Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Monday, March 14, 2016
Meeting Makers...Well, We All Know What They Say About Them...
My very First attempt at recovery and working with a sponsor or listening to anyone other than myself was a place I wanted no part of...lol. I got a sponsor or a" person I thought I could get to co-sign my bullshit"..Ha..That's another story...Anyway this guy is still in my life today and has been a blessing to say the least. The first thing he told me was to call him every night at 10 pm and every morning at 6a.m. Didn't even mention step work.I had no idea what a step was for. I just wanted them to show me the secret handshake that would make me feel better.
The first suggestion was do not use no matter what ,when my knees knocked kneel, 90 meetings in 90 days. Hell I had learned that in rehab. So off I went "tap dancing" making sure everyone saw me and liked me. Living totally in my twisted mind...lol At the time here in the mid-south, you may have to drive a lttle but you can make a meeting every other hour starting at 5 am and ending at 3 am, so By day 45 I had already been to 101 meetings.I made sure everyone new it especially the guy that had suggested me to do it. He would smile and kinda scratch his head and simply ask which meting I was going to next that day/night or tomorrow. I still remember seeing a number of people i would see at almost every meeting i attended and they had been around for a while...like years! I remember thinking how odd that seemed at the time..lol Twisted thinking!!
on day 90 I had went to 164 meetings in 90 days/nights. My sponsor new I was truthful and had attended every single one of them.He was at most of them himself. I remember him telling me there was a meeting at such and such place at 10;00 and that I needed to be there.I would say ok Ill ride with you that's on the other side of the city you can drive I'm tired and hungry we can stop and get a burger on the way.....STOP!! I didn't say that I needed to be there...I said you need to be there.The kids are with Valerie's mom & dad so Val and I are going to enjoy each other relaxing at home.... He had gotten clean in that area and at that time he had 7 yrs clean. all he had to do was ask someone that went to the same meting to verify. The fool i was would be hard to miss. Great relationships were formed during this and I was introduced to what was soon to became my family.
That night after the meeting My sponsor and his other 2 sponcees and I went to eat pizza. A weekly event we still do. I missed several pizza nights due to my relapses..but no one ever gave up on me.
That night I payed for the pizza and as we were walking out sponsor put his arm across my shoulders and gave me a hug... told me he was proud of me.......But Now I had To Do What I Was Told To Do....He didn't tell me to go to 164 meetings in 90 days.....he Told Me To Go To 90 Meeting In 90 Days.but as he said it was just a suggestion...same as its suggested that you pull the rip cord on your parachute when you jump out of an airplane....He looked me in the eye and said this is about learning how to following directions...directions on how to do something that you do not have a clue on how to do it and if I didn't take directions from him or someone who had been right where I was, That more than likely I would die from this disease.... he told me he would be honored to freely give me directions on how to live my life clean and sober just like it that had been freely given to him.
Ya know...90 in 90 may just be what I need to do again...I know that practicing the willingness to do so will be an opportunity to surrender a little more.
I only need one meeting a week at this point in my recovery.....So I go to seven to make sure I don't miss the one I need!!
The first suggestion was do not use no matter what ,when my knees knocked kneel, 90 meetings in 90 days. Hell I had learned that in rehab. So off I went "tap dancing" making sure everyone saw me and liked me. Living totally in my twisted mind...lol At the time here in the mid-south, you may have to drive a lttle but you can make a meeting every other hour starting at 5 am and ending at 3 am, so By day 45 I had already been to 101 meetings.I made sure everyone new it especially the guy that had suggested me to do it. He would smile and kinda scratch his head and simply ask which meting I was going to next that day/night or tomorrow. I still remember seeing a number of people i would see at almost every meeting i attended and they had been around for a while...like years! I remember thinking how odd that seemed at the time..lol Twisted thinking!!
on day 90 I had went to 164 meetings in 90 days/nights. My sponsor new I was truthful and had attended every single one of them.He was at most of them himself. I remember him telling me there was a meeting at such and such place at 10;00 and that I needed to be there.I would say ok Ill ride with you that's on the other side of the city you can drive I'm tired and hungry we can stop and get a burger on the way.....STOP!! I didn't say that I needed to be there...I said you need to be there.The kids are with Valerie's mom & dad so Val and I are going to enjoy each other relaxing at home.... He had gotten clean in that area and at that time he had 7 yrs clean. all he had to do was ask someone that went to the same meting to verify. The fool i was would be hard to miss. Great relationships were formed during this and I was introduced to what was soon to became my family.
