How I Stopped Drowning in Drink

[slimvictor]

For years I'd told myself I wasn't an alcoholic. I never drank alone. I didn't wake up with fierce cravings, and sometimes I went for one or two days without drinking. A need to drink all day, every day, was never my problem.

My problem was that once I had a drink—whether it was at 7 p.m. or 9 a.m.—I couldn't stop until my body shut down and I passed out in a pile on the floor. I still had plenty of friends and still managed to hold down a job, but my relationship with alcohol was very obviously different from most people's. I was an alcoholic.

As of Saturday, the counter on my website says "878 days." Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I had my last alcoholic drink. Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I declared—very publicly—that my drinking had passed the point where it was funny, crazy or even merely dangerous. In fact, my addiction to alcohol had reached a stage where it was highly likely to kill me.

Enough was enough. So I decided to quit. But I didn't do it in the typical way.

By devising my own steps to sobriety, I've repaired relationships, gotten healthy, started a new career and set aside more character flaws than most people will ever have in a lifetime.

For one thing, I didn't go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Not a single meeting. I have several friends who attend AA and have found it to be a highly effective way to quit. I have plenty of other friends who attend AA meetings every morning and are blind drunk every night. I almost attended a meeting at the suggestion of a friend, but first I decided to read the organization's Twelve Steps, the program that members must follow. The first step was enough to confirm that this form of sobriety wasn't for me:

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."

Please. You may be weak against alcohol, or seriously addicted to it, but powerless? No. If a drinker were truly powerless, then AA would be useless to him; nothing short of death could stop him from drinking.

cont at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304692804577281413725296538.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

[slimvictor]

Good article, telling people that they themselves have to find the power within themselves to change their lives.
I like that point.

But spending $1000 for a fucking pen? While children starve to death every day?
Makes me sick.

 

[nickels]

I like the line about refusing to believe anyone is powerless against alcohol (or anything else), unless by choice.

I come from a long line of alcoholics, though I'm not one myself. I've always felt like the 12 Steps approach of labeling alcoholism a disease as somewhat of a copout.

 

[Crankinit]

But spending $1000 for a fucking pen? While children starve to death every day?
Makes me sick.

Really? You could make that argument about a million things. You don't have anything you spend money on because it's nice or fun, then give all the money you save to starving kids in africa or something? Hell, I'm assuming you spend money on drugs, being on BL and all, that's money that could go to the starving african kids too.

It's his $1000, personally I think spending that much on a pen is absurd, but if he wants to then good for him.

 

[Pjkt2501]

Montblanc pens are like buying whatever the Lexus Camry is and calling ones self "high class"... so lulz to that author.

Dicksizing fail.

(This is how the "pen snobs" look at them anyhow.)

 

[slimvictor]

I see things somewhat differently than you do, Crankit.

I know that it is my own value system - and that I don't know most of the circumstances, and therefore I always (try to) keep in mind that a wonderful person may do something I find repulsive or objectionable.
But, for me, spending money for drugs is related to creativity, enhanced learning, psychological therapy, an enhanced appreciation of the most beautiful things of life: music, art, poetry, food, sex, laughter ... etc. etc.

A one dollar pen is - functionally - the exact same thing as a thousand-dollar pen. They both write lines.

Drugs are a vitamin that enhances my life in ways that I could not get (at this stage of my development as a human being) without drugs. (Though I do believe that it is possible to get this without drugs, it would take me many years of study at the least!)

Of course, you could say that the function of the expensive pen is to impress someone, or show some image, or create some feeling in his own heart that he likes.

And I couldn't argue that my interests, and his, both ultimately boil down to "fun" or "enjoyment".

But still, I can't help consider his way inferior for deriving "fun" from that ridiculous, I'm-better-than-you-because-of-what-I-bought materialism .

I would consider it much, much more reasonable to buy an incredibly expensive car like a Mercedes, since it functions better than a toyota, in the sense that it can save your life in an accident. While that price could have bought a house for some suffering, deserving homeless person, people have to make their own decisions about that, and I respect the decision much more (though it would not be my decision if I were rich).

Just my own opinion, of course, and not meant to offend anyone.

Peace.

 

[poledriver]

Good story.. Who cares about what he buys him self for a present... lol.. It's good to have saved that money from not using a drug of addiction for so long and being able to buy something he wonts and not lose it.

Some people buy drugs, some people buy expensive pens, or a car or a new tv... It all comes and goes sometime anyway.

 

[slimvictor]

Good story.. Who cares about what he buys him self for a present... lol.. It's good to have saved that money from not using a drug of addiction for so long and being able to buy something he wonts and not lose it.

Some people buy drugs, some people buy expensive pens, or a car or a new tv... It all comes and goes sometime anyway.

Maybe this is the best way to think about it. It certainly would make me less of a judgmental person, which is a good thing.
Thanks for your perspective!

 

[paranoid android]

All this makes me think of the amount of money i spent during my late teens and early 20's on booze. If i had saved that instead of spending it on getting blind drunk every night i could have probably have bought myself a brand new Mercedes by the time i was 23. I even sold what most people would consider much more desirable drugs to be able to afford to drink myself into oblivion every day and night. Oh well that's the way it goes

I always hated the admitting you are powerless over alcohol thing as well. I not only thought it was stupid but also completely counterproductive. If we where powerless over alcohol noone would be able to quit drinking at all. I quit when i got sick and tired of being a alcoholic wreck and basically destroying myself. Ive had a few nasty addictions since but id have to say none brought me as close to the brink of death as alcohol did. I havent had so much as a beer in nearly 2 years now and oddly enough i don't get much in the way cravings wise these days. I think i just took it as far as it could possibly go.

Spending a grand on a pen is fucking ridiculous true enough but then again i had weekend bar tabs that where higher then that 8(