I'm Phil, Alcoholic
What will really suck is raising my hand as a newcomer again at my AA meetings.
My sponsor will be really disappointed -- and I already know exactly what he will say. He knows... he went back out after 8 years sober and landed in jail for almost a year. I'll have the same story everyone else has: "Well, I stopped going to meetings as often as I had before, and then... and then... and then..." And he'll start me back at step one. Shit.
I HATE being alcoholic. I wish, so much, I were like normal people. I have to go to these fucking meetings, I have to tear down my entire personality, I have to turn my whole life over to God, I have to make a conscious decision every minute of every day to do God's will instead of Phil's will. Merely to survive. I HATE this.
Why can't my spiritual life be a choice? Why can't my belief in God be something about ethics, and a comforting notion of eternal life in heaven when I die? Why does it have to be a matter of life and death, right here and right now? Why me? What did I do to deserve this curse from God, this hell of addiction?
Why does this have to be so hard? Why isn't there a fucking pill I can take to cure it?
Now I have a 30-day and a 90-day token that mean nothing. I guess what I'll have to do is hang onto them until I get new ones, and pass along my old ones to a newcomer who earns his first 30 and 90 day honors.
I HATE this. Every fucking minute of it.
posted by Phil @ 12/29/2004 07:18:00 AM
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1 Comments:
Jim, thanks for your comments. Congrats on 6 years sobriety!
My take on the various available methods of quitting drinking: "WHATEVER IT TAKES!" What works for one would be suicide for another. For me, a "rational recovery" approach would be suicide -- I touched on my view of rational recovery in another post. Anyone else reading this, who wants to quit drinking, or thinks you may have a drinking problem, take a look at the resources Jim points to, take a look at the resources and blogs linked on my blog, and decide for yourself which way is best for YOU. Whatever you do -- DON'T DO NOTHING, and NEVER GIVE UP!
Just to clarify a couple things. My comments about the Orange Papers are not intended to imply that everyone who stops drinking without AA is a "dry drunk." I apologize if my comments came across that way. My intended comment was much narrower: that the obsessive anger, resentment and twisted logic of the Orange Papers' author seem, to me, the product of a "dry drunk."
Regarding your comments to this post: yoiks! It frightens me that my post would come across as "right on." My questions were not calm, well-reasoned, critical questions. The questions were rhetorical, an angry shake of the fist at fate, God, myself. The post was written in anger, resentment, shame and frustration, the day after I started a relapse following over 100 days of sobriety. Not hardly a good foundation to depend on my own clear thinking and ability to make reasonable choices...
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