20 Remembering your last drunk
That’s not a typographical error. The word is “drunk,” not “drink,”
as you’ll see.
“A drink” is a term which has awakened pleasurable echoes and
anticipations in millions of people for centuries.
Depending on our age, and on the circumstances which surrounded
our first experiences with alcohol, we all have various memories and
hopes (sometimes, anxieties) aroused by the thought of a cool beer, a
martini, a gin and tonic, a Scotch and soda, a sip of wine, or whatever.
Repeatedly, in the early drinking of most people, the anticipations
were fully met by the desired drink. And if that happened often enough,
we naturally learned to think of “a drink” as a satisfying event—whether
it gratified our need to conform to a religious custom, quenched our
thirst, graced a social occasion, relaxed us, stimulated us, or gave us
any other kind of satisfaction we sought.
It is not difficult for a 55-year-old Finn, for example, when he hears
someone suggest a drink, to recall the flush of warmth that a shot of
vodka or aquavit brought on a cold day in his youth.
One young woman may instantly visualize an elegant crystal glass of
champagne, glamorous surroundings, new clothes, a new lover. Another
may think of a pull from a bagged bottle toted by the long-bearded
youth in denim at her side while the music rocks, the strobe lights flash
through the sweet smoke, and everybody screams in ecstasy.
One A.A. member says “a drink” makes him almost taste pizza with
a brew. A 78-year-old widow among us is inevitably reminded of the
sherry eggnogs she began to like at bedtime in a nursing home.
Although perfectly natural, such mental images are now, for us,
misleading. Those were the ways some of us began to drink, and if that
had been the whole truth of our drinking history, it is unlikely that we
could have developed much of a drinking problem.
A searching, fearless look at our complete drinking record, however,
shows that in the last years and months our drinking never created those
perfect, magic moments again, no matter how often we tried for them.
Instead, over and over, we wound up drinking more than that,
and landed in some kind of trouble as a result. Maybe it was simply
inner discontent, a sneaky feeling that we were drinking too much, but
sometimes it was marital squabbles, job problems, serious illness or
accidents, or legal or financial worries.
Therefore, when the suggestion of “a drink” comes to us, we now try
to remember the whole train of consequences of starting with just “a
50 LIVING SOBER
drink.” We think the drink all the way through, down to our last miser-
able drunk and hangover.
A friend who offers us a drink usually means simply that one sociable
glass or two. But if we are careful to recall the full suffering of our last
drinking episode, we are not deceived by our own long-ago notion of “a
drink.” The blunt, physiological truth for us, as of today, is that a drink
pretty surely means a drunk sooner or later, and that spells trouble.
Drinking for us no longer means music and gay laughter and flirta-
tions. It means sickness and sorrow.
One A.A. member puts it this way: “I know now that stopping in for
a drink will never again be—for me—simply killing a few minutes and
leaving a buck on the bar. In exchange for that drink, what I would plunk
down now is my bank account, my family, our home, our car, my job, my
sanity, and probably my life. It’s too big a price, too big a risk.”
He remembers his last drunk, not his first drink.
21 Avoiding dangerous drugs and medications*
Mankind’s use of various chemicals to change moods and alter feel-
ings is ancient and widespread. Ethyl alcohol was probably the first of
such chemicals, and may have always been the most widely popular
drug for this use.
Some drugs have legitimate value and are beneficial when admin-
istered by knowledgeable physicians if used solely as directed, and
discontinued when they are no longer a medical necessity.
As A.A. members—not physicians—we are certainly not qualified
to recommend any medications. Nor are we qualified to advise anyone
not to take a prescribed medication.
What we can do responsibly is to offer only our personal experience.
Drinking became, for many of us, a sort of self-medication. We often
drank to feel better and to feel less sick.
And thousands of us used other substances to “feel better,” too. We
discovered stimulants that seemed to counteract the effects of a hang-
over or relieve our depression (until they let us down, too), sedatives
and tranquilizers that could substitute for the alcohol and calm our
nerves, prescription and over-the-counter medications and pain killers
LIVING SOBER 51
*See also Appendix—excerpt from A.A. Conference-approved pamphlet, “The A.A.
Member—Medications and Other Drugs.”
(many of which were called “nonaddictive” or “not habit-forming”) that
helped us sleep or gave us extra energy or loosened our inhibitions or
relieved our pain with an exquisite surge of bliss.