That night after the meeting My sponsor and his other 2 sponcees and I went to eat pizza. A weekly event we still do. I missed several pizza nights due to my relapses..but no one ever gave up on me.
That night I payed for the pizza and as we were walking out sponsor put his arm across my shoulders and gave me a hug... told me he was proud of me.......But Now I had To Do What I Was Told To Do....He didn't tell me to go to 164 meetings in 90 days.....he Told Me To Go To 90 Meeting In 90 Days.but as he said it was just a suggestion...same as its suggested that you pull the rip cord on your parachute when you jump out of an airplane....He looked me in the eye and said this is about learning how to following directions...directions on how to do something that you do not have a clue on how to do it and if I didn't take directions from him or someone who had been right where I was, That more than likely I would die from this disease.... he told me he would be honored to freely give me directions on how to live my life clean and sober just like it that had been freely given to him.
Ya know...90 in 90 may just be what I need to do again...I know that practicing the willingness to do so will be an opportunity to surrender a little more.
I only need one meeting a week at this point in my recovery.....So I go to seven to make sure I don't miss the one I need!!
Why Oh Why Don't You Just Stop !?
I guess that's where "Its a simple program" comes from?? I have no problem stopping...I did it every time I passed out or overdosed or ran out of what ever it was i was doing. My problem was staying stopped.
Why didn't they just sop??How many times has that been said by family, friends, police, judges, misinformed physicians, or under educated professionals? I have heard it from so called LCSW & addictionologist ...Gee, Why did I not think of that???dam...I must surly suffer from some learning disability....
The truth of the matter for me is, Addiction is by all means the most complicated disease to understand.
when I was 14 yrs. old I was cutting hay and was to close to the fence row and a limb knocked me of the tractor and into the mower. A sickle mower. Looks like a giant hedge trimmer. Well it dragged me about 500 yards before finally cutting my right leg off and filleting my left leg to the bone from the knee down. I lay in the hot June heat for over seven hrs before I was found. Never passed out. Infection almost killed me but I was fitted with a prosthesis and was good as could hope to be in that day and time after numerous surgeries and a very long recovery. I lost most of my bodies blood supply and with all the surgeries I received around 45 units of blood during the summer of 1979. What was not known then was in 1979 blood was not screened as well as it is today.They paid cash for donor blood. Blood which had diseases like Hepatitis C which was totally unknown to the medical profession then. So for 35 years I was being consumed by Hep C virus and had no Idea. Just knew I felt bad most of the time but thought I just needed a more powerful drug. Was seen by many docs and my liver functions were Always elevated. However when they seen the amount of prescribed dope I was getting they had their answer to that..case closed. If they only knew of all the drugs I was buying besides that they would have surly fainted.
In 2006 I went jaundiced. was a yellow as a pumpkin. had a gall bladder full of stones...remove gal bladder and case closed again. They did the surgery laparoscopicry. When the surgeon looked through the scope he said he could see the scaring of my liver from the years of cirrhosis that had turned it into a concrete football.I do have several complications that goes along with cirrhosis and it is no fun. However God has seen fit not to let me go just yet. I'm on the Transplant list and my health although not good...is actually better than most in End Stage Liver Disease.
My point in telling that is all this bad stuff is a walk in the park compared to the fight with the disease of addiction.I've been through a hell that only an addict knows. Just like all of us have. We fight a disease that has no cure and if left untreated will kill us. How do we do it?? A day at a time. And our reward is beyond anything we could ever imagine. My thinking is that we are the chosen ones that have been selected to experience this, why? I do not have a clue. But after going through what you and I have been through and we can look at ourselves in the mirror and be thankful for going through it...is all the evidence I need that a Higher Power is at work in my life and chose the right ones.
I am grateful To be clean and in recovery today.
Why didn't they just sop??How many times has that been said by family, friends, police, judges, misinformed physicians, or under educated professionals? I have heard it from so called LCSW & addictionologist ...Gee, Why did I not think of that???dam...I must surly suffer from some learning disability....
