come, less often than ever in my life, but then they go.

I was thinking this morning as I read posts here on SR, just how freeing it is not to have a choice anymore as to whether I'm going to drink or not. In one sense, no one is stopping me from having liter of vodka on the train home, but then again no one ever was coming to stop me either. I was always going to have to save myself. But now I just know, simply, that, regardless of the situation or the passing thoughts or the social atmosphere or the heavy stress of real life, I just know I am not going to drink. I no longer am at odds with myself - I am no longer a divided self. I'm free.

We all have thoughts that we do not act on - lust, hunger, jealous, want - and thoughts of drinking are just like those. I took the option off the table. And it has given me a freedom I've never known.

MLD51

Super post. I'm the same. I have taken alcohol off the table, so there's really no struggle anymore. I have thoughts, they come, and then they go. It's simply no longer an option for me to drink. Could I? Sure. I could go get a bottle of wine anytime I want. When I say it's not an option, I just mean there's no way I'm actually going to do it. Life is simpler this way. True freedom.

Hawkeye13

Yes, I agree with MLD--very powerful and very true.

Thanks for this lg--I'm gonna print this one out.

WhoDeyPI

Exactly right. Ya'll chimed in on my last post where I expressed being bored, and on Saturday I was again bored, felt uneasy, and felt a little alone. Months ago, that would've been exactly the situation that would've caused me to drink. Saturday however, I didn't even think about drinking. Alcohol is no longer an option, because failure is not an option. It's just no longer part of my life.

readyt0change

this was a great post. i enjoyed reading that.

sometimes i look at a beer or a joint and say "this **** won't own me, it won't control me anymore"

August252015

Cool post, lg. I don't always jibe with you but this is so on point that I love when people share the idea of being free.

I read something the other day about the most negative thing we keep in our heads is the concept of "have to." As in, I have to be sober at this stupid party when everyone's drinking. Flipping that stuff to I get to have fun and remember it the next day, not waking up hungover...and so on. I find that to be the ongoing state of mind you describe.

Least always mentions gratitude- this is a perfect example of something to be incredibly grateful to feel and focus our thoughts on every day.

CRRHCC

Congrats on understanding and controlling your emotions, on being in control and free! "No man is free until he masters himself." Epictetus. There is a lot of wisdom in the Greek slave Epictetus, as in your post. You changed your thinking and changed your life. You chose a better life.

Accord1

I've been the same way recently. Yankees games, going to the beach, grilling.... those thoughts have crept into my head too. But yes they are just thoughts and quickly dismissed. Drinking is now just something I used to do. Not an option ever again. I couldn't live with myself if I ever had another sip under any circumstance.

Accord1

I've been the same way recently. Yankees games, going to the beach, grilling.... those thoughts have crept into my head too. But yes they are just thoughts and quickly dismissed. Drinking is now just something I used to do. Not an option ever again. I couldn't live with myself if I ever had another sip under any circumstance.

Accord1

Sorry about the double post

Fearlessat50

Love the post less! Couldn’t agree more!

BrianK

Your description of the divided self really spoke to me. I've been noticing that more and more lately, how one moment I'm at ease with the world and my surroundings and the next I'm mulling over some critical comment or situation I disagree with. Suddenly I'm asking, "Who is this person and where did he come from? I was happy a moment ago. How do I get back there?" Sometimes I do and others I don't. It really helps me to hear you all have the same experience, but that drinking simply isn't an option.

DriGuy

I don't think there is any question about this, and early on in my sobriety, it was off my table too. Like you, I've thought about why it works like that, and while I agree completely, there's a little scrap of unresolved conflict that I haven't been able to shoehorn into the logic.

I've heard a saying in AA, which I like, but it seems like it runs counter to our thoughts. I can't remember how it goes exactly, but it's something like, "I used to have to drink, but now I have a choice."

So here's the logical conflict:

Indeed I do have a choice of whether to drink or not but...
With alcohol off the table, I don't have a choice...

These two statements, I consider to be true, but they are mutually exclusive. Do I have a choice or don't I? If I am to remain sober, and I always have to make the same choice, that's not really a choice.

In the end, as far as my personal well being is concerned, I don't care about the logic. I have taken the choice off the table. I guess I'm claiming (like you) that the first statement in the mutually exclusive pair is false. I have removed the choice to drink and self imposed a choice (a response) never to drink.