Potentially, this strong desire, almost a need, for such psychoactive
(mind-affecting) mood-changers can be embedded root-deep in any-
body who is much of a drinker.
Even if, technically, in pharmacological terms, a drug is not an
addictive one, we can easily get habituated to it and dependent on it, we
have repeatedly found. Some of us believe we have “addictive person-
alities,” and our experience gives reinforcing support to that concept
So we go to great lengths to avoid all commonly abused drugs—
such as marijuana, “meth,” barbiturates, “crack,” cocaine, oxycodone,
Vicodin, “acid,” “tranks,” “Ectasy,” heroin, “poppers”—and even many
over-the-counter remedies and herbal supplements.
Even to those of us who never got hooked on any of them, it is clear
that they represent a real potential danger, for we have seen it demon-
strated over and over and over again. Drugs will often reawaken the old
craving for “oral magic,” or some kind of high, or peace. And if we get
by with using them once or twice, it often seems ever so much easier
to pick up a drink.
The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is not an antidrug or
antimarijuana lobby. As a whole, we take no moral or legal position
either for or against any other substance. (Every member of A.A.,
though, is entitled, like any other adult, to hold any opinion on these
matters, and to take any action that seems right to him or to her.)
This is somewhat similar to A.A. members’ position—or probably
“non-position” is more accurate—on booze and drinking. As a fellowship,
we are not antialcohol or against drinking for the millions of people who
can use it without causing any harm, either to themselves or to others.
Some (but not all) of us who have been sober a while are quite will-
ing to serve drinks in our homes to our nonalcoholic guests. To drink
or not is their right. Not to drink, or to drink if we choose, is equally
our right, and we have no quarrel with what other people do. We have
generally concluded, for ourselves only, that drinking is not good for
us, and we have found ways of living without it which we much prefer
to our drunken days.
Not all, but quite a few recovered alcoholics find that their body
chemistry has become permanently tolerant to painkilling drugs, so
they have to have extra large doses when an analgesic or anesthetic is
required for medical purposes.
Some of us report adverse reactions to local anesthetics (such
as Novocain) injected by a dentist. At the least, we leave the chair
extremely nervous, and the condition may last quite a while, unless we
52 LIVING SOBER
can lie down a bit to let it wear off. (The company of another recovered
alcoholic is soothing at such times.)
Other recovered alcoholics report no such adverse reactions. No one
has any idea how to predict in which instances such reactions will occur.
Anyhow, it is surely wise to tell our doctor, dentist, and hospital anesthesi-
ologist the whole truth about our former drinking (and pilltaking, if any),
just as we make sure they know other facts about our health history.
The two following accounts seem to be typical of A.A. members’ expe-
riences with psychotropic (mind-affecting) drugs other than alcohol.
One of us, sober almost thirty years, decided he wanted to try pot,
which he had never touched before. So he did. He enjoyed the effects
and for months was able to use it on social occasions without any
problem at all, he felt. Then someone said a small sip of wine made the
effect even better, and he tried that, too, without even thinking about
his bad history of alcoholism. After all, he was having only one sip of
a very light wine.
Within a month, he was drinking heavily and realized he was again
in the thrall of acute alcoholism.
We could put a hundred or so dittos under that tale, with only
small modifications. It is a pleasure to report that this particular fellow
sobered up, also gave up the weed, and has now been totally pot- and
booze-free for two years. He is again a happy, active sober alcoholic,
enjoying his A.A. life.
Not all who have similarly experimented with marijuana have
made it back into sobriety. For some of these A.A. members, whose
pot-smoking likewise led them to start drinking again, their original
addiction progressed to the point of death.
The other story is that of a young woman, sober ten years, who was
hospitalized for serious surgery. Her physician, who was an expert on
alcoholism, told her it would be necessary after the surgery to give her
a small dose of morphine once or twice for the pain, but he assured her
she wouldn’t need it any longer after that. This woman had never in her
life used anything stronger than one aspirin tablet, for a rare headache.
The second night after the operation, she asked her doctor for one
more dose of the morphine. She had already had the two. “Are you in
pain?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. Then she added in complete innocence, “But I
might be later.”
When he grinned at her, she realized what she had said, and what
it apparently meant. Her mind and body in some way were already
craving the drug.
She laughed and did without it, and has had no such desire since.
