I have a drinking problem.

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I guess I just look at it differently. Some drinkers "spin the barrel" for many years before they find the chamber with the bullet in it. Then one morning they wake up w/liver cancer or that quick trip they've taken to the liquor store a thousand times ends up killing someone. But you're right, it always starts w/the first drink.

"Anybody can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance. Endurance is more important than truth." C. Bukowski.

Agreed. Try as we might, there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic. But as to the matter of the first drink ...

What I am saying is this: There are some people who just cannot do the "not picking it up in the first place." I was one of those people, and "the drill" you have mentioned is something that is a part of today's AA that cannot be found anywhere within "Alcoholics Anonymous", the book. And, please know I am not meaning to argue with you. My hat comes off to anyone who can stay away from the first drink one-day-at-a-time. But personally, I had to have the first-drink dilemma -- no effective mental defense against it -- removed.

I see what you mean. I am lucky, I do not crave alcohol. However if I find myself in a situation where there is a lot of drinking and I can smell it in the air I start to get this delusional nostalgia. So I exit quickly.

Understood!

I just don't have the first drink.

If I think about a drink, I think it through to the end. I think about that first hit of the alcohol in my system, the rush, the heat spreading through my body, the light head, the girlish giggle and the tentative dance step, the relaxing muscles, the loopy feeling as I start talking to no one in particular, the loud singing, the even louder maniacal laughter giving way into the ever popular crying jag, the screaming and cursing, the running down the highway howling ,with only my tee shirt on, stopping cars with a both hand out in a Red Sonja pose with maniacal laughter, dodging those same cars screeching brakes and loud cursing from the drivers, then finally rolling off the roadbed and into the ditch and coming to in the morning, half submerged in mud startled that the the sun is exploding into the back of my head and later, vaguely wondering what happened to my pants.

So, I just don't have the first drink.

Then my hat is off to you also!

Some of us have a much different deal.

I was a binge drinker. I could easily go for weeks or months without a drink if I put my mind to it. But once I hit what I now know was a potential meltdown situation I would tell myself I would just have one to take the edge off. That felt good so in order to continue the feeling I would keep drinking. Then the OCD element would kick in and I wouldn't stop until 3 days later. I guess my drinking went through several phases, but at the end all I had to do was think about a drink and it was all over. Being in rehab for 28 days helped to break the pattern and then learning to look at it clinically, such as identifying my triggers, understanding the cycle and how to disrupt it etc. I have a 10 year sobriety anniversary coming up.

After I had decided to quit, I was the "beating on the bar asking myself how it had happened again" (page 6) kind of drinker, and I never could have left it alone for even ten days.

They told me in rehab that binge drinking was actually harder to treat, so I'm especially grateful.

If something helps you to deal with life then go for it - if it be playing cards, music, beer or pot.

But the Golden Rule is all things in moderation.

Perhaps address addictive personality disorder - that is what I had to do....

it wasn't a different deal till I dealt with it, Lee. They told me not to drink between meetings, so I didn't. They told me if I drank again, once I SELF DIAGNOSED as an alcoholic it would be twice as hard to get sober as before. Don't drink if you ass falls off or turns to gold is what I was told. So I was scared out of my mind, and didn't drink. I put 25+ years between then and now, and somewhere in there I 'got sober' but I haven't drank yet. That was the deal, right?

Merle

Not for me, and please, please know I am not trying to give anyone a hard time here.

My deal was this:

"For those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. Many of us felt that we had plenty of character. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." ("A.A.", the book, page 34)

If I would have been able to "Don't drink", I never would have needed anybody's "recovery program" ... and if the folks at the first A.A. meeting I ever attended had told me to "Don't drink", I would have had to leave ... because I already knew I absolutely could *not* do that even "one day at a time". Believe me if you can: I tried that even before ever knowing anything about A.A. and ended up "drunk again" every time.

Anyone else's experience might be as different as rain, but those are the facts of mine.

Rehab was the only thing that worked for me. 28 days to get it out of my system and start feeling good again and in the meantime learn about triggers and how to avert them. Maybe it's different for some. Maybe for some it's all a physical compulsion and you're OK as long as you don't take that first drink. I don't crave it unless I smell a lot of it.

The only thing I can suggest is when you look at alcohol, just think how the other people would think around you and how it is going to affect them... That's what I can only suggest for now...

But seriously, i'd seek for advice on drinking problems.


Ian.

oh. I am sorry if I have stirred up a hornet's nest, but I didn't just burn the toast one morning and decide I was an alcoholic. I was one of those seeminly rare people that had a spiritual experience at my first AA meeting and 'got it' immediately. They told me 'the man takes the drink, the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes the man'. That made sense. They told me 'when you get hit by a train, it isn't the caboose that does the damage, it is the first car, the engine, so don't take the first drink." That made even more sense. They told me to 'keep the plug in the jug' and "don't give up 5 minutes before the miracle'.

I had a spiritual experience strong enough to change my drinking patterns from that first meeting and for that, I will be forever grateful. I can't say I haven't suffered from my alcoholic nature to KEEP from drinking that first drink. (give me a break! I am an alcoholic!) but I am saying that the promises of AA came true for me. I wish it to come true for everyone.

in fellowship,

Merle

No, no problem, Merle -- you have not stirred anything. You have simply encountered someone who knows the truth about the original A.A. and who does not ever refrain from sharing it.



Neither has anyone else ever done that.



The very most you are talking about there (as elaborated just below) is Step One:



Yes, a near-perfect description of chronic alcoholism.



Sure ... and any third-grader easily could have told that to either of us.



... and that is where our experience is light years apart. When I asked a man to be my sponsor, he responded by asking me whether I already realized there was absolutely nothing I could do to keep *from* taking a drink.



What you actually had there was a bit of “Step Two” in the sense of “coming to believe” there could be some relief ahead ... and then your white-knuckle days began:



I understand, and that is what the Steps are intended to actually fix.



Including these:

“We have not even sworn off.
“Instead, the problem has been removed.
“It does not exist for us.”
(“A.A.”, the book, page 84)

??



Maybe so, but that was certainly not my own case.

Aimless, Merle ...

The two of you are two of my very-very-most-favorite people here on WrongPlanet, and I do not want to lose your friendship. So again, please understand:

I take no issue with either of your or anyone else’s experience;
I will share the straight-up, original A.A. for the next guy like me until the day I die.

Peace.