Originally Posted by Oladipo
that_pope -
I am too lazy to look up your earlier posts to see how much you were drinking, but I always felt like 2 weeks was when I could feel in the clear from withdrawal symptoms. Congrats on making it that far! From a physical perspective, you’ve gotten past the hardest part.
A couple things on recent posts -
People always want to label. People want to label a person an alcoholic or a problem drinker or a weekend warrior or a heavy drinker. Or, people (AA in particular) want to differentiate between alcoholism and drug addiction, when alcohol is classified as a drug and can ONLY be differentiated from illegal drugs by its legality. Don’t listen to any of that.
Addiction is addiction is addiction, and the sooner you realize that addiction is actually on a huge spectrum, the better off you’ll be. There is no difference between problem drinkers and alcoholics lol. They are all just somewhere on the spectrum. If alcohol, or any drug, is causing problems in your life, and you can’t quit, then you lay somewhere along the addiction spectrum. Now on that huge spectrum, you’re going to see some drastic differences between someone who is mildly addicted and someone who is full blown, but don’t kid yourself: if someone hasn’t become a full blown alcoholic, it’s ONLY because their addiction hasn’t progressed to that point. Realize that the most absolute of addiction’s qualities is it’s progressive nature. Your addiction, as mild or as bad as it will be, will only get worse if you continue to press that button. It’s comforting to know that it’s impossible for your addiction to stay at the same level, and that it will just get worse. You might stall it for a bit because you have obligations to fulfill, or things in place that prevent it from progressing rapidly, but it will progress - if only at a snail’s pace. Some alcoholics progress slowly until their death, and their addiction never becomes “full-fledged”. Maybe they drink every night until they die. But make no mistake - they are addicts, addicted.
People have a hard time admitting this because they want to classify themselves or others as one thing or another, or to try to make themselves feel different from another, or make others seem different from them. It is absolute nonsense.
In my late 20’s I went from a “heavy social drinker” to a very bad alcoholic in a matter of a few years because I had great genes for it and a lot of disposable income and no responsibilities. I had to lose everything multiple times to get sober, and even then I barely made it.
When I see people like you (I apologize if I am making certain assumptions about your drinking history), I greatly admire you, because it seems that things were just getting bad - it’s not taking everything from you. I couldn’t have done that.
I always struggle coming up with good advice to people who want to quit alcohol because for me, it had to get so terrible it was either that or death. I feel like nothing I say will make a difference because they will inevitably go back to it.
Regardless, as an alcoholic, I still feel it’s my obligation to say something when I see someone winning a battle versus their addiction. So, please read what I have to say on the topic:
My addictions to alcohol and cocaine are by far the best things that ever happened to me. I finally realized how to feel good about myself from the inside out when I got sober. I never knew that I had such a low opinion of myself, that I wanted to be someone else. That I felt inferior to everyone around me for no reason and that I questioned everything I said, analyzing it and trying to come up with a better way to say it. I never knew that I had never given my love to anyone because I was too worried that they would leave me. I never knew that I had never been able to be my real self around other people. I never realized how judgemental I was, and how I needed to look down on everyone around me to pretend to feel better about myself. I was narcissistic, selfish, and childish.
I got along fine - even great - in life. I was smart, had friends, had girls, had a good family, lived in some cool places. But I was ****ing miserable. And I would have never known how to get better if I didn’t get sober.
Today, I am nothing special, nothing great, nothing like I would have wanted in my ever-so-grandiose plans for myself as a young man (and adult). But I can look at myself in the mirror and be happy with what i see - a good man. I don’t hurt people, I help where I can, I don’t lie. I don’t make other people feel bad about themselves while trying to feel better about myself. I’m kind, patient, and thoughtful. And I go to sleep easy knowing I *usually* did a good job trying my best that day as a man and as a human.
AA is a great tool for helping to stay sober, sure. Having ppl around who have been thru it is a valuable thing indeed, and the group therapy you get from the meetings is of course a positive thing to be a part of. My thought with AA is always: of course it works!! I’d say it’s correct that they stumbled upon something quite great. The same format would be really effective in helping people with just about anything I think. But dont let people convince you it’s the only way, that’s simply not true. Replacing bad habits with good ones is another extremely effective way to stay sober.
Remember that our chemical addictions are always tied to some degree to what I like to call “our sh*t”. Childhood issues or whatever. No one had a perfect childhood and everyone has some sort of issue or issues from it. I just think that we, the addicts, completely avoided ever dealing with it. Dealing with that stuff is to me the most important part of staying sober, whether doing it in a meeting or in therapy or on your own.
Lastly, the thing that has kept me sober was just seeing the evidence firsthand of how much better my life has gotten. If you stick it out, your life will just keep getting better. Your eyes will see more clearly, your brain will think more sharply, you will find you are more loving, more kind, more confident, more charismatic than you thought. And most importantly, you’ll really be living - you’ll be out there living in the world rather than hiding from it.
GL