Five years later, she is still sober and healthy. She occasionally tells
LIVING SOBER 53
of the incident at A.A. meetings to illustrate her own belief that a per-
manent “addiction proneness” persists even during sobriety in anyone
who has ever had a drinking problem.
So most of us try to make sure any physician or dentist who serves
us understands our personal history accurately, and is sufficiently knowl-
edgeable about alcoholism to understand our risk with medications.
And we are wary of what we take on our own; we steer away from
cough syrups with alcohol, codeine, or bromides, and from all those
assorted smokes, powders, synthetic painkillers, liquids, and vapors
that are sometimes freely handed around by unauthorized pharmacists
or amateur anesthesiologists.
Why take a chance?
It is not at all difficult, we find, to skip such risky brushes with disas-
ter—purely on grounds of health, not of morality. Through Alcoholics
Anonymous, we have found a drug-free way of life which, to us, is far more
satisfying than any we ever experienced with mood-changing substances.
The chemical “magic” we felt from alcohol (or substitutes for it) was
all locked within our own heads, anyhow. Nobody else could share the
pleasant sensations inside us. Now, we enjoy sharing with one another in
A.A.—or with anybody outside A.A.—our natural, undoped happiness.
In time, the nervous system becomes healthy and thoroughly con-
ditioned to the absence of mood-changing drugs. When we feel more
comfortable without them than we felt while we were using them, we
come to accept and trust our normal feelings, whether high or low.
Then we have the strength to make healthful, independent deci-
sions, relying less on impulse or the chemically triggered urge for
immediate satisfaction. We can see and consider more aspects of
a situation than before, can delay gratification for the sake of more
enduring, long-term benefits, and can better weigh, not only our own
welfare, but also that of others we care for.
Chemical substitutes for life simply do not interest us any more, now
that we know what genuine living is.
22 Eliminating self-pity
This emotion is so ugly that no one in his or her right mind wants to
admit feeling it. Even when sober, many of us remain clever at hiding
from ourselves the fact that we are in a mess of self-pity. We do not like
54 LIVING SOBER
at all being told that it shows, and we are quick to argue that we are
experiencing some other emotion—not that loathsome poor-me-ism.
Or we can, in a second, find a baker’s dozen of perfectly legitimate
reasons for feeling somewhat sorry for ourselves.
Hanging over us long after detoxification is the comfortably familiar
feeling of suffering. Self-pity is an enticing swamp. Sinking into it takes
so much less effort than hope, or faith, or just plain moving.
Alcoholics are not unique in this. Everyone who can recall a child-
hood pain or illness can probably remember, too, the relief of crying
over how bad we felt, and the somewhat perverse satisfaction of
rejecting all comforting. Almost any human being, at times, can deeply
empathize with the childish whine of “Leave me alone!”
One form self-pity takes in some of us when we first get sober is:
“Poor me! Why can’t I drink like everybody else?” (Everybody?) “Why
does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to be an alcoholic?
Why me?”
Such thinking is a great ticket to a barroom, but that’s about all.
Crying over that unanswerable question is like weeping because we
were born in this era, not another, or on this planet, rather than in
some other galaxy.
Of course, it isn’t just “me” at all, we discover when we begin to meet
recovered alcoholics from all over the world.
Later on, we realize we have begun to make our peace with that
question. When we really hit our stride in an enjoyable recovery, we
may either find an answer or simply lose interest in the search. You’ll
know when that happens to you. Many of us believe we have figured
out the likely reasons for our own alcoholism. But even if we haven’t,
there remains the much more important need to accept the fact that we
cannot drink, and to act on it. Sitting in our own pool of tears is not a
very effective action.
Some people show real zeal for pressing salt into their own wounds.
A ferocious proficiency at that useless game often survives from our
drinking days.
We can also display a weird flair for expanding a minor annoyance
into a whole universe of gloom. When the mail brings a whopping
telephone bill—just one—we bemoan our constantly being in debt, and
declare it will never, never end. When a soufflé falls, we say it proves
that we never could and never will do anything right. When the new car
arrives, we say to somebody, “With my luck, it’ll be a . . .”
If you finished that statement with the name of a sour citrus, you’re
in our club.
