I’m picking up on one of the comment threads on my last post, where the suggestion is made that I’ve hit upon a “formula” to come back to life as I want it, that formula being staring down the monster while it’s in the room with you, and then moving on — seeing the “relapse” as an aberration, not an excuse to go nuts again.
The formula isn’t original with me. Every diet book in the world says the same thing: if you binged on chocolate cake last night, that doesn’t have to mean you’ve blown the diet and you may as well keep binging (in preparation for that ugly death we know is awaiting). No. You accept that you had too much cake and you go back to the diet.
The difference I see between my present commitment to sobriety and my previous unsuccessful attempts at control is a) attitude (i.e., commitment) and b) the mindfulness part, where I actually stop and say, what am I doing, what does this taste like, what does this feel like, do I actually in fact really like this, am I enjoying it, do I want to do this again?
That’s how I eventually quit smoking, many, many years ago. I got conscious of whether I was actually enjoying that cigarette or not. So I gave up the cigarette I was smoking with my morning coffee because I realized I didn’t really like it at all. Then the first cigarette of the day just got later and later in the day until I was smoking only after dinner. The awareness that I didn’t like it was the key.
The issue with alcohol has been that I really, really, really, really love wine and have still — to this day — been unable to convince myself that I don’t. I love everything about it — how it looks in the glass, the aroma, the flavour, the ritual, all of it. The only thing I don’t love is that once I start I can’t stop. The breakthrough the other night was that for the first time in recent memory, I was able to actually say, hmmmm, no. I don’t like the flavour. If it had been a decent cabernet, it may have been a different story, but it wasn’t, so I’m letting it be a story about progress and breakthrough rather than relapse and failure.
Driving my own bus 
Hi Bus Driver:
One of the points Marc makes is that if the “object” is strongly desired the will to resist runs out of neurotransmitter and cuts out leading to relapse. So I note that you 4x really love wine and working with Marc’s model it seems that you might want to dislodge those “reallys” one at a time any way.
I am interested in the idea that understanding how the brain actually functions in terms of nuts and bolts mechanism opens the possibility of driving a wedge in at a critical point as a rational scheme rather than willpower, a lot less emphasis on will anyway. My experience with willpower is that it might fail you due to exhaustion or you can blow yourself up by simply amping the competing force.
I think that depression can be triggered more readily by the dogged determination model. You might not relapse but grind yourself into a ultra fine depressed flour this way :-).
This is a real problem for me especially as I am older now and a “plan” requires less energy, now in shorter supply, than the struggle by force approach.
You are posting excellently and I am taking the lessons down carefully for later study and reflection, Thank You!
You’re so right on the money, Mike! Good point about dislodging the “reallys”! I think the wine the other evening might actually have done that. I remembered that my tastes are pretty specific and pretty, um, expensive, and what I was drinking was not cutting it. And yeah, I was so struggling with depression too, definitely in that “depressed flour” state! — a whole other story, and I’m not sure which is the cart and which is the horse (or is it chicken and egg? I always get those mixed up). Was I depressed because I was struggling with not drinking or was I struggling with not drinking because I was already depressed? In any case, by the time I had the glass in my hand, it didn’t matter anymore. It was just classic ego fatigue just like Marc says (btw not only strongly desired but available, which I think is the key — the old out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing).
I think you’re really on to something, too, with the notion of “driving a wedge in at a critical point” (I like the way you put that). I agree, willpower alone isn’t enough. (I know this for a fact — I tried that and failed at it for YEARS). I like the idea of setting up a system to keep you succeeding rather than going at it with brute force all the time. I think what got me to stop was a combination of some crucial information from Marc’s book about where to drive in the wedge (getting the booze out of the house = turning down the volume on the dopamine) and some really strong support systems that have been helping build detours around the synaptic ruts. It’s just a matter of sticking to the plan, and having contingency plans so we can work smarter not harder!
Please, please, be careful! I have seen so often, with myself and others, the slipperiness of this slope. “I was OK drinking a glass or two of wine; I have this under control; I can drink under control when i want; I’ll just have one or two……” All these thoughts leading rapidly to yet another bout of disastrous drinking.
A very useful tactic, which I’m sure you’ve used, is the recognition and realization that my life is much better without alcohol; that alcohol really is a delusion: society fools us into believing that drinking is “fun, relieving, etc.” But, our own reality is different. I am not deprived when i stay sober; i am gifted and graced, as I am free from alcohol. Free to soar rather than sink. I am happier, funnier, more fun, more attractive socially, healthier and in better moods when I don’t drink alcohol. Alcohol deprives me of a good life..not the other way around.
Be well, and beware of convincing yourself that “just one or two is OK; I can handle that…”
I am best off when i treat a “slip” as proof that I am human, proof that I have a huge problem with alcohol and a new tipping point decision. I can treat a slip as a lesson to be learned: what happened? How can i do better?
Unfortunately, I sometimes and many others often go to the “What the hell? I slipped so I might as well drink to oblivion.” We don’t have to do that. We can make it a slip, rather than a relapse!
