AA Didn't Teach Me How To Stop Drinking---It Taught Me How to Stop Stopping!

Anytime I hear another recovering alcoholic say something to the effect that they "stopped drinking" when they got sober, I cringe inside. Why? Well, it's because for 30 years or so, I defined an alcoholic as someone who couldn't stop drinking. The definition has flesh and bones and I called him "Dad."

When I was in my early 20s and my dad was in his late 40s, I pleaded with him to stop drinking --- because if he didn't, it was my strong belief that he was going to lose custody of my youngest sister (she was 3 years old and my parents had just divorced; my dad had been granted custody of my two younger sisters). Among other things...

I'll never forget that he reacted to that request of mine as though I had demanded that he stopped breathing air. "How dare I" ask him to give up the one source of relief that he had in his life. He worked hard, cared for his two daughters, "didn't run around with loose women!" --- and the only thing that he had left to give him any sense of relief from the stress in his life was to drink "some". How dare I indeed.

Sure, he could stop... He just didn't need to stop. I remember well that he could routinely make a point to stop drinking "for Lent" every year. He would also sometimes go on a "diet" and restrict his drinking to Miller Lite!!! Lots of Miller Lite!!! Yes, he could stop. Stopping wasn't his (or my!) problem. Starting was.

So it makes me nervous when recovering alcoholics refer to their getting sober as "stopping." You see, whenever I "stopped" in order to prove to myself or to others that I certainly wasn't an alcoholic, I would stop. And then when I was stopped, I would always become convinced at some point that I had "really, really, really" stopped and then once I was fully convinced that I had in fact really really really stopped, then the inevitable idea would float to the surface of my brain: "Well, if I've stopped, then I must not be an alcoholic! Alcoholics can't stop!"

For any of you who are struggling with this issue of "am I or am I not an alcoholic" --- trust me, if you're struggling with this issue and you're proving to yourself that you're not an alcoholic by the fact that you "can" stop drinking. Great! Just remember though that when you get to the point of being really convinced that you're not an alcoholic AND (!!!) the first thing you are going to do now IS DRINK (!!!) then, my friend, you can rest assured, you've passed the ultimate test. You are, sorry to say, an alcoholic. Non-alcoholics celebrate their not being alcoholics by drinking water, soda or milk....if they are thirsty. Actually, truth be told, non-alcoholics don't celebrate not being alcoholics. You see, it's not an issue for them. Period.

What happened for me (although I wasn't really aware of this after several years of sobriety) that morning that I woke up after my last drink (to date), is that I didn't stop drinking. No. Quite the opposite.

What I did was wake up and realize that "I can't stop drinking!". The same thought, to be sure, that I had been having for over 10 months. But this morning, it was different. This thought was followed by another: "This inability to stop drinking....is called 'alcoholism'."

And that thought was immediately followed by another, "And this alcoholism is just a disease that I happen to have, and that's perfectly all right!" Ahhhh. Everything I had done to that point in my life now made perfect sense. All the shame and guilt for doing all that I had done, especially my not stopping drinking when my son began his own recovery, all made perfect sense to me. The last thought that morning was that all was not hopeless. I could do what Pat had been doing and I was going to be o.k. --- I could go into those meetings that he had been going into for over ten months and I could get better, one day at a time, just like he had been getting better.

So what happened with me beginning the morning of October 20, 2001 is I began accepting the truth about my drinking: I can't stop drinking. That's intentionally phrased in the "past tense" by me because I still perceive myself as someone who can't stop drinking.

You see, I found freedom from that "self constructed prison" by accepting that truth about Me and sifting my attention to a new thought: while I can't stop drinking, I can stay sober one day at a time. I can't do it for a longer period than that, but I can stay sober today. Tomorrow? Well, as Dr. Paul (author of the "Acceptance is the Answer" story in the Big Book) once said, "If things just become unbearable some day and you just have to drink to deal with all the pain and stress, as a last resort, give yourself permission to drink....tomorrow." AA only asks that you try your best not to drink "today."

AA has no official position on drinking tomorrow. We've drawn the line at "just for today." As a result, he told folks who found themselves in these "worst case scenarios" to go ahead and give themselves permission to drink.... tomorrow.

His only caveat was that when "tomorrow" came and in the unlikely event that they still wanted to drink (he said that most people woke up either forgetting that they'd made this agreement to drink or woke up forgetting why it was that things were all that bad that a drink was going to make it better...), that he only encouraged them to ask one last question before actually taking the drink and that question is, of course, "What day is it?" If it's "today" ---- well, you know the AA story.

A couple of years ago, I heard an AA chair say that he came into AA with the barest of hopes that AA would teach him how to stop drinking. That morning, he told us that after many years of recovery, he was just now realizing that AA taught him no such thing. Instead, they taught him how to stop stopping.

That hit me like a brick. It was my experience too!

Take care!

Mike L.