Zebra1275

If I could change the definition of weekend to "starting on Thursday morning and ending on Wednesday night" I could probably pull this off too.

eJoshua

The thought of drinking just sounds so unappealing to me these days... Why would I waste my time on the weekends if I'm not going to waste it by drinking during the week?

Rusty Zipper

save your friends seat kell!

Englishrose70

Yup Zebra that was me too, but every week the intention was there to just do the WCD thing, it didnt work for me.

Kelly if your friend IS an alcoholic, its doomed to failure.........eventually. If he is NOT then it could work for him, however it begs the question what a social drinker, who can control his intake is doing at an AA meeting in the first place?

You know the right path K but thanks for sharing this with us, it certainly resonated with my own behaviour

instant

Been there done that. Now here. I surrendered.

ADaisyifyoudo

I've never really understood this concept. Anytime I've ever felt like drinking, I haven't felt like drinking "just one." I feel like drinking about 8. So I know what will happen if I start, since my intention is to keep on drinking once I start. So I can't start.

I passed by a bunch of super fun-sounding bars in Manhattan last night and it sure would have been fun to go into one of them, but, well, that's not what I do anymore.

Do you think your friend REALLY believes he'll be able to do that? I think deep down, he knows.

I hope for the best for him.

CarolD

Your friend may have been going to AA meetings...but so far...he has not...gotten the AA message.
I'm glad you have and are continueing to move forward...

I sure hope he will soon quit and live sober and healthy...

Eddiebuckle

Good topic Kelly, it's one that has floated along with me since I quit drinking almost two years ago.

My mother was an alcoholic, and despite all the usual stuff, interventions, rehab twice, doctors, health problems, heartfelt conversations with husband, children, family & friends, she died an early death as an active alcoholic. I would like to think that I model my program from what I observed growing up: this disease thrives on denial, the greatest victim and perpetrator of this delusion is the alcoholic him(/her) self, and it WILL kill you.

My oldest sister quit drinking 20 years ago and was very active in AA for years. We lived far apart she was in FL & I was in KS, and I was only peripherally aware of her sobriety until it no longer existed. One summer maybe 10-12 years ago we were both up at our family home and one night while everyone was hanging out and drinking, my sister picked one up too. To this day I have no clue if this was her first drink since she became sober or that she no longer felt the need to hide that she was drinking again.

My sister drinks to this day, and while she is a heavy drinker she seems to have no obvious signs of her life being unmanageable.

I have accepted that what I observe as her life and its managability may have no basis in reality. Or perhaps she never really was an alcoholic. But in my heart of hearts I know that if I were to drink, socially acceptable drinking wouldn't come close to being enough for me. When I drank, I would drink until I was ready to fall over. To minimize the social fallout of my "drinking style" I drank alone. And I have no doubt that is where I would return in very short order if I made the decision to drink.

Would I like to be able to drink again? Hell yes - if it had no consequences. Am I willing to take the risk? Not a chance.

Threshold

My definition of an addict is someone who by the power of their own free will cannot control the use of a substance or process. They need a major life change and attitude change to get their lives back in order. for most of us that means we need to get the substance or the process out of our lives, and then work on the underlying issues that caused us to compulsively return over and over to that which was stealing our lives from us.

Now, I know of people who COULD cut back, have a beer with dinner, etc. Those people don't fit my definition of an addict. If they can control their use, then...what's the problem? My problem was that no matter how many times I decided to control my use, I couldn't. When I decided to stop using and deal with my issues...my life started to become liveable.

If your friend is truly an addict, I am afraid he will find out the hard way that his plan isn't going to work. I found it out the hard way, when I screamed my way through an 80 mile ambulance ride to the hospital after having my door kicked down by EMS. Oh..I guess I CAN'T control my using!

I put down alcohol and drugs, I don't see any good reason to take up gambling, especially something as precious as recovery.