Thanks for your reply to my "drinking" post. The whole "artform" that we call recovery from addiction is so very interesting. Being attorneys (as I am assuming from your post you are as well), we can probably make an effective argument on both sides of the occasional social drink. I too am in a twelve step program (I just completed my 90/90 last week) and there is no question that social drinking is STRICTLY PROHIBITTED were I to continue to adhere to that philosophy. I had a meeting yesterday with my hubby and the social worker who runs my outpatient group to discuss with him my dilemna. My outpatient program is abstinence-based and this social worker, became sober in AA. He knows me quite well by now (not quite as well as my husband, however, to whom I have been married for 15 years) and he asked me what benefits I would receive from the occasional social drink (my husband who is clearly a "civilian" confirmed that my drinking consisted of 1-2 drinks in a social setting such as a wedding, party, etc.). My honest response was that it relaxes me and I sometimes enjoy this feeling in a social setting. I also explained that I have never liked feeling "different," and not being able to have a drink as opposed to choosing not to have one makes me feel different than my friends, none of whom have alcohol or drug problems (they know about mine though). I also explained that I understood the host of factors that transformed my strictly medical use of painkillers into the addiction it had become and that I felt the best way to prevent this problem from recurring is to address these issues in individual and group therapy as well as to rejoin a support group for parents of children with special needs (my son has a rare and devestating neurological condition which in turn has affected everything from my marriage to my career). For the 18 years following a high school/college infatuation with the Dead and preceeding the past few years of iatragenically-induced hell, I have been the poster-child for moderation, both substance-wise (my social drinking and smoking pot less than 10 or so times in total -- all with no effort whatsoever) and otherwise.
It was clear at the end of our meeting, that while the social worker would have felt the most comfortable with my prospects of staying off the painkillers were I to abstain from all mind-altering substances, he was not uncomfortable with what I had told him. When I successfully complete this program at the end of May, I do want to find some support in the substance abuse area that is okay with this approach and that was the reason I had posted my earlier question. Do you know of any such programs? Between now and then I will be attending my first clean and sober jazz fest in New Orleans which should be quite an adventure/Sara
party on, sugggie!
love ya -
sammy
love ya -
sammy
Suggie??!!!! It took me a while to catch on to that one, Sammy (Sammy and Suggie sittn in a tree??). Try to envision Dr. Smith, from Lost in Space: "oh, the pain....."
Sara, thanks for your note, and congratulations on the successful completion of the your 90 in 90. It sounds to me as though you have completed your "due diligence," and between your independent research and the fact that you have completed 90 days clean and sober, I will not insult you by second guessing you, or attempting to substitute my judgment for your own. I would like to explore a couple of issues with you though, and if it takes a day or two for us to have that dialog, well I would hope that you would hold your decision in abeyance if only for that period of time.
I think you and I keyed on a very similar issue, in that the alcohol performs a social lubricant function, and as practicing attorneys, we can both respect just how tightly we can get wound in a days work. My decision to toe the line has not been without its costs. For example, I need not relate the simple justification of a good bottle of wine after that stunning legal victory. Those days are so few and far between in our business, and it seems like little to ask, doesnt it? For me, however, it goes farther.
At age 47 I remain unmarried. While it would be a vast over simplification to suggest that my abstinence is the sole reason for my lack of a wife, it would be fair to say that intimacy was a struggle for me in early recovery. Alcohol helped tear down some walls in that category for me. Luckily, you will probably not have to encounter that one. Yet I can still take it farther.
In the years following my getting sober, I started my own practice, and since I had some time on my hands, I began running with a very rough and tumble crowdwe liked to kayak Class V whitewater, often in the dead of winter, when it was very cold and very dangerous. It was male bonding at its finest and I loved the heck out of it. Picture a group of guys who have just had an incredible experience that pushed them beyond their physical, mental, and spiritual limits. We get off the river on a cold day, and as we rack up the boats, somebody cracks a cooler and pulls out only the best imported beer. The tops are popped and the guys propose a toast to good friends and yet another life changing experience. And there I stand on the sidelines, alone, because due to my precious convictions, I cannot share in this simple cementing of the day. I relate this to you that you might appreciate how deeply I understand your concern.
While I dont have children, but I do respect how a quiet drink with a loved one at the end of the day seems like a fair request.
So why, after 14 years and no relapses, is it still so important to me that I not drink? Well, the fact is that the reasons that support my decision are more nuanced than the reasons that favor drinking. Sure, for the first few years it was about fear of relapse, and then after that, there was probably some arrogance on my part as to the amount of time I had in the program. But I have found a better reason to stay away from the alcohol.