It’s as if we carried on our back a large duffel bag stuffed with
unpleasant memories, such as childhood hurts and rejections. Twenty,
LIVING SOBER 55
even forty years later, there occurs a small setback only slightly similar
to an old one in the bag. That is our cue to sit down, unshoulder the
bag, and pull out and lovingly caress, one at a time, every old hurt and
putdown of the past. With total emotional recall, we then relive each
of them vividly, flushing with shame at childhood embarrassments,
grinding our teeth on old angers, rewording old quarrels, shivering
with nearly forgotten fear, or maybe blinking away a tear or two over a
longgone disappointment in love.
Those are fairly extreme cases of unadulterated self-pity, but not
beyond recognition by anybody who has ever had, seen, or wanted
to go on a crying jag. Its essence is total self-absorption. We can get
so stridently concerned about me-me-me that we lose touch with
virtually everyone else. It’s not easy to put up with anyone who acts
that way, except a sick infant. So when we get into the poor-me bog,
we try to hide it, particularly from ourselves. But that’s no way to
get out of it.
Instead, we need to pull out of our self-absorption, stand back, and
take a good, honest look at ourselves. Once we recognize self-pity for
what it is, we can start to do something about it other than drink.
Friends can be a great help if they’re close enough that we can
talk openly with each other. They can hear the false note in our song
of sorrow and call us on it. Or we ourselves may hear it; we begin to
get our true feelings sorted out by the simple means of expressing
them aloud.
Another excellent weapon is humor. Some of the biggest belly
laughs at A.A. meetings erupt when a member describes his or her
own latest orgy of self-pity, and we listeners find ourselves looking into
a fun-house mirror. There we are—grown men and women tangled up
in the emotional diaper of an infant. It may be a shock, but the shared
laughter takes a lot of the pain out of it, and the final effect is salutary.
When we catch self-pity starting, we also can take action against it
with instant bookkeeping. For every entry of misery on the debit side,
we find a blessing we can mark on the credit side. What health we
have, what illnesses we don’t have, what friends we have loved, the
sunny weather, a good meal a-coming, limbs intact, kindnesses shown
and received, a sober 24 hours, a good hour’s work, a good book to
read, and many other items can be totaled up to outbalance the debit
entries that cause self-pity.
We can use the same method to combat the holiday blues, which
are sung not only by alcoholics. Christmas and New Year’s, birth-
days, and anniversaries throw many other people into the morass of
self-pity. In A.A., we can learn to recognize the old inclination to con-
centrate on nostalgic sadness, or to keep up a litany of who is gone,
56 LIVING SOBER
who neglects us now, and how little we can give in comparison to rich
people. Instead, we add up the other side of the ledger, in gratitude for
health, for loved ones who are around, and for our ability to give love,
now that we live in sobriety. And again, the balance comes out on the
credit side.
23 Seeking professional help
Probably every recovered alcoholic has needed and sought profes-
sional help of the sort A.A. does not provide. For instance, the first two
A.A. members, its co-founders, needed and got help from physicians,
hospitals, and clergymen.
Once we have started staying sober, a lot of our problems seem
to disappear. But certain matters remain, or arise, which do require
expert professional attention, such as that of an obstetrician, a podia-
trist, a lawyer, a pulmonologist, a dentist, a dermatologist, or a psycho-
logical counselor of some kind.
Since A.A. does not furnish such services, we rely on the profes-
sional community for job-getting or vocational guidance, advice on
domestic relations, counseling on psychiatric problems, and many
other needs. A.A. does not give financial assistance, food, clothing, or
shelter to problem drinkers. But there are good professional agencies
and facilities particularly happy to help out an alcoholic who is sincere-
ly trying to stay sober.
One’s need for a helping hand is no sign of weakness and no cause
for shame. “Pride” that prevents one’s taking an encouraging boost
from a professional helper is phony. It is nothing but vanity, and an
obstacle to recovery. The more mature one becomes, the more willing
one is to use the best possible advice and help.
Examining “case histories” of recovered alcoholics, we can see
clearly that all of us have profited, at one time or another, from the
specialized services of psychiatrists and other physicians, nurses,
counselors, social workers, lawyers, clergymen, or other professional
people. The basic A.A. textbook, Alcoholics Anonymous, specifically
recommends (on page 72) seeking out such help. Fortunately, we have
found no conflict between A.A. ideas and the good advice of a profes-
sional with expert understanding of alcoholism.
We do not deny that alcoholics have had many unfortunate expe-
LIVING SOBER 57
riences with some professional men and women. But nonalcoholics,
since there are more of them, have had even more such experiences.