The truth of the matter for me is, Addiction is by all means the most complicated disease to understand.
when I was 14 yrs. old I was cutting hay and was to close to the fence row and a limb knocked me of the tractor and into the mower. A sickle mower. Looks like a giant hedge trimmer. Well it dragged me about 500 yards before finally cutting my right leg off and filleting my left leg to the bone from the knee down. I lay in the hot June heat for over seven hrs before I was found. Never passed out. Infection almost killed me but I was fitted with a prosthesis and was good as could hope to be in that day and time after numerous surgeries and a very long recovery. I lost most of my bodies blood supply and with all the surgeries I received around 45 units of blood during the summer of 1979. What was not known then was in 1979 blood was not screened as well as it is today.They paid cash for donor blood. Blood which had diseases like Hepatitis C which was totally unknown to the medical profession then. So for 35 years I was being consumed by Hep C virus and had no Idea. Just knew I felt bad most of the time but thought I just needed a more powerful drug. Was seen by many docs and my liver functions were Always elevated. However when they seen the amount of prescribed dope I was getting they had their answer to that..case closed. If they only knew of all the drugs I was buying besides that they would have surly fainted.
In 2006 I went jaundiced. was a yellow as a pumpkin. had a gall bladder full of stones...remove gal bladder and case closed again. They did the surgery laparoscopicry. When the surgeon looked through the scope he said he could see the scaring of my liver from the years of cirrhosis that had turned it into a concrete football.I do have several complications that goes along with cirrhosis and it is no fun. However God has seen fit not to let me go just yet. I'm on the Transplant list and my health although not good...is actually better than most in End Stage Liver Disease.
My point in telling that is all this bad stuff is a walk in the park compared to the fight with the disease of addiction.I've been through a hell that only an addict knows. Just like all of us have. We fight a disease that has no cure and if left untreated will kill us. How do we do it?? A day at a time. And our reward is beyond anything we could ever imagine. My thinking is that we are the chosen ones that have been selected to experience this, why? I do not have a clue. But after going through what you and I have been through and we can look at ourselves in the mirror and be thankful for going through it...is all the evidence I need that a Higher Power is at work in my life and chose the right ones.
I am grateful To be clean and in recovery today.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
What Makes Me Stand And Fight When Fighting Only makes Me Worse?
My Sick ass is still alive....Still again I tried to use successfully and failed miserably. Got so bad back on the 30th of November, I decided to go back into treatment..Yet again,...was just to sick to make it a day without using.
Checked myself into one of the very well know behavioral health centers near Memphis. Stayed for 28 days....discharged on the 29th day...was filling my veins full of dope on the 30th. I was clean outside of a controlled environment only long enough to ride back to my home town, which is about an hr and a half, sleep for 3 hrs., then hunt dope for 4 hrs. So I made it for a Grand Total of 8hrs & 30 min. Even that is a miracle...It really is.
Found another bottom that I didn't know existed. Thought I had seen em all... I always return to exactly the same place Physically, Spiritually, Emotionally that I left...then pick right back up with the ever progression of DOWN... Nuff said about that....we all know what bottoms feel like. Hopefully this is my last I have to experience. Not gonna say I climbed out of this one...I did not. I had nothing left in me to even want to pull up out of this nosedive.
Grateful to be sitting here with 10 days clean!! But most Grateful for today.. Believe me... any feeling other than hopelessness... is only very recently acquired.
Checked myself into one of the very well know behavioral health centers near Memphis. Stayed for 28 days....discharged on the 29th day...was filling my veins full of dope on the 30th. I was clean outside of a controlled environment only long enough to ride back to my home town, which is about an hr and a half, sleep for 3 hrs., then hunt dope for 4 hrs. So I made it for a Grand Total of 8hrs & 30 min. Even that is a miracle...It really is.
Found another bottom that I didn't know existed. Thought I had seen em all... I always return to exactly the same place Physically, Spiritually, Emotionally that I left...then pick right back up with the ever progression of DOWN... Nuff said about that....we all know what bottoms feel like. Hopefully this is my last I have to experience. Not gonna say I climbed out of this one...I did not. I had nothing left in me to even want to pull up out of this nosedive.
Grateful to be sitting here with 10 days clean!! But most Grateful for today.. Believe me... any feeling other than hopelessness... is only very recently acquired.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
There Aint No Easy Way Out....Looks Like an Excellent Opportunity To Surrender
I made it through yet one more time. Weekend before last, Friday night at about 11:30 p.m. a blood vessel rupture (Gastric Varises) in my stomach.By Saturday morning I was sick and so weak that I couldn't even walk. Had no idea I was bleeding out internally. Thats when there was no more room in my belly for any more blood. My digestive system reversed all gears! All that blood came out. Not gonna get to in depth in describing this part. You get the Idea.
