31 December 2018

#ADDICTION "... Couldn't Get Any Worse" & then it DID


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I could not have been convinced "before I quit drinking that I would ever quit. I sort of imagined myself as some ancient, noble Eskimo, wandering off into the northern lights with bottle in hand to die some unknown, tragic, heroic and drunken death. I romanticized my disease when I was drinking until the reality got so bad that the romance had to die, with me following on its coattails. At each step in my slow, downward progression I would tell myself that it couldn't get any worse and that however bad I was, it wasn't anything that another drink couldn't fix. But it did and could and would always get worse. Never would I think to stop drinking. Attempts to modify my drinking to a more reasonable amount of consumption failed on a nightly basis. My resolve dissolved. My 'Drinking Man's Guide to Bar Exercise' lost all momentum on the stillness of my barstool."
It wasn't until I got sober that I realized how common the "it couldn't get any worse" phenomenon is. I was not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone.
Conjugate your sobriety. I, you, he, she, we, you and they know what 'it' is.
"It couldn't get any worse" and then it did. Don't drink and I, you, he, she, we, you and they will get better.
Seemingly, 'it' (alcohol) will survive beyond any 20 million suns, but I, I, cannot survive with 'it.'
My drink is broken.
Truer words have ne'er been spoken!
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"Nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
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#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
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Passages in quotes are excerpted from ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal (on Amazon.com) http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO 
Recovery Tweets here: http://twitter.com/JimAnders4

Pie-Eyed, Plastered, Tipsy, Tanked & Toasted (& Other Euphemisms that no longer apply to me)


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I DO NOT GO TO PARTIES - if what you mean by parties is drunken brawls where I am expected to drink myself unconscious. I no longer celebrate by drinking everyone under the table.
You may know dozens or hundreds who let their hair down by drinking like a fish....
Bob no longer paints the town red, pie-eyed, plastered and pissing into the wind.
Bill doesn't swill one drink after the other until he is blotto.
Lois no longer waits up for her husband to return from a night of clubbing drunk as a skunk, shit-faced.
We (yes, there are many of us) no longer get tipsy, tanked and toasted.
You may love to get hammered, sloshed and snockered, but, I DO NOT GO TO PARTIES, if what you mean by parties is getting obliterated beyond recognition.
Recognize this: I am an alcoholic in long-term recovery and I love to party, but not that way. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I am not a social drinker. I have an allergy to alcohol whereby I break out... in handcuffs. 
You? You may do all of the above, remembering that for those of us who don't "nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
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#Alcoholism #Addiction #Recovery
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You may also enjoy reading ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal (on Amazon.com) http://amzn.to/1bX6JyO
Recovery Tweets: http://twitter.com/JimAnders4
99+ Recovery Posts on LinkedIn: https://goo.gl/fmzt9b