Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

[retteacher]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

WIP: I like that: brown poison. I too had my visual triggers. Even when I read in novels about people enjoying "happy hour or cocktail hour," I would think about having a drink. Now, I can think: "That's brown poison they're drinking." Also, I know that when I stay AF, I won't have:
-sweats
-my heart beating rapidly
-memory loss
-loss of attention span
-etc.

As soon as the upside to drinking kicks in, I think of the downside. That helps me. Mary

[namaste]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Sorry, bad habit not following topic. Is that a rule? As for media, it's irresponsible and our society is irresponsible for buying the products that pay for it. Until we take that responsibilty, we are victims, asong as we are victims, we will be victims. We can start with ourselves and then. Y teaching our children to listen to their own vwisdom early on so that when they are bombarded, they will have been trained to see what it is for what it is.

As for drinking and driving, as much as I've drank over the last five years, I haven't gotten in the car if I've had more than two glasses of wine but I did 3 weeks ago and the horror of that got me back here. Even then I remember everything and and did some grocery shopping, but I crossed a huge line there.

[LVT25]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Good morning everyone!

Had a pretty good day yesterday. Kind of a waste of time, driving 2 hours to see the dermatologist except for a little peace of mind, and I scored some GREAT-hard to find gifts ON SALE! Had a great lunch and some good conversation with a young friend.

Interesting thread going today. In reference to AA's post about education: I have signed up to attend a meeting Friday concerning alcohol and our youth in the community. I debated about signing up, I thought people would laugh at the thought of ME being involved in a group advocating abstinence?? Of course I've always been against under age drinking, but most people in my small town know I used to frequent the bars. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what comes of that.

Would love to add more, but have another busy day ahead of me.

Have a great one!:h

[AAthlete]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Namaste, no need to stay 100% on-topic - I would be in trouble if that were the case!

I liked your post about the 'mental masturbation,' as it is easy at times to start thinking that we will save the word with our thoughtful and insightful posts. When we start trying to reach for those lofty goals, that is when we start moving away from the true us (as you mention) and stop posting honest feelings from the heart.

Thanks for the reminder that we all just need to be ourselves..

[retteacher]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Namaste: I too need that reminder. I have circular thinking going on a lot. I'm not an "in the moment" kind of person either & plan what I'm going to say or write here. I too must remember to write from the heart (which I usually do), & I don't have to save the world or "teach" something (26 years of teaching make old habits die hard). Mary

[brittzak]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

AA your share brought tears to my eyes. One time I was driving with my children in the car. 3-4 glasses of wine...way to much to be driving, and it was raining very hard. I hit a big puddle in the road. Now had I been uninfluenced I am SURE I would have seen it, I ran off the road. We were all fine, but to this day, I shutter to think what if I had killed one of my children or someone else. They both knew I had been drinking as well. My daughter was livid, as she knew it was poor judgement on my part.
Yesterdays thread really had my wheels turning....for many, I guess most drinking is a slow progression. For me, it was not. I was 0-60 in 1 second flat, literally. I started drinking at the age of 33 after a tragic event in my life. I had drink socially before that and put it down easily. However, the day ...the very day that event occurred I picked it up and literally stayed drunk for a solid year. Kinda like people describe getting hooked on crack... I have often wonder why I did that. And all I can summarize is my entire life I have had control over most events in my life and this I did not...I could not change it. So, to cope with it, I picked up a bottle.
This morning while reading my AA book one line really struck me....the best gift we can give our family is PEACE OF MIND!!!!!!!

GREENIE...very proud of you!!!!!

[Determinator]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Happy Wed Aberonimoooos!

sorry to be so brief, hopping into the car for a little 6 1/2 hour jaunt. be typing next from starbucks or hotel. I see that drinking/driving is a topic today. Yikes! we are all blessed to be still alive sometimes I think. between that and driving hungover.

be well friends!

