Re: Alan's 5 years

[Guest guest]

Alan, Demetria speaks well, here.

I had drink on New Year's Eve after 18 years of abstinence. I'm

still here, alive and and actually relieved. The world did not end. I

have determined that I haven't lost anything, except my concept of

sobriety is different. I drink, but don't get drunk. So I'm sober.

I have also discovered that in AA I was living in absolutes;

absolutely go to meetings, absolutely don't get drunk...well, I

didn't, but tell that to a member of AA and watch the reaction.

The world is not black and white. It works better in many colors. AA

was black and white, do or die. I've chosen a middle ground.

>

> >Goddamn it. I just don't want to go through this anymore.

Everything is

> >all theory and an addictions specialist thinks that I should not

try

> >controlled drinking. I just want to know the answer. But to give

up

my

> >five years?

>

> Hello Alan--

>

> Gotta love that step-think. Sorry to hear they've managed to twist

things around in such a

> way to make you think of it like this.

>

> For counterpoint, here's how I feel about " clean time " and how it

is

measured and valued:

> you don't *give up* your five years, for Pete's sake...those five

sober years *still happened*

> and they undoubtedly did you some sort of good. All the good those

years did, all the

> progress you (I would assume) made during that time, does not

vanish

in a poof of smoke the

> moment a glass or a pipe or a straw hits your mouth.

>

> If you do a moderation experiment, you don't LOSE that progress,

and

also, you don't lose

> the increased physical health that you gained for yourself during

that time. Those five years of

> reduced wear and tear on your liver don't just erase themselves.

>

> Only in the damn Step Program...ONLY IN AA/NA would you have to be

penalised so

> much for a transgression that you'd have to go all the bloody way

back to SQUARE ONE or

> Step One or whatever, and start the whole preposterous game over

again, losing all the

> " points " you made earlier.

>

> In real life, if you fall off - or jump off - the wagon, you

simply

decide whether you want to

> keep drinking/using, or decide that you don't like it as much as

you

thought you would.

> It seems the larger number of people who attempt moderation end up

deciding that they don't

> want to go on drinking; and they go back to either 100% abstinence,

or maintain a strict

> " birthday and new year's eve " -type of extremely occasional use.

>

> On the whole, it is incredibly liberating to know you're abstinent

because YOU WANT TO

> BE, not because you HAVE TO BE, or because a bunch of people decide

you SHOULD

> be...or act all impressed because you have been for X amount of

time

without a break.

>

> I know that when I used crack 7 years ago, even RR didn't get me

off

it (though I did find the

> meetings much more tolerable than NA.) *I* got myself off it - and

quickly - because I got

> friggin' *tired* of it, point blank. I think that's the only thing

that really causes anyone to stop

> using any chemical or drug, or stop eating too much or eating the

wrong foods, or stop doing

> anything else that has unhealthy consequences: you stop when you

get

sick of it. And at that

> point, it's no longer any sort of temptation anymore.

>

> Hope this helps,

> Demitria

>

>

> demitria monde thraam

> transmits at:

> http://thraam.com