The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Alcoholism is a form of insanity. The second step alludes to this. While alcoholism is frequently compared to other diseases like diabetes, when it comes to sanity, alcoholism (an drug addiction) defy logic when it comes to the behavior of the person afflicted. Diabetes can be measured by several means, long and short terms. It can be quantified. Do this, get better. Do that, get worse. It may not be perfectly understood, but at least it is generally understood. A doctor can diagnose it with relative ease.
But alcoholism is rarely diagnosed by a medical doctor... unless it's the county coroner. It's rarely diagnosed by psychiatrists, or psychologists either. Why? Because alcoholics are liars!
Alcoholics over the years have offered up a staggering number of reasons for drinking. For drinking today, for drinking yesterday, for drinking tomorrow, for drinking ever, for drinking a lot, for drinking a little, for drinking continuously. Well meaning professionals and family members have done equal duty looking for reasons, proposing theories.
When I was sober just a few weeks, my analytical brain kicked in. I began to look at my past, my present, my job, my family, my life in general, and look for the things that caused me to drink. I was musing about this once after a meeting, and a guy said to me, "You know why you drink? Because you're an alcoholic!"
Duh!
That's not a cop out. That's not an excuse. It's just the truth, and it's the only truth I need to begin my recovery. In the years I have been sober, I have learned almost nothing about why I drank. In fact, I probably know less today than I did when I started!
It's just not important.
If you came across a person who was injured and bleeding, would you interrogate him about how the injury happened before applying first aid? Of course not... your first response would be to stop the bleeding. The cause is not part of the treatment.
Analysis is always interesting. I am fascinated by the reasons for things. I am always analyzing myself and the world around me for causes, and playing the game of trying to predict what will happen next. But I will never complete my self-analysis. I'll surely die before it's done, and I dare say the process will continue to accumulate more questions than answers.
Fortunately, completion of self-analysis is not a prerequisite to recovery. In fact, messing with it all is a huge obstacle to recovery. Because it's irrelevant.
I will be forever grateful to that friend who snapped me out of my intellectual pursuit. With the puzzler switched off upstairs, the path becomes surprisingly... almost laughably clear.
I know in my beginnings of al anon, I analyzed because I needed answers. I needed reassurance. I needed to be told it was my fault so I could fix it. I needed to be told it wasn't my fault so I could find someone to blame and resent. I needed to be told I could do something about my insanity so I could relieve myself of my victimhood and bondage to the situation. I needed to hear there was nothing I could do so I could feel self pity, self loathing, and just all around self hatred (not like there wasn't enough of THAT already!). I needed labels so I could be the expert. I needed nothing so I could look stupid and play dumb. I needed labels so I could sound intelligent in an unintelligible situation. I needed nothing so I could act as if you were really the one that was causing my misery by simply being you and being smart. I needed God so I could believe in mericles. I didn't need God, after all he HAD failed me thus far, hadn't he?
The list goes on and on.
I think, more importantly than asking Why, How, How Could, How Should, or Why did I, the real question is "What can I do NOW?". It's a debilitating question--it's truly overwhelming the sheer number of possiblitlies that we have availible to us in recovery. It also seems truly crippling the amount of work that we have to do to simply BEGIN the process OF recovering. We try to break down the work into ODAAT, KISS, all that...and sometimes still find it simple.
Which is why, anymore, I answer all my questions in terms of TODAY. TODAY, I feel...TODAY, I think...TODAY, I know...TODAY, I understand...TODAY, TODAY, when I do analyze, I don't go there alone. I go there with a councelor and sponsor in tow, simply because I suffer from analysis paralysis, the condition of being too smart for my own good and too educated to stop.
Ya know, when you first let us know you were an A, I thought to myself, oh goody! All I have to do is ask him, and then I'll know all the answers!! DUH, if only it were that easy.
I want you to know how much I appreciate your posts. Now I know that the A is as baffled as I am! But, still not having learned my lesson, can I ask you another stupid question? When or what happened to you to decide one day that this was it, no more drinking! Up till now, my A has been very careful not to say."I'll never drink again!" Although he doesn't have a program, he knows he can pretty well not ever make that promise to me, or even himself.
One thing I realize is that once my attitude changed, once I had started coming here and learning to really detatch, was the 'magic moment' for our recovey. I can honestly say that I really didn't care if he drank or not (at that time). I was ready to claim my life back for myself, still living with him, still loving him because deep down inside, I knew the wonderful guy I had fallen in love with. I won't say neither of us has slipped, that's for sure! We both have, and I (don't think) I'd still be with him if nothing had changed. (that's MY disease talking there).
