Good Morning Absville!
Greetings and Salutations! Wake up sleepy heads! OK, everyone has had their fill of Thanksgiving dinner, and leftovers, and turkey sandwiches up the wazoo, so it's time to get moving again. (LOL I should be a drill instructor in the Marines or something. :H )
I just thought I'd share an experience I had over the weekend.
As most of you know, this isn't my first attempt at sobriety. I've had several before, some of which lasted a couple of months, and one which lasted 9 months in AA. The first time (the time I reached 9 months) I told my family and friends that I was an alcoholic and that I had quit drinking and was in AA. They all gave me support, although a few of them were clearly uncomfortable with my decision (because it made them question their own drinking, I think). Anyway, we all know how that ended.
So this time around I have been hesitant to tell any of them what was going on. This was fairly easy to keep to myself since I live 5,000 miles from any of them. I just didn't want to sound like the boy who cried wolf. "Hey, guess what? I've quit drinking again." I wanted to have some sense that this time was going to be different before I started spreading the news. After two months, I felt enough changes within myself that I was comfortable telling my closest friends what was going on. I also felt I owed them an explanation for why I had been somewhat aloof for a while. (I haven't been communicating with them as much lately... my old "drink and dial" pattern is gone, and haven't been calling much otherwise.) So I wrote a long letter explaining the depths to which drinking had taken me, the solution I've found, and the way it has changed the way I feel about myself and about life. I sent the letter by email to three of my closest friends.
Response #1 was from a guy who is wonderful and smart, but probably doesn't want to admit that he has his own drinking problem and eating disorder. I know from things he has said and things he's told others that he thinks I need to just "snap out of it" and "get over it" in regards to depression, anxiety and my drinking problem. Anyway, he wrote that he was truly sorry to hear what pain I had been in all this time, and he hoped I would eventually find my way out of it. He seemed to miss the part of the letter in which I wrote that I had found a way out, and even though I was early on the road, I was at least ON THE ROAD to recovery, and was happy and doing well. I love him but this response disappointed me ...
Responses #2 and #3 were from people who have known addicts and alcoholics and who have a better understanding of the disease. They both (independently) wrote thoughtful, supportive messages that acknowledged my current success and encouraged me to continue. Instead of focusing on the "pain" they focused on the fact that I have taken steps to reclaim my life, and offered to help and support me in any way they could. Reading them made me want to cry because I could just feel the love.
I guess the reason I'm writing this is to point out a couple of things. One is that it is important to me in my recovery to be honest with my closest family and friends about what's going on in my life. I can't expect to be successful in this if I try to hide the fact that I'm an alcoholic and constantly make up stories about what's going on with me. That is just too much deception to keep up with. And besides, I'd be denying myself the support of those who love me most. I'd be increasing the chances of relapse. (This doesn't mean I'm telling everyone in my life what's going on. Just those that I choose to tell. For me, that happens to be my immediate family and maybe a half dozen friends. Other than that, as far as anyone else is concerned, I just don't drink.) Also, if I don't tell these people what I'm doing, it seems that I'm reserving the right to go back to drinking. It's like I'm not holding myself accountable. Does that make sense? Once I've told them, if I do have a drink, they all know I'm going back on my word.
The other reason I'm writing this is just to acknowledge that people are going to respond in a variety of ways. Most people are going to be loving and supportive. Others, like my friend who gave Response #1, just won't get it. In spite of the fact that they genuinely care for us, they either don't understand the nature of addiction, or they aren't willing to face up to their own substance abuse problems -- so they give responses that are less than what we hope for. And that is OK. In the end, we tell them more for ourselves than for the response we will get.
When I sent the letter off yesterday morning I felt as if I had put one more nail in the coffin of my drinking career. Not that it's really gone forever: I can never know that for sure. But writing the letter, being as honest as possible, and sending it to those people was a way of saying "Alcohol, be gone!" ("Devil, get thee behind me!") I'm working up the nerve to do the same thing with my family next.
So anyway there you go. Some food for thought, I hope.