[Ripple]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Garlic for breakfast? only in salsa i can think of Det.. you make me laugh all the time.. consider yourself very important .. as you are!!!! i feel very aligned in chat when you are there, it has to be the thought of stinky GARLIC .. :H

[AAthlete]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Britt, it all goes back to the insanity surrounding our drinking. Who in their right mind would time and time put their kids at risk by driving drunk as I did many times? Normal people would look at that and think that we were crazy - but somewhere in our minds we manage to justify it...

My story is somewhat similar to you in that it was a sudden launch into my 'true' drinking career. I was going through a painful divorce and while I had always enjoyed my beer, could pretty much take it or leave it. One night I happened to think that mixing vodka with my Diet Coke sounded good and that was all it took. I had found the magical combination to help me escape. Ironically I found myself eight years later staging another escape - but this time it was from alcohol.

[retteacher]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Everyone: I feel very proud of myself right now. We're under a winter storm watch for tomorrow & Fri. Since I'm having a dinner on Fri., I decided to do my shopping today & get the one bottle of wine we will be serving. I stopped into "my" liquor store. I won't lie & say that I didn't think about getting "a little something for myself..." especially because I'll probably be inside due to weather...drinking during snowstorms was something I ALWAYS did. However, I just got the one bottle, & the guy checking out next to me caught my eye. He was buying an inexpensive bottle of whiskey. I could tell by his appearance & haste that he was going to use that bottle for himself. I saw the desperate look! I can only say that it reinforced my belief in my sobriety. I'm so happy that I came home empty of AL for me. Instead I got 2 great videos to watch when the weather gets really nasty. Mary

[charlee]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Mary
Yes, sadly that could of been me buying the cheap whiskey, only I made sure I didn't have to wait in line..would always wait until the check out was free...Geeez it was like a snatch and grab!!!..Always had my money ready in my pocket (no paper trail for me) so no one saw my hands shake as I fumbled around in my purse, checked out the parking lot before exiting (just to be sure there was no one I knew).....I am glad you came out with the guest bottle only...the videos sound just as warm and snuggly on a winter's storm day.......

[brittzak]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Mary,
Proud....as you should be!!!!!!!! Those eyes....we all know them oh so well. Makes you want to reach out and hug him didnt it? Say, "just put it back...."

[Tiresias]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

For me there were always times of drinking to excess -- but they seemed to be at "appropriate" times. At parties, ballgames and such. I'm sure there were some general feelings and emotions and states of mind I was trying to escape from. But I was always all about so-called "balance" -- work hard play hard type justifications. Lubing up the social charms for business schmoozing and socialing and living life to the fullest. Looking back, many of those drinking occasions led to such obvious inappropriate excess it isn't even close to funny. But that's what I, and my drinking cohorts would often do -- laugh at the excess and dumb things that resulted.

The real, or more obviously apparent, trouble began for me after some rather huge life tragedies and some big life issues that arose in quick succession over a relatively short period of time. There really became a focused "purpose" to the drinking then. A more defined mission to accomplish. And then there were no "appropriate" times to let'r rip. There was only as often and as much as I could manage to consume while desperately trying to maintain some passable level of life management.

Then the hiding and the seeking out any and all ways and means to accomplish the mission took over. The driving impaired, even with the kids, the odd lunches and returning to work (if I returned) full of drink, the more deceiptful excuses and machinations to arrainge daily "routines" to further the mission -- the brain and heart wanting to escape grabbed the reigns and entertained no thoughts of letting go.

No amount of rational suggestions from outside that mission could penetrate my internal universe. I don't believe that I am overly smart or intellectual or on the far end of any deep thought scale or anything, but I do believe that cleverness and smarts and intellectualism are no friends to recovery. Another branch of the mental masterbation school, if you will. If the mission is active, it makes use of every internal resource available to it. I could cross-examine and point out inconsistencies and problems with many recovery-based concepts and principles. That process only resulted in the pre-destined circular conclusion -- the mission continued because there were obviously no other worthy answers out there -- there were no reasonable or rational answers that could withstand my (impaired) scrutiny.

