Sunday, March 22, 2009

Alcoholics: 4 Options for Living

Alcoholism is a disease that's hard to diagnose. Seems the alcoholic is the one who ultimately has to decide if he or she's one or not. I've oftentimes wished that there was a simple blood test that could tell us if we were or weren't alcoholics. But there isn't. I remember reading somewhere there is a test that can be done on the human brain to determine if a person is an alcoholic or not, but the test can't be given until after death. While there doesn't seem to be an objective test to determine this issue once and for all (before death), we're left with more subjective tests that involve us asking various questions about our drinking and our drinking history.

All that said, the point I want to talk about today though is that objectively speaking, once a person's body does cross the line between non-alcoholic to alcoholic, the person only has four options. These four options are possible answers to the question once asked by Dr. Paul O., author of the story "Acceptance was the Answer", when he finally accepted the fact that he was an alcoholic of sorts: "OK, now what am I going to do about it?"

1. Strange as it may sound, the alcoholic can choose to be a non-alcoholic: Or rather, they can consider themselves non-alcoholics...despite all the evidence and suspicions to the contrary. They can make valiant attempts to conform their drinking to those supposed and sometimes mythical standards which apply to non-alcoholics: e.g., can stop whenever they want to, don't have any DUIs, don't drink after 5pm, don't throw up, don't have people suggesting that you drink to much, don't have problems at work, etc. This was my option of choice for much of the first 38 years of my drinking: I wasn't an alcoholic because I wasn't like my father. I could stop. And as long as I could stop, I couldn't be an alcoholic. Right.

2. They can be a practicing alcoholic: That is, they can give in to their disease and drink and drink and drink....until they arrive at the inevitable: jails, institutions or death. For me, this option was what I opted for in January 2001 when my son began his recovery and I was asked to stop all drinking/using while he was in that outpatient program. That was the moment I had been dreading: the moment where I knew without any question that I couldn't stop. Stopping, for me, was simply impossible. I couldn't imagine going any length of time, days or weeks, without access to alcohol. I practiced in private though and for ten months, no one was able to catch me in the act of drinking. It was hell.

3. They can stop drinking and be a dry alcoholic: For whatever reason and for whatever motivation, the alcoholic does have the option to simply stop drinking. Nothing else really, just stop. I had actually opted for this option many times over the last ten or so years of my drinking. Once I even stopped for 18 months. The problem I had with stopping though is that there always came a time when I realized or convinced myself that I had stopped. And once I was convinced that I had stopped, well then, it wasn't much of a step to move on to the conclusion that I must not be an alcoholic! I had stopped. Any time though that I was in the state of "having stopped" -- I tended to have more and more difficulties with everyday issues and problems. With emotions. With people. With memories. With fears. The longer I was "dry" the more thirsty I got. If I stopped, I always started up again at some point.

4. And finally, they can choose to be an alcoholic practicing recovery. That's what happened to me the morning of October 20, 2001: I woke up to the same thought I'd had for most mornings over the last ten months: I can't stop drinking! But that morning, for some reason, I had another thought, "Well, not being able to stop drinking is called, 'alcoholism'" And alcoholism is a disease, a disease that I happen to have. Now what am I going to do about it? Well, I guess I can do what Pat's been doing: I can try to stay sober, one day at a time. And I can begin going to these meetings that he's been going to. Those people can help me. Two days later, after having disclosed my discovery to both my wife and my son, I attended my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I began practicing recovery. I didn't stop drinking. Instead, I started trying to stay sober one day at a time. And I began learning a new way of living by listening to what others had done and were doing. Eventually, I began going through the process of the Steps with the help of a sponsor and other recovering alcoholics.

This is the far softer and easier way to deal with the disease of alcoholism.

Take care!

Mike L.

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