I remember a Grateful Dead sticker in the parking lot: Some things have to be believed to be seen. That may capture the essence of it as well as anything else. At 90 days, I do not know where you stand from a spiritual standpoint, so I will hearken back to those nights inside the coliseum to try to make my point. Sara, after 18 years, are you at a point in your life where you can acknowledge that on some nights at Dead shows, something happened? Garcia used to call it magic. A friend of mine used to describe it as everything he always thought church could be, but somehow, was not. I refer, of course, to that moment when 15,000 people all get it at the same moment, where there are no longer any walls between us, where love gurgles through the crowd like water flowing over rocks in a river. Most of us experienced this at least once and then embarked on a series of failed attempts to recapture it. The more we tried to find it, the harder it got. The avenue was strewn with the wreckage of those who thought it was about the drugs. Most of us with any sense realized that it might not be repeatable and we moved on with our lives.
When I came into AA and really began working the steps, I found the same sort of thing, only this time, it had nothing to do with the brown, er, well you know. I went to a morning meeting and there days when it seemed as if God had peeled off the roof of that old ramshackle shack and blinded us in the brilliance of His Light. It was that real, that pure, and still is.
Sara, the reason I keep it clean after all these years is that for me, any substance at all impairs my conscious contact with God. In my years in the program, the sense of apartness" that I related to you above, has been rendered insignificant relative to power of this conscious contact with God. I have glimpsed it at other places, e.g., the Dead on a good night, some church services, and most strongly, while kayaking whitewater. With the program though, I feel like I walk in a near continual state of Grace, and for me, that alone justifies my decision. It is not even a close call.
Sara, some things have to be believed to be seen. While I had an Earth shattering spiritual awakening at about 21 days, the Grace I speak of must be gathered over the journey of a lifetime. I did not even get close for the first few years.
Returning full circle now, just as I tried to catch 22 you in my first note, it is my belief that those of us who feel a sensation of isolation most acutely are those of us who are most at risk of relapse and those of us who benefit the most from state of Grace I attempted to describe above. It is this sense of apartness that both identifies our dis-ease, and our common solution.
I need to close but before I wrap up, a couple more observations. First, this State of Grace, which for me is purely a by-product of my sobriety, has radically transformed those aspects of my life where I have devoted my energy. As an attorney, I am nothing short of deadly and as the result I have a small but incredibly loyal following of clients that have allowed me a level of freedom in my life that is unheard of these days. All of this is keyed to that aspect of the promises that turns on intuitively knowing how to handle problems which used to baffle us, which in turn has led to incredibly well grounded relationships. Moreover, I shutter to think of how ill prepared I might be to handle lifes little curve balls were it not for this contact with a higher power. I refer, of course, to the fact that I have incurable cancer. Maybe I could have gotten by with a lesser program, but there is simply no way that I could thrive as I have without the benefit of the program. It is one thing to cope with something like a deadly serious health issue, it is another to "suddenly see how our experience can benefit others," and turn it to an advantage of epic proportion. It is true that I am still trying to get the marriage thing worked out, but to my credit, I have a number of ladies in my life who are very interested and I have been waylaid a couple of times, first by my world travels and more recently by the cancer. The second thing that I feel constrained to point out to you is that due to the cancer, I have to deal with pain meds even as I write this. I need you to stay sober so you can help me after I defeat the cancer and need to bid adieu to the painkillers in my system.
Sara, please write back. I would enjoy having a dialog with you and I promise not to try to convert you or to try any tactics that are too underhanded. You would spot them in a heartbeat so I will not sabotage our relationship for such a petty objective. In fact, since you have been kind enough to read up to this point, I suppose I should answer your question. There is a program out there that is rather new, it is based on cognitive psychology and does not have the higher power concept as its underpinning. In that this defeats my entire purpose in not drinking, I am not fond of referring folks to it. I believe at one time it was called rational recovery, but the founder relapsed and renounced the program before starting her time for vehicular homicide. Then again, I could be totally mistaken on that one. You should do your own due diligence. Try a google search on Smart recovery. I suppose that I advocate is not merely surviving, but rather, transforming your life into something incredible that will have a powerful impact on every person you encounter. My apoloiges if I come across as arrogant. It really is not self serving objectives.
I need to get some rest nowits a chemo thing, but I do hope you will write back. My apologies for the lnegth of this post. If you read the entire thing, well thank you.
All the best,
August
Sara, thanks for your note, and congratulations on the successful completion of the your 90 in 90. It sounds to me as though you have completed your "due diligence," and between your independent research and the fact that you have completed 90 days clean and sober, I will not insult you by second guessing you, or attempting to substitute my judgment for your own. I would like to explore a couple of issues with you though, and if it takes a day or two for us to have that dialog, well I would hope that you would hold your decision in abeyance if only for that period of time.