Recovery is hard, among many other reasons, because it attempts to turn an active and powerful want into a not-want. I have to not want, both long and short term, what I want. To transform a desire from something that seemed to work so well for so long (to numb and shun the feelings and emotions), to a desire for unchartered and unkown territories -- to halt the mission. Battling against the romantic memories of good feelings and good times linked to alcohol, and the desire to return there, while discounting all the pain and bad consequences and ultimate failures of the mission, is a recipe for relapse and continuing the failed mission in the very face of its failure.

I'm not sure why I decided to jump in here, as I've mostly "taken" from this site through reading and absorbing successes and failures and suggestions and reminders and the interaction and dialogue. I guess I cringed at the DUI reminders, at the parenting concerns and episodes, at the mental masterbation references, at the advertisements I get uncomfortable with mainly when watching them with my kids and others, at the launchpad of tragic events, and such topics and issues. I've been around the block more than plenty of times, and carry much scar tissue. I'm AF and intend to stay that way, and I've found that my recovery is a very personal thing for me that depends upon a custom-job set of tools, and a deep respect for all others attempting their own recovery -- whether they are still active in their personal alcohol missions or not.

Thanks for all the past and ongoing sharing here, as it has become one of my tools.

[ready2change]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Happy Hump Day Everyone! I found this article in the "modders" section, which I know many of you choose not to read, and found it to be a very interesting article and wanted to share it with you. I hope Kid Shelleen doesn't mind me borrowing it from his post, as I think you guys will enjoy it as well.

Have a great day all, and I hope you achieve your goals.

From NYT:
It?s the Holidays. How About Just One?

By Jim Atkinson
I had my last drink nearly 16 years ago, so you?d think I would have assimilated pretty much every bit of unpleasantness associated with clean and sober life in a society that remains thoroughly sodden with alcohol. But I still can?t quite handle the holidays.
It?s not that I?m driven to drink; just to a certain uncomfortable distraction that doesn?t leave until the holiday season thankfully does. And it?s not just that the holidays seem to have been invented for the express purpose of promoting ? no, necessitating ? irresponsible alcoholic consumption.
There?s something in the alone-in-the-crowdness of the holiday party circuit, the forced pleasantries and laughter, the charge to be friendly and engaging ? but only in a trivial and superficial way ? that is very much like the existential condition of the alcoholic psyche. So the holidays not only remind me of drink; they remind me of how it felt to be a drunk.
In fact, I have frequently been overheard to explain to the sort of person who still finds it good sport to ask me how I came to be addicted to alcohol and what it?s like now to be stone cold sober, ?You know how you feel at Christmas at the umpteenth family gathering or company cocktail party. You really need that drink, right? That?s the way I used to feel all the time.?

And as with one?s first adolescent love, a certain euphoric recall about the drinking life remains lodged in the psyche of any drunk no matter how many years he has remained sober. Even after 16 years, especially at holiday time, a tiny voice still occasionally visits, asking, ?Why can?t you just have one??
Addiction scientists have puzzled over what distinguishes the alcoholic psyche from the ?normal? one, or even, the mentally ill one. While some association between abusive drinking and both bipolar disorder and depression has been found, your garden-variety drunk does not go on manic flights of fancy or hear voices or hallucinate; he isn?t even all that prone to clinical depression.

The best I can say from personal experience is that we all tend to be afflicted by a low-grade dysphoria, a sort of constant melancholy that causes feelings of unease, isolation and dissatisfaction with life ? an ?inexplicable ache,? I once heard it called.