Actually to even consider the first statement to be true, gives me the creeps. The consequences of considering that I have a choice actually makes me squirm and feel vulnerable in a way that I refuse to acknowledge. Maybe that unresolved conflict is why I used to have those drunk nightmares that would wake me up in terror. Subconsciously, I still recognize that I have a choice.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Gottalife

I lost the power of choice and I never got it back. Nowhere in the big book does it say...having done all this work we will now be able to choose whether we drink or not. If I could choose, I would have, and I would not be an alcoholic in the AA definition.

" At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. This tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected." That was me. Through the program, the whole concept of choice became redundant. I could no more choose to drink today as I used to be able to choose not to drink.

I heard a great example in a meeting a while back. Short version, a member who had long sobriety was having a bad time and decided to get drunk. He stormed into the bar with every intention of buying a beer, placed his order which was he somehow misspoke, and a lemonade appeared in front of him. This upset him even more. He went to a table in the corner fuming, drank his lemonade and left. Seems he did not have the power to choose to drink. Neither do I.I would have to be insane to do that,but I have been restored to sanity.

LiveLikeGold6

lessgravity

I can't speak to AA meetings or messages. There's no question thst by all the rules of the universe, I can leave the gym this morning, grab the loose change in my gym bag and pick up a malt liquor from the corner deli. Even at 7am I'm sure I'd find some sad soliders on line in front of me, giving in again to similar demons. I always will have that logical, physical and actual choice. But we always have choices analogous in other areas of our lives.

Maybe it's just a trick of the psyche. Maybe it does result in a rabbit hole of circular logic once you start analyzing it. But there's such great peace in convincing yourself and then just moving through the world with the knowledge that, regardless of the month or the weather, the triumph, tragedy or boring Friday night alone - you just don't drink.

DriGuy

I find this interesting, but I think both our positions have a lot of semantics involved. In truth, I was closer to the state of not having a choice, when I was drinking. Not drinking seemed to be beyond my reach. It was closer to not having a choice.

When I finally quit, it was by choice (so actually I did have a choice afterall), and wrestling with those first cravings took a lot of choosing on my part. Choices that defied my basic instincts and my default responses. And eventually, even today, I could take a drink and suffer dire consequences, or I could not drink and continue a life of freedom. And there's a lot of semantics in the meaning of freedom, but that's another discussion.

At any rate, using the above explanation of "choice" supports that saying in AA that "Now I have a choice."

HOWEVER... <sarcasm> Some choice! </sarcasm> When the caveats of "dire consequence" or "freedom" are included in the discussion, the only logically sane choice that I can make is not to drink. In addition, it's not much of a choice, because I have no more desire to drink, anyway.

And this explanation proves the second of my propositions false, because alcohol is always an option. It's never actually off the table. Deep down, I still fear that I could decide to self destruct and choose alcohol as a kind of slow death. It's an ugly choice, but still exists.

And all this leads to the recovering alcoholics need for constant vigilance. Granted that AV is barely an audible whisper anymore if it's there at all, but I cannot ever forget what alcohol really does to me. At least, I don't want to forget, although sobriety is second nature to me now, and I have greater worries than accidentally chugging down a beer.

BrianK

I'm going to email that statement to myself so I see it every morning. Thank you!!!

DriGuy

Yes, I always had a choice to drink or not to drink, even in the downward spiral of my last days of drinking. I just didn't exercise my choice, because automatically reaching for the bottle was easier.

Today, not grabbing the bottle is the easier choice, but I could choose to grab the bottle.

Just like the other choices that we always have in analogous areas of our lives. It's not whether choices exist or not. They do. It's about making good or bad choices.

There is an ongoing debate in intellectual circles about the existence of free will. I think it's a silly debate. I'll make my choices, even if someone says I was predestined to make those choices by an unseen script.

August252015

So true Brian!

Last night at a meeting, this guy said something spot on: we can be all peaceful and spiritual and zen leaving here, then who has ever been in the car leaving and flipped someone off who was driving too slow? HA.

In the Untethered Soul, I love how RR talks about the idea of the "roommate" - voice in our head that is talking to us, and so on. It helped me think of this whole concept of the divided self, and self-talk, and self-correction differently.