I wrote a rather lengthy reply last night which apparently got eaten by the hamsters. (It was brilliant, I’ll tell ya. Had it posted a new age of world peace, riches beyond imagining and sobriety for all would have begun. Alas, a truncated version is all you get)
Congrats on speaking. Keep it up.
Now the hard part. A.A. is a program which you have to actually work. It ain’t easy. You need to find a sponsor so that you can start the process.
A.A. isn’t about just not drinking. It is about living a life that is happy, joyous and free. To do that you have to clean up the wreckage that exists now. The 12 steps are tools you use to do so.
It will be painful. It will hurt. But, once you get through them, it is wonderful. You will be in a place where your past drinking is not the center of your life. The guilt, shame, anger and pain from that period will be dealt with so you can live without all the baggage.
There’s nothing better than waking up in the morning and realizing you are not hung-over or in need of a drink to quit shaking. That monkey not hanging on your back is quite liberating!
I know I need a sponsor. What’s scary is that this becoming a lifelong commitment. I didn’t sign on for this!
Anyway, I think the core of your post is essential. I have a very, very dear friend whom will no longer speak to me because while he believes that I have stopped drinking, he claims “I am not doing the work” to get to the bottom of “why” I drink, and that until I do so, he refuses to communicate with me. This makes me extremely sad, he’s been my bastion and friend for a long, long time. Maybe he’s right. He’s into spiritualism and insists that I read Karl Jung and others to “get my head straight”. He’s into a lot of things that I do not understand, so I do not know how to reply to him, even if he’d deign to answer me at this point. I was honestly shocked when he asked me not to call him anymore.
Not being hung over is certainly a bonus, although sleeping properly is still a struggle for me. I have never had “the shakes” and I never will. My craving for alcohol has proven to be far more psychological than physical. I could have quit any time I wanted without DT’s or some such, I just never did.
If you think about drinking or A.A. in those kind of terms, you will likely have problems.
Don’t worry about next year. Don’t worry about next month, week, or even tomorrow. One day at a time is a well known A.A. saying for a reason. Worry about today. Do what you should today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
I am sorry to hear about your friend. I suspect that he has dealt with ‘dry drunks’. Those are folks who quit drinking but haven’t done anything else. Many, if not all, dry drunks continue the same sort of behaviors even though they are not actively drinking. I have known a few. They all seem baffeled as to why their lives have not really changed even though they are not drinking.
The reason is, of course, that they haven’t fixed the problems in their lives and continue doing the same shit that did not work when they were drinking.
LIFE is a lifelong commitment, mister. Do you want to live or do you want to be a ship in a bottle? Every day you stay outside of the bottle and live is a victory. On minute, one hour, one day at a time.
Maybe the “dry drunk” thing is what he’s referring to, although he never called it that. The last conversation I had with him he kept referencing “not doing the work” and “peeling back layers of darkness”. I honestly don’t feel like I have some tortured memories that caused me to drink…it was something I did with all my mates in the Army starting when I was 18, then just became habitual.
Oh I know. I was just messing around. I want to live outside the bottle.
