Nuudawn

I think that you need to find a positive perspective that feels right for you...
I too am not real comfortable with labels
Recovery is such a wonderful thing as it's all about returning to whole...fixing our broken pieces..
It's about problem solving. Deciding to deal with things no longer working for us.

You mention your worry bout 20 something's...and wishing you knew then what you do now.
Well...you do know a thing or two now..
It's time to worry bout you.

FeenixxRising

IMO drinking alcohol is not immoral, for those who can drink responsibly and without consequences. However, I could no longer drink without suffering serious consequences, so for me (and for me only), the continued use of alcohol was an extremely immoral, hedonistic and self-indulgent act.

Since I consider myself a fundamentally moral person, I decided to stop drinking, primarily by using AVRT (which many of us know as the Addicted Voice Recognition Technique).

Using that technique, I freed myself from alcohol. Now that I don't drink, ever, I have the time and the clarity to improve "me", and pursue those activities that make me a better person.

But to be clear, even if I didn't work on self-improvement, I would still not drink, ever, as the decision to quit and never drink again is a completely separate endeavor from my desire for personal growth. To put it another way, even if I was full of resentment, full of self-will, had no spiritual beliefs, attended no AA, SMART, LifeRing meetings and was the biggest jerk in the world. AVRT would still effectively keep me from ever taking another drink for the rest of my life. Essentially, I just stopped drinking and I will never drink again, no matter what.

Scram

This is a really interesting thread for me to read.

For somebody struggling to get sober, I find that I am scared to death of having sobriety define me. I have been to so many AA meetings, and sadly I walk away thinking, "Is this going to have to be my identity?". (And no disrespect to all those in the program, I am truly happy it works for you). I just.... I want to be me without the alcohol. If I am asked to write a 3-4 sentence summary of myself, I don't want one of the sentences dedicated to my sobriety. I just want to not drink anymore because I have no control over alcohol, the same way some people have no control over their body's reaction to penicillin.

And maybe that's not possible. Maybe I'm trying to make to easy, or oversimplify it. I really have no idea. But good lord I am so, so tired of living like this. So tired.

Dee74

Does every recovered/recovering thread have to end up with antler clashing?

I believe what I believe. what others believe doesn't have to affect my belief.

D

Nuudawn

Someone else mentioned the fact that there is no recovery police to knock on your door an arrest you for "doing it wrong".

Lately I have been thinking about the fact that essentially I have a problem with alcohol. I solve that problem by not drinking.
How you solve that problem...where you find the tools..is your business.
You don't have to wear the t-shirt...if you don't want to.

Dee74

I find, overwhelmingly, that we define ourselves Scram

D

nogard

Hey Dee A little shuffling is ok I think.

I thought the discussion was quite helathy. But your right its a personal thing. I no longer have to have a fixed view on recovery. It is what it is and I am clean and ok.

FeenixxRising

Scram, if you're interested you can read about AVRT by googling Rational Recovery. There is a crash course there. Also check out the Secular Recovery sub-forum here for more information.

DisplacedGRITS

I consider myself to be an alcoholic in recovery. I don't ever want to forget that i'm an alcoholic. If i forget that i'm an alcoholic, then i stop taking my "medicine." I'll try to live like a normie and i'm not. I'm an alcoholic. I will always drink alcoholically if i drink. I am not ashamed to be an alcoholic in recovery. I'm very, very happy about it, actually! I've learned a lot about life, the universe and everything while in recovery. I'm not ashamed of being a recovering alcoholic. Now a drinking alcoholic, that's another thing.

We don't have to be defined by our disease. I believe that many of us find that when we are in recovery, we are known by our actions, not our past. Live in the solution and you need not be concerned with how people will perceive you.

PurpleKnight

I don't worry too much about the terminology of things, I like to keep things simple, "today I'm not drinking" or "I don't drink alcohol anymore" will do!!

As Dee mentions, the decision can be made at anytime!!

desypete

wow that is some claim to make, can i ask you how long you have been sober for ?

freshstart57

I make those same claims, desypete. I quit drinking alcohol for good in order to be the person I believe myself to be. I came to understand that I could not both drink and have the life I wanted - I could only do one or the other. I quit once, and I quit forever.

Once I came to that understanding with full acceptance, I declared that I am no longer addicted to alcohol. I am unconditionally sober, and that means that I will remain sober, no matter what happens to me in my life, and no matter what I do. Since I quit drinking, I have added all sorts of things to my life, things that make it satisfying and rewarding. Some of those things I simply neglected to do, and others I pursue because they give me meaning and a sense of self. I don't need to do these things to stay sober, I am able to chose to do them because I am sober.

Recovered or recovering? Phhhhhht. I don't know and I don't care, I don't like either word. I will never drink and I will never change my mind about it. Sober since 21 August, 2011.

Cascabel

I have always viewed my drinking habit as just that, an addictive habit that interferes with the life that I wanted to live. When I was drinking, I saw myself as a person who wanted to be a teetotaler but one who had become habituated to alcohol. Because I was drinking when the underlying me wanted to be sober, I didn't like myself that much a lot of the time.

When I quit, I saw it as an event, not a process. One day I decided that I was no longer a drinker and that I never again would be one. So, I stopped drinking and became the person that alcohol was keeping me from being. Now, I don't see myself as recovering or as recovered, I see myself as a teetotaler and am damn proud of it.

Please bear in mind that this is only my take on the subject and is a description of what has worked for me. Other folks have their own set of gremlins and may need to approach abstinence in their own way. I was a problem drinker for only about ten of my seventy-seven years and so have been lightly touched by addictive drinking compared to others here.

I see a lot of petty semantics at play among those of us who are fighting alcohol addiction. In my opinion, the differences between terms such as recovering and recovered; alcoholic, addict, problem drinker, and habituated and all the other "buzz words" used to describe what is, at the root, a personal problem are not particularly useful. To me the whole issue boils down to: recognizing that one has a problem with alcohol and; taking those steps needed to stop having the problem. Simple but far from easy.

desypete

i can understand how you feel and it does remind me of the time i was in my 20s i went to aa and stuck around for a few years and then drifted away as i didnt really agree with it all

my drinking at that time was a weekend binge drinker so i didn't have to stop drinking daily i just had to quit drinking at the weekends

i managed to live a good life built up a business and made making money my goal in life etc

i went on for 15 years believing i could do this my own way without help and for a time it looked good for me

but 15 years is a long time and it was easy to forget all the harm i had done with my drinking back in my 20s
but anyway i found xmas time the hardest time of the year for me to stay sober, so one xmas i thought i would just try one drink and see if i would end up drunk
i had that drink and went home i didnt have another one

so i went back the next time and tried it with 2 drinks and if i ended up drunk and causing trouble etc i would swear off it again

well that went well
so the next time i tired it with 4 drinks and it worked well too

8 years on from picking up that first drink i lost my business my home my kids my wife went back to prison and was in a hell of a mess drinking daily now instead of weekend drinking it had progressed to daily drinking as aa people told me it would in time if i carried on,

i would wake up and the first things i had to have was a drink and another one on and on it goes for me

so this time i have learned a lesson from my mistake i to dont ever see myself with drink again for the rest of my life but i do know the longer the time is away from the drink the more i am going to forget the harm i caused

hence i stick around aa as i see new comers daily at times and it shows me were i have come from and makes it seem like only yesterday i was that 24 / 7 drunk
i never want to go back to that again and i do know now that picking up one drink will lead me back to it
not overnight but over years

i have been sober now for 10 years now and happy being sober for about 5 of those 10 years and its growing

fini

not2late,
i quit drinking when i was 51.
at that time, i understood myself to be a drunk.
later, after a couple of years sober, i understood i was and am an alcoholic. this was a word/label/concept i'd always refused. vehemently.
but i knew, KNW and KNOW, that that's it.

so yeah, i'll always be an alcoholic. doesn't mean i can't be recovered. and even if/when i'm a recovered alcoholic, i'll still be an alcoholic. and yes, there are some here on SR who use exactly that term for themselves.

do i still think about it? as in: do i consider having a drink or six? no, not at all.

and i stopped counting days, weeks and months quite a while ago.
but i still count years. on my eighth anniversary i'll have this smile-thing playing on my face, and i'll mutter "wow! unbelievable!!".

just keep going, n2m.

Aellyce

Hi Not2late,

I think the best way to approach your question in the OP is what works best for each of us to make us feel both aware and accomplished. I believe some people like the idea that after a while they are more normal and complete, so they like to think of themselves as recovered. Many also don't like labels, so want to be free of them eventually.

I'm quite early in recovery (~5 months), and definitely consider myself recovering, but will probably think about it that way forever, as I like to view life as a continuous process of effort and improvement where an "end" never comes as long as we're alive. I also don't feel ashamed about being an alcoholic - it's not something I wanted to be or am proud of, it just is. It's bad enough that there are so many stigmas about addiction out there, I won't stick it on myself or anyone else who happens to have similar problems.

Also, from the beginning of my sobriety, I liked to view it as a definitive decision and I like to think I will never drink again, ever. I made this decision because I'm an alcoholic, and I'm fine with this reason.

Again, whatever perception makes sobriety stick for someone.

fini

scram,
you live in SF.
if you were to get to some LifeRing meetings, you'd find no one there much, if at all, talking about labels.
if you're tired of this, do what you need to and change it.
this is not meant harshly.

freshstart57

desypete, it seems as though our experiences are not the same at all. What I see is missing from your past experience was your lack of that vow to quit drinking for good. This is how you decided that you could try a drink or two to see what happened.

I am glad you have found sobriety now, and wish you well.

Notmyrealname

What's the difference if I call myself an alcoholic, or a drunk, or a recovered alcoholic, or an alcoholic in recovery, or drunk in remission, or drunk on permanent vacation from drinking, or boozehound on hiatus? None of these labels has any effect on what is.

There's some value in semantics, but not much.

CAPTAINZING2000

From page 84 of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

That sums it up for me personally