Alcoholism Progression
One of the most insidious things about the disease of alcoholism–and it is a disease, despite the best efforts of thundering moralists to deny the science and the plain medical and biochemical facts–is that it plays on your character defects (which all people have) and, worse, it progresses slowly. Biochemically, it’s known to generally progress faster in women, for a variety of reasons that are understood (women are generally smaller, with consequent lower blood volume on average, and may also be able to conceal drinking better if they’re stay-at-home moms) and some of which undoubtedly are not currently understood. But in any case, in most alcoholics the progression is slow; while a certain minority subset (with a strong genetic component most likely to effect males) progress at a frighteningly fast pace, most people will progress very slowly, moving from social drinkers who are basically functional members of society to having occasional overindulgence problems to drinking regularly to an unhealthy degree to finally reaching a pathological, out-of-control state.
What’s also well-documented about the disease, even symptomatic, is that the alcoholic will occasionally undergo “dry spells” where they “prove” to themselves and others that they’ve got the problem “under control” by just not drinking, or by moderating their intake. I myself had such a dry spell 3-4 years ago, where I went about 100 days without drinking, trying a few meetings and then giving up on them because I hated them–the ones I went to were mostly pity-parties, which is one of the negative things you see at some AA meetings. I also did a lot of reading on alternative approaches, and tried some of them with mixed levels of success. Those things I don’t regret, but what I do regret is that I did go back to drinking, with firm intention never to get out of control again.
But, as is yet another symptom of the disease, I soon was back pretty much where I’d left off. What is quite typical of the progression, which generally takes 3-10 years in women and 5-15 years in men (or so I was told in the hospital last fall), is that you go through periods where you don’t drink at all, or where you convince yourself that you’re moderating successfully. You have instances where you do indeed don’t-drink, or succeed in your goal to drink less. But you don’t notice that the times you fail are increasingly more frequent than the times you succeed. You see the success (”See! last night I said I’d have only two, and I had only two!”) but the failures are just things you kick yourself for in the morning, with much self-abuse, and then move on.
In my own case, I’m fairly well convinced I had no real “problem” per se until approximately 1999. I drank regularly, but only occasionally to the point where it made me irrational or affected my job or family life in a significant way. I had a lot of fun, and in fact a lot of people in my life said they preferred my company when I had a few in me, as I was a lot more jolly and funny and outgoing than my normally fairly quiet and reserved demeanor. Around 1999, after the failure of my business and I got into repossessing cars, I started working midnights and drinking more heavily, and was a hell of a lot grumpier. I got a better job I liked better, training computer classes, and accomplished a lot, but didn’t love that job either (although in retrospect I wish I’d never left it, I did well there and was mostly well-liked). But by 2001, everything collapsed, none of it due to drinking. Financially and otherwise, disaster was more or less complete, and right around the time of the September 11 2001 attacks, too. I got a terrible job that was the only thing available then in Michigan’s economy for someone with my skillset, a crappy tech support job for a crappy company that treated its employees like dirt, making approximately a third of what I’d once made. Working the midnight shift was the only way to make the job bearable and pay enough, and but I also made the near-fatal mistake of deciding to get a college degree. The only thing that saved my sanity in those years, where I was so often isolated from my family, was blogging, and blogging also brought in money as a second job that was often helpful. But I was alone a lot, I was tired constantly (working midnights and going to school will do that to you) and so my family relationships suffered. Alcohol was the only thing that seemed to help.
Then around 2003 or so I had stomach surgery that is now known to tend to aggravate alcoholism in some people. I can see why. It caused alcohol to hit my system much faster than in normal people. Yet at the same time, strangely, my capacity went up. You can see why that was a disaster. From 2003 to about 2005, my progression went from slow to extremely rapid, aggravated both by physical factors and severe isolation and career/school stresses. It also made me a bear to live with, and my then-wife struggled to deal with it, usually valiantly. I quit for a while on my own, but the obsession wouldn’t leave, the factors making me miserable didn’t change, and so I went back, and took up almost exactly where I left off.
No matter what, the disease gets worse and worse, and no matter how much you convince yourself that you’re getting better, you’re not getting better at all. You convince yourself that the problems you’re having, most particularly in your personal life, are the fault of everything and everybody (including yourself) except for the one thing that’s really aggravating everything: the alcohol. No, not all your problems are caused by it, but as another friend in recovery wisely observed, “there is no problem in the world that can’t be made worse [for the alcoholic] by another drink.”
None of this applies to the person who occasionally drinks, or even occasionally ties one on after a period of stress. Heck, in some cases that may even be psychologically healthy–until it becomes a habit.
The truth of the matter is that if you think you have a problem, you probably do. On the other hand, there is spontaneous remission; something like 20% of people with severe alcohol problems just stop on their own and cease to have a problem.
About 80% don’t experience such remission. They continue to get slowly worse and worse. The result for them is usually the same: an increasing despair, despondency, and overwhelming depression, with irrational bouts of anger, frustration, and even paranoia, and usually an aching loneliness even when around loved ones. For those around them, it’s often just as bad or worse. But as I say, it’s insidious: it usually doesn’t get worse over a period of weeks, but more often in a period of many months and multiple years. With one step forward, two steps back, but those little steps forward helping you convince yourself, to rationalize and lie to yourself, that you’re getting better and that whatever problems you’re having have nothing to do with that bottle. The bottle becomes your only real friend, especially when your social life is already gone due to things beyond your control (although the bottle makes that social life worse too).
Every journey down this road is unique, yet has certain traits in common. And, no matter the exact course of your journey, the end points are the same for most: unless you’re one of the lucky minority who has a spontaneous remission, the end is insanity, prison, or death. Usually death, because the number of alcoholics who spend years in jail only to get out and take up right where they left off is huge. So they wind up drinking themselves to death, dying as a result of drinking, or, doing something while intoxicated that lands them in jail for life.
Although I am a regular 12 step program participant, and active in 12th-step work, I’m actually sympathetic to many criticisms of AA and its approach. I firmly believe there are other approaches besides 12 step programs that work, and may work better for some people. I’ve written about that in the past, and you can search this site for articles on them, or just search the internet yourself. I chose it because it was the right fit for me at this time, and because I’ve seen how, properly applied, it can be tremendously helpful for some individuals, even if it is a poor fit for others and is sometimes rammed down people’s throats in an inappropriate manner.
Anyway, it was a fascinating chart given to me by a doctor (himself an alcoholic) that finally made me truly believe this was a disease, that the science was rock solid, and that I had it; the way it described the progression was such a precise description of what the last 8 or so years had looked like in me, it was shocking, going from minor problem to full-blown out-of-control, with me quite rapidly (by late 2007) approaching the chronic, often terminal stages.
Unfortunately, I can’t find that chart online and don’t have a scanner. The only one I’ve managed to find so far is the better-known Jellinek chart, which is much less detailed, although it is generally accurate and also hopeful (PDF here). On the other hand, it’s way too limited, too lacking in details, and elides the fact that some people enter recovery much sooner than it would indicate.
The chart I was given was much better, at least for my logic-and-detail-obsessed way of thinking. I’m wondering, does anyone out there know the one I’m talking about? It had three rows, showing a progression timeline through four basic stages, with various symptoms of each of the stages (like “water wagon” and “self-loathing” and “firm commitment to stop” among them). Anyone seen it?
Anyway, not everyone who drinks a little too much has a problem. But if you think you have a problem, there’s a good chance you do. And if you drink a lot, and you have a lot of problems, you might want to consider the possibility that it’s the bottle that’s making the problems worse, not the worsening problems making you drink more. But you, and only you, can decide if you’re an alcoholic. Good luck and let me know if you’d like help if you think you are.
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I nominate this as a Dean’s World best post. At the very least it’s some of the best writing I’ve seen about the disease.
I had a lot of fun, and in fact a lot of people in my life said they preferred my company when I had a few in me, as I was a lot more jolly and funny and outgoing than my normally fairly quiet and reserved demeanor.
I’ve heard that too.
[…] MUST READ for everyone comes from Dean Esmay (even for those who have clashed with Dean on the Internet over the years). It’s too important […]
I’m speechless. Fantastic, honest and so you.
Eye opening. Someone very close to me may have this problem. I never thought so until reading your description of”progression”. There are simply too many dry-spells with him for it to be obvious.
One question: Is the only recourse for someone in the early stages quiting alchohol completely?
