Rigid denial..Its not going to burn me this time. I have so much info about me ...I'll manage my life better. Too many times , I just plain pushed the reality aside, a day , a week or a month ago. Alcoholism characterizes the inability to leave it alone , in spite of many fingers pointing to, this is a problem. Do i want keep trying to figure it out on my own , with the same results. Or am I willing to stick to a solution to this life consuming problem?
nice post g,
Billy

IMO after using for a while, not only does it become physical, but your brain in trained to thinking that way - we humans are very trainable people - that's why when you take control of your thoughts you can take control over your actions.

Peace!

Sometimes I think this is a matter of semantics. I agree that once you take the first drink, the choice is either gone or you are heading for disaster in the near future. I didn't used to believe that, but I was probably living in denial.

But in the end, we make the choice to try to get sober don't we? That choice might involve going to AA or to Rehab for help, but it's still our choice and we have to come to a place in our lives where we are willing to go to these lengths.

Again- personal experience here- Could I stop after 1? Yes, I've done it......but I was not at all happy about it. And if I drank a second or a third time, the single drink will be followed by many more.

And that is why I am powerless over alcohol as I could never choose not to drink.

I lived in delusion and it was only when I came to AA and started to listen, to understand the disease of alcoholism, to have HP, etc. that the choices of my life came back.

Today I do the work to keep 'choice' in my life for I am powerless and my life is unmanageable when alcohol is in it.

When I understood this, and realised that I would never be able to stay away from the first drink based on my own power and thus would need another way, my life completely changed.

As okjoe referred to I am unable to stay away from alochol based on my own power no matter how great the need or the wish.

The only choice I have is to recognise that and actively pursue another solution.

Yep that's why I have to turn my life over to an hp every morning.

i am powerless............deep down i know what it will take to turn away.

"sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation.."

OMG that was so true. Crash...time....Crash...time....Crash

Thanks God that is over...Thank God.

I was in total denial of my alcoholism for the 18 years of blackout drinking, right until the end when I completely mentally flipped over and one minute was in denial and the next in full knowledge that I have a fatal illness and I didn't yet know the soluttion. Terrifying. Called Lifeline in terror, they suggested a whole lot of things, then AA and the penny dropped that that was where I was supposed to be. I went the next day and have never drunk again.

For me it is about having a "moment of clarity". I had had absolutely no choice in my drinking until that moment because the power of my denial had pushed self knowledge way under the waterline. But once that self knowledge was there - THEN I HAD A CHOICE. And I made the right choice. But "moments of clarity" pass, I have learned that if an alki has one, they need to act quickly or the window shuts again and the "scafolding of denial" that I call it comes up again to prop the alcoholic drinking.

I am so grateful that moment of clarity came, with the gift of desperation. Now I have many choices - I am not just allowing booze to make decisons for me.

But many alcoholics do stay away from the first drink for weeks, months , even years without AA. But I've never known one to attain a truely sober lifestyle without some kind of spiritual center, usually ( but not always ) AA.
But I've never seen an alcoholic return from loss of control, whereby they could drink in a controlled mannor for an extended period of time.
I agree this may be semantics, but for me today I do have defense agaginst that first drink, yet I will never have defense against the second.

My sponsor reminded me of this line

"We are unable, at certain times,
to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force
the memory of the suffering and humiliation
of even a week or a month ago"

Just last week when I was getting mind racing, crazy head over some family problems....sooooooooo true!

Donttread - absolutely true alcoholics do stay away from a drink for days, weeks, months, years without AA - it talks about this in the big book a few times.

However in my experience and from what I have seen in others it is a precarious and frightening existence as we never know when that "certain time" will come and we end up drinking again, not through choice but the insanity of alcoholism.

When the mind is faced with extreme conditions (whether real or fantasy), it draws upon every inate and learned behavior to protect it's fragile balance.

The example of this is clear to most addicts when the extreme is bad. The example of this is not so clear when we get a desire for fun and frollick. When we get extrememly bored, the mind looks for a way to calm the unrest inside of us. It thinks of way to datify our desire. If it latches onto drinking as the recall for extremem joy, then you will be signalled to get drunk.

This is oftentimes called "euphoric recall." My brother talked about this all the time. By the time he had come to the end of his life, he was on public assisstance and just sat in hiw one room apartment all the time. He was obviously BORED. He drank himself to death.

Wayne-

For many of them I agree Nkicky, but also remember the program teaches us that "AA works best for most" not solely for all.
I've seen a lot of dry non-AA'ers but I've people use religion or even in one case martial arts believe it or not as their spiritual center. Although often they had some time in AA first