Luckily I was at my mothers house. The doctors told me to not stay alone because of what just had happened to me was happening. Got in her van somehow and off we went to the ER. Should have called 911, Bad mistake on my part. But hey, I'm notorious for making bad decisions Lol !! Got to the ER and was immediately rushed to a room. Then x-ray and then to the O.R.
Woke up sometime Monday afternoon with what felt like a dull wooden dagger stuck in my abdomen. I had IV's in both arms and one in my neck. I had to have 3 units of whole blood and 2 of platelets.They put a band on the vessel that had ruptured by EG scope down my throat. No cutting on the outside. But I felt like I had been cut in half and was very surprised to discover no bandages, Just a pain from hell!!
so they immediately IV'ed with my drug of choice and nothing happened.
No relief and No rush. They did finally get enough in me to relieve me some. I could have it every 3 hrs. and I got it every 3 hrs for the next 4 days and nights. My disease was working hard on me with the fact that I was getting medicine not dope. My burnt brain can not distinguish the difference.
Since this cirrhosis has progressed, I have had some very bad times with very bad intense pain. I stayed in almost constant contact with my sponsor and others in recovery. I actually made it through some events and did not have to have any pain meds. My mother has control of the meds and she makes sure I only get them AS DIRECTED !
Anyway, I have improved greatly and the doctor says I am healing fine. However I am as sick with addiction as ever. I started using again. My doctors, all of them from my Primary Care doc to The Transplant Team Knew I am a recovering addict from day one. I informed them of all my addiction issues and they work with me not against me. They have been Great through all of this.However I am still the one responsible for my recovery. And the reason i picked up was simply because I wanted to. I through away all those years of daily work. It has given me a chance to get to a level of surrender that I must go to if I want to stay clean. I thought I had surrendered everything. But for this addict I have to go a little deeper. God saw fit to get me through this alive and I am very Grateful to be here. Thanks to God and all of you in these rooms, who have shared with me there recovery and what they do to stay clean Just For Today.
Now I get another chance to do something different. They way I was doing it did not work or I would have not picked up if it did. Thanks again to God, the recovery programs and fellowship of AA and NA and all of you who show up at these meetings to share what worked for you with a desperate dying addict like me. Very simple.....is it not????
Jerry
Luckily I was at my mothers house. The doctors told me to not stay alone because of what just had happened to me was happening. Got in her van somehow and off we went to the ER. Should have called 911, Bad mistake on my part. But hey, I'm notorious for making bad decisions Lol !! Got to the ER and was immediately rushed to a room. Then x-ray and then to the O.R.
Woke up sometime Monday afternoon with what felt like a dull wooden dagger stuck in my abdomen. I had IV's in both arms and one in my neck. I had to have 3 units of whole blood and 2 of platelets.They put a band on the vessel that had ruptured by EG scope down my throat. No cutting on the outside. But I felt like I had been cut in half and was very surprised to discover no bandages, Just a pain from hell!!
so they immediately IV'ed with my drug of choice and nothing happened.
No relief and No rush. They did finally get enough in me to relieve me some. I could have it every 3 hrs. and I got it every 3 hrs for the next 4 days and nights. My disease was working hard on me with the fact that I was getting medicine not dope. My burnt brain can not distinguish the difference.
Since this cirrhosis has progressed, I have had some very bad times with very bad intense pain. I stayed in almost constant contact with my sponsor and others in recovery. I actually made it through some events and did not have to have any pain meds. My mother has control of the meds and she makes sure I only get them AS DIRECTED !
Anyway, I have improved greatly and the doctor says I am healing fine. However I am as sick with addiction as ever. I started using again. My doctors, all of them from my Primary Care doc to The Transplant Team Knew I am a recovering addict from day one. I informed them of all my addiction issues and they work with me not against me. They have been Great through all of this.However I am still the one responsible for my recovery. And the reason i picked up was simply because I wanted to. I through away all those years of daily work. It has given me a chance to get to a level of surrender that I must go to if I want to stay clean. I thought I had surrendered everything. But for this addict I have to go a little deeper. God saw fit to get me through this alive and I am very Grateful to be here. Thanks to God and all of you in these rooms, who have shared with me there recovery and what they do to stay clean Just For Today.
Now I get another chance to do something different. They way I was doing it did not work or I would have not picked up if it did. Thanks again to God, the recovery programs and fellowship of AA and NA and all of you who show up at these meetings to share what worked for you with a desperate dying addict like me. Very simple.....is it not????
Jerry
Monday, April 20, 2015
Well.....I'm Still Alive!!! So where was I ?? Oh Yea...I remember
What a ride!! Yet another one just as weird and getting stranger!! Just like always...lol.
