Tetrax

And I'm already depressed. During my one time in outpatient treatment we were asked what was wrong with this statement: 'Recovery means abstinence.' And no one knew the answer.

pickled1

I'm no expert, but I do know a tiny little bit of alcohol sets off the most phenomenal craving for more.

Tetrax

That's fine but I'm sick of middle class people whining about drinking a wee bit too much wine. I just can't relate.

Dee74

I think you're better to focus on the similarities, Tetrax.
Resentment and contempt are pretty useful for a drinking bloke, but disaster for folks in recovery.

D

Hodd

I went to an addiction centre one time to pick up some Campral tablets I was trying. Whilst waiting, I got talking to a recovering (hopefully) drug addict who’d clearly been through hard times. Maybe he thought I was middle class, but I saw him as another addict like me. It doesn’t matter if it’s royalty or hobo, an addict is an addict.

I wouldn’t waste the effort worrying about others. OK, if it’s a group session and someone’s giving their chapter and verse life story, switch off. Everyone else will be thinking just the same as you. This’ll be over one day and you can move on.

pickled1

You know sometimes I think that! A bottle of wine a day, what is that? Nothing! But then, I don't exactly think straight when it comes to alcohol. If you have a comfortable life, a job and family still living with you, what's your beef?
But obviously it is too much, you are probably experiencing problems due to it, or you wouldn't be on this site.
Apart from that a lot of people on this site did reach their bottom.
Their full stories are here if you search.
You see what it is you want to see. If you don't want to see the people who have dragged themselves up from the bottom, you won't.

DriGuy

Alcohol treatment does have it's share of memes, platitudes, and bumper stickers that make no sense to me. OK, I get the drift of their intentions, but I prefer straight forward logic over poetic philosophy. Most people probably find the hidden intentions of clever sayings poetic enough or "magical" enough to be inspired. I just note them and move on, because I get what people see in them.

Having said that, being depressed by "hard line abstinence stances" in your thread title raises a red flag for me, because I resisted "hard line abstinence" before I began to recover. It's not like I got depressed, or consciously fought against them with tooth and nail. Instead, I just slyly ignored hard line abstinences at a subconscious level, hoping that they didn't really matter that much, but recovery (for me) needed to be 100% hard line, and it still is today, because one drink, and only one drink, or even a taste, is what always led me to drinking until the fifth was empty. And I think for all of us who's lives have been taken over by alcohol, it's much the same.

My problem, and I'll assume it's the problem for others here, is that I am a weak person. Sure I have strengths too, but where alcohol is involved I'm as weak - weak - weak as a sick puppy. One drink and I can't stop. Fortunately, I have enough strength, albeit just a smidgen of it, to resist that first drink, but beyond that, all self control is out the window. All I can do is resist that first drink, and if I do that, I find that I can be as normal as any regular person.

I believe hidden in the word "abstinence" there is an implication of it being a hard line quality. I don't believe you can be kind of abstinent and actually be abstinent. I don't think that's what the word means.

novips

Perhaps relevant (from p. 30 of the Big Book):

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Hodd

It’s interesting. On another forum I no longer visit, a widow of an alcoholic said my bottle of wine a day was just small fry. I didn’t qualify as an alcoholic by her standards (or more likely those of her husband’s who no doubt drank way more and as a result died years ago).

I drank a bottle a day - within 30 minutes of opening it - and it was causing me no end of problems and aches and pains towards the end. That’s a lot of alcohol each day and shows without a doubt alcohol dependency. That quantity will only start to increase over the years. I do find it sad when apparently richer folk seem to think their more expensive wine and lifestyles makes them immune from alcohol-related problems. They’re in just a bad a place as me and my new mate waiting at that addiction centre three years back. Actually, as we were more humble, I’d say we had a better chance of recovery than some of the rarified ego types.

Tetrax

I take on board and broadly agree with every comment to be honest, including this one I've quoted. But I will say poverty is a real thing that many here don't understand. I mean I agree we're all alcoholics (if we all agree that we're comfortable with that word), but it is harder when you're basically destitute.

Hodd

^ I get that, Tetrax. Hopefully things will look up soon. I wasn’t in poverty (I’m not rich at all), but I was in deep s*** as a drinker, and since quitting, things have just somehow worked out. You’ll have similar luck once you kick this.

BackandScared

I don't know Tetrax. Many **** things happen to many people. Poverty is a real thing and a massive obstacle for everything in life. Getting out of poverty is almost impossible for so many reasons. It is almost like getting out fo racism being black or discrimination being a woman. there are always exceptions but it is really depressing to be on the wrong side of statistics with a clear vision of the problem.

Whatever it is, any problem becomes a bigger problem is you are struggling financially. Alcohol addiction is a massive load even if you are rich, but no where as bad as if you are already in a hole. But acknowledging it and feeling understood by others has limited utility in my view.

One of the problems I always saw with AA (and made me a bit reticent with this forum for a while) is that I struggle to rationally understand the use of sitting around with many people with the same problem but nothing else in common. It is like seeking comfort for my broken finger meeting many people I know nothing about but who also have a broken finger. We all understand what it feels like to have a broken finger. Now what? Your broken finger is worse than mine because you work in construction and need your hands?