But…and this is a HUGE but…the reality is that any time I take even one drink, it makes the next drink easier and easier. And, any time I stay sober…completely sober…it strngthens my ability to stay sober and makes it just a very small bit easier to stay sober…
So, I know it gets easier and easier as i stay sober and it gets harder and harder if I give in, even if just for “one or two…”
We learn, we grow, we persevere. The bus builds enough momentum that it doesn’t matter what the back seat driver has to say……the bus will follow a sober journey despite the noise from the backseat…
Thank you, Soberwarrior, points in both comments well taken. I like the idea of treating a slip as proof of my humanity. I’m tucking that one away for those moments that feel like “failure”. I also like the idea that staying sober makes it easier to stay sober, drinking makes it easier to drink. When you put it that way, it seems so simple and so obvious, simple physics, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and so forth. And I’m totally with you in knowing that life is so very, very much better, in all the ways you say, without alcohol (my post on “Clarity” is about just that), and that just one or two is NOT NOT NOT OK — the whole point, as you say, is that obviously I CAN’T handle it. That’s how I got here in the first place. The idea of noise from the backseat amuses me if I think of it as a school bus! We’re going to school no matter what, and no, we can’t stop at the bar on the way!
The slippery slope idea is indeed very important. And it’s not just about momentum, though that’s part of it. Habits are habit-forming from one time to the next: that’s for sure. But also because alcohol and other drugs deprive the brain of the one thing it needs most to make good decisions: context. Once you’re taking a drug or drinking, attention becomes more focal and less distributed. You don’t update context or consider alternatives in the way we almost always do the rest of the time. This happens for different reasons on different substances, but suffice it to say that having a well-functioning brain (though it’s sometimes considered boring) is pretty much the only way to stay in tune with the magnificent variety of real life.
Your comments about context bring to mind that place in your book where you’re talking about your first experience with alcohol, and you say something like you weren’t thinking about much but you were thinking about it with devastating clarity. I know the feeling well!
I can do boring. The kind of excitement that comes with drinking, I can do without.
I’ve been in recovery from alcoholism for a bit more than a year. When I stopped drinking, I knew that I needed to make profound changes, to my approach to living. To make those changes, I needed to understand who I was while I was drinking, who I wanted to become, and a clear, effective path to get there.
I needed to understand, as precisely as possible, the nature of my attitude toward drinking. So far, I believe that my alcoholism is fundementally an obsessive/compulsive misuse of alcohol. Obssesion meaning a persistent, unwanted thought, and compulsion meaning engaging in an action regardless of consequence.
Misuse began as a method to address my own fears (primarily surrounding my emotional and physical security). Would people accept me, like me, love me??? Could I provide for my family, would my little babies be safe and secure?? Could I keep my job, and what would happen to those that depended on my income for their security and happiness? etc. etc.
I became so wretched in my alcoholism that my greatest desire now is to become a better person, so that i can restore, as much as possible my own self respect. I never ever in my life expected to become that pathetic drunk sitting in the corner alone.
So, in everything I have read, and from everyone I have spoken to or exchanged words, this exploration as brought me to believe that the key to my ongoing sobriety is to deal with that obssesion, so that it never, ever flips to that compulsion.
I have also seen a great deal of evidence that tyhe methodology to deal with that obsession is a very, very individual thing, though there is extensive commonality in the underlying causes of the obsession.
For me, a better person means one who is able to lead a full, fruitfull life, and experience all of the feelings that I spent so much time blotting out of my life. I want to do everything that I did before, but sober. I want to be happy, I want to go to the party, and actually be the life of the party, not the drunk who thinks he was from the few recollections of perverted hilarity….the lamp shade on the head, so to speak.
I don’t want to hide from booze; it’s impossible to do that anyway. I can jump in my car and get as much as I want, anytime I want it. I never romantisize booze anymore, that just feeds my obsissive thinking. I try to remember my first taste of beer, wine, liquor, it all tasted like sh*t, it took a while to develop a taste. I now realize I wasn’t developing a taste, I was developing an addiction. It was like Marc describes, the anticipation, excitement, of the Grand Cru, the cold beer after a work out all that baloney.
I’m going to become a better man, a happier person, my kids will respecty me again (they do now), people will observe my actions and know who I am, the person I think I am will be the same as the person I have become. I won’t be ruled by my own fears.
Peter
Relapse is repetition of that behaviour. If nothing is learned, I’m doomed to repeat it.
Why did I relapse? Failure to deal with that obsissive thinking. Allowing it to simmer, usually just beneath my concious thought, where it’s most dangerous, isidious. Dangerous because, as I am learning, I can only resist for so long, before I “run out of fuel”, and then start that sleepwalk, “maybe I can have just one, what’s so bad about that anyway, maybe I’ll get some of that stuff i really like, it will taste/feel/be so good”. Like Marc says, once I’ve had the one, I don’t think clearly anymore, that’s what it does. Then the game is on.
Sorry for the long post earlier, For some reason I thought context would be important for my future comments. Is that egotistical??
Peter
Not at all! Glad to know you, Peter. Will reply more fully later, just wanted to say thank you for visiting & commenting, and take care!