Because that would suck.
[…] 23, 2008 by Bill Alcoholism Progression — Dean’s World One of the most insidious things about the disease of alcoholism–and it is a disease, despite the […]
[…] 23, 2008 · No Comments Alcoholism Progression — Dean’s World One of the most insidious things about the disease of alcoholism–and it is a disease, despite the […]
Alcoholism creates physical changes in the brain. Permanent changes. Although some people are able to continue to drink moderately, the neural pathways that have been created by alcohol use remain open as long as use continues. It is unlikely that controlled drinking will remain successful indefinitely, although everyone’s brain chemistry is subtly different and this cannot be stated with certainty one way or the other.
Given the devastation that is commonly the result of continuing to drink in the face of an acknowledged problem, common sense would dictate abstinence. However, common sense being one of the first things to go as the denial system builds, it isn’t an easy task.
I make myself unpopular in some AA circles, because I’m going to disagree, somewhat, with Digitalzen.
Not the part about alcoholism creating physical changes in the brain. That is absolutely on the money and has been verified by a list of studies longer than your right arm, with post-mortem brain slices, with live brain scans of all different types, etc. It is a physical change that overcomes the brain, and once you cross a certain line it can’t be undone (yet). What I’ve also mentioned a few times before, but bears repeating, is that it appears that one of the main effects of this physical change is that your brain loses the ability to release endorphins, those things that allow you to feel pleasure, without alcoholic assistance. When you have reached this state, you literally *cannot* feel pleasure–in anything–in any but the most strained fashion if at all. Literally *nothing* you used to enjoy is particularly enjoyable anymore. This is one of the reasons depression and loneliness tend to be so intense; when you’re not drinking something, you can’t feel “normal,” let alone pleasure. That’s another reason why the progression is insidious, like a pitcher plant: once you’re in, getting out is so hard, nearly impossible it seems, because any sense of normalcy or happiness has been completely robbed from you without drink. So no matter how firm your resolve is, after a time of being completely unhappy, and unable to alleviate boredom with even things like sex or amusement park rides, you almost can’t imagine going on without a drink. So you again take one, hoping to just take the edge off your despair… and now you’ve taken one, and your resistance is down, and having another is easier, and soon you’re shitfaced again and you wake up remorseful and miserable and hating yourself, AGAIN.
The doctor in the hospital, in his 70s and some 30 years sober, was an alcoholic himself and described this as "anhedonia." That, too, hit me hard, because I finally really understood t.
There is a way out, but you’ve got to want it, and to work for it–and to actually know what it is. The first and most important thing is to realize that you *will* regain your ability to feel pleasure in normal life again, but it will take a few weeks or months, and you’re almost certainly going to need support while you’re going through it, and to have a plan and program in place to help you learn to enjoy life again, and also to reconnect to the spiritual place inside yourself that alcohol replaced when you weren’t looking. (Applied properly, this is what 12 step programs are intended to do, although I again stress that I do not believe the 12 steps are the *only* valid approach for everybody.)
But, this is advanced stage. To get to your question, Naftali… well give me a few minutes. I got off on a tangent, let me go get some coffee so I can answer your question properly. The short answer, one that makes me unpopular in some circles, is that yes, for people in the early stages there is sometimes a way out that doesn’t involve completely ending alcohol consumption. For some. BRB…
Perhaps I’m missing something, Dean, but I don’t at all see where we are in disagreement. Sounds like good science to me, and the same as I understand it. Not all commentary is adversarial, y’know.
BTW: I have nearly 19 successful years on the Steps, so I agree entirely with your remarks in that regard, as well.
Keep on keepin’ on.
dz
OK, I’m back. If you’re in the early stages of alcoholism, to where your brain hasn’t crossed the line yet but you’re steaming toward it, it may–I repeat, *may*–be possible to treat it without resorting to complete abstinence.
That will never be an option for me; at this point that’s been proven. The only way it will change is of medical science comes up with a pharmaceutical (or, far less likely, surgical) solution that no one’s come up with yet. I’m an advanced stage alcoholic (but not acute stage, thank goodness I stopped before I got there). I don’t get to go back. Contrary to popular imagination, you don’t stop being an alcoholic just from not-drinking; were I to pick up again, even after years of sobriety, almost all the science shows that I’d just start again pretty much exactly where I left off.
OK, anyway, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about early stage. Can anything be done? The answer is tricky, and a little dangerous, but maybe.
The most dangerous part is, the chemical changes to the brain are progressive and irreversible, and, because alcohol consumption is socially accepted, and because people around you generally *want* you to be able to "drink normally" just like they do, you and others can become easily fooled into thinking you’ve "got a handle on it" when you don’t. That’s the biggest danger. Switching up to where you drink less, water down your drinks, sometimes abstain, etc. are *not* valid strategies, believe it or not. They seem like it but they’re not. Every alcoholic tries these. In fact, they’re such predictable strategies they’re actually listed as *symptoms of the disease*, because practically every alcoholic begins to suspect they have a problem early on, and tries these very obvious strategies: I’ll cut back on liquor, I’ll water down my drinks more, I’ll only drink on weekends, etc. Not because those are evil choices, but because these obvious strategies generally *do not work* if you’re an alcoholic. Even if they slow the progression down somewhat, they also wind up being rationalization methods too: "See, I’m getting better, I have it under control!"
OK, but I just said it may be possible to do something before you get to advanced stages to prevent advanced stages. Some will thunderingly declare that this is impossible. That’s particularly true in AA circles (as I say, I endorse the program, but I grant that its critics are often right on certain things, and "closed-mindedness" is one valid criticism).
There are two books I recommend reading, *with caution.* One is Stanton Peele’s Truth About Addiction And Recovery:
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Addiction-Recovery-Stanton/dp/0671755307/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214227535&sr=8-1
Peele is a professional substance abuse counselor. What he’ll tell you is that some people with problems can find ways to control and manage their problem and still drink with moderation. That is scandalous heresy in AA circles and among some substance abuse counselors. But the most important thing to understand from what he says (and he’s got plenty of clinical experience as well as scientific studies to back him up) is that this is true for *some*. He is quite open that for some people, this will just not be possible, and they’re going to have to accept that drinking is just not an option for them. Not because they have character defects, but because their brain chemistry is just not going to allow for it. But as you might suspect, if it’s a brain chemistry issue, then some people are going to have brain chemistry that does allow for it.
This is why it’s important to understand that alcoholism is not a character defect. Character defects may lead you to alcoholism, especially because all people have character defects and alcohol is an easy way to experience pleasure and stress relief. Your character defects can lead you to alcoholism, but the alcoholism itself is not the defect in your character, it’s a defect in your brain chemistry. (Let’s leave aside questions about whether all character issues are brain chemistry issues, which will make us wander off into philosophical weeds that we’ll never get out of.) Just like character defects (which we all have) might lead you to get syphilis, but the syphilis itself is not a character defect, it’s a disease that needs treatment.
OK, so you’re at the early stages of alcoholism and beginning to suspect you have a problem. As I just said, and as Stanton Peele will tell you, the obvious strategies generally do not work (although there is, as I’ve noted, a certain subset, perhaps 20%, for whom spontaneous remission may occur). What he’ll tell you is that you have to have a conscientious, planned program in place, and half-assed "I’ll only drink on weekends/I’ll water down my drinks/I’ll go a few weeks without" ideas are not plans. You need something more rigorous and planned, and, you *probably* need at least some sort of moral support from someone who understands, possibly a doctor or counselor, possibly a friend or family member (although in the latter case, it had better be someone who takes it seriously and who you *really* trust, and who understands that yes, if this fails you’re going to need someone who tells you it’s failing and that you’re willing to listen to and not attack them if they tell you something you don’t want to hear).
It is possible to construct an approach to help you moderate your intake, just as it’s possible for someone with a weight problem to construct a conscientious approach to changing their lifestyle to make weight gain stop and even reduce it somewhat. Extremes are not going to work.
One structured approach that I *know* works for some people is known as Moderation Management, which you can read about in detail in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Responsible-Drinking-Moderation-Management-Approach/dp/1572242949/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214228536&sr=1-1
This isn’t the only approach, but it’s been proven to work for some people. To give the short of it, you give yourself a "dry out" period of about 30 days or so where you completely abstain, then, you create a log that you keep with yourself at all times, and any time you take a serving of alcohol (one glass of wine, one beer, one shot of liquor), you write it down in your log. You also write down, honestly, why you took that drink, and, you write down what you think the effect of taking another one at that time will be and whether you will have one. Your goal will be to have a *maximum* of four. In the morning, you review the log. How did you do? If you failed, why did you fail? If you succeeded, can you do it again?