I think you and I keyed on a very similar issue, in that the alcohol performs a social lubricant function, and as practicing attorneys, we can both respect just how tightly we can get wound in a days work. My decision to toe the line has not been without its costs. For example, I need not relate the simple justification of a good bottle of wine after that stunning legal victory. Those days are so few and far between in our business, and it seems like little to ask, doesnt it? For me, however, it goes farther.
At age 47 I remain unmarried. While it would be a vast over simplification to suggest that my abstinence is the sole reason for my lack of a wife, it would be fair to say that intimacy was a struggle for me in early recovery. Alcohol helped tear down some walls in that category for me. Luckily, you will probably not have to encounter that one. Yet I can still take it farther.
In the years following my getting sober, I started my own practice, and since I had some time on my hands, I began running with a very rough and tumble crowdwe liked to kayak Class V whitewater, often in the dead of winter, when it was very cold and very dangerous. It was male bonding at its finest and I loved the heck out of it. Picture a group of guys who have just had an incredible experience that pushed them beyond their physical, mental, and spiritual limits. We get off the river on a cold day, and as we rack up the boats, somebody cracks a cooler and pulls out only the best imported beer. The tops are popped and the guys propose a toast to good friends and yet another life changing experience. And there I stand on the sidelines, alone, because due to my precious convictions, I cannot share in this simple cementing of the day. I relate this to you that you might appreciate how deeply I understand your concern.
While I dont have children, but I do respect how a quiet drink with a loved one at the end of the day seems like a fair request.
So why, after 14 years and no relapses, is it still so important to me that I not drink? Well, the fact is that the reasons that support my decision are more nuanced than the reasons that favor drinking. Sure, for the first few years it was about fear of relapse, and then after that, there was probably some arrogance on my part as to the amount of time I had in the program. But I have found a better reason to stay away from the alcohol.
I remember a Grateful Dead sticker in the parking lot: Some things have to be believed to be seen. That may capture the essence of it as well as anything else. At 90 days, I do not know where you stand from a spiritual standpoint, so I will hearken back to those nights inside the coliseum to try to make my point. Sara, after 18 years, are you at a point in your life where you can acknowledge that on some nights at Dead shows, something happened? Garcia used to call it magic. A friend of mine used to describe it as everything he always thought church could be, but somehow, was not. I refer, of course, to that moment when 15,000 people all get it at the same moment, where there are no longer any walls between us, where love gurgles through the crowd like water flowing over rocks in a river. Most of us experienced this at least once and then embarked on a series of failed attempts to recapture it. The more we tried to find it, the harder it got. The avenue was strewn with the wreckage of those who thought it was about the drugs. Most of us with any sense realized that it might not be repeatable and we moved on with our lives.
When I came into AA and really began working the steps, I found the same sort of thing, only this time, it had nothing to do with the brown, er, well you know. I went to a morning meeting and there days when it seemed as if God had peeled off the roof of that old ramshackle shack and blinded us in the brilliance of His Light. It was that real, that pure, and still is.
Sara, the reason I keep it clean after all these years is that for me, any substance at all impairs my conscious contact with God. In my years in the program, the sense of apartness" that I related to you above, has been rendered insignificant relative to power of this conscious contact with God. I have glimpsed it at other places, e.g., the Dead on a good night, some church services, and most strongly, while kayaking whitewater. With the program though, I feel like I walk in a near continual state of Grace, and for me, that alone justifies my decision. It is not even a close call.
Sara, some things have to be believed to be seen. While I had an Earth shattering spiritual awakening at about 21 days, the Grace I speak of must be gathered over the journey of a lifetime. I did not even get close for the first few years.
Returning full circle now, just as I tried to catch 22 you in my first note, it is my belief that those of us who feel a sensation of isolation most acutely are those of us who are most at risk of relapse and those of us who benefit the most from state of Grace I attempted to describe above. It is this sense of apartness that both identifies our dis-ease, and our common solution.
I need to close but before I wrap up, a couple more observations. First, this State of Grace, which for me is purely a by-product of my sobriety, has radically transformed those aspects of my life where I have devoted my energy. As an attorney, I am nothing short of deadly and as the result I have a small but incredibly loyal following of clients that have allowed me a level of freedom in my life that is unheard of these days. All of this is keyed to that aspect of the promises that turns on intuitively knowing how to handle problems which used to baffle us, which in turn has led to incredibly well grounded relationships. Moreover, I shutter to think of how ill prepared I might be to handle lifes little curve balls were it not for this contact with a higher power. I refer, of course, to the fact that I have incurable cancer. Maybe I could have gotten by with a lesser program, but there is simply no way that I could thrive as I have without the benefit of the program. It is one thing to cope with something like a deadly serious health issue, it is another to "suddenly see how our experience can benefit others," and turn it to an advantage of epic proportion. It is true that I am still trying to get the marriage thing worked out, but to my credit, I have a number of ladies in my life who are very interested and I have been waylaid a couple of times, first by my world travels and more recently by the cancer. The second thing that I feel constrained to point out to you is that due to the cancer, I have to deal with pain meds even as I write this. I need you to stay sober so you can help me after I defeat the cancer and need to bid adieu to the painkillers in my system.
