Living sober (8 page)

Interestingly, several of the methods already discussed for avoiding a drink have also worked splendidly for getting over the inner discomfort we suffer when angry. For instance, when we begin to simmer inside, it sometimes helps a great deal to take a few bites of something good to eat, or a glass of a sweetened, non-intoxicating beverage.

It's also remarkably effective, when we begin to get teed off at something, to pick up the phone and talk about it to our sponsor or to other recovered alcoholics. And it pays to pause and consider whether or not we may be overtired. If so, we've found that some rest often dissipates rage.

Repeatedly, simply pondering "Live and Let Live" cools our temper.

Or we may shift quickly to an activity that has nothing to do with the source of our anger—work it off with some lively exercise—lose it in listening to our favorite music.

For many of us, contemplating the ideas of the Serenity Prayer blows away our hostility. Often, whatever we are mad about turns out to be something we cannot possibly control or change (traffic jams, the weather, long supermarket lines, for example), so the sensible, mature thing to do is just accept it, rather than boil inside fruitlessly or turn to alcohol.

Of course, at times we are resentful of a circumstance in our life that can, and should, be changed.

Maybe we
should
quit a job and get a better one, or get a divorce, or move the family to a different neighborhood. If so, such a decision needs to be made carefully, not in haste or anger. So we still should cool down first. Then maybe we can give some calm, constructive thought to figuring out whether our resentment is directed at something we can change. To double-check this, see the section on the Serenity Prayer, page 18.

Sometimes, it isn't long resentment we must deal with, but a sudden, consuming rage. The 24-hour plan (page 5) and "First Things First" (page 32) have helped many of us cope with such a rage, although we didn't see how they possibly could until we actually tried them—and got surprisingly good results.

Another effective remedy for anger is the "as if" idea. We decide how a mature, truly well-balanced person would ideally handle a resentment like ours, then act
as
»/we were that person. Have a go at it a few times. It works, too.

And for many of us, so does the professional guidance of a good counselor of some sort, a psychiatrist or other physician, or a clergyman.

We can also find an outlet in harmless physical action. The exercise already mentioned, deep breathing, a hot soak, and (in private) pounding a chair or a cushion and yelling have all relieved anger for lots of people.

Simply repressing, glossing over, or damming up anger rarely seems advisable. Instead, we try to learn not to act
on
it, but to do something
about
it. If we don't, we increase enormously our chances of drinking.

As laymen who know simply our own experience, we recovered alcoholics have no laboratory knowledge or scientific theories about these matters. But few people who have ever had a hangover could forget how unreasonably irritable it makes you feel. Sometimes, we took it out on family members, fellow workers, friends, or strangers who certainly had not earned our displeasure. That tendency can hang around awhile after we start staying sober, the way wraiths of stale smoke do in a closed-up barroom, reminding us of drinking days—until we do a good mental housecleaning.

16 Being good to yourself

When a loved one or a dear friend of ours is recuperating from a serious illness, we generally try to give what good nurses call T.L.C. (Tender Loving Care). We pamper a sick child, providing favorite foods and some fun to help in recovery.

Convalescence from the illness of active alcoholism takes some time, and anyone going through it deserves consideration and a measure of T.L.C.

In times past, people often believed that those recovering from certain ailments just deserved to suffer, since it was thought they had deliberately, selfishly inflicted the sickness on themselves.

Because of the guilt and stigma still laid on alcoholism by people who are ignorant of the nature of the disease (including ourselves before we learned better), many of us were not very kind to ourselves in the throes of a hangover. We just suffered and thought of ourselves as "paying the piper" in necessary penance for our misdeeds.

Now that we know alcoholism is not immoral behavior, we have found it essential to readjust our attitudes. We have learned that one of the persons
least
likely to treat the alcoholic like a sick person is, somewhat surprisingly, the alcoholic herself (or himself). Once again, our old thinking habits are cropping up.

It's often said that problem drinkers are perfectionists, impatient about any shortcomings, especially our own. Setting impossible goals for ourselves, we nevertheless struggle fiercely to reach these unattainable ideals.

Then, since no human being could possibly maintain the extremely high standards we often demand, we find ourselves falling short, as all people must whose aims are unrealistic. And discouragement and depression set in. We angrily punish ourselves for being less than super-perfect.

That is precisely where we can start being good—at least fair—to ourselves. We would not demand of a child or of any handicapped person more than is reasonable. It seems to us we have no right to expect such miracles of ourselves as recovering alcoholics, either.

Impatient to get completely well by Tuesday, we find ourselves still convalescing on Wednesday, and start blaming ourselves. That's a good time to back off, mentally, and look at ourselves in as detached, objective a way as we can. What would we do if a sick loved one or friend got discouraged about slow recuperation progress, and began to refuse medicine?

It helps to remember that heavy drinking is highly damaging to the body, producing conditions which can take months or years to get over. No one becomes an alcoholic in just a few weeks (well,
almost
no one). We cannot expect to recover in a magic instant, either.

When feelings of discouragement come, we then need to encourage ourselves. More than one of us have found it good medicine to give ourselves a pat on the back, to salute the progress already made—without being smug or dangerously egotistical about it, of course.

Take stock. Have we refrained from taking a drink this 24 hours? That deserves honest self-commendation. Have we made ourselves eat properly today? Have we tried to fulfill our obligations today? Have we, in short, done about the best we could, and all we could, today? If so, that's all it is fair to expect.

Maybe we can't answer yes to all those questions. Maybe we have fallen short somehow, backslid a bit in our thinking or actions, despite knowing better. So what? We are not perfect creatures. We should settle for small progress, rather than bemoan any lack of perfection.

What can we do right now to cheer ourselves up? We can do something
other
than take a drink.