I am officially Hep C Free!! YAY!! The cirrhosis is still as strong as ever but my liver has decided to fight back. It's making new cells which make new healthy tissue daily. Re-generating if you will..or that is the word my shocked docs are saying... kinda have a war going on with itself...Reminds me of another little condition I have. Addiction!! lol....The war in my head has spread to my liver..lol wow! I have the strangest shit happen to me....never a dull moment thats for sure.
Have tons of things to get out of my addicted brain and put it down here....have to make room for the Good Stuff to find a place to occupy my thoughts. writting down the junk always helps make room for the good to dwell. Its an excellent tool for this addict.
More to follow cause I have things that need to be removed from my addict brain!! Right at this moment ...2:38 a.m. CST im actually sleepy.,,,,
I am officially Hep C Free!! YAY!! The cirrhosis is still as strong as ever but my liver has decided to fight back. It's making new cells which make new healthy tissue daily. Re-generating if you will..or that is the word my shocked docs are saying... kinda have a war going on with itself...Reminds me of another little condition I have. Addiction!! lol....The war in my head has spread to my liver..lol wow! I have the strangest shit happen to me....never a dull moment thats for sure.
Have tons of things to get out of my addicted brain and put it down here....have to make room for the Good Stuff to find a place to occupy my thoughts. writting down the junk always helps make room for the good to dwell. Its an excellent tool for this addict.
More to follow cause I have things that need to be removed from my addict brain!! Right at this moment ...2:38 a.m. CST im actually sleepy.,,,,
ONE PILL.......or........TWELVE STEPS ?????? Just Keep It Simple...That Part Is ALREADY Proven
Who needs AA when you've got naltrexone? Anyone with a screaming void in their core that they've filled with alcohol, of course. People have strong feelings about Alcoholics Anonymous--it's that program we love or hate, it's everything or it's nothing. A recent Atlantic article that lauded the drug naltrexone while denigrating 12-step recovery is part of the growing firestorm of anti-Alcoholics Anonymousism.
Naltrexone was developed 20 years ago to treat drug addiction because of the way it competed with opium, heroin, and morphine for the opioid receptors in the brain--those tiny little receptors that can bring you oh-so-much pleasure, or so much pain. Based on the theory that if it could also stop the endorphins released by alcohol from reaching those same opiate receptors, it would reduce your urge to drink and gradually your cravings would subside. You'd learn to control your consumption and be free of your alcoholism, right?
But craving Georgi or Jameson isn't the problem. Stopping is not the problem. And really, even drinking is not the problem. Drinking, as every alcoholic knows, was the solution. Alcohol helped us feel whatever it was we didn't: brave, beautiful, handsome, smart, funny, enough, attractive, older, younger, bigger...better. Even those of us who wound up vomiting it all up on ourselves remembered the part where it made us feel better for a while. When it worked, booze made the pain go away. It made us more of who we wanted to be.
Most alcoholics don't even start thinking about rehab, or detox, or AA until the day comes when they drink and it doesn't work. When that happens, if you're an alcoholic, you'll take another drink, and another, and another because if the booze has really stopped working, it's just you and that overflowing barge of shame and garbage and fear floating around inside you. When the booze stops working, you are left with no way to quell that screaming void in your core. That, my friend, is a problem.
Naltrexone stops the booze from working--it speeds up the inevitable.
You can't take away a person's solution--even one that doesn't work anymore--without offering them something else, some other way to handle whatever the problem was that left booze as the solution. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't claim to be the only way to stop drinking for everyone, but for millions of alcoholics AA has been that something else that has made the post-booze difference between a life worth living and one that is not. The spiritual aspect of AA--what detractors label religious or cultish--the part that all the finger-pointing always seems to focus on, is not necessarily religion or prayer. Some recovering alcoholics are active in organized religion, attending services at their church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others find they're more comfortable with something smaller or more intimate such as private prayer, a regular yoga practice, nature walks, meditation, or music.
It can be as simple as being part of a recovery community--a gathering together with people who are alike in one essential way: they understand what it feels like to need a drink, several drinks, something, anything, to get through, sometimes, something as simple as putting on your makeup. When people of like purpose gather together, they're stronger. That's simply a fact. You see it in the success of everything from cancer support groups and bereavement groups to armies. Recovering alcoholics in AA come together in that place where no matter what our outside circumstances, our inner lives intersect. This is the place in our lives where we need support, we learn to accept someone else's experience and advice, where we come to know for sure that we're not the only one out there struggling with fear, darkness, alcohol, self-loathing or self-doubt.