A miracle happened in Oct.! The very 1st time he has gone away for a few days, and didn't touch a drop!! even though the guys he was with drank non-stop all the while! When he had his last binge, he got very, very sick, (maybe alcohol poisoning?) I really think that he thought he was going to die, maybe he would have? But I see that as his turning point. He didn't do it for me,which I had already realized he couldn't, but did it to stay alive?
Anyway, I guess what I am hoping you can tell me (and about 50,000,000 others) is, what was your personal bottom? If you think this is just too rediculous to answer, please accept my appologies, With Love in the program, TLC
I too say thank you for your post. I too have paralysis by analysis and am learning, one day at a time, to let go and just live. I admire your courage and your posting is inspiring and helpful! Thanks again
I want you to know how much I appreciate your posts. Now I know that the A is as baffled as I am! But, still not having learned my lesson, can I ask you another stupid question? When or what happened to you to decide one day that this was it, no more drinking! Up till now, my A has been very careful not to say."I'll never drink again!" Although he doesn't have a program, he knows he can pretty well not ever make that promise to me, or even himself.
Anyway, I guess what I am hoping you can tell me (and about 50,000,000 others) is, what was your personal bottom? If you think this is just too rediculous to answer, please accept my appologies, With Love in the program, TLC
I think you answered your own question. Since I have been sober, I have never once said or thought, "This is it, no more drinking". However, when drinking, I had the thought all the time.
My personal bottom did not involve the loss of a family, home, job, or money... all those things happened later... LOL.
The last time I drank, I had no idea it would be my last (so far). I had a good job at the time - a new job, much better than my previous job, a lot more potential. I liked it and the people I worked with. I still had my house, wife, kids.
Yet... I was drinking every night.
I had not lost everything to alcohol. I still actually enjoyed my drinking. Loved it actually. I loved the taste, the feeling, I loved planning it, shopping for it, the entire process. But at that particular moment, I didn't love anything else anymore.
I probably seemed no different from any other hung-over, desperate drunk when I went to my first AA meeting. I probably WAS no different. But at the time, I didn't feel desperate... just... curious. At least that was my rationale at the time. I don't know what I looked like on the outside, but inside, AA rekindled something inside me that was long dead. This childlike fascination with the wonder of it all. Alcohol kills that with one blow... it replaces all the questions with a single answer. It numbs the good along with the bad.
Within a few weeks, the shaky, frightened child I had been when I first felt alcohol hit me had re-awakened. I was so fascinated, my desire to explore this further exceeded my fears and my compulsion to numb the feelings. My slow, spiritual awakening was similar to that of a person who goes through some disaster - a storm, earthquake, whatever, to find he's still alive. I found I was still alive after 13 years of drinking. There was no violence, no health crisis, no hospital, no car crash, no fight, no arrest, no divorce (well not till later!), no firing, no reposession.
I distinctly remember when I first became consciously aware of this, and there was no doubt in my mind I was going to keep that gift and go forward with it. And I tried to put it into words my wife would understand. For me, it was a joyous awakening; for her, it was as if I was saying I didn't need her anymore - I guess.
I was a little less than a year sober when the accumulated evidence was telling me that my recovery path was veering farther and farther from my relationship. It broke my heart that I couldn't have both. God seemed to be awfully cruel in that moment - he gave me back myself, but it was going to cost me the "love of my life". But there was still no doubt in my mind which path I was going to continue on, and 4 years later when she finally did leave, my illusion of riding two horses at the same time evaporated.
Serenity is a gift for right now. If I'm too busy accumulating the things I think I need for tomorrow's serenity, I'll miss today's serenity, and tomorrow's will never come. It's a minute by minute choice. It seems that the world is conspiring against our serenity, but that's only if we make our serenity conditional. The news is for the alcoholic, for the alanon - you don't have to wait... for anything to happen/stop happening. The Gift is available right now, this moment, if we are open to receive it.
Barisax, yours is exactly the post I have been looking and waiting for since the day I arrived at MIP on the way to destruction because of the actions of a loved one. I have read and reread your post. You are precisely on target. Thank you. Thank you!! You have made my Wednesday morning clear.
Thanks for your insight. I was the greatest analzyer of all time. It consumed me overtook my soul, and yet no solid answers appeared from none of it. As my husbands drinking progressed, I would try to "fix" things and be a step ahead of him and try to predict his next move,,,,and then try to prevent it from happening before it even happened. NUTS? (hell ya) I still fall into trying to analyze things BUT only periodically and thanks to alanon I catch myself and am more aware of that "committee of a$$holes" that so frequented my head for so long. Thank you again and keep posting it helps more than you know.................gardengal