There’s more. Read the book for the whole program. It did not work for me, partly because I was lazy and did not actually keep the log, I thought I could do it in my head. Now it’s too late for me. But I know it works for others because I’ve talked to people for whom it did. The goal is to get yourself to where you take no more than 14 drinks in any week, and no more than 4 at any one sitting. Why? Because that’s what scientific research says is not just safe, but may actually be beneficial to your health; moderate alcohol consumption at that level is arguably good for you, extending lifespan and reducing risk of certain diseases, particularly heart disease.
(That’s another scandalous heresy in some circles. Alcohol good for you?!? Yes, it can be. That, too, is one of the reasons why the disease of alcoholism is progressive and insidious.)
There is a cautionary note on this and other structured moderation approaches. The Moderation Management people, and guys like Stanton Peele, all stress the same things: this and similar structured approaches will not work for everybody, and for some complete abstinence is going to be the only practical approach. One side of the argument says that "common sense" and other things indicate that if you think you have a problem, complete abstinence is the only way. But another side says that if a structured moderation approach works, then that’s a good thing and will prevent your issue with alcohol from becoming a full-blown pathological problem, and, if you find that the structured program is not working, this is actually more likely to make you realize and accept that abstinence is your only option. If you *do it right*, a program like this may not only allow you to stop the problem in its tracks, but may *also* make you more quickly realize that you really just have to stop, and make it easier for you to do that.
There is a cautionary tale here, too: the creator of the original Moderation Management program eventually went on an out-of-control drunk, got into a car while blitzed, and killed someone. Last I heard, she was still in prison. Critics use this as proof that moderation programs can never succeed and are inherently dangerous. Defenders, on the other hand, point out what the critics often fail to acknowledge: when she got into that accident, she had sworn off of moderation, and was attending AA meetings with the firm intention to never drink again. That’s when she killed someone and wound up in jail. So is that proof that moderation can’t work, or, proof that AA isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? You decide. I take it as a cautionary note: alcohol dependence is insidious and FUCKING DANGEROUS, and the end point is usually death and/or jail. If you think you’ve got this disease, you need to treat it as seriously as heart disease or cancer, because it very well could destroy your life or someone else’s. This isn’t something you should play with, and concentrating on it as a moral defect isn’t going to cut it.
Do you want to die? Do you want to go to prison? No? Then if you think you might have this disease, do something about it and take it fucking seriously. Life is on the line, and don’t kid yourself into thinking I’m being melodramatic. Take it seriously. If complete abstinence works for you, do that. If a structured moderation approach works for you, do that–just be sure you’re being systematic and rational about it, and that you have help to check you to make sure you aren’t rationalizing and lying to yourself if your moderation approach really isn’t working.
Complete abstinence is nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be, by the way. It seems unimaginable at first, especially if your brain has lost the ability to feel pleasure normally, and if you haven’t started to address the character defects (which we all have) which made you want to drink in the first place. But if you do address them, you can lead not just a productive life, but a happy and joyous one. You knew as a child at least how to enjoy the hell out of yourself without drinking. You still have that ability as an adult. You just have to figure out, possibly with some help, how to do it again.
And if you can moderate successfully, then, unlike some alcoholics, I don’t hate you or envy you. I also don’t want to drink anymore. I’ll always worry about you, but I’ll also wish you well and hope you worry about you too. A healthy fear is a good thing.
I hope that all made sense.
Digitalzen: Oh I know not all discussions turn adversarial, but I know from experience that this one often does. And as you can see above, I hadn’t gotten to the more "controversial" parts yet. But given what you said above, I suspect that you’re another 12-stepper like me who understands that not all AA dogma is correct. Which is a healthy, balanced perspective.
But I said I was only going to disagree “somewhat” with you. And this was the part where I somewhat disagreed:
“Given the devastation that is commonly the result of continuing to drink in the face of an acknowledged problem, common sense would dictate abstinence.”
As I noted above, common sense to me would suggest that in the face of an acknowledged problem, a structured approach to moderation may make more sense for some people, especially in the early stages. But you’d better be taking it seriously, otherwise you’re just likely to tell yourself you’re getting better when you ain’t (which is what happened to guys like you and me I’ll wager, since I see it at every damned meeting).
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I think AA’s program is more or less correct, based on what was known about the subject when the book was written. Anyone who wants to throw away the nearly 70 years of progress in medicine, psychology, chemistry and physics since then, however, is going to have to give up a lot more than just modern ideas about alcoholism. Be interesting to see what they’d say if you suggested flying from NY to LA on a DC-3. (I have many hours in the ol’ Goony Bird and — trust me — you don’t want to do that.)
That said, we can’t overlook the fact that the AA formula, wherever applies, or in what name, has worked for a lot of folks in its present form. I totally understand the almost superstitious inertia. When one does not have modern plumbing, there is indeed a potential of throwing out valued things along with the bath water. As long as members recall that Bill and Bob both embraced “outside help” at various times (Bill, especially, for the depression that he used to self-medicate with booze) and don’t pooh-pooh all the subsequent advances because they’re afraid the booze fairy will steal their sobriety from beneath the pillow, I’m in favor of making haste slowly so far as the program is concerned. When, however, I hear someone say the 12-steps are all you need, I lose interest in their opinion faster than you can say “isoquinilone.”
That said, I have to remember that many of the old-timers in AA, some of whom are even older than I(!), did not have the advantages of a modern education — nor of a particularly complete one. Furthermore, they were educated and their minds informed by people who were born back in the days of sailing ships. This affects not only attitudes within the 12-step groups, but outside as well. Witness the seemingly insane number of people who still consider alcoholism to be a moral failure; they have neither the information to form valid opinions nor the inclination to study the subject as we have. It simply isn’t the big deal to them that it is to those of us who have suffered addiction’s effects from the other end.
Less-informed folks just muddle along with what they know, as we all do. We must neither permit them to interfere with progress, nor diss the progress they have made. In the case of old-timers in the rooms, that is considerable, regardless of our opinions about the details.
My own position: desperation got me sober, but the 12-step groups, their process and the support of their members along with outside help have kept me that way. Of course, I can only speak for myself.
Why is abstinence so ‘unthinkable’ to the vast majority of people? Doesn’t that suggest the entire culture is dependent on alcohol to a certain degree? I’ve heard stuff like "I can’t get in the mood at a party without a couple of beers" from people who genuinely are social drinkers–they only drink when they’re socializing, but they can’t socialize without a drink. So what does that say?
Does the prevailing attitude that we "need" alcohol to socialize encourage alcoholism?
One of the things that counselors and AA members take into account is that of risk. It may be that you (a generic you, not Dean Esmay you) are one of those people who can go back to social drinking. But the odds (from what I’ve seen) are small, and the penalty, if you fail, is huge: insanity, prison, death. So it’s like all forms of risk management, you assess the risk of failure against the cost. In this case, the cost is extremely high: losing job, family, life. So if I was a counselor, I know what my advice would be.
Digitalzen: Hooray!!! I agree with every word! I remember well reading parts of the Big Book and being asked what I thought early on in my recovery, and having at least two old hands be outraged and/or mocking when the first thing I said was, "Well, it’s pretty good, but some of it seems a little outdated." Boy did I get a stern lecture. But I stand by it. The part that describes alcoholism as being an allergic reaction, for example, is woefully out of date; while it’s possible that autoimmune reactions play a role in some people, we know damn well these days that this isn’t a fucking allergy. But you know, I’m not gonna say that out loud in a meeting, both to avoid the tongue-lashing and also because I don’t want to discourage those newly in recovery who are enthusing about all their discoveries of what’s in the Big Book, especially since much of it is still perfectly applicable. Indeed, somehow these guys in the 1930s, who never even met me, managed in some parts to write my life’s story! So amazing!
I’ll hope to see you at a meeting some day, dude.
There is a way out, but you’ve got to want it, and to work for it–and to actually know what it is. The first and most important thing is to realize that you *will* regain your ability to feel pleasure in normal life again, but it will take a few weeks or months, and …
At the risk of speaking out of my depth (as I’ve never had a chronic problem with alcohol addiction), I’d be willing to bet money that physical exercise helps retrain the brain during this period.
Willow: Spoken like a good Muslima.
Seriously, you’re right that it shouldn’t be unthinkable to simply abstain. And I would absolutely agree that culturally, our acceptance and outright encouragement of alcohol consumption is a huge contributor. There is substantial evidence that some people even with a genetic predisposition wouldn’t become alcoholics. There’s also reason to suspect that people with *no* predisposition toward it will contract the disease anyway, just due to social circumstances. When you look at teenaged/twenty-something binge drinking, for example, it’s amazing how much we admire people who chug down mass quantities, even applaud them.
But, alcoholism is as old as civilization (at least). Religious/ethical systems (like Islam, or Mormonism) which encourage complete abstinence as a cradle-to-grave lifestyle almost certainly have way less problems with this disease. On the other hand, I notice that such cultures often allow other addictive and destructive behavior, so it’s not clear to me one way or the other whether it’s a sovereign remedy or just replaces one problem with others.
Just to gravitate toward extreme (but real-world) examples: If you have a system which mandates forced abortions for women with unauthorized pregnancies (China), well, you’re certainly going to have far less problem with the social pathologies of teen pregnancy, but is the tradeoff worth it? I’m not pretending to have an answer here, or that we have to gravitate towards any extremes, I’m just pointing out the potential pitfalls of any approach. I would utterly agree with a social mindset which found not-drinking to be not just acceptable but commendable.
On the other hand, there are certain realities. For example, there is at least one Jewish holiday I’m aware of where drinking, and I mean more than a sip or two, is almost mandatory and starting at a pretty early age if you don’t have specific health problems forbidding it (I forget which one but someone like Naftali may be along to remind me). And, the reality is that drinking is simply embedded in this culture, and in many other cultures. Vodka is the Polish tradition on holidays and whenever there are important guests, and lots of vodka is the order of the day, with the host expected to keep drinking as long as even one guest wants to keep going, with it being rude to do any less. You can’t change that sort of culture overnight.
There’s also the practical question: if you’ve been drinking socially for much of your life, why would you even *want* to stop if you’re enjoying it and it’s not causing any obvious problems? If you really enjoy it, it’s unpleasant to think you’ll give it up forever just because you *might* have a problem. It’s like saying you should never eat chocolate again because you know it might lead to obesity, or never touch coffee again because it might lead to blood pressure problems. Is that a reasonable approach? For some perhaps, but it’s unpleasant to contemplate. "I will never step on an amusement park ride again" doesn’t seem like a thrilling proposition to most people.
So, we deal with the realities we have. I do agree that we should work a little harder at discouraging self-destructive behavior and helping people who need help, though.
At the risk of speaking out of my depth (as I’ve never had a chronic problem with alcohol addiction), I’d be willing to bet money that physical exercise helps retrain the brain during this period.
Without question, yes. For some or most people. This is standing medical advice on the disease, actually.
Hell, I was going to re-write the whole book…started, in fact. I was halfway through Chapter II when someone showed me a copy of the Basic Text and I realized it had already been done, and badly.* The phrase “reinventing the wheel” eventually came to mind, and I relaxed and got on with my own recovery.
The funny thing: I’ve spoken with several well-known writers in the program over the years (you’d recognize some of the names in a heartbeat) and every single one of them said they started to do the same thing! I guess it’s part of the disease. (One did publish an allegorical novel about The Journey, which fell flat on its face. Too bad, because it was a pretty good tale.)
OK, I’ll stop now.
*Hey guys, I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Sorry, but it’s badly written. I’m an editor; I know these things.
All the talk about social drinking makes me wonder: Is alcohol really that important to risk one’s life over? With abstinence the risk of going back to unrestrained drinking is much lower than trying to maintain some kind of middle path of moderation.
Moderation strikes me like Odysseus telling his crew to tie him to the mast just so that he could hear the sirens and not crash his ship on the rocks. Better to avoid the sirens completely by steering well clear of them.
In re-reading this discussion (which has been fantastic so far) I see I didn’t directly address Willow’s actual question: why is not-drinking unthinkable? I think it’s important to address this for anyone out there who thinks they have a problem, especially if they’re feeling that sense of despair that I know so well.
When I said that, I was referring to the alcoholic who is still drinking. The person who has already tripped over the line, who has lost the ability to feel pleasure or even just feel "normal" without alcohol for fuel. At that point, not-drinking becomes practically unimaginable, because you’ve lost any ability to feel like a normal person without it. You can see nothing but despair and depression on the horizon, with no hope.
This can even happen to you if you’ve quit drinking for an extended period. Many, many alcoholics (including me) go through it: you quit drinking for a month, two months, three months, hell, even longer, and your brain has technically regained its ability to experience normal pleasures again. But you haven’t changed the habits of mind, the lifestyle, that made you unhappy and to want to drink in the first place. So, you drank because you were unhappy (about a lot of possible things: family, career, some other disease you’ve got like arthritis or something), and you haven’t gotten any strategies together for addressing those. So you’re still unhappy, and the booze is still crooning in the background: "come back to me, you were happy when you were with me."
It’s demonic.
This is why just not-drinking is not enough for the alcoholic. A very few manage it this way, and lead lives of quiet desperation, just being miserable all the fucking time (and usually miserable to be around). They made themselves quit, but did nothing to find joy in life again. Not really.
This is the real reason, whether they realize it or not, that old AA hands say you have to keep going to meetings at least once in a while even years after quitting. Why you have to keep a network of friends who share or at least understand your disease and are truly (and unbegrudgingly, uncondescendingly, unreproachfully) supportive. If you don’t have those things, you are a relapse waiting to happen.
If you are an alcoholic, chances are that life without booze is just plain unimaginable–at least, unimaginable except as a world with a bleak, unhappy horizon. Just ending the physical/chemical addiction is almost never enough. You have to realize that happiness and joy and love are still utterly possible for you, even probably more attainable than they were with the bottle by your side, but you must WORK for it.
Fortunately, the work turns out to be a lot less work than trying to continue to function with the bottle by your side. Or so a lot of us have discovered.
I was speaking generally to the non-alcoholic population…I can only imagine how hard it would be to just stop drinking cold turkey if one was physically addicted to the stuff. Heck, friends of mine who were seriously addicted to caffeine went through what was (to me, anyway) a shocking level of withdrawl when they tried to cut back on coffee. I imagine cutting out alcohol would be like multiplying that by ten.
I’m not suggesting that alcohol is evil, either. (We don’t outlaw sex because of the existence of rape; neither would it make sense to outlaw alcohol because it can be abused.) But it seems like the general attitude toward alcohol is unhealthy–especially, as you say, in college, when all too often it’s not enough to get drunk; you have to get effing obliterated. (I wouldn’t be surprised if I drank my bodyweight–maybe even a couple times over–in booze in college, and I wasn’t nearly as bad as some of my friends.) (This was Boston, though, admittedly. They know how to drink in that town.)
Wow, I”ll study that, Dean.
There is no Jewish Holy Day, save for the fasts, which does not involve the consumption of alchohol.The idea is that alchohol is something which a Jew can incorporate in his divine service and thus elevate to the realm of holiness.
Gennerally, Torah dissaproves of abstainence from things that one is able to use for holiness, this abstainence being a shirking of a Jew’s responsibility to sanctify the mundane. If one cannot use something for holiness, that’s a different story. Then there are things Torah catagorically prohibits.Those things cannot be sanctified. Alchohol is not one of them.
Glad I’m a Buddhist; I’d make a terrible Jew. Too complicated.
I like the part about sanctifying the mundane, though. It has a good feeling to it.
OK, so as we see, in at least one case (Judaism) there are religious objections to abstaining from alcohol unless you have a specific health issue. So, if you think you’re developing a health issue (which alcoholism definitely is), you probably want to think hard about a structured moderation approach, and also getting help if you’re having trouble not-drinking on non-Holy Days, would be my general advice. I’m sure a smart Rabbi would basically concur (although don’t assume a Rabbi understands alcoholism and that you won’t get a brushoff, there are certainly Christian clerics who don’t).
I have sort of a reverse reaction to alcohol compared to most people, and because of that, I’ve never really had any problem with getting addicted to it. But I’ve never really gotten addicted to anything else either, I tend to think that some people are more susceptible to dopamine reactions and pursue the things that give them that response more than others do.