But is this nature or nurture? I personally have come to believe in a construction proposed by Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of the division of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which says it?s both. Willenbring argues that the main thing that alcoholics share is a natural tolerance for alcohol, which leads them to overindulge without knowing it. Repeated overindulgence, in turn, changes their brain chemistry and literally creates the inexplicable ache by altering the activity of two systems: the brain?s ?reward system,? which sends the message that drinking feels good; and the excitatory and stress response systems, which become ?recruited? and, over time, produce an elevated anxiety when one is without alcohol in his system.
This would pretty much track my personal experience. It always took more to get me drunk, and the irony is, I always thought that was a good thing. Particularly during my 20?s, when everyone was drinking pretty heavily, I could still drink my friends under the table and inspire compliments from them for it. On one occasion, a bunch of us gathered at a friend?s apartment to watch a Dallas Cowboys football game. The drinking was heavy and mixed ? from beer to scotch and back again, as I recall. At one point late in the fourth quarter, I noticed that all of my buddies had passed out ? leaving only me to watch the Cowboys lose while I happily mixed a nightcap.
My natural tolerance is probably why, in the mid-80?s I was able to score a nice book contract to write ?The View from Nowhere,? a fairly shameless nationwide pub crawl in search of America?s best hard drinking bars. My appearance on the ?Today Show? in l987 to hype the book was proof positive, as it were, that this particular metabolic capability was a boon to my writing career, and would make me less, not more, prone to developing a drinking problem.
But over time, drinking twice as much just to ?get there? and feeling proud that I was still not slurring my words took its toll. Without realizing it, I crossed over from mere psychological addiction (a problematic, but self-manageable condition) to physical addiction, which involves blackouts and dangerous withdrawal symptoms, and for which medical intervention is necessary.
It was the under-the-radar aspect of my addiction that still amazes me. I know this is a sensation shared by other drunks because every time I enter an Alcoholics Anonymous room, I am struck not by the expressions of guilt or defiance or even boredom that I see. I am struck by a more or less uniform look of cosmic bafflement on the faces of my fellow addicts. How in the world did this happen?
If you are among the 80 percent of people who drink ?normally,? think of your relationship to booze as a minor friendship that strikes up at certain times of the week, or even the year. Think of the drunk?s as a torrid, reckless and self-destructive affair. Whiskey she is a bad lover, and all that. It is a decidedly adolescent affair, a kind of puppy love that overtakes all good judgment and reason. In that sense, I?ve come to understand that, if compulsive drinking is about different genes, it also about a certain arrested development that can?t be liberated until the addict takes the cure.
So how about that one holiday drink? Should I?
The current drift of public thinking about alcohol dependence suggests that perhaps I could. Among the many victims of the Internet age is the notion that anybody with a drinking problem is an alcoholic, period, and needs to go to treatment for 28 days and AA thereafter. Today, largely because of the exchanges of addicts on line, there is a growing lobby to treat at least some problem drinkers with more lenience. Google the term ?moderate drinking? and you?ll find a fistful of Web-based organizations like Drink/Link and Moderation Management that preach a slightly more liberal message than AA: that a lot of drinkers who overindulge can be taught to moderate their drinking.
So if I were sobering up today, I suppose I would have more options than I did 16 years ago. But I don?t think that my common sense decisions would be any different. I now know that I?m not totally incorrigible when it comes to the sauce. But I also know that my drinking was more than a bad habit or a passing fancy.
If I decided to take a drink at a party, I might be able to tough it out for that night, but I know that the next day, another drink would be someplace in my mind. That someplace might be a manageable place, but would it be worth the considerable hassle of having to think twice every time I took a sip?
Besides, my newly wired brain doesn?t really have the interest to try. I?ve worked too hard at this, learned too much, have too much pride in accomplishing something that a lot of folks with this problem don?t ? a solid sobriety that has lasted at least as long as my addiction did ? to risk a relapse.
But what to do about the holidays? I rather like the view of radio talk show host Don Imus, himself a recovering alcoholic who has been sober 20 years. When the subject of parties came up on his radio show a few years back, Imus noted that he was invited to many but went to very few, for one simple reason: ?I don?t drink.?
This seemed to me to be one of the more sensible things ever said about parties or alcoholism. So as the holiday season gets underway, I try to look at it this way. No one really wants to go to all those parties. I?m one of the lucky ones who has an excuse to beg off.
__________________
It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that brings us happiness.
~ Charles Spurgeon

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[AAthlete]

Daily AF Thread - Wednesday December 10

Ready - I thought that looked familiar!

WIP posted the same thing as a thread a couple of days ago. Thought I was having deja vu!! Great article though, and worth reading a second time.