My reply:
hi [name redacted],
Tough question, or so it may seem, but i'm not so sure...
First, the things i'll write here are my opinions, and are not terribly authoritative as an end all way to think about your circumstances.
Second, i don't know that much about your experiences or what you're going through at the moment, so i reserve the right to be wrong ... it's what i do best anyway.
i think you must have some desire, or you wouldn't even be asking the question.
My experience is pretty much reflected in The Doctor's Opinion from the "big book" ... when i kept on drinking, i experienced a few certain things; "...the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. ...
"Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over (for me, over and over and over and over and over...), and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery."
Sorry, i don't mean to be a book thumper, it's just i've never heard the process i went through put so succinctly.
>The cravings eventually became stronger over a long period of time,
>my problems got more difficult to deal with,
>after a while i started to believe the BS between my ears, mainly because i got used to lying to those around me and especially to myself,
>i turned into a mean drunk, and
>eventually i lost nearly all hope, along with just about every other material thing that ever mattered to me, including my family ... i had always wanted to be a father, and now that i've become older, i've had to give up that desire, too. My dad was a little older than i am when i was born, so i discovered how difficult it is for a kid to relate to a dad that's so old, and i refuse to put a child through what i went through growing up.
If the choice is to struggle and relapse periodically, or just to say screw it and wait 'till your life goes to total poop before you become willing to take on the struggle (which only becomes more difficult with time), i say you stand a better chance of living through this thing by continuing the struggle now ... who knows? You just might get this recovery thing going on before you have to loose almost everything dear to you in life like i did.
Personally, i think that would be a good thing.
When the cravings come don't even try to fight it by yourself. Run the h*ll? away from it! Get your butt to a meeting, go have coffee with someone sober, call someone, try to do something different than what has failed before ... put a plan in place and work on following it. There is no dishonor in running away from a fight you can't win by yourself anyway.
Would folks think i was being honorable standing up in the boxing ring and letting Mike Tyson kill my dumb ass? Nope, they'd just be thinking what an idiot i am, and they'd be absolutely right.
Believe me when i say there is no honor in the stench of death. Honor is something we usually misuse to justify the stupidity of war, and the struggle of alcoholism is, in my experience, one of the purest forms of spiritual combat. The only way to win is simply to do whatever it takes to survive ... whatever it takes not to get loaded. The most effective weapon, in fact the only weapon i've found that works at all, is love.
Love yourself enough to keep trying today.
We'll get knocked down doing this recovery thing X number of times ... the only way to do it right is to get back up X+1 times.
e-hug
"Pride is an abomination. One must forego the self to obtain total spiritual
creaminess, and avoid the chewy chunks of degradation." -Ace Ventura