Anyway, I find it very difficult to drink socially, but I am fine with getting a bit of a bourbon buzz once a month or so on my own. A bottle of bourbon will usually last me about six months at least, sometimes a year, so you can see that drinking is something that I do pretty uncommonly. But going out to a party, the last thing I want to do is get drunk. Even a drink or two is enough to get all my warning bells going off. In fact I can’t recall getting drunk at a party since I was in my early twenties (I am now 48).
Part of that is because my reaction to alcohol is unusual. First of all, when I get a "buzz" I don’t tend to get more social, I tend to get more withdrawn. Secondly, it takes a LOT of booze to get me buzzed, I don’t know why, but two or three drinks don’t do much to me at all. Four or five might make me start feeling that something is going on, but to really get me loaded requires enough alcohol that I simply can’t make myself spend that much money at a bar. And to what point? I’d end up sitting in a corner by myself watching all the action going on knowing that if I tried to actually do anything I’d just make an ass of myself.
So over the years, I’ve simply avoided drinking socially. Most of my friends and co-workers think I’m against drinking, and on occasion they have made comments that make me wonder what not drinking with my peers has done to my career. I never judge them, but just the fact of my not drinking is seen as judgment. From my experience there is a POWERFUL social incentive to drink socially, and when you buck that, for whatever reason, people tend to not like to associate with you socially.
I sometimes wonder what my drinking would be like if alcohol affected me easily and made me more affable and outgoing, instead of more dour and reclusive.
All in all I feel like it’s been for the best. It keeps me off the booze anyway.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Mountain thunderstorms
I think, as Dean has said, not drinking is much easier when you live in a culture which doesn’t depend on it for social interaction. Although I come from a family rife with alcoholism, I seem to have escaped that particular legacy; like an idiot I drank a lot during college/grad school and never experienced anything like the reaction that one of my alcoholic relatives described to me once, which was feeling like a drink was a key fitting in a lock. For me it was easy to stop, I got fantastically lucky there. I haven’t had more than a sip of wine in close to two years now, not because of anything sinister but because I’ve been trying to conceive/pregnant/nursing for all that time (although medically I’m not convinced total abstinence is required, I don’t care that much and it’s just easier that way for me). Right now I hang with a combination of eco-nuts who think of alcohol as a poison, which it basically is, and other parents of young children, with whom we tend to have child-oriented gatherings at which alcohol would be inappropriate, so it’s no big deal. If I still hung with the kind of crowd I hung with in grad school it might be much harder to maintain a normal social life and be a non-drinker.
There is so much here that I would love to say since my family too is and has been hurt by alcoholism. From my Mother to myswelf to my brother who is in treatment now, today, in a hospital for the second time. This time the disease almost took his life and he is not doing well from years of drinking. He is tremendously over weight, swollen, just survived a blood clot, high blood pressure and more.
I went from Al Anon to AA. I am like so many and back in Al Anon. Twelve steps are a beautiful, sober way of taking an honest inventory of yourself one day at a time.
Next time this kind of discussion is brought up, I would like to take part with all the honest sincerity I have on the subject. I deeply loved a very sick man that suffered this disease. I was with him for wonderful reasons, two of them are two children by him. Al Anon made me realize he was not ready to end the drink and I had two children to raise on my own. I missed this man with every fiber of my being. Al Anon made me realize I too had things I needed to address and left Al Anon to soon. It’s okay now that I look back because the contributions I have made to this world are my greatest assets…My children. So much to say next time.
@ Ms. Janelle
Why wait?
MJ, thank you for giving voice to the other side of this disease: the people who have to watch the alcoholic suffer. They feel just as powerless, just as trapped, just as confused and betrayed.
Digitalzen,
This is Dean’s thread and one day when he brings up the disease of alcoholism I can speak as to how it is like cancer and we need to be aware of what runs in our families so we can discuss things with our doctors.
Al-Anon for familes is outstanding as you do learn that alcoholism is a disease. When I went in 1969-71 it helped me to be a better person and I stayed as long as I could but beatings physically eventually had me leave.
Today I go to a mixed meeting of both alcoholics and alanon. In 1970 there was not Alla Teen and Alatot. It is now viewed as hope for familes of their loved one suffering this horrible disease. You have to get honest with yourself just as an alcoholic does, just as the family of a loved one suffering cancer. There are treatment centers for cancer treatment and they also include family treatment to help deal with their issues.
Later I did find myself on the other side of the bottle and drinking myself.
I believe this thread is about those suffering disease and Dean’s honest writing on the subject.
Martin,
Yes, as I said above, the family hurts and needs help. And thank both of you for responding to me.
I find the easiest way to get out of social drinking is to be the driver designate. Not that it comes up much in my circle of friends; they don’t give a damn what you drink, alcoholic or not, as long as nobody impaired gets behind a wheel. Why can’t every group be so easy? I mean, it doesn’t make sense to all but require matching drink-for-drink to be social. The college parties I went to had every level from falling-down drunk to stone-cold sober (I was often in the latter category because drunk people are funny) and it was just accepted. Admittedly, people at our college spoke in hushed tones about those "weird theater parties" but everyone there made sure you either got home safe or had a couch to crash on, and if weird things went on, at least they were consensual…Okay, meandered a bit far there.
B. Durbin’s last blog post..Welcome to the World
"I also made the near-fatal mistake of deciding to get a college degree."
What was the problem? Did they have classes such as "Chainsaw Juggling 101" or "Introduction to Alligator Wrestling?"
Wonderful: Yes. Also, Skydiving While Blind and Poking Rabid Dogs With Sticks.
(Trivia note: I once broke my back skydiving, but, I wasn’t blind and it was before college.)
More seriously: I’ll try to avoid getting into another jeremiad on this, but, a little-known fact is that a majority of college students drop out, because college is hard. The dropout/lapse rate for returning adults is even higher, for reasons that should be obvious: if you’re working full time and going to school full time, you have time for almost nothing else. The stress is enormous, and stress kills, especially as you begin to approach and enter middle age (I was in my mid to late 30s).
For me, college was/is even more stressful than it is for other people, because I have always–and I do mean always, going at least back to second grade–hated school. And I do not mean “hate” as in the typical kid-moaning, I mean hate as in, was utterly miserable most of the time. The reasons are varied, but the shortest explanation is that I am a fairly atypical learning type in that I do not learn well, at all, from verbal instruction. I have begun to suspect strongly that I am on the autism/asperger’s spectrum somewhere. I don’t learn well by listening to someone explain things to me, and, my patience for listening to lectures where I already understand what others are still struggling to grasp is practically nonexistent (and has been since I was a small child). On top of that, due to severe chaos in my childhood, we moved a lot, which ultimately added up to me changing schools approximately once per year (which military brats are also familiar with). For me, I moved schools an average of once a year; spending two years at one school happened once or twice, but that was mixed in with years where I switched more than once in a school year; by memory, listing all the schools I remember going to, I went to about 8 grammar schools and four high schools. Thus I never developed the strong friendship bonds that get a lot of kids through school. By the time I graduated High School, my hatred for school was so intense that I swore that I would never voluntarily go to college.
Still, when I was laid off from Progeny Linux Systems, and came back to Michigan to be with Rose’s family (instead of, say, Chicago or Texas where I had job opportunities aplenty) it was clear I could not possibly find decent work, especially then in 2001, in the IT industry. Every decent-paying job in my field in Michigan was demanding a degree, and while they often said “four year degree or equivalent” it was increasingly apparent that “or equivalent” was code for “someone who we already have in mind for the job,” because no one was impressed with my long and impressive-looking list of experience.
I reluctantly concluded that a degree was going to be what I needed to be able to support my family with the security and especially the medical insurance (Rosemary had horrible health problems, especially back then, I watched her nearly-die more than once) they needed.
One thing that was nice about the very crappy tech support job for the very Crappy Company was that they had fairly generous tuition reimbursement. So I took maximum student loans, and we merely kept the tuition reimbursement for living expenses rather than paying the debt with it; that added $10,000/year in income which we desperately needed, what with Rose home full-time. It was also something of a mixed blessing, as it was a source of more stress; as much as I was hating school, it would have been a $10K/year income drop were I to quit school. So I at least credit the crappy job with the crappy, treat-you-like-dirt company for holding my feet to the fire and not allowing me to quit, even if that wasn’t their direct intention.
