TOPIC: What Do These Words Mean 2 U. Cunning, Baffling & Powerful.
 

Hi Im Sharon and Im an alcohol.

By the Grace of my HP and people
like you here in SR, I havent found
it necessary to pick up a drink of
Alcohol since 8-11-90.

For that and you I am truely grateful.


We hear these words many many times
in relation to recovery, alcohol, drugs.

CUNNING, BAFFLING AND POWERFUL.

Speaking for urself, what do these
3 words mean to u. How do they
affect u in recovery? Have these
3 words snuck up on u during the
day?

What is cunning baffling and powerful?

It would be something that would
sneek up on u without notice. It
can strike at you anytime, anyplace.

When u r glad, happy, sad, tired, lonely,
angry?

If u r in early recovery you will notice
that after a little while sober or clean,
u may feel safe from it , however all
of a sudden, without warning thoughts
of drinking or using pop in ur head.

How did u handle it? Did u work ur program,
pray, ask for help, went back out.

What could you do or what did you do
to handle the situation.

Thanks for letting me share.

To me, the words mean that I can't ever feel like I am on top of my disease, or over my disease.

And if I ever do feel that I've got my disease beat I'd better BEWARE of my own thinking.

For as smart as I might think I am at times (;))... the disease is smarter?

Cunning, baffling and powerful makes me feel like this smiley: :DA
I can have list after list of drinking cons. I can know and predict what will happen if I engage in it. And yet, in certain situations, I still have conversations in my head about the usefulness of drinking, as if there is something beside pain and sorrow that it will bring me. It's absurd!

They say to me don't trust my brain and to use the new skills and thought processes i am learning, actually quite simple really! Oh and not drinking no matter what, will mean i can live with this disease happy and sober.

They remind me of an old boss that I once had. I got him fired.:lmao

Good Morning Friends of SR...

"Cunning, baffling and powerful"?? These three words mean to me "Thou shalt stay on guard at all times"!!! and beware of how very subtle and devious alcohol really is :a115:
I think we must get ourselves to a point of "Conscious Awareness" in order to outsmart this evil...and definitely ask God/Higher Power to provide us with that awareness along our Journeys at all times.

Love Pancake =^..^= xo

............. Like the "Wiley Coyote"........... it's an "opportunist"........... always lurking, always waiting, always whispering in my ear.............!!!! INSANITY!

I find it baffling as to why so many alcoholics anthropomorphize their relationship with alcohol...

ah the a word.. love it dk! ditto :)

I trust you're referring to Addictive Voice or Lizard Brain there DK....

:lmao

I don't see how an inanimate object can be cunning. :05:

Also, you can't have a "war on terror". Terror is an emotion.

Sorry Sharon, just being silly. I mean no disrespect. :)

They can get tha bozack too...

I guess I can relate to wanting 'my disease' to be a separate entity, apart FROM myself, and not a part OF myself. To be so aware that part of myself is so destructive and selfish and stupid just gives me more fuel for the 'self loathing' fire I'm burning in. But the 'cunning, baffling, and powerful' part also makes me feel dumber than the object alcohol, as it has power over me I don't have over myself.

did that make any sense?

cunning.. baffling.. powerful and patient!

We as a society ascribe human characteristics to all manner of things: cars, boats, computers, homes, our pets, cancer, psychiatrists.....

It's one of the most effective tools we have to interact with these things and talk abou them.

I have experienced my own alcoholism as cunning, baffling, and powerful like this:
1) When I was still trying to manage my drinking, I would attempt to draw a line on the bottle where I would intend to quit. By the time I got to that line, however, my brain no longer had the ability to follow my original direction. The nature of my alcoholism was such that I thought I could tell it when to stop but it ended up telling me to go to h3ll. Cunning.

2) I drank until I had a black out and woke up in unknown territory. Swore I'd never drink again. Next morning, picked up and started drinking again, telling myself that it would make me feel better if I just had "a litt." Baffling.

3) I love my family more than anything else in the world. I treasure my children and adore my husband. For, some reason, it took me YEARS to actually treat my family as if they were more important to me than alcohol. Because alcohol was my secret lover, essentially. Powerful.

I like those words because it helps me remember, now that I'm sober, to continue to check my priorities in my life. To continue to make sure that I'm putting the things that I love above my fight against addiction. Sometimes, when I feel myself waver or lose hope, I can remind myself that my addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful. And I can look for the errors in my thinking that are dangerously close to making me think that I could drink without consequences.

:lmao

The first thing that came to my mind when I read those three words was my ex-wife. Funny thing is, when I quit waiting for her to come back to me, it was easier to stop drinking. In the context that you meant it aa, I saw that my own thought patterns were cunning, baffling and powerful, not the alcohol itself.

Peace.