We Concentrate On Avoiding Only One Drink
The First One!
From “Living Sober”
“We have found that for us recovery began with not drinking - with getting sober and staying completely free of alcohol in any amount, and in any form. We have also found that we have to stay away from other mind-changing drugs. We can move toward a full and satisfying life only when we stay sober. Sobriety is the launching pad for our recovery.”
That ain’t middle-of-the-road psycho-babble, that is directly out of AA approved literature! This is for those who have questioned the presence of the word “abstinence” in our literature. If you’re not certain that completely free of alcohol in any amount, and in any form is abstinence I’d suggest looking under your feet to make sure what planet you’re on… While you’re doing that - also notice that it says that the marijuana (anything mind-changing) maintenance program doesn’t work either.
See if any of this applies to you or you can identify. “Living Sober”
“Many of us, when we first began to drink, never wanted or took more than one or two drinks. But as time went on, we increased the number. Then, in later years, we found ourselves drinking more and more, some of us getting and staying very drunk. Maybe our condition didn’t always show in our speech or our gait, but by this time we were never actually sober.
If that bothered us too much, we would cut down, or try to limit ourselves to just one or two, or switch from hard liquor to beer or wine. At least, we tried to limit the amount, so we would not get too disastrously tight. Or we tried to hide how much we drank.”
For the last couple of weeks I have had the “pleasure/displeasure” of watching someone sneak drinks out of small bottles hidden in the company bathroom. I can imagine the thoughts that race through this person’s mind as they stare into the full-length mirror that is unavoidably right in your face as you turn that bottle up.
“But all these measures got more and more difficult. Occasionally, we even went on the wagon, and did not drink at all for a while.
Eventually, we would go back to drinking - just one drink. And since that apparently did no serious damage, we felt it was safe to have another. Maybe that was all we took on that occasion, and it was a great relief to find we could take just one or two, then stop. Some of us did that many times.”
Yours truly being one of them…
“But the experience proved to be a snare. It persuaded us that we could drink safely. And then there would come the occasion (some special celebration, a personal loss, or no particular event at all) when two or three made us feel fine, so we thought one or two more could not hurt. And with absolutely no intention of doing so, we found ourselves again drinking too much. We were right back where we had been - overdrinking without really wanting to.”
And, once again, coming to in the morning PO’d because I swore I wasn’t going to do it again!
“Such repeated experiences have forced us to this logically inescapable conclusion: If we do not take the first drink, we never get drunk. Therefore, instead of planning never to get drunk, or trying to limit the number of drinks or the amount of alcohol, we have learned to concentrate on avoiding only one drink: the first one.”
Abstinence.
Tags: 1st-Tradition, 3rd-Tradition, alcoholics-anonymous, Common Sense, Living SoberRelated Stories
POSTED IN: In The Book, Living Sober
0 opinions for We Concentrate On Avoiding Only One Drink
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: