One Day at a Time

What Are The Options?

Is misery optional for alkies?

I was told something when I first tried to get sober that was designed to keep me coming back - and I'll be damned but it worked.

I was told that I was the “the most important person in the room”.

I thought, Man this is a wonderful place. I was sure that it was true and I was happy that these folks could see it. Finally I was being appreciated. I was sick of being told what a loser drunk I was.

That idea took the edge off my pain almost as well as drink did. The pain and crappy feelings - low self-esteem that I had collected about myself got just a little bit more tolerable when I thought that maybe - just maybe - these people understood and appreciated me. That kind of tribute was something I really needed to feel better and so what did I do? You kiddiing? I kept coming back for more!

Already an approval junkie, I came to hang with these people - go to meetings - NOT to solve my alcohol problem - but for my approval fix.  Oh, and I also drank again.  I was one of many many meeting makers who were not 'making it'.  The 'meeting makers' arent makingit in AA these days - and one only need to look honestly at the relapse rate in AA to see that this is true. Where AA once had a seventy five to nintey five percent success rate there is now a rate believed to be at par with rehabs nd treatment centers - and that rate is abominable. Arrogant, "board approved" and paid "Addictions Counselors" in the alcohol treatment industry brag about it and use this as a selling point for their $10-$40,000 a month facilities. With charges like that DAMN I'd want you  back too! Many  do go back for mutliple spin drys through the revolving doors of treatment centers that are desparate to get back the business they gave up on and pissed away to AA seventy years ago - and why not, they didnt have a solution to alcoholism - they still don't - and Alcoholics Anonymous does. Always did.

If you are  familiar with the book from which the Fellowship of Alcoholcs Anomymous gets its name, aka "The Big Book" then you also may have seen the directions for Twelve Stepping an alcoholic. You know  then that it says,  “Call on him while he is still jittery. He may be more receptive when depressed.” ^{("Alcoholics Anonymous" 19:2)}

This is not just some bright idea that the co-authors of that book just pulled out thin air and tossed into the text. Hell, no. It is based on their experiences in working with other alcoholics and from being real alcoholics themselves.

Today I realize that the most important thing for a newcomer is NOT to keep coming back. It's good to come back - of course - because after his alcohol problem is solved he will have gained so much freakin' power over alcohol that he won’t be able to contain it. He will just have to give it away - and that is the Primary Purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous.  An AA group’s members help other alcoholics achieve sobriety - and what is sobriety in AA parlance? Bill W, one of AAs co-founders said it: “Sobriety: freedom from alcohol thought the teaching and practice of the Twelve Steps is the some purpose of the AA Group.”

 AA is a not a "not drinking today, Ma!"  club - it is a "help others recover" spiritual Fellowship of alcoholics - what it's co-founders termed a "Fellowship of the Spirit".  The first and most important thing is to have a spiritual awakening - not to stop drinking, as so many think - so that we can come back and help others to have that same experience. That is what I have fianlly learned through hard experience, which I share here.

OK I know - some people need to feel good about themselves because that’s why they are  drinking. Take away the reason they are drinking (low self esteem) and then they can stop. I know all that. It’s true. But  anyone who is drinking solely to escape the pain of low self esteem is NOT drinking for the same reasons I did. They probably are not the kind of drinker I  am either, and I am a real alcoholic exactly fitting AA's much ignored "Our description of the alcoholic"  These folks are what the co-founders refered to as “problem drinkers”.  Now don’t flame me. I did not write the bloody book. I just refer to it and live by  it. 

To further help make the point, “It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well." ^{("Alcoholics Anonymous" The Doctors Opinion)}

Alcoholics do not drink because of some childhood trauma or inability to deal with their lives. That's what normal folks and heavy drinking types do. We alkies take a first drink because we are insane and we keep drinking because we are physically unable to stop the craving for more once we do. It is just that simple. We are separate entities from the rest of humanity walking the face of this earth once this physical factor becomes a part of our makeup. Some of  us would rather commit suicide that give in to that craving - and very many of us do. It is that insurmountabe and little appreciated by those who cannot identify themselves with it.

“These men were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.” ^{("Alcoholics Anonymous" The Doctors Opinion)}

I used to tell a friend of mine, Barry Gross who had been helping me recover and who had not had a drink in over four years at the time, that "I have to get my self-esteem back . . . THEN I will be OK!"  Man, I just wanted wanted to feel good.

Barry laughed upon first hearing this from me. He told me "I've been trying to SHRINK your self-esteem. You have too damned much of it."

He was right.

He taught me that if we wait for someone to "feel better" to get their "self-esteem" back and feel "comfortable" in their skin FIRST then  we are working AGAINST the real alcoholic solution - not working toward it. That is because the more miserable we are - the more receptive we will be to going any length - and that lenght is real long - so long that many of us cannot go through with it.

We do not want to tell an alcoholic "There, there, everything will be all right" or “You’re a wonderful person who just happens to drink too much." That may not be the truth. The truth is everything is NOT all right. He has NOT acted and behaved a “wonderful person." He’s probably stolen money, hurt his family and friends and owes every Tom Dick and Harry from New York to Los Angels. He is at death's door - and hopeless.

If he doesn't feel that way or if we prevent him from getting to feel that way then we could and often do short-circuit his recovery - and he'll never go through with it - the drastic steps necessary in order to have the spiritual awakening that will save his life.

Why would we say that depression and misery is optional at this stage? If an alcoholic bottom is necessary to start recovery then misery is MANDATORY - not optional. Feeling like shit is GOOD for a real alkie. It is God's natural tap on the shoulder. "Yo, wasup home skillet! You lost, my son!"

I believe he got me because he wanted to let me know that the first and most important thing was  to have a spiritual awakening so that I could can come back and help others to have that same experience.

The only way to accomplish that is to deflate - not INFLATE.

Peace and Love,

Danny S