Mike
Greetings and Salutations! Wake up sleepy heads! OK, everyone has had their fill of Thanksgiving dinner, and leftovers, and turkey sandwiches up the wazoo, so it's time to get moving again. (LOL I should be a drill instructor in the Marines or something. :H )
I just thought I'd share an experience I had over the weekend.
As most of you know, this isn't my first attempt at sobriety. I've had several before, some of which lasted a couple of months, and one which lasted 9 months in AA. The first time (the time I reached 9 months) I told my family and friends that I was an alcoholic and that I had quit drinking and was in AA. They all gave me support, although a few of them were clearly uncomfortable with my decision (because it made them question their own drinking, I think). Anyway, we all know how that ended.
So this time around I have been hesitant to tell any of them what was going on. This was fairly easy to keep to myself since I live 5,000 miles from any of them. I just didn't want to sound like the boy who cried wolf. "Hey, guess what? I've quit drinking again." I wanted to have some sense that this time was going to be different before I started spreading the news. After two months, I felt enough changes within myself that I was comfortable telling my closest friends what was going on. I also felt I owed them an explanation for why I had been somewhat aloof for a while. (I haven't been communicating with them as much lately... my old "drink and dial" pattern is gone, and haven't been calling much otherwise.) So I wrote a long letter explaining the depths to which drinking had taken me, the solution I've found, and the way it has changed the way I feel about myself and about life. I sent the letter by email to three of my closest friends.
Response #1 was from a guy who is wonderful and smart, but probably doesn't want to admit that he has his own drinking problem and eating disorder. I know from things he has said and things he's told others that he thinks I need to just "snap out of it" and "get over it" in regards to depression, anxiety and my drinking problem. Anyway, he wrote that he was truly sorry to hear what pain I had been in all this time, and he hoped I would eventually find my way out of it. He seemed to miss the part of the letter in which I wrote that I had found a way out, and even though I was early on the road, I was at least ON THE ROAD to recovery, and was happy and doing well. I love him but this response disappointed me ...
Responses #2 and #3 were from people who have known addicts and alcoholics and who have a better understanding of the disease. They both (independently) wrote thoughtful, supportive messages that acknowledged my current success and encouraged me to continue. Instead of focusing on the "pain" they focused on the fact that I have taken steps to reclaim my life, and offered to help and support me in any way they could. Reading them made me want to cry because I could just feel the love.
I guess the reason I'm writing this is to point out a couple of things. One is that it is important to me in my recovery to be honest with my closest family and friends about what's going on in my life. I can't expect to be successful in this if I try to hide the fact that I'm an alcoholic and constantly make up stories about what's going on with me. That is just too much deception to keep up with. And besides, I'd be denying myself the support of those who love me most. I'd be increasing the chances of relapse. (This doesn't mean I'm telling everyone in my life what's going on. Just those that I choose to tell. For me, that happens to be my immediate family and maybe a half dozen friends. Other than that, as far as anyone else is concerned, I just don't drink.) Also, if I don't tell these people what I'm doing, it seems that I'm reserving the right to go back to drinking. It's like I'm not holding myself accountable. Does that make sense? Once I've told them, if I do have a drink, they all know I'm going back on my word.
The other reason I'm writing this is just to acknowledge that people are going to respond in a variety of ways. Most people are going to be loving and supportive. Others, like my friend who gave Response #1, just won't get it. In spite of the fact that they genuinely care for us, they either don't understand the nature of addiction, or they aren't willing to face up to their own substance abuse problems -- so they give responses that are less than what we hope for. And that is OK. In the end, we tell them more for ourselves than for the response we will get.
When I sent the letter off yesterday morning I felt as if I had put one more nail in the coffin of my drinking career. Not that it's really gone forever: I can never know that for sure. But writing the letter, being as honest as possible, and sending it to those people was a way of saying "Alcohol, be gone!" ("Devil, get thee behind me!") I'm working up the nerve to do the same thing with my family next.
So anyway there you go. Some food for thought, I hope.
Mike
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