Every section of this booklet makes suggestions of that sort.

But there is more, perhaps. Have we been enjoying life lately? Or have we been so concerned about getting better, kept our nose so earnestly near the grindstone of self-improvement, that we have failed to enjoy a sunset? A new moon? A good meal? A needed holiday from care? A good joke?

Some affection?

Since the body seeks to normalize itself, maybe yours will welcome opportunities for needed rest.

Enjoy deliciously drowsy naps, or good, long nights of peaceful slumber. Or perhaps you have left-over energy you can use in pure fun and enjoyment. As much as other aspects of life, these seem necessary for fulfilling our entire human potential.

Now is the time, the only time there is. And if we are not kind to ourselves right now, we certainly cannot rightfully expect respect or consideration from others.

We have found we can enjoy, sober, every good thing we enjoyed while drinking—and many, many more. It takes a little practice, but the rewards more than make up for the effort. To do so is not selfish, but self-protective. Unless we cherish our own recovery, we cannot survive to become unselfish, ethical, and socially responsible people.

17 Looking out for over elation

A great many drinkers (whether alcoholics or not) change an internal state of discomfort to one of enjoyment by the single act of taking a drink. This method of fleeing from pain to pleasure has been described as "escape drinking."

But thousands and thousands of us know that often we were already in a happy frame of mind when we took a drink. In fact, when we review our drinking records carefully, large numbers of us can see that we often drank in order to intensify an already jubilant mood.

This experience gives rise to our next suggestion, which is: Be especially cautious during moments of celebration or times of just feeling extraordinarily good.

When things are going great, so well you feel almost on a nonalcoholic high—look out! At such times (even after several years of sobriety), the thought of a drink may seem quite natural, and the misery of our old drinking days temporarily dims. Just one drink begins to seem less threatening, and we start thinking that it wouldn't be fatal, or even harmful.

Sure enough,
one
would not be—for the average person. But our experience with a drinking problem shows us what that one supposedly harmless, fateful drink would do to us
un
average people. Sooner or later, it would persuade us that one more could do no damage, either. Then how about a couple more?...

Ceremonial, celebratory drinking seems particularly tempting to some of us when we have valid cause for exhilaration among jovial drinking relatives or friends who can drink safely. Their imbibing seems to exert social pressure on us to try to do likewise.

Perhaps this is because taking a shot of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) has so long been closely associated in our culture with fun and good times (as well as some mournful events). The connections in our mind can persist even long after we have learned we do not
have
to drink any more.

We know now that there are many ways we can fend off this social pressure to drink, as described on page 67. Briefly, let us just be reminded that no situation gives us a "dispensation" from our alcoholism, the illness that is activated as soon as we start ingesting alcohol at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.

For some of us, the impulse to take a joyful drink when we are feeling particularly good is even more insidious when there is no particular event to celebrate, and no particular social pressure to drink. It can occur at the most unexpected times, and we may never understand the reasons for it.

We have learned now not to panic when the thought of a drink comes into the mind. After all, it is a natural thought for anyone to have in modern times, and especially understandable for those of us who have had extensive practice in the art.

But the
thought
of a drink is not necessarily the same thing as the
desire
for one, and neither need plunge us into gloom or fear. Both can be viewed simply as warning bells to remind us of the perils of alcoholism. The perils are forever, even when we feel so fine that we wonder whether it's really all right for anyone to feel as good as we do, now.

18 'Easy Does It'

Have you just this minute finished reading the previous section, and are you now rushing right into this one? Why? It may be that you need to put into practice the slogan "Easy Does It."

As alcoholics, we often tended to gulp drinks faster than other people did. And we were seldom likely to overlook the last few drops in the cocktail glass, or the last few slugs in the bottle.

Many of us have been amused at our seeming inability, even after many years of sobriety, to walk away from a half-finished cup of coffee or glass of soda. We sometimes find ourselves gulping the last swallow of a nonalcoholic drink, as if. . .

Perhaps most readers already get the point: It is not always easy for us to put down an unfinished page, chapter, or book we are reading. There seems to be almost a compulsion to go on to the end, instead of taking only a page or a chapter or two a day and leaving the rest for another session. Not that this tendency is altogether bad. In getting over a destructive obsession such as drinking, it's sensible to replace it with a benign one, such as a compulsion to seek more and more knowledge and help for a drinking problem.

So read on, if you like. It's a whole lot healthier than boozing.

But when you reach the end of this section, you might want to try something. Put this book aside and review your day. See how many times you could have slowed down a bit or taken things a little easier if you had thought of it.

The slogan "Easy Does If is one way we AA's remind each other that many of us have tendencies at times to overdo things, to rush heedlessly along, impatient with anything that slows us down. We find it hard to relax and savor life.

When one of us is in a dither to get something done or get somewhere in a hurry, a friend may gently remonstrate, "'Easy Does It,' remember?" Then there's often a flash of annoyance at the adviser. And that indicates the advice must have hit home, wouldn't you say?

Yes, we know that impatience today is by no means limited to alcoholics. As the rate of change in our civilization accelerates, more and more people feel pressed for time and harried to hurry up and catch up with... With what? With whom?

Such pressure does not push most drinkers into alcoholism, as anyone can see. Only a small percentage of drinkers develop our problem. But those of us who did often find we share a need to learn how to relax, how to pace ourselves in a healthy way, how to enjoy small gains and even the simple pleasures along the way—in short, how to enjoy the journey, instead of just fretting until we reach our destination. The horizon stays there. Sometimes, it pays to stand still and gaze at it, for the refreshment of the long look.

Some of us repeatedly find, too, that we have bitten off more than even a hippo could chew. We keep taking on more commitments than any one person could handle.