So, I was working the midnight shift, which adds stress (you’re always exhausted on that shift, and your family and social life disappears, so the stress is terrible and the stress relief mechanisms available are highly limited) and school itself is tremendously stressful for normal people, even more stressful for someone who doesn’t learn well in or enjoy the classroom environment as a student. And like I said, stress kills, especially after you leave your 20s; ask any doctor if you don’t believe it.
Another source of stress, because Rose wasn’t bringing in direct income (although she was working hard on the family and helping some with the blog and school), was that we of course had money problems. So, while this blog originally started as a stress reliever, it became a second job as I worked hard (with help from Rose) to turn it into a source of extra income. We had some success with that, and it eventually landed us a contract with Pajamas Media which paid fairly well. But that also made the blog become a burden and responsibility and not just a stress reliever. Also, once you’re a high-visibility blogger, you become a target subject to massive criticism and often pelted with emails, comments, and trackbacks attacking you personally and/or demanding answers for everything under the sun. It became just another thing I was often afraid to even look at, although I had to to keep it going. So it was a mixed blessing, sometimes a source of pleasure and stress relief, but even more often just another business responsibility.
I also decided to write a novel during those years, which got much critical claim and award nominations, but to my disappointment didn’t make much money. Not sure where that goes in to the story, but, it was another source of stress and yet also stress relief, both at once.
All of this combined also to rob me of even much opportunity for quality family time. I had been extremely involved and interactive with the Elder Prince from the very beginning; I was even the first to change his diapers and feed him. With the Younger Prince, I had almost no time with him early on. I’d never had the time with him that I’d had with Jacob, although I wanted it.
What we’re basically talking about here is five years of stress wherever I looked, and a lot of loneliness and isolation. I might as well add in that during these days I also helped co-found Operation Give, a non-profit to help the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I was proud of but was yet another burden and responsibility, although it was a source of pride and I often told myself it was minor compared to what the families of those serving over there were going through and was the minimum I could do without enlisting (and the military wouldn’t take me anyway because of my age and health problems like diabetes, which I’d also been diagnosed with by the way).
Also I guess while I’m mentioning all this I discovered in November, with consultation from doctors in the hospital, that I’m moderately bipolar. That’s being treated now, but untreated bipolar episodes will complicate life, and they pretty clearly did back then.
Stress started to get better in early 2006, when I graduated. But the crappy job stayed crappy, and the Pajamas Media contract was radically changed to pay a lot less (because their initial business model hadn’t worked, not because I was doing anything different or had failed to do anything their contract specified). Indeed, my lack of a college degree had seemed to be what was preventing me from advancing to better positions in the Crappy Company, but it wasn’t. I had no opportunities for advancement, and sending out new, updated resumes to recruiters and various companies on Monster and such netted me nothing. By August I was let go from that job, for reasons that were utterly absurd and even a little obscene, which the State of Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency agreed with when the Crappy Company tried to fight my unemployment claim and lost completely (indeed, they were practically bitch-slapped, which was gratifying at least).
Well I didn’t want this to go long, but it did anyway. So let me summarize: went from well-paying job I really liked to a totally crappy job that paid crappy, had a secondary line of business that went from an enjoyable hobby to a burden, and was going to school full time which I hated and got almost nothing out of despite excellent grades, and had my personal/social life all but destroyed by all of that. Going to school ultimately not only robbed me of all that, and added immeasurably to my stress, but in the end, despite graduating with high honors, did not do much of anything to provide the job security that would have made all that a worthwhile investment in the first place. All I got was massive debt and a feeling of futility. And by then (early 2006) my alcoholism (which is a profoundly dangerous and progressive disease, whether ignorant twits believe it or not) had progressed from early to intermediate to advanced/acute stage was taking a toll not just on my family, but on my health and my ability to think straight, or any ability to quit (despite multiple efforts, I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even stop for 48 hours, although I kept trying). So despite the fact that the school was over and that source of stress was theoretically gone, it only brought an income drop (no more tuition reimbursement money), a massive new debt we couldn’t pay, and no visible improvement in prospects for a better job.
In short, then, the decision to go to school was near-fatal because it netted me no career or personal improvement (so far), destroyed my family life, and aggravated the progression of my alcoholism. I wish I’d never done it; I learned almost nothing at all, probably took ten years off of my life, and lost a marriage and an early relationship with my precious younger son, not to mention the estrangement with my wife and elder son. Why the fuck did I even do it?
So there you go. Feel free to mock and treat it with contempt, though.
[…] be back until late. But if you’re looking for interesting reading, the latest discussion on alcoholism has plenty interesting, including some autobiographical crap which may or may not interest you. […]
Also, once you’re a high-visibility blogger, you become a target subject to massive criticism and often pelted with emails, comments, and trackbacks attacking you personally…
Why did you even open the emails or respond to the comments? The ‘Delete’ key is the best one on the keyboard. As for the idiots in the comment threads, that’s what your long-term commenters are here for.
Elizabeth: like "a key fitting in a lock" resonates strongly. There are two types of alcoholic, what the medical profession has different terms for, but you can basically call them type 1 and type 2. Type 1s are usually male, and the disease hits them usually before they hit their 20s. For them, the first drink causes a sort of "I love you, where have you been all my life?" response, and they’re out of control wild drunks almost immediately. They are, perhaps, 10% of the alcholic population (I pulled that number out of my ass and vague memories from rehab, so don’t quote me, but it’s probably reasonably close). For most, male or female, it’s a progressive illness that takes many years to develop, but "key in a lock" is an excellent description: when they weren’t looking, the disease slowly took away ALL their ability to feel pleasure or even "normal," and taking a drink or three suddenly unlocks all those normal feelings. Without the drink, the best you can feel is dysthymia, which is not exactly depression, but the inability to feel any pleasure or happiness. So your best possible state becomes unfeeling and unemotional, like wood, and the only emotions that come easy are anger, impatience, sadness, and despair. That’s why, once your brain trips over into full-blown alcoholism, it’s so incredibly difficult to escape: even when you pledge to stop because the drinking’s making you miserable (and you’re as likely to be unhappy while drunk at that point as you are to be happy, and hangovers are a bitch), all you can tell yourself is "I’ll just suck it up and be not-happy and not enjoy life."
This is very much a biochemical reaction, and one that can almost always be addressed, but the addict usually doesn’t realize that. I see it time and time and time again among those still suffering, or in early recovery: "I need something, I just need to feel NORMAL." You hear it time and time and time again, it’s so typical of the disease. What they mean is that life is bleak, dreary, and uninteresting AT BEST, and otherwise full of anger and bitterness and sadness and fear and pain and loathing for self or others, because THOSE you can feel just fine. They’re the only things you CAN feel. It’s hard to even laugh otherwise.
This isn’t just me, and it’s not about self-pity; it’s a clinical symptom of an exhaustively-documented disease.
You were indeed playing with fire, especially with a family history and also being female. Women appear to be somewhat less likely to become alcoholic, but if they do it tends to progress in them much faster than in men, and socially they tend to have people more willing to prop them up and "rescue" them and make excuses for them (as a generalization, not necessarily you in specific).
I’m glad it never hit you, and that you’re at a place in your life where it’s not likely to do so. This shit is serious, and it WILL kill you eventually if it goes on unaddressed long enough. (Not lecturing you, just generalizing.)
Scott: Short answer, because you feel like you have to, especially if you’re viewing it as a business. Also, not all of it is negative, it’s reasonable, with the only unreasonable thing being what most people don’t intuitively grasp, which is that it’s a time and energy drain even when it’s perfectly civil and reasonable inquiries.
(Off to work now, see you guys later.)
Rose tried to post this but her comment was caught up awaiting moderation..
Below is a copy & paste of her comments:
===================================
I feel the need to respond here since I’ve been named and the memories are mixed up. One thing people haven’t mentioned about alcoholism is the fact that alcoholics lose their memories then conflate new memories where the time is black. That is something I wish people would discuss.
Now, as to the reason I’m here. To correct a few errors in memory. We moved back to Michigan in 2001 for 2 reasons. The first, we were paying a 1000 bucks a month on a house that hadn’t sold yet - so it seemed like a good idea to move back to it since Dean lost his job. The other is that we found out 2 weeks before Dean lost his job that my father was DYING OF CANCER.
