I am definitely an alcoholic. No one else can tell me I am, this is something only I can determine. Here’s how I know:
I have an physical allergy. When I put any amount of alcohol in my body the phenomenon of craving begins. I never seem to have enough. With every drink I want more to drink. I can’t seem to stop no matter how much I drink. If I start a night and say I’m just going to have 3 drinks. It rarely happens. I usually drink until I black out, or am in the back of a cop car, or both.
If this was my only problem. The solution would be simple. Don’t drink! If I don’t drink I won’t experience this allergy and I can go on with life.
People who have food allergies just don’t eat that food and they never suffer the reactions that go along with the allergy.
Unfortunately for me my allergy is coupled with an obsession of the mind.
Obsession: My mind tells me that I can drink this time and I’ll be able to handle it like every normal drinker. The suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago is not sufficient to defend me against that first drink. My own mind convinces me that I am making a logical choice and that for the right reasons, around the right people, the right environment, or any variation of that I can successfully drink and it will somehow be different this time. I’ll be the life of the party. I’ll enjoy myself. It’ll be grand.
The second I do. I ignite the allergy and I’m back in the cycle. I no longer have choice or control and my disease now chooses when I’m done. Not me. It’s like having a monkey on my back. I don’t choose when the monkey gets off. The monkey chooses.
For this reason I am defenseless against the first drink. This is how I came to understand the powerlessness of my disease. Alone I am powerless. Ive tried every form of self deception to prove myself an exception to the rule: therefore non alcoholic. That is how I managed my life. My management was horrible and I was ready to resign as manager of my life. First I needed something greater than myself to step into that management position. I chose a higher power of my understanding. I believed this was a better choice than what I had been trying.
Unfortunately this alone was not enough. I’m a real alcoholic. You take the booze away from me and my life gets worse not better. The only solution I ever had to cope with life was the booze. After removing it and figuring out what my disease was. I knew knowledge alone wasn’t gonna cut it. There had to be more or I was in trouble.
Maybe I’m just rambling but I did eventually find a solution. If your with me so far and would like to here more leave a comment. If enough people relate maybe I’ll tell some more of my experience tomorrow…
I would like to hear more of your story.
It’s every single drink after the first one I’m defenseless against. The first one my defenses are good as long as I’m working on recovery. If im not working on recovery im working on relapse. I would love to hear more of your story.
As an alcoholic I suffer from what’s called a spiritual malady. This is the reason I’m uncomfortable in my own skin. A quick short description of the malady is: irritable, restless, discontent.
Example one: I can buy a brand new truck. I’ll be elated and on cloud 9 with my new purchase. This is it. This was what I really needed to find my happiness. This makes me feel complete. 3 weeks later I’m miserable with my purchase I hate the color, the seats are uncomfortable, and the payments way to high.
Example 2: I get a new job. Better pay, less hours. I love this job. I’m finally making it in the big world. I’m going to fulfill all my dreams. I have a great title. My family can be proud of me. The world will finally see my worth and value.
6 months later my alarm goes off for work and I just want to die. I hate my boss, I’m under appreciated. I just want to crawl under a rock and give up. Within a month I lose that job and soon I can’t pay my bills and feel like a total loser. I creep deeper into my malady and it’s the world’s fault that I am so misunderstood. If only I could just be me.
I’m resentful at everyone and everything and I drink more and more to wash away the pain of it all. The more I drink the better I feel about my depression and my anxiety slips away into the bottle.
I can logically blame everyone else in my intoxication and I begin to destroy all relationships in my life.
By the time I stopped drinking and came back to AA this time I had broke the hearts of everyone who has ever loved me. Mom, wife, friends, children, sibling, everyone…
I had an emptiness inside. A void. I tried everything external to fill it. Money, relationships, material things, sex, careers… anything. The more I tried to fill it the bigger the void got. The bigger the void got the deeper the depression and anxiety rooted into my being
Love this share x
Thank you. I get so fired up about this solution I’ve found and spent of time focusing on that and not relating to the people just starting this journey. Work got canceled for me and I see so many new comers with so many questions and I felt it important to write this piece in hopes of better understanding the disease. I’m so grateful for any likes. I will continue to elaborate daily.
- I admitted I was powerless and that my life had become unmanageable
- Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
What was this insanity?
The most insane thing I do. I did of sound sober body and mind. That is to think I can drink again and somehow this time it will be different. Somehow this time I’ll enjoy my drinking like every normal drinker. This 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.
My mind will convince me that I am making a choice of free will. That because the circumstances are different that the result will be different. For the right reasons, around the right people, in the right place, at tree right time… I can successfully drink and not suffer the humiliation of my last binge. The pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization of the last bender is practically non existant as I step up to the plate to take another whack at this drinking thing. That my friend is true insanity. After 20 years of self experimentation, I finally conceded that alcohol was my master and left to my own devices my mind would continue to convince me that I could manage my drinking. That one more try could work.
Ive seen the program work for others. I was fully convinced I couldn’t go it alone. So I figured I would concede to God. If for no other reason: just a hope it might work, and a hope that I could have a life worth living. I knew the insanity part was as real as a heart attack and I almost had to believe that something greater than me could restore me to sanity. I sure couldn’t; so What did I have to lose. An attempt sure seemed better than what I’d been trying.
So I believed…
Which brought me to step 3: made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him…
If 3 frogs are on a log and one decides to jump off. How many frogs are left on the log?
Hmmm. Intrigued. I gotta say 2?
I think I feel the same. I am 7 months sober. But I feel so empty now. I was on pink cloud at rhe beginning of my sobriety and now I fall down so hardly… I am not happy with anything. Trying to give myself reasons why I should be satisfied. But deep in there - I don’t feel it and I don’t know why.
that pink cloud you were sat on, well that was where you could look out and see your future and from high up there it looked pretty amazing didn’t it.
The only thing you forgot about is life is gonna get in your way and try and slow you down a bit.
Well while you been feeling sorry for yourself you failed to realise your already done most the hard work so now maybe you can take your foot off the gas.
All that sobriety you wanted, well you got it. Don’t ever take it for granted bc no one has given it to you for free, you’ve paid the price and you’ve earnt it. Well done.
There’s still 3 frogs on the log. The one frog only made a decision. That’s what we do in step 3. We make this decision, before we launch out on a course of vigorous action.
Decision: comes from the Latin root word “incision”; which means to make a precise cut.
Decision means to cut away all other options.
Cutting away all other options I turn my “will” and “my life” over to the care of God as I understood Him.
I had to do allot of research on this because I’m a real alcoholic, and I don’t like turning anything over to anyone, without knowing what it is exactly that I’m giving up.
So my “will” was my thoughts, and " my life " was the sum total of all my actions. My intentions and the outcome were irrelevant.
Step 3: cutting away all other options I turned my thoughts and my actions over to the care of God as I understood him.
Then I launched out on a course of vigorous action. I had to do this in order to get down to causes and conditions. Inorder to take this searching and fearless moral inventory.
Step 3 is just a decision to prepare us for the action we are about to take.
That’s the basics of the disease and the first 3 steps as I experienced them.
I think it would be great to hear some other understandings of the disease and or the steps…
Hi, I’m new. Don’t want to go to AA but I’ve read a really good book called alcohol explained by William porter. Also have alcohol explained 2 by him. I need to quit it’s killing me.
Your definitely in the right place. Keep up the good work
Hi there and welcome!
You can find a variety of resources in this thread if you are interested…
I just wasn’t to bump this thread up to the top for the newcomers with allot of questions.
This is just my take on the disease