Not sure where I am going Tetrax but you want to quit drinking and you must focus on this. It will make whatever mental health problem and **** reality that you may be going through a bit better. I have told you before you were an inspiration to me on the early days. I remember you were about to become homeless before Christmas (this was 2 years and a half ago at least) but you did not drink through that. From a much more secured position you gave me a lot to focus on. If you could go through that without drinking, so could I. I wish you strenght and luck

Primativo

It's funny you talk about expensive alcohol. How it can make it seem like you don't have a problem, or less of one. I was speaking to my friend about this the other week. He's three years sober, we were like partners in crime when it came to drink. I actually admitted I had a problem before he did, and inspired him to get sober. I ended up back to the bottle though, he didn't. He was saying how stupid it was, that because he would buy £15 bottles of wine from M&S, and £80 bottles of whiskey, that somehow he didn't have a problem. At the end of the day whether you are getting smashed off expensive booze, or a £4 bottle of wine from the corner shop, it's still poison and you still can't control it, it all has the same effect.

Tetrax

Wow I am genuinely touched that you remembered this part of my story. And to be honest I haven't meant to insult anyone this night/day: it is just the drink. And I'm not using that as a cop out, because I know everyone gets it. Yet at the same time I still do want to say sorry to those I offended who I know are only replying to my threads to help me.

BackandScared

I certainly do not feel offended Tetrax. From very different perspectives (non-alcohol related) I do know what it is not to have the means to achieve things that others take constantly for granted. This is also why I cannot forget your story (and a few others, like Dee's). We all have a drinking problem, whatever tag we add to it, but we are not all handled the same cards to deal with it. It is much more difficult if you have no job, no family and no financial means. I do not see a silver line everywhere and I truly admire you for what I know you can do. I am very grateful you shared the things you shared because they helped me and I am sure, others too. i wish I could give it back to you.

Hodd

Nothing offensive or wrong with your posts, Tetrax Keep ‘em coming. Let’s help you kick this.

Hodd

If it wasn’t so serious, it’d be funny. I’m a part-time and very average science teacher, and even I know the ethanol (alcohol) is the same substance in a massive plastic bottle of gut rot cider or “finest” chateaux cirrhosis from Harrods. What’s more, our livers also don’t know the difference. No one on this forum is a hi-so drinker, but I’m sure that’s a major group of people with nasty medical problems ahead. It’s that ego thing again

RecklessDrunk

Recovery is about what we have in common, not how we are different. Bottom line for me is an almost allergic reaction to alcohol combined with an obsession to drink it.

I held up a middle class life for decades and its not easy. Recovery is not completely defined by abstinence, that i did not know. But I did know it required abstinence and no way was that going to happen. I loved alcohol that much. If I lose everything I will have to get sober, I thought I could not let that happen. In the final years I drank craft beer. Alcoholism aside it was not the smartest thing to spend money on but with me alcohol came first. How i loved the taste, now alcohol tasted almost as good as cocaine. Those beers had sky high alcohol content and would often lead me to smoking crack and sometimes even heroin. I couldn't stand coming down from crack. Many times I would drink on a weekend and not get into any trouble.

It was like I was two different people with different roles. One was sober and went to work and the gym and ran. The other could deal with people and socializing.

A friend of mine wanted to use drugs the way that I drank. He would call and ask who he was speaking to when I answered. Those close to me would refer to me by a different first name once I was drinking. I became a different person.

My friend was amazed at how I could stay sober all week and work out and diet to the letter. Then be drunk and smoking crack on the weekend. Hungover, no problem I will just run 6 miles and get the train rolling again. Dude, how do you not lose your job?!

My friend was boom and bust. He was naturally charismatic and good at selling people and he had a trade where he could get a productive income back once he got off the drugs. He had an endless parade of friends and a big family and he burned through all of us at times. Early 00's he got backed into a corner from his drug use. He was homeless. So he went to hardcore Christian rehab. He ended up completely turning his life over to God and to serving other people. For example he would cut the church property lawn for free. His career was back on track. He soon found a much younger wife. He had custody of his children and a nice home, a luxury SUV, motorcycle, ATV. We remained good friends even though I was drinking. No way was I going to live that way I thought but maybe there is something to this God thing.

My friend stayed clean and had an awesome life for nearly a decade. He started taking pills for back problems and it lead back to addiction. All of those nice things went away. Except the kids. By the time he died from an OD, after another stretch of recovery, they were young adults with a good Christian up bringing. He would be so proud of them today, one thing that went really well.

I hate when people bad mouth those that die from addiction. The way i see it we are like test pilots. He ultimately crashed into the side of a mountain. I didn't get sober until 4 months after he died. Now that he flew first I see what went right and wrong and from the beginning I was awarded an understanding of how the aircraft works. Everyday is the possibility that I will lose control too. We are all the same distance away from our next drink. The way I behave if I pick up I drive drunk, I smoke crack and I even may snort of shoot dope. So I could end up in the side of the mountain as well.

Middle class or unemployed or rich the side of the mountain really does not care. We need to find purpose in life, serving God, serving others. Our role in the human race no matter how insignificant it may seem. Some are younger and more successful then me but that's ok, its their role in the human race and I have mine. I have certain talents and the pay is kind of so so.

nez

In early recovery, I struggled a lot because I keep looking at differences and how my circumstances made things so much harder than those of other people and how nobody could possibly understand the hurdles I was facing. I came upon this quote... It is still a keeper some 19 years later.

Steely

Not having resources definitely makes everything more difficult Tetrax. But what I've found is that 'not drinking' makes everything that little bit easier.

Solidarity.