We moved back on July 1st and my daddy died in November. When we moved back - I immediately started working at a bar full time and overtime to earn money, while Dean collected unemployment and started college. It wasn’t full time college because he was unemployed and at best he was taking 6 credit hours. Dean stayed home with Jake, I worked and then came home and did the home chores and cooking. I’m sick and tired of the impression that I was just home on my ass while Dean killed himself working. That’s correction number 2.
I had health problems(asthma) but my massive weight loss helped curb. I did almost die from complications of a massive hernia operation. That was a couple years later and working 40+ hours hauling kegs and working in a kitchen added to the already present hernia. That hernia was a result of snow shoveling before I completely healed from a massive stomach surgery in 2000. Correction #3.
I "helped" with that college degree to take off the pressure and help you get the damn thing. But the thought that earning it ruined our family is ridiculous. The drinking was a bigger problem and it was also the reason you lost time with our younger son. You had that damn degree before Draco was even 1. Enough of this crap. Correction #4
If you don’t want me here typing responses, don’t talk about your life and use me and our family as a reason why you became a drunk. That degree got you a couple jobs - including the one you lost last year. It was a good investment and saying otherwise is just flat wrong. Your drinking and actions while drinking caused the estrangement with your wife and elder son. Not school. Saying otherwise is dishonest and I thought this was supposed to be an honest post. So, keep t real or stop bringing me and our kids up to explain your drinking
[…] Alcoholism Progression Dean’s World […]
I never thought about my progression as an alcoholic. Like many alcoholics, I didn’t see a pattern. But my memory is probably faulty. I’ve never heard what Rosemary said before — that we alcoholics fill in the blanks with conflated memories.
I initially had a "where you been all my life" experience to alcohol. Then, it seemed to go away and I didn’t have many problems. Then, suddenly, one day — and I mean it — one day, I was an alcoholic and began to seriously lose control of my drinking. Perhaps I’m imagining that middle period. Anyway, even at the end, I was losing control only one-third of the time. Maybe it was worse than it seemed.
I do know that I was dysthmic for years after getting sober, and probably didn’t really recover until I was about eight years in. The last 12 years have been pretty good, but I may be going through a very rough patch in the next few months.
The reasons are varied, but the shortest explanation is that I am a fairly atypical learning type in that I do not learn well, at all, from verbal instruction. I have begun to suspect strongly that I am on the autism/asperger’s spectrum somewhere. I don’t learn well by listening to someone explain things to me, and, my patience for listening to lectures where I already understand what others are still struggling to grasp is practically nonexistent (and has been since I was a smallchild).
Forgive the musings of this lower life form, oh Great One, but it would seem to me that if you lost patience listening to lectures that you already understand, why not simply show up on the day of the exams, ace said exams (as a person of your obvious brilliance would no doubt do) and walk away with the college degree, not having had the discomfort of listening to any of those boring lectures?
Denial doesn’t go away when we get clean and sober. It took me probably ten years of telling my story to slowly overcome the euphoric recall (good memories cover bad) and realize a lot of details about my active period, which was roughly 20 years.
For example, I would have told you I didn’t lose jobs because of my alcoholism — but my alcoholic attitude caused me to leave a couple I would have probably been better off keeping, and my inability to see the truth about hating the one I had when I got sober kept me from leaving it until it almost led me to relapse some months later. I would have said the same about my first marriage, but — while I was a good provider and treated my family well — other alcohol-fueled behavior, in retrospect, led to my wife divorcing me despite that.
I could go on and on. Euphoric recall is natural, and as far as I’ve found in sponsoring many men and working in the field, it is universal amongst alcoholics and other addicts. That’s why one 4th step isn’t enough, and why practicing the principles in all our affairs has to include an occasional searching inventory even after some years. The 11th step inventory is too easy. We need to do these searches with the guidance and reality checks of a sponsor. And we need to remember that we don’t always remember — and that some folks may remember differently.
My (present) wife and kids’ input was part of my 4th steps from the beginning, and was invaluable.
Aw, Man! I hate it when I get careless with tags.
I’m not sure how exactly to respond to Rosemary’s comments; I rather wish it had stayed in moderation until I got a chance to review it and talk to her about it. But I think anyone who looks clearly at what I wrote would see that I gave her tremendous credit, and never so much as suggested she was ever just sitting on her ass. She was working hard during those years. We both were.
We did move back to be with her family, but yes, also because we hadn’t been able to sell our old house. On the other hand, I’d always been wanting to get out of this state, because jobs in my field were always better elsewhere. [shrug] Yes, we came back in large part because her father was dying, and of course I did everything I could to be supportive of that, and cried at the funeral just like everybody else. I still miss him, I respected him tremendously.
During the 6 months of unemployment after Indianapolis, I collected unemployment insurance, job searched every day, and worked for about three months delivering pizzas evenings and weekends and watched Jacob during the day. Contrary to rumor, I wasn’t drinking while at home alone with Jake, except maybe to open a beer when I knew his mom was on her way home and I wasn’t working that night. My usual pattern then (alcoholism is progressive) was anywhere from a six pack of beer a night to a couple of 40 ouncers, although when I worked at night I would often come home at midnight, 1 am and have two or occasionally three 40 ouncers of Mickey’s and/or Budweiser and watch Star Trek: Voyager, then go to sleep and get up with Jake while his mom went to work. I also had job opportunities during that period that she discouraged me from pursuing because they didn’t pay enough. The only reason I bring this up, since personal stuff is being brought up now, is I don’t like the impression being that all I did during that brief 6 month stint was sit around the house drinking while his mom worked. We were both struggling hard to make ends meet in very difficult times.
The fact is that from 2002 on I was working extremely hard, under conditions that left me very isolated and despondent. Drinking made it worse, for everybody.
I honestly don’t think I’m making up glowing memories, but like almost everybody my memory isn’t perfect. I could often be a total dickhead while drinking, especially during the last 3-4 years. We were all miserable.
Rigorous honesty is what the 12 step programs demand, and one of the things my sponsor and others emphasize is that rigorous honesty isn’t just about admitting to your character defects and the exact nature of your wrongs, but also avoiding self-pity and self-flagellation and abuse from people who aren’t being fair to you–and also, avoiding holding grudges against people who don’t seem to be being fair is important, and I try not to.
I don’t think I need to say anything else except that I’m extremely grateful to Rosemary for the very hard work she put in during those terrible years, and for all she went through for me and the kids. I dunno if I need to say anything else; I’d rather not get into personal stuff online just because I said I was working hard to provide money and very-badly-needed medical insurance for my family, who I cared very deeply about. How good a job I did is, I guess, a matter of opinion; I certainly fucked up a lot.
You know, a lot of this gets into why I’ve come to the conclusion that our medical insurance system is so screwed up. But maybe that’s for another discussion.
Blargh.
Ever since Jerry Kindall gave you the blog for your birthday 7 or so years ago, your life has been put online.
So it’s kinda tough to say now that you don’t want to bring personal stuff online.
As they say, there are two sides to every story. If your going to put your side up unedited or discussed with Rose, you should allow her side to go up unedited as well.
Rose called me and was upset and she asked if I could post her reply. As hers was waiting in moderation for a few hours. So I posted it, accepting the fact that you’ll probably either ban me again or flag my posts for moderation. I guess we’ll see when I submit this. If I’m wrong, I humbly apologize.
The tough part about this whole thing is that you don’t want to talk about your personal situation, yet you freely talk about your alcoholism. My sister and nephews are fully intertwined in your Alcoholism disease.
Blargh?
Gotta love the email subscriptions.. Your idiocy gets to live on in email form for generations!!
For families of the alcoholic there is Al-Anon, All-Atot and Alateen as I said above. I believe this thread will help many people suffering this insidious disease.
Back in 1969 I attended Al-Anon faithfully. I had visited Al-Anon in 1968 but was not ready to do any step work as I was completely sure everything was my ex-husbands fault. I can’t go into the beatings as this is not the place. I loved this man dearly and I wanted our marriage to survive. It wasn’t until 1969 that I learned step one and how to apply it to my everyday life. My Alcoholics Anonymous book became my bible to my own sanity. I got a wonderful sponser & she made me get honest. It was at times too sobering for me. Gosh, I was 19 then and not really ready for taking on all this getting honest, taking an honest inventory of myself and reading the BOOK, the Big Book it is called. I would rather read other books of my fancy but I had daily calls from my sponser and she was always right. There were times I was so angry at her and actually barked at her a few times. She would just listen but kept firm with me.
