Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.
When I was actively drinking I was irrational. I was living in alcoholic reality - could not differentiate the true from the false. I was delusional - I saw the circumstances of my drinking very differently from those who were on the outside of it. The rational would not fit in with the way I saw things. The irrational made sense to me and even when it didnt I was sure that I would be able to make it all fit together, if only this or that....
The people around me tried to counter my irrational with their rational. Example: Their rational - If you keep drinking like this it will kill you. My irrational - that is not gonna happen because despite all previous evidence to the contrary I am very soon gonna beat this thing and get my drinking under control
It didnt work they could not appeal to my irrational state with their sense. It just didnt fit and make sense to me. Thats why all those threats of what would happen if I carried on drinking, what I was like when I was drunk etc didnt really help. They were always over ridden by the insanity of the mental obsession and then all bets were off as I was drinking due to the phenomenon of craving in my body not because of anything going on in my mind.
It wasnt helping.
Then I met some people with a slightly different approach. They didnt try to get me to see their rational, they tried to get me to see my irrational. They tried to help expose the delusion rather than trying to scare me with what the consequences of that delusion would be. They knew that the delusions that I lived with had to be smashed and they tried to help me do that. They tried to help me understand the problem I suffered from rather than berate me about the consequences of that problem.
Those were the people who really helped me to get well. They were the ones that really understood the problem and therefore also really understood the solution.
I try to remember that experience now. In recovery my delusions have been smashed and I am most of the time on the side of rational rather than irrational where seeing my problem with alcoholism is concerned. I could easily try to force that rational on those who are still suffering - but to me a better thing to do is to try and help them to understand their own irrationality, their own illness, and hopefully in that way they will smash their own delusions.
The people around me tried to counter my irrational with their rational. Example: Their rational - If you keep drinking like this it will kill you. My irrational - that is not gonna happen because despite all previous evidence to the contrary I am very soon gonna beat this thing and get my drinking under control
It didnt work they could not appeal to my irrational state with their sense. It just didnt fit and make sense to me. Thats why all those threats of what would happen if I carried on drinking, what I was like when I was drunk etc didnt really help. They were always over ridden by the insanity of the mental obsession and then all bets were off as I was drinking due to the phenomenon of craving in my body not because of anything going on in my mind.
It wasnt helping.
Then I met some people with a slightly different approach. They didnt try to get me to see their rational, they tried to get me to see my irrational. They tried to help expose the delusion rather than trying to scare me with what the consequences of that delusion would be. They knew that the delusions that I lived with had to be smashed and they tried to help me do that. They tried to help me understand the problem I suffered from rather than berate me about the consequences of that problem.
Those were the people who really helped me to get well. They were the ones that really understood the problem and therefore also really understood the solution.
I try to remember that experience now. In recovery my delusions have been smashed and I am most of the time on the side of rational rather than irrational where seeing my problem with alcoholism is concerned. I could easily try to force that rational on those who are still suffering - but to me a better thing to do is to try and help them to understand their own irrationality, their own illness, and hopefully in that way they will smash their own delusions.
This is why we often have to be brought to our knees, by hitting some type of "bottom". It's the only way to clear away all the cobwebs and allow ourselves to be open to input from others. In the end, humility is what allows us to start a path to recovery, but it's hard to find that humility, until you get that unexpected wake-up call. Good post!
I know that you remember Nicky when we 12 stepped a woman who had liver, kidney and spleen failure. She had been told she was dying and yet could not hear that and take sensible action. She died just a few weeks later.
This was not someone too pigheaded to listen it was simply that she was unable to see the true from the false.