The absolutely perfect doctor, pastor, or lawyer, who never makes a
mistake, has not come along yet. And as long as there are sick people
in the world, it is likely that the time will never come when no errors
are ever committed in dealing with illness.
In fairness, we have to confess that problem drinkers are not exactly
the easiest people to help. We sometimes lie. We disobey instructions.
And when we get well, we blame the doctor for not undoing sooner the
damage we spent weeks, months, or years wreaking on ourselves. Not
all of us paid our bills promptly. And, time after time, we did our best
to sabotage good care and advice, to put the professional person “in
the wrong.” It was a cheap, false win, since in the end it was we who
suffered the consequences.
Some of us are now aware that our behavior prevented our getting
the good advice or care we really needed. One way of explaining our
contrary conduct is to say that it was dictated by our illness. Alcohol
is cunning and baffling. It can force anyone in its chains to behave in
a self-destructive manner, against his or her own better judgment and
true desires. We did not plan willfully to foul up our own health; our
addiction to alcohol was simply protecting itself against any inroads by
health agents.
If we now find ourselves sober but still trying to second-guess the
really expert professionals, it can be taken as a warning signal. Is active
alcoholism trying to sneak its way back into us?
In some instances, the conflicting opinions and recommendations
of other recovering alcoholics can make it hard for a newcomer seek-
ing good professional help. Just as nearly every person has a favorite
antidote for a hangover or remedy for the common cold, so nearly
everyone we know has favorite and unfavorite doctors.
Of course, it is wise to draw on the large bank of accumulated wis-
dom of alcoholics already well along in recovery. But what works for
others isn’t always necessarily what will work for you. Each of us has
to accept final responsibility for his or her own action or inaction. It is
up to each individual.
After you have examined the various possibilities, consulted with
friends, and considered the pros and cons, the decision to get and
use professional help is ultimately your own. To take or not to take
disulfiram (Antabuse), to go into psychotherapy, to go back to school
or change jobs, to have an operation, to go on a diet, to quit smoking,
to take or disregard your lawyer’s advice about your taxes—these are
all your own decisions. We respect your right to make them—and to
58 LIVING SOBER
change your mind when developments so warrant.
Naturally, not all medical, psychological, or other scientific experts
see exactly eye-to-eye with us on everything in this booklet. That’s per-
fectly okay. How could they? They have not had the personal, firsthand
experience we have had with alcoholism, and very few of them see as
many problem drinkers for as long as we do. Nor have we had the pro-
fessional education and discipline which prepared them for their duties.
This is not to say that they are right and we are wrong, or vice versa.
We and they have entirely different roles and responsibilities in help-
ing problem drinkers.
May you have the same good fortune in these regards that so many
of us have had. Hundreds of thousands of us are deeply grateful to the
countless professional men and women who helped us, or tried to.
24 Steering clear of emotional entanglements
Falling in love with your doctor or nurse or a fellow patient is an
old romantic story. Recovering alcoholics are susceptible to the same
fever. In fact, alcoholism does not seem to bring immunity from any
known human condition.
Sorrow is born in the hasty heart, an old saw goes. Other troubles,
including an alcoholic bout, can be, too.
During our days of bottles, cans, and glasses, many of us spent a lot
of time concerned about intimate personal ties. Whether we wanted
temporary partnerships or a long-term “meaningful relationship,” we
were often preoccupied with our deep involvement—or noninvolve-
ment —with other people.
A great many of us blamed our drinking on lack of affection, saw our-
selves as constantly in search of love, drinking as we prowled from bar
to party. Others of us apparently had all the emotional ties we needed or
wanted, but drank anyhow. Either way, alcohol certainly did not ripen
our comprehension of mature love, nor our ability to enter into and han-
dle it if it did come our way. Rather, our drinking lives left our emotional
selves pinched, scraped, bent, and bruised, if not pretty firmly warped.
So, as our experience shows, the first nondrinking days are likely
to be periods of great emotional vulnerability. Is this an extended
pharmacological effect of the drinking? Is it a natural state for any-
one recuperating from a long and severe illness? Or does it indicate
LIVING SOBER 59
a deep flaw in the personality? The answer doesn’t matter at first.
Whatever the cause, the condition is one we have to watch out for,
because it can tempt us to drink faster than the eye, head, or heart
can realize.