This book was originally published in 1939! Can you imagine that? It’s a tremendous book of honesty, sadness, trajedy, suffering and some really inspiring good news. I have the fourth addition from 2001. I wish I still had my original addition as it is considered a treasure.
The book is outstanding and I wish it were in more family homes to help keep families together. I know this is not possible and many familes seperate.
Step One is not what I wanted to do. I would much rather balme it on the husband afterall he was the one drinking, spending our money so I thought. But I too spent money we did not have. I used the almighty credit card to sooth myself. Oh how I thought a new pair of shoes, new lipstick, new clothes for my toddler or buy new material since I loved to sew. Then I wnt to buying new furniture and I think you get the picture. I think that is why in 1969 I did not want to look at what I did. No, the furniture we had was old, one chair broke and it sure seemed the way to go instead of shopping around at garage sales, the salvation army and newspapers (my daughter still does all this today as she is a single Mom and even did it when married. She can afford things now on her salary and prefers the bargains) but I did not. Maybe it was my youth, I don’t know other than I felt we deserved the bettter things…NOPE.
This Big Book makes you strip down naked and get honest, terribly honest and so do the meetings. I was told at my very first meeting to bring home some AA literature but I was too scared to. I was not ready to believe this was a disease and I was also afraid of harm to myself. I skipped out as I was just not ready to do anything. I just knew I could "fix him". If I fixed him, it would solve everything.
The personal stories in the Big Book are so good. By that I mean, you see yourself in some of the stories. I would even laugh at myself because it was so sobering to me. I would read the book when he was not around then I would hide it when he came home. It was the stories and the other women suffering that had me want to find an excuse to go back to another meeting. He was still drinking and I had to find ways to get out to get to a meeting. In the 60’s and 70’s as popular as AA is, it was still a disease that was just for drunks as society had not yet really embraced the truth. It was still thought to be a real taboo kind of thing and just a place drunks hung out. So it made it hard for me on many levels.
Gosh, today it is well known and documented that an alcoholic has a serious disease and I believe in years to come a lot more will come out. I do know people still feel very ashamed of their disease and the pain they suffer. I spoke earlier as to how it is in my family and how much better people are equipped to find help for their suffering loved one. It won’t save the hurting wife, the hurting husband the hurting children but it will help then know and understand the difference.
I think about this prayer as I do on most days of my life now. It is quite simple and beautiful.
God grant me the Serenity to Accept the things I can. Courage to change the things I can…And the wisdom to know the difference.
If someone you love is having a hard time with life share that prayer. If someone you love be it parent or child, tell them this prayer. If someone you love seems to have a problem with drinking whether it is drinking to sooth the nerves, or you hear, I just want to have fun and they go too far or if you can tell they seem to need another drink to get through the day please get some AA brochures and leave it with them or a family member. If you are the loved one that has a spouse, a sister, a brother, a mother or any family member and or friend there is help and it may have to start with you.
I loved an alcoholic and I still love that man even though we are divorced. We did have our good times, some funny and warm times and most of all he gave me my two children. I understand that man, the father of my two children still attends meetings and just told my daughter recently that he really did love me.
That makes my heart skip a beat as we are both so much older. I’m just on the back side of 60 and he is on the other side of 60.
I love my Big Book, I love the steps I still have to take in order to keep my sanity. I have other illness now and this great book helps me live just one day at a time.
OOPS! I wrote the Serenity Prayer all wrong…see how I need it once a day, everday and yes giggle giggle I said it before I got out of bed.
God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I can not change…Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the Difference.
I still make mistakes constantly as I did the Serenity prayer. I go to meetings on fridays as they are such a wonderful way to even deal with all kind of problems we encounter on a daily basis.
My friday meetings are open to all. There are teens there and little kids and it is a great way to raisse a family. Here in San Antonio we even have what we call Club 12 for families. There are meeetings going on all day everyday 365 days a year.
I’m now working on my grandson. He is just 20 years old and is an alcoholic. He went to a treatment center last year and his family on his fathers side thinks he can just get tough and quit. My grandson called me earlier this week and was drunk but asking for help. I was and am grateful I have this program as it will eventually help him. I leave messages with him that I am available to take him to a meeting.
The last thing I would like to say is that the whole family does suffer and there is help out there. This thread I hope will continue with respect to help others suffering whether it is the family of the alcoholic or the alcoholic. Give Al-Anon a try, or other meetings that are open. Churches all over the country have meetings.
AA is not the answer for everybody.
I understand Kevin posted something inflammatory. It’s been removed. There’s no reason to turn things so personal. I don’t endorse those comments, and certainly did not know about them before the fact.
Regarding me putting personal stuff online: yes, we’ve always been fairly open about our personal lives. Both of us. We mostly stopped, with only a few lapses, since November.
I don’t mind keeping some personal business online, but accusations get to be a problematic, because an accusation all but demands a response. I really didn’t think I’d made any accusations above, and I apologize for anything that came off like an accusation. All I was trying to explain was that there was severe stress in my life, and a lot going on involving more than four years of full time school, a midnight-shift job, efforts to turn the blog into a business, health issues, and more. It all adds up to a difficult period, and I don’t mean to accuse anyone of anything.
By the way, regarding lectures: It does bring up an interesting question. It’s just plain hard for me to absorb most information verbally. Always has been. Add in a mind that wanders very easily, and absorbs concepts quickly, and I become extremely bored very fast if I think, "Okay, I get that, move on" and they keep talking.
Learning styles are different for everybody, which is something those who prefer classroom style learning often seem to have a tough time understanding.
Urp. Got an email accusing me of dodging the question. OK, let me be clear: I would have KILLED to walk out and just take the tests and do the papers. Every time I had an opportunity I did exactly that. The colleges I attended (University of Phoenix and Colorado Technical University) had a strict policy that you got a failing grade for that. These were extremely accelerated programs with a high failure rate, and you were expected to be present and active in every single class whether you needed it or not.
It was just one of many things I hated, on top of everything else. Add that on top of a full time job on the midnight shift, a part time job, and the way it all robbed me of the quality time with my kids that I really wanted and I was miserable. Make of it what you will; some of us value that stuff more than others, and some of us are lucky enough to go through college without it being an issue for them.
I just got a call from my grandson. He is just not ready from what I can tell from our conversation. My daughter is glad I am here so when he is ready we can support him. I did get somethings in there like how this disease is as in our family along with cancer and other things. He spoke to me about cancer since my daughter is clear of her breast cancer but he is not ready at 20 years of age, to see it that alcoholism is a very serious disease and sure does run in families. My father died of heart disease and my children will all have to watch themselves, take care of themselves by getting regular check-ups and to mention all diseases. They are all grown aduts and know this. My youngest son is in the gym everyday since his grandma died of cancer.
This thread could really help people and I think that was Dean’s sincere attempt to do that. It was with others and certainly myself. I would like to see this conversation be posted with the helpful things it set out to do.
I should have added this. If somebody would like help with any of the programs I mentioned above and don’t mind my typing errors I would be happy to talk to you. Leave your e-mail with Dean and he can give you mine.
I want a positive note here as well. You do find AA, Al-Anon, Ala-teen, tots in many places not just churches as I mentioned above. Our meetings that I attend are in church but there is Club12 for everyone. A closed meeting is for the alcoholic only but finding meetings of every kind is out there. Here our United Way has all the information with our local phone number of 211.
Over the 4th of July there a hundreds of picnics going on here in San Antonio and all over the country. Mixed meetings can be fun even though we talk about serious issues. There is also laughter as we learn to ease our stress and yes in time laugh again.
Divorce is so sad for the children and I remember my first divorce. I was grateful enough to have learned the things I did as it helped me talk to my liittle one. My daughter was a baby when we dovorced but I was always able to tell them their Dad loved them and that he was sick and did not mean them any harm.
It takes time, it takes naked honesty but when a 12 step program is available it can make your life better just one day at a time.
A family outing with people in 12 steps programs may just be what the doctor ordered. Check your phone book, the 211 in your county. The AA book can be bought anywhere. There have been programs and there still are programs that have popped up due to AA. There is even Overeater’s Anonymous.
I’ve said what I feel could help and I will be happy to answer an e-mail for somebody wanting to go to a 12 step program.
God Bless You
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This is a very honest and soul baring set of posts. As one who has alcoholics in the family I am really impressed with your openness. Thanks for sharing, it really makes me think hard about my own life and what I value.
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