It’s not impossible to have 100% abstinence. Just not for very long.
You’ve hit on the key problem, though: AA’s insistence that even a good sniff of an alcoholic drink constitutes falling off the wagon. This degree of extremism has undoubtedly hurt and driven away more people than it’s helped. The programs that take a more graduated position, allowing individual consumption and definition of “sobriety,” are far better grounded in rationality and behavioral science.
(Is AA science-based at any level? Or just the religiousy maunderings of a failed Depression-era businessman?)
I am completely okay with my single beer. I also plan to completely destroy my own defined sobriety at some point by some day drinking to drunkenness again. It’s the pattern of drunkenness that I am fighting (and so far winning) against, not just the experience of drunkenness.
This thread is really nothing more than to see what others think. I’m totally at peace with my relationship with alcohol at present.
I both agree and disagree with you. There is a class of alcoholic who cannot take a sip without setting of a phenomina of craving that may last for weeks or even until his death. Others with a less severe form can go back to moderate drinking but it is questionable as to if they were true alcoholics to start with.
Something often preached in AA that I had a hard time accepting but do accept now is that no matter how long an alcoholic remains sober his disease will continue to progress. Every aa club in town will have stories of long time sober members who decided to take a drink and were dead a month later. It is a serous disease.
Others like myself had issues in their life they were able to deal with and move on and absolute abstinance is really not neccessary.
Another cliche is, alcohol is cunning baffling and powerful and it will sweet talk you into thinking you can have just one. This is also true.
I think you hit the nail on the head there, Steophan. I would say the OP has been “sober” since January, but has been “OK” (for want of a better term) since July, 2013.
I’m actually having a similar situation to the OP. I quit drinking in December, but I had a sip of beer the other night, completely by accident. So I don’t know how long I’ve been “sober.”
Where there is no intent, there is no breaking of sobriety. I’ve had similar things happen to me in my eating sobriety, and I don’t find it useful to say “I haven’t eaten “x” in 5 years (except of course for that one time that it was an ingredient in something I ate and didn’t know it).” That situation in no way affects my emotional commitment to abstinence.
I will say that for me, there are certain foods from which I must remain abstinent. Every time I think, “How bad could it be to just have it one time?” disaster results. I have to believe that this problem is even greater with alcohol, where there are specific biological addictive effects for some people. So while 100% abstinence is not necessary for some people, there are others for whom there really isn’t a middle ground.
I’m an Atheist, so don’t take this as me being all preachy. Some suggest that the story of Lot’s wife was a metaphor. When the angel told Lot’s wife not to look back on the city, it was meant as a warning:
You have made a choice to leave this life of sin. Do not look back in reverence. Because if you do, you’ll get sucked right back into that life again.
I guess that metaphor works well with alcohol and tobacco. I know before I was able to quit smoking successfully, I would often convince myself “Ah, just one cigarette a day wont hurt.” And before you know it, I’m right back to smoking a full pack a day.
What happened is that I wanted a sip of my water glass but I grabbed someone else’s beer by accident.