Sara, please write back. I would enjoy having a dialog with you and I promise not to try to convert you or to try any tactics that are too underhanded. You would spot them in a heartbeat so I will not sabotage our relationship for such a petty objective. In fact, since you have been kind enough to read up to this point, I suppose I should answer your question. There is a program out there that is rather new, it is based on cognitive psychology and does not have the higher power concept as its underpinning. In that this defeats my entire purpose in not drinking, I am not fond of referring folks to it. I believe at one time it was called rational recovery, but the founder relapsed and renounced the program before starting her time for vehicular homicide. Then again, I could be totally mistaken on that one. You should do your own due diligence. Try a google search on Smart recovery. I suppose that I advocate is not merely surviving, but rather, transforming your life into something incredible that will have a powerful impact on every person you encounter. My apoloiges if I come across as arrogant. It really is not self serving objectives.
I need to get some rest nowits a chemo thing, but I do hope you will write back. My apologies for the lnegth of this post. If you read the entire thing, well thank you.
All the best,
August
"DANGER, DANGER, DANGER, WILL ROBINSON" - aahhhh august, don't get me started on "lost in space". what a neat show that was! however, the word "suggie" i used is just a little term of endearment, of southern nature, for sugar. anyone who hangs with me long enough, will eventually see me refer to them, "suggie". oh well...
sara - i could relate to the large majority of your post. nevertheless, in reading your message last night, something kept popping in my brain...something about finally being beaten into a state of reasonableness...i'll find that later in the big book and quote it here if you are interested. for years on end, i tried to prove to myself that i could use other mood altering substances, since those were not really my problem. well i could just about rationalize any situation to use - any reason to take me out of me. the pills, hooch, other drugs, etc. were mere symptoms of my disease, the problem was me. when i romanced things like alcohol or other drugs, i found they served as an incredible trigger that unleashed a craving for my drug of choice.
i cannot say anything, more insightful or eloquent than what august has shared, with exception of the fact that this is a spiritual program of recovery and it was impossible to come to know, believe, and trust this incredible, loving, good, God of my understanding, while using anything that altered my brain chemistry. gosh i wish you well and hope you find a happy medium in your quest for serenity. you deserve to live a life that is happy, joyous, and free.
love and much encouragement to you -
sammy
p.s. the program that august mentioned is moderation management. you can do a google search for audrey kishline and find what her experience was regarding moderation and her recovery.
sara - i could relate to the large majority of your post. nevertheless, in reading your message last night, something kept popping in my brain...something about finally being beaten into a state of reasonableness...i'll find that later in the big book and quote it here if you are interested. for years on end, i tried to prove to myself that i could use other mood altering substances, since those were not really my problem. well i could just about rationalize any situation to use - any reason to take me out of me. the pills, hooch, other drugs, etc. were mere symptoms of my disease, the problem was me. when i romanced things like alcohol or other drugs, i found they served as an incredible trigger that unleashed a craving for my drug of choice.
i cannot say anything, more insightful or eloquent than what august has shared, with exception of the fact that this is a spiritual program of recovery and it was impossible to come to know, believe, and trust this incredible, loving, good, God of my understanding, while using anything that altered my brain chemistry. gosh i wish you well and hope you find a happy medium in your quest for serenity. you deserve to live a life that is happy, joyous, and free.
love and much encouragement to you -
sammy
p.s. the program that august mentioned is moderation management. you can do a google search for audrey kishline and find what her experience was regarding moderation and her recovery.
Hi guys!
Haven't had time to answer your very intense posts yet. Lots to say, not enough time in which to say it, YET. One thing I can write from having read your responses to me and all of the other posts on this site are that we addicts are extremely introspective and complex and take everything VERY SERIOUSLY including our joking around. Have a great day dudes/Sara
Haven't had time to answer your very intense posts yet. Lots to say, not enough time in which to say it, YET. One thing I can write from having read your responses to me and all of the other posts on this site are that we addicts are extremely introspective and complex and take everything VERY SERIOUSLY including our joking around. Have a great day dudes/Sara