We have seen such relapses happen in several ways. In the early
relief and delight of getting well, we can whip up enormous crushes on
new people we meet, both in A.A. and outside it, especially when they
show genuine interest in us, or seem to gaze up at us in admiration. The
giddy rapture this can bring makes us highly susceptible to a drink.
An emotional opposite can also be the case. We may seem so numb
both physically and emotionally that we are almost immune to affection
for a while after stopping drinking. (Physically, clinicians tell us it is
common for people to have little interest or ability regarding sex for
many months after stopping drinking—a problem that is often alleviat-
ed as overall health returns.) Until we are assured that the numbness
will pass, however, going back to drinking can appear an attractive
“remedy,” which leads to even worse trouble.
Our shaky emotional condition also affects our feelings toward old
friends and family. For many of us, these relationships seem to heal
promptly as we pursue recovery. For others, there arrives a period of
touchiness at home; now that we’re sober, we have to sort out how we
actually feel about spouse, children, siblings, parents, or neighbors,
then reexamine our behavior. Fellow workers, clients, employees, or
employers also require such attention.
(Often, our drinking has had a severe emotional impact on those
closest to us, and they, too, may need help in recovering. They may turn
to Al-Anon Family Groups and Alateen [see your telephone directory].
Although these fellowships are not officially connected with A.A., they
are very similar, and they help nonalcoholic relatives and friends to live
more comfortably with knowledge about us and our condition.)
Over the years, we have become strongly convinced that almost no
important decisions should be arrived at early in our sobriety, unless
they cannot possibly be delayed. This caution particularly applies to deci-
sions about people, decisions with high emotional potential. The first,
uncertain weeks of sobriety are no time to rush into major life changes.
Another caution: Tying our sobriety to someone we are emotionally
involved with proves flatly disastrous. “I’ll stay sober if so-and-so does
this or that” puts an unhealthy condition on our recovery. We have to
stay sober for ourselves, no matter what other people do or fail to do.
We should remember, too, that intense dislike also is an emotional
entanglement, often a reversal of past love. We need to cool any over-
board feeling, lest it flip us back into the drink.
It is easy to consider yourself an exception to this generalization.
60 LIVING SOBER
Newly sober, you may earnestly believe that you have at long last found
real love—or that your present attitude of dislike, persisting even into
sobriety, means there always was something fundamentally wrong
about the relationship. In either instance, you may be right—but just
now, it’s wise to wait and see whether your attitude will change.
Again and again, we have seen such feelings change dramatically in
only a few months of sobriety. So, using “First Things First,” we have
found it helpful to concentrate first on sobriety alone, steering clear of
any risky emotional entanglements.
Immature or premature liaisons are crippling to recovery. Only after
we have had time to mature somewhat beyond merely not drinking are
we equipped to relate maturely to other people.
When our sobriety has a foundation firm enough to withstand stress,
then we are ready to work through and straighten out other aspects of
our lives.
25 Getting out of the ‘if’ trap
Emotional entanglements with people are not the only way we can
get our sobriety dangerously hooked to something extraneous. Some
of us have a tendency to put other conditions on our sobriety, without
intending to.
One A.A. member says, “We drunks* are very ‘iffy’ people. During
our drinking days, we were often full of ifs, as well as liquor. A lot of our
daydreams started out, ‘If only…’ And we were continually saying to our-
selves that we wouldn’t have gotten drunk if something or other hadn’t
happened, or that we wouldn’t have any drinking problem at all if only…”
We all followed up that last “if” with our own explanations (excuses?)
for our drinking. Each of us thought: I wouldn’t be drinking this way…
If it wasn’t for my wife (or husband or lover)…if I just had more
money and not so many debts…if it wasn’t for all these family prob-
lems…if I wasn’t under so much pressure…if I had a better job or a
better place to live…if people understood me…if the state of the world
wasn’t so lousy…if human beings were kinder, more considerate,
LIVING SOBER 61
*Some of us A.A.’s refer to ourselves as “drunks,” no matter how long we have been sober. Others
prefer “alcoholics.” There are good reasons for both terms. “Drunks” is lighthearted, tends to keep
the ego down to size, and reminds us of our proneness to drinking. “Alcoholics” is equally honest,
but more dignified and more in keeping with the now widely accepted idea that alcoholism is a
perfectly respectable illness, not just willful self-indulgence.
more honest…if everybody else didn’t expect me to drink…if it wasn’t
for the war (any war)…and on and on and on.
