taking the first drink
 

I was thinking about this last night.

Having changed a great deal in the last 6 months or so, i have a much different understanding of the word sober compared to the word dry. For me sober means that you have had a drastic personality change in yourself and continue to do daily work on yourself to maintain sobriety and, the most important, is a close conscious contact with your HP (in my case God). Dry means, to me, simply abstaining from alcohol...

Sober to me also means a lot more, means i can go where i want, sit with who i want and do what i want without any fear of drinking. It also means that i have been resotored to sanity.

But if someone had tried to explain the sanity thing to me and had said i was insane before i would have laughed and said yeah great whatever mate!

Looking back i have known for some time that i had a drink problem, even would admit at times that i was probably an alcoholic...let's say it was one of those times when i had decided alcohol was ruining my life and was determined to quit drinking, time is irrelevant could be half a day sober or half a year...so the theory is that i quit drinking and everything will get better and the only problem is the alcohol...

So during these times i am sober or dry, whatever...then why did i drink again if the problem is alcohol? Let's say that i had gone without alcohol for 3 months that time on willpower and, to some extent, the compulsion to drink had gone what made me, sober/dry, pick up a drink again? Physically the alcohol is out of my system.

Imagine having a conversation with a non-alcoholic friend about this,

Insane Me: I have not had a drink for 3 months but am dying to have one now, and there is a party on sat night
Sane Friend: Then go but have one or two, can you do that?
Insane Me: Well i haven't been able to do so in the past, and this is based on the last 10 years of experimenting
Sane Friend: Ok well is your life any better without drinking?
Insane Me: Oh yeah much better, i have money, people like me more, my relationship is better, i feel great, i have a new hobby...it's all good
Sane Friend: Well just have a coke then, i'm not going to be drinking because i am drinking that Saturday...you shouldn't drink

Saturday comes and i am drunk, my friend dropping me home...riddle me this if i am sober/dry why did i pick up that first drink, how insane have i got to be to do this knowing what will happen...and if i keep doing this sober/dry then clearly there is something wrong inside of me, so why don't i see that this is the case? Cunning, baffling and powerful, maybe denial? Nope i think it is just the plain and simple fact that i was insane.

I was so focussed on the insane things i would do when drunk, and failed to see that i would do the most insane things when sober/dry...e.g picking up the first drink...i mean how far gone was i that i could not see how insane my sober/dry behaviour was...i guess it begs the question can an insane person really see they are insane...well no obviously not!

If anyone is offended by the word insane, replace with mentally ill or spiritually ill...

So another question how do you get an insane dry alcoholic to see they are insane and to get some real help and to stop trying to do this by themselves...

You've recovered!

Hi Jan

I think it might be worth reading my OP again, this is the whole point it is not solely the alcohol that was THE problem...the problem was me...the alcohol is the full stop to the sentence. Sure we have to stop drinking to be able to get help, but stopping drinking alone is not enough...i had to stop drinking and get help fast to be restored to sanity on an everyday basis or it was always only a matter of time before i would take the first drink again as i was insane with or without alcohol.

Insane doesn't mean crazy by the way, it just means not whole...of not sound mind...

You'll probably here this one at AA, but

What do you call a drunk horse thief who has stopped drinking...a horse thief:-)

And that is the reason why the first half of step 1 is about alcohol and the rest of the 11 and a half steps are about how unmanageable our lives our, insane we are and how we fix ourselves.


By doing what you are doing, explaining that the problem is "me", not the alcohol. Saying the working the 12 Steps is the solution and that the solution is fixing "me". Keep carrying the message to those still suffering even if they are dry.

Great post.

By the way, in recovery my insanity provides me with great entertainment. It's much better than the telly. :rotfxko

.

Desperation leads to an open mind .....well in my book..
And i didnt get desperate because i couldnt stop drinking..
i got desperate because i wanted to blow my head off every time i stopped..

i relate very much to clancys story.......yeah sure im a drunk....but there is something wrong with me other than booze.....because im not drinking and the sh@t hits the fan.

he talks of an invisible spring in the gut......me i call it a very sick mind.
i had i hopeless state of body.......and MIND..
my mind runs riot when i stopped drink......

so what happens......i put down the booze.
shortly i become unsettled.......miserable and pissy.
i run around trying to fix that feeling.....i might seek out women.
i might try to dampen it at the casino.......nothing works.

the days comes when i cant summon to mind the full scale of consequences of the last debacle......
in a blink of an eye im drunk again...........i see clearly now i had no defence anyhow.

For me, I recognized the insanity long before I was able to stop drinking. Consider a OCD who has a germ obsession. The person might recognize that he is not being rational, but that doesn't stop him from washing his hands again, because he just doesn't feel comfortable without the wash. Maybe that's not true for the OCD, but it was true for my drinking.

Very well said.With me it's a feeling of inner tension that increases,over a period of months,and I cave in....The insanity lies in the fact that when I'm to that point....I can't think of the consequences of the last drunk.I go on a bender,and it relieves the tension for a while,and then the slow build up starts again.It's that feeling that nothing is "right" that ends in a bender.All I want to do is not feel that.

i wont forget my sponsor telling me he knew how i felt.

"yeah sure you do"......secretly thinkng..fu@k off and leave me alone.
he suggested i was cornered by alcoholism.

that alcoholism carrys on being active when im not drinking in my mind....and he suggested i read the doctors opinion in the big book of alcoholics anonymous.

well that a new one on me.....read a book.

lots of things happened when i read those letters from dr silkworth.

i realized i was not alone.
i realized that this doctor knew what he was talking about.
and i realized i wasnt special and different........just a sick alcoholic with no solution.

the rest of the book became the key to a new perception of everyone and everything around me.
not a cliche..........not some bs catch phrase........BUT fact.

i stopped drinking in sep 2000......engaged with my sponsor and completed my first set of steps........i havent drank since.
or felt the need to.
if you want relief from that "spring in the gut".....what you got to lose.

pm me anytime..........