I felt pretty good making the choice to moderate when I first came here.. My past wasn’t daily drinking. When I drank it usually wasn’t even heavy drinking to most folks. I could get a real good buzz off of 3 glasses of wine and was sufficiently drunk with 4.
It was easy to believe I was an “abuser” of alcohol and not a chronic alcoholic like my father had been. I remember hearing the beer bottle cap popping the first thing in the morning when he would get up and it never quit popping all day. He went through a case of beer a day and then started adding in hard liquor as well. Yet, he would balk if he was confronted about being an alcoholic. He died with cirrhosis of the liver and had been hospitalized numerous times for bleeding varicies but still never believed or admitted he was an alcoholic.
I was fearful of being in denial like he was so was always open to confronting my alcohol demons. When I went to therapy for co-dependence the counselor asked me the 4 standard alcohol questions and of course I failed. As a young 20 something at the time who had gotten into the partying mode and who had abused alcohol on more than one occasion I easily failed questions like: “Have people ever criticizied your drinking?”…well, yes, I had a girlfriend who didn’t like it when I drank too much when out with her or “Have you ever felt remorse for your drinking?” Heck yeah, everytime I had a hangover I had huge remorse.
She promptly sent me to A.A. before she would work with me on my co-dependence issues. “Ok”, I thought. I must be an alcoholic because she says so. So, I quit drinking without any problem or craving, went to my first A.A. meeting and continued for 7 years to abstain from alcohol. Eventually I quit going to meetings and started to notice things about other people’s drinking. “Hey!” I would think. I never drank like THAT!” I started to question whether or not I needed to completely abstain and so I started drinking again. Things went fine for a few years but then I started seeing a pattern of getting too drunk on the occasions I would drink. I wouldn’t count drinks but would just keep drinking at a party without thinking about how much I was drinking and before I knew it I would be slurring or stumbling out the door. That’s when I found MWO so that I could get the support I needed for moderating my drinking.
I was a little fooled by the board when I first came here because I thought it was a board for moderators yet the more I read the more I realized that the majority of people were AFers. Many had tried to moderate and realized that they couldn’t. Like my father, many had a past of hard core drinking…daily drinking where it was tough to get through a day without a drink. I had never been that kind of drinker. Remember when I was asked to quit by the counselor and I said “Ok” and quit cold turkey without a problem for 7 years?. So, I learned to stick to the thread for moderators and if I went to other threads where AFers were posting (like the General Thread or Research thread) I would tread very lightly with what I said as I didn’t want to offend people who knew they couldn’t moderate.
One day someone joined our thread who was a happy moderator. He would expound upon the joys of being able to moderate. He motivated the group and was a big asset in many ways. But, he made a mistake one day. He posted something on a thread that AFers frequented and one in particular got very angry as she felt he was out and out promoting the benefits of alcohol consumption and she felt that that could be detrimental to folks that needed to be AF.
I tactfully defended our happy moderator and then was confronted by the disgruntled AFer who stated that she felt I wasn’t “sensitive to the struggles of others who are not able to drink alcohol in a controlled fashion... and for whom the consumption of alcohol is truly a matter of life and death.”
I didn’t feel that I felt that way. I truly felt that I empathized with those who need/ed to be AF. But I’m not sorry she critiqued me this way as sometimes we can’t really see ourselves. It made me more aware of how sensitive I should be when I post in other areas rather than the moderation area.
One day recently I met a hospitalized man who was admitted for severe liver failure. When I spoke to him he said he had been alcohol free for 8 years. He had gone to a counselor who didn’t understand alcoholism and she advised he could safely have a drink or two in moderation. “She didn’t realize” he said “that I’m an alcoholic. I thought I could have a drink or two…but I can’t”.
God served me humble pie that day.
As a moderator who is having relatively good success I always want to remember that many folks cannot safely moderate. For some it truly is a matter of life or death. May we be thankful for the fact that some (probably very few of us) can moderate. But may we always remain humble in the fact that we can do so. It’s fine to support each other here on our moderation site but let’s be cautious about what and how we say things elsewhere. And for newcomers who want to believe that they too can moderate, please be sure to read our posts here. Take our advice to try to get some AF time under your belt so that you can get alcohol out of your system to clear your thoughts about the best moderation plan for you and if moderation can be a plan for you.
