Alcohol Abuse is a Mug's Game

Notes from a letter to a Sober Friend:

From A.A.  "No first drink" and "know your triggers" were things I took to use with some techniques from R.E.T.( which is now called C.B.T.).  "I don't drink anymore now" is the mantra.  

Keep the hope alive that life will get better, if you can get sober and stay sober.  The 'stay sober' is the hardest part.  

My father was constantly 'sobering up' but never stayed sober for long.  

And that is why you are owed congratulations for your 13 years of sobriety which is 4745 days lived one day at a time.  Some days are harder than others but your commitment never waned and that is why you are to be CONGRATULATED.  You put one foot in front of the other and just kept walking and walking.  Meantime, you earned a college degree and found a very rewarding job.  Things that weren't even conceivable 13 years ago when rolling off the couch was probably a struggle in itself.  

Knowing tomorrow is a new day and you need to keep up with your strength and commitment even after 13 years of success makes the accomplishment that much more meaningful.  'Never give up' and 'keep a strong mental attitude' is harder to do than people might think.  Quitting drinking is fighting for your life and requires in utmost perseverance and commitment to a goal that is very hazy at first.  Living sober appears uncertain and even frightening as a way of life after years of hard drinking.

You worked for every day that you stayed sober.  Sobriety is its own reward but that does not make it easy, if at one time you were unfortunate to have relied on alcohol for instant "Mood Elevation".   

"One-day-at-a-time" never goes out of fashion, if you ever took alcohol consumption to the point of addiction.  Your brain has been changed - and that ain't good.

Alcohol is a classic 2-edged sword in that way.,  You get to feel numb and maybe a little better for a few hours and feel terrible the next day and maybe face consequences of alcohol intoxication for years, as in drunk driving.  

The laws around drunk driving just got even more onerous here in the civilized part of Canada with stiffer rules introduced last week.  Do you people in the Far North even have Laws yet?

You wrote such a nice and heartfelt letter but I kept thinking,  if you were a Catholic, you could have met with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost for an even bigger party!

Grateful is a good word to describe how it feels to have the monkey off your back and you surely expressed that feeling in your letter.  However tenuous we know sobriety to be, it is worth the effort and when the clock strikes 12, it is another day in the bank..  

Another sober friend is constantly reminding me to never relax about having just one drink by relating stories of people in his  A.A. groups who fall off the wagon after many  years of sobriety.  They fall right back to the worst behaviors of their past : black outs and drunk driving.  It is hard to accept that there is this ticking time bomb waiting for us to slip-up and start drinking again.

No First Drink! is all I can think to tell myself.  I still have moments in dreams  where I become terrified that I take a drink and get hooked all over again.  Nothing feels better than waking up and realizing it was just a dream.  But for the first few moments after waking there is a terrible feeling of dread about alcohol dependence.

Congratulations again.  Please keep being an inspiration, albeit at a great distance from civilization, to people like me who are following the same road to a better life and to others who need a reason to change their self-destructive behaviors..  

Did you try any of the on-line A.A. Groups?  Don't hide your little light under a bush.  Do you remember singing that song in Sunday school?  I did not understand the meaning of the song when I was 5 years old but I understand that sober people continue with AA meeting to be there for the new people and for the people who just don't seem to get the message yet.

To Cultivate Patience is my main endeavor as I look down the road at "only"  2 more weeks until  another 3.5 hour surgery to replace my broken artificial hip.  The last couple of months have been about blood doping (extra iron to produce more red blood cells) to aid in  surviving the blood loss that is inevitable with this surgery without getting transfusions of other people's blood.- which is Risky for infection...  even though the propaganda tells us the blood system is safe.



Don't be like this guy:

Lonely, lost, drifting, demoralized and living a slow death.