You'd better believe if we could do it alone, we would. If we could take a pill, or an injection, or slap on a patch and be done with it, we would. What's missing from most medical equations is that "bridge back to life" part those AAers are always going on about. What the alcoholic needs help with more than putting down the drink is living life without the drink. Sans buffer between ourselves and the outside world, and even more so, between ourselves and our inner world. The inability to be in one's own skin is a hallmark of the stories you hear repeated when you listen to alcoholics talk about life without a drink. The drink enabled us to do that, wear our own skin out in the world.
In general, alcoholics haven't a single clue how to just be in a social situation without booze, or pot, or Valium or something; how to be comfortable in their own skin and not drown in self-hate or shame. Alcoholics Anonymous is a set of instructions for how to get through the process, heal, and then pass the knowledge on by helping someone else going through the same thing. Those instructions are best passed on through the community--the fellowship--of recovering alcoholics who have already done the work. More than a century before Bill Wilson met Dr. Bob Smith, before either of them were even born, Native Americans had "sobriety circles" and encouraged recovering alcoholics to come together and get in touch with their ancestral heritage and beliefs. They understood that the alcoholic needs something bigger to believe in to stay sober, and bigger is only defined as bigger than the alcoholic themselves. The "we" part of the equation.
The program of AA as written down in the Big Book was the culmination of centuries of trial and error. There have always been cures and solutions--and what the right answer is depends on who you ask, and when.
oAncient Greeks crafted wine glasses from amethysts believing that the gemstone would keep them from getting drunk. #AncientGreekFail
oInebriate asylums combined forced abstinence with opium, morphine, cocaine, ether, and chloroform to treat alcoholics and addicts in the 1860s. #BetterLivingThruChemistry #Fail
oThe option of pre-frontal lobotomies as a cure began in 1935. Think: Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. #RandallMcMurphyFail
oThe mid-1900s gave birth to Hazelden, the Minnesota Model, and the introduction of barbiturates, amphetamines, and hallucinogenics to treat alcoholism, as well as aversion therapy with Antabuse. The Hazelden model has worked for a lot of people, but better living through the wonders of LSD? #TimothyLearyFail
Designed to take you one step at a time, like babies learning to walk for the first time, each step builds on the one before, to a life worth living. Only the very first of those steps even mentions alcohol. That's where we admit we're screwed, we've fucked it all up, possibly beyond repair and redemption. We know we can't fix it, can't fix ourselves, and quickly, or slowly, we take a second step and begin to believe that someone or something outside of us can fix our crazy.
And then, that giant third step, saying okay to that someone or something. Allowing ourselves a little bit of trust for maybe the first time in years and meaning it, even if hesitantly, we let go of having to engineer every little goddamned thing in the world, in our lives. We stop fighting--we know we've lost the war. Like Chinese handcuffs, the harder we fought, the harder it was to escape, but once we start to loosen our grip, everything around us relaxed. We surrender and we begin to be free.
That freedom is found not in conquering our alcoholism, but in discovering a way to be right-sized in the world, the willingness to be a worker among workers, being neither above nor below anyone--being humble rather than humiliated. Getting comfortable in our own skin is a result of helping others and being of service in the world. Practicing being honest with ourselves and others to the best of our ability. We are reminded constantly--in meetings, by our sponsors, by the literature, and our community--to live in the now, neither obsessing about past mistakes nor living in some imagined future glory or destruction. Being right here, where we are. Look down. See those feet? That's where you are. We reach out to hold someone's hand, and we let them hold ours. Share a laugh, a story, our trepidation, or confusion, over a cup of coffee with someone we just met and feel like we've known forever.
We come together to learn how to be together.
Putting down the drink? Hell, we'd put down that drink every time we passed out. Don't Drink. Go to Meetings. Help Another Alcoholic. Drugs like naltrexone can probably help with the first part of that standard AA chant, but it's also where the help ends. Unless "combined with counseling or interventions like Alcoholics Anonymous," medical treatments only offer short-term crisis intervention for the alcoholic.
With nothing else in his arsenal, the alcoholic will do one of three options: Go right back to drinking; pick up something else; or lose his mind.
Jodi Sh. Doff has written for Bust, Cosmopolitan, xoJane and Penthouse among many other publications. Her last pieces for The Fix were about non-celebrity overdoses, the Hangover Club and powdered booze.
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