Well, gotta run…have to finish eating my humble pie.
:l
Eve11
It was easy to believe I was an “abuser” of alcohol and not a chronic alcoholic like my father had been. I remember hearing the beer bottle cap popping the first thing in the morning when he would get up and it never quit popping all day. He went through a case of beer a day and then started adding in hard liquor as well. Yet, he would balk if he was confronted about being an alcoholic. He died with cirrhosis of the liver and had been hospitalized numerous times for bleeding varicies but still never believed or admitted he was an alcoholic.
I was fearful of being in denial like he was so was always open to confronting my alcohol demons. When I went to therapy for co-dependence the counselor asked me the 4 standard alcohol questions and of course I failed. As a young 20 something at the time who had gotten into the partying mode and who had abused alcohol on more than one occasion I easily failed questions like: “Have people ever criticizied your drinking?”…well, yes, I had a girlfriend who didn’t like it when I drank too much when out with her or “Have you ever felt remorse for your drinking?” Heck yeah, everytime I had a hangover I had huge remorse.
She promptly sent me to A.A. before she would work with me on my co-dependence issues. “Ok”, I thought. I must be an alcoholic because she says so. So, I quit drinking without any problem or craving, went to my first A.A. meeting and continued for 7 years to abstain from alcohol. Eventually I quit going to meetings and started to notice things about other people’s drinking. “Hey!” I would think. I never drank like THAT!” I started to question whether or not I needed to completely abstain and so I started drinking again. Things went fine for a few years but then I started seeing a pattern of getting too drunk on the occasions I would drink. I wouldn’t count drinks but would just keep drinking at a party without thinking about how much I was drinking and before I knew it I would be slurring or stumbling out the door. That’s when I found MWO so that I could get the support I needed for moderating my drinking.
I was a little fooled by the board when I first came here because I thought it was a board for moderators yet the more I read the more I realized that the majority of people were AFers. Many had tried to moderate and realized that they couldn’t. Like my father, many had a past of hard core drinking…daily drinking where it was tough to get through a day without a drink. I had never been that kind of drinker. Remember when I was asked to quit by the counselor and I said “Ok” and quit cold turkey without a problem for 7 years?. So, I learned to stick to the thread for moderators and if I went to other threads where AFers were posting (like the General Thread or Research thread) I would tread very lightly with what I said as I didn’t want to offend people who knew they couldn’t moderate.
One day someone joined our thread who was a happy moderator. He would expound upon the joys of being able to moderate. He motivated the group and was a big asset in many ways. But, he made a mistake one day. He posted something on a thread that AFers frequented and one in particular got very angry as she felt he was out and out promoting the benefits of alcohol consumption and she felt that that could be detrimental to folks that needed to be AF.
I tactfully defended our happy moderator and then was confronted by the disgruntled AFer who stated that she felt I wasn’t “sensitive to the struggles of others who are not able to drink alcohol in a controlled fashion... and for whom the consumption of alcohol is truly a matter of life and death.”
I didn’t feel that I felt that way. I truly felt that I empathized with those who need/ed to be AF. But I’m not sorry she critiqued me this way as sometimes we can’t really see ourselves. It made me more aware of how sensitive I should be when I post in other areas rather than the moderation area.
One day recently I met a hospitalized man who was admitted for severe liver failure. When I spoke to him he said he had been alcohol free for 8 years. He had gone to a counselor who didn’t understand alcoholism and she advised he could safely have a drink or two in moderation. “She didn’t realize” he said “that I’m an alcoholic. I thought I could have a drink or two…but I can’t”.
God served me humble pie that day.
As a moderator who is having relatively good success I always want to remember that many folks cannot safely moderate. For some it truly is a matter of life or death. May we be thankful for the fact that some (probably very few of us) can moderate. But may we always remain humble in the fact that we can do so. It’s fine to support each other here on our moderation site but let’s be cautious about what and how we say things elsewhere. And for newcomers who want to believe that they too can moderate, please be sure to read our posts here. Take our advice to try to get some AF time under your belt so that you can get alcohol out of your system to clear your thoughts about the best moderation plan for you and if moderation can be a plan for you.
Well, gotta run…have to finish eating my humble pie.
:l
Eve11
great post eve 
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