Looking back at this kind of thinking and our resultant behavior, we
see now that we were really letting circumstances outside ourselves
control much of our lives.
When we first stop drinking, a lot of those circumstances recede to
their proper places in our minds. At the personal level, many of them
really clear up as soon as we start staying sober, and we begin to see
what we may be able to do about the others some day. Meanwhile, our
life is much, much better sober, no matter what else may be going on.
But then, after a sober while, for some of us there comes a time
when—plop!—a new discovery slaps us in the face. That same old
“iffy” thinking habit of our drinking days has, without our seeing it,
attached itself to not drinking. Unconsciously, we have placed condi-
tions on our sobriety. We have begun to think sobriety is just fine—if
everything goes well, or if nothing goes wrong.
In effect, we are ignoring the biochemical, unchangeable nature of
our ailment. Alcoholism respects no ifs. It does not go away, not for a
week, for a day, or even for an hour, leaving us nonalcoholic and able
to drink again on some special occasion or for some extraordinary rea-
son—not even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, or if a big sorrow
hits us, or if it rains in Spain or the stars fall on Alabama. Alcoholism
is for us unconditional, with no dispensations available at any price.
It may take a little while to get that knowledge into the marrow of
our bones. And we sometimes do not recognize the conditions we have
unconsciously attached to our recovery until something goes wrong
through no fault of ours. Then—whammy!—there it is. We had not
counted on this happening.
The thought of a drink is natural in the face of a shocking disap-
pointment. If we don’t get the raise, promotion, or job we counted on,
or if our love life goes awry, or if somebody mistreats us, then we can
see that maybe all along we have been banking on circumstances to
help us want to stay sober.
Somewhere, buried in a hidden convolution of our gray matter, we
had a tiny reservation—a condition on our sobriety. And it was just
waiting to pounce. We were going along thinking, “Yep, sobriety is
great, and I intend to keep at it.” We didn’t even hear the whispered
reservation: “That is, if everything goes my way.”
Those ifs we cannot afford. We have to stay sober no matter how life
treats us, no matter whether nonalcoholics appreciate our sobriety or
not. We have to keep our sobriety independent of everything else, not
entangled with any people, and not hedged in by any possible cop-outs
or conditions.
62 LIVING SOBER
Over and over, we have found we cannot stay sober long just for the
sake of wife, husband, children, lover, parents, other relative, or friend,
nor for the sake of a job, nor to please a boss (or doctor or judge or
creditor)—not for anyone other than ourselves.
Tying up our sobriety to any person (even another recovered alco-
holic) or to any circumstance is foolish and dangerous. When we think,
“I’ll stay sober if—” or “I won’t drink because of—” (fill in any circum-
stance other than our own desire to be well, for health’s own sake), we
unwittingly set ourselves up to drink when the condition or person or
circumstance changes. And any of these may change at any moment.
Independent, unaffiliated with anything else, our sobriety can grow
strong enough to enable us to cope with anything—and everybody.
And, as you’ll see, we start liking that feeling, too.
26 Being wary of drinking occasions
We have worked out many ways of handling occasions when other
people are drinking, so that we may enjoy these occasions without
drinking.
Back on page 21, we talked about whether to keep liquor or other
alcoholic beverages in the house when we decide to stop drinking. In
that discussion, we acknowledged that we live in a society where most
people drink, and we cannot realistically expect that fact to change.
Throughout the rest of our lives, there will be drinking occasions.
Chances are, every day we will see people drinking, see drinking plac-
es, see and hear dozens of advertisements urging us to drink.
We cannot insulate ourselves against all such suggestions, and it is
futile to bemoan that fact. Nor do we have any need or wish to deprive
other people of drinking. We have also found that we do not have to forgo
the pleasure of being with companions who drink. Although it makes
sense to spend more time with nondrinkers than with drinkers when
we first start staying sober, we have no wish to withdraw from the world
forever just because so many people drink. Those who cannot eat fish
or nuts or pork or strawberries don’t crawl into caves. Why should we?
Do we go into bars, or into restaurants or clubs where liquor is served?
Yes—after a few weeks or months, when we have a legitimate reason
to be there. If we have time to kill while waiting for friends, we do not
choose to spend it perched on a barstool, swilling a cola. But if a busi-
LIVING SOBER 63
