Posted on 08/28/2009 1:31:53 PM PDT by RKV
In August 1979, I took my last drink. It was about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the hot sun streaming through the windows of my little carriage house on Dickens. I put a glass of scotch and soda down on the living room table, went to bed, and pulled the blankets over my head. I couldn't take it any more.
On Monday I went to visit wise old Dr. Jakob Schlichter. I had been seeing him for a year, telling him I thought I might be drinking too much. He agreed, and advised me to go to "A.A.A," which is what he called it. Sounded like a place where they taught you to drink and drive. I said I didn't need to go to any meetings. I would stop drinking on my own. He told me to go ahead and try, and check back with him every month.
The problem with using will power, for me, was that it lasted only until my will persuaded me I could take another drink. ...
A.A. believes there is an enormous difference between bring dry and being sober. It is not enough to simply abstain. You need to heal and repair the damage to yourself and others. We talk about "white-knuckle sobriety," which might mean, "I'm sober as long as I hold onto the arms of this chair." People who are dry but not sober are on a "dry drunk."
...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.suntimes.com ...
Very well said. The program is meant to be suggestive only. I take the other tact when it comes to working with others. I actively sponsor 2-4 people at a time. It was one of the suggestions made by my sponsor, and it keeps me close to my step one experience.
AA itself doesn’t really have a voice, but it does have a book. The book says, if you can quit on your own, more power to you. Maybe you weren’t as far gone as some of us were - so far gone that nothing short of a spiritual experience would turn the trick.
As far as the dry drunk, I say that’s an “if the shoe fits wear it” sort of thing. Everyone should be doing SOMETHING to stay in fit spiritual condition.
Did any of them get sober? Did they get involved in AA? Did they stop drinking? Did you go Al-Anon?
IF the answer to any of those questions is "no" then you probably know nothing about alcoholics and AA - just that they drink too much and can be jerks either drunk or not drunk.
I think the hardest part for me was not buying alcohol. I never got panicky about not having it but I couldn’t walk into a party store without buying it and once I had it I had to drink it.
It felt pretty good to drive away from the store with a pepsi in my hand. In fact it still does after all these years.
"...I can't imagine that anyone in recovery cannot recognize the similarities between the Democratic Party and drug dealers.I mentioned this strange conundrum in my comment #32. Lately I have taken to asking them about that and mostly they just want to change the subject. Do tell. :)
They make promises of easing their pain, all the while making the pain last longer. They create a dependency that only they can fill. And if you try another method, they turn on you like your a leper."
Roger Ebert. The movie critic. Originally Siskell and Ebert.
I went to Al-Anon for about 6 years and I know it was a very special group, they didn’t allow that but I have been to some that were worthless. It was my Al-Anon experience that helped me to help my husband when he got sober but my husband had the same opinion of AA.
You got your panties in a bunch because I didn’t seem to have the proper respect for your weakness or what ever you call it. Grow up.
3/31/01
Well, you know what I mean, then. It doesn’t matter how people get sober, just that they do. :)
YEah, this may have something to do with why I'm a morning person now, but I do also enjoy coming home beat at the end of the day and falling into bed and relaxing. Sleep is my narcotic sometimes.
Well, you should see how hostile people are to Christians in there. Look, there are some sick, sick people at AA meetings. I’ve never met one that wasn’t horribly, deeply damaged. I’ve thought some of them weren’t - sponsors, ones with significant sobriety, but when I got to know them they were some scr-ew-ed up people.
But... what does that say about meeee?
George W. Bush is a Great Man and was a Great President. I miss him terribly. If you doubt what I’m saying, take a look at the mess that’s in there now.
In the Big Book, which was written in 1936, it says “about the only place on earth you could go to get away from alcohol would be the polar ice caps and even there an eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and spoil everything.”
You know little of AA
I feel guilty about not sponsoring, I admit that.
I know NOTHING of AA.
Not to make light of his substance-abuse problem, but there’s another program he needs to get into:
“Hi, I’m Roger, and I’m assholic.”
“HI, ROGER!”
Thank You!
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