Confession Time:
I’ll be honest, I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past six months. Since Stan and I started this blog back in early June, I feel we grow closer to each and every one of you. Sure, we’ve never met in person, or in many cases we’ve never even had direct communication with any of you through means of instant messaging or comments through other posts. Regardless, I feel as though we had developed a connection, a shared bond for a common cause if you will. With that being said, it is with the heaviest of hearts that I write to you all this week. I have a confession to make… I have a thinking problem.
Underwhelming? Perhaps, but it was a bit of a revelation to me at the time. I mean think about it. As a person who is young and sober, with a history of trauma, and a mental health condition; who would have thought that I also had a thinking problem to go alongside my drinking problem? Wait… yeah that makes sense actually.
Back Story:
Let’s go back in time a little bit, shall we? When I first began my journey to and through sobriety, it was pretty rough going. I had been drinking compulsively, all day, every day like any good alcoholic does. It was the perfect blend of sophisticated science and artistic chaos to conceal my drinking from parents, teachers, friends, bosses, and co-workers alike. It wasn’t honest, but it was hard work.
In the early days of my drinking, it never occurred to me that I had a drinking problem. Eventually, I conceded that if I wasn’t “careful” I could have a drinking problem in the future. At that point in time, however, I was convinced that my drinking was “borderline” problematic at best. As time passed, there were a few incidents with a boyfriend or a roommate who would comment on my drinking routine. In my mind, they were either too straight-laced or toeing the line of hypocrisy; their unease was negligible as far as I was concerned.
If you’ve made it this far, you know how this particular part of my story ends. Just in case you happen to be new around here. 12-step meetings, detox, 30+ days in treatment, followed by homelessness is where that part of my story ends up. Fear not, I did actually stay sober, and in case it’s not obvious by now, I am also no longer homeless. Here’s where it gets interesting though…
Moment of Clarity:
Once I was actually sober, or “chemical free” as Stan likes to call it, I started to learn all kinds of new things about myself. As it turns out, I am an alcoholic! Shocker, right? (You’re not surprised. I know.)
Learning that I was an alcoholic turned my world upside-down in a sense. It threw me for a loop though, namely because I discovered that basically everything I thought I knew about myself and the world around me, was wrong. Believe it or not, the world was not out to get me. I wasn’t the sole victim of a hopeless malady, and I did not have to accept a fate of misery and isolation for the rest of what I hoped to be my short-lived existence in this world.
Through my short time in sobriety, I learned two very important, very disappointing things about myself. The first part was that I had a drinking problem and the second being that I also had a thinking problem. Now perhaps you’re wondering, how exactly did I come across this particularly wonderful piece of good news. Don’t worry, I’ll tell ya!
Breaking It Down:
The drinking problem is pretty straightforward at this point. If you have your doubts about that I’d recommend reading “Being Constitutionally Incapable” to catch up on that part of my story. If by now you’re questioning whether or not you yourself have a drinking problem, perhaps Stan’s post “What If I Am An Alcoholic” would be helpful at this stage of your journey. In any case, what may be unclear, is the development of my thinking problem.
I’ve given this a good bit of thought (no the irony of this statement is not lost on me), and what I have been able to determine so far is that historically my thinking has been… a problem. Allow me to explain, and perhaps maybe you can even relate.
The Cycle of Insanity:
By now, most of the civilized world has heard the misattributed al-anon quote “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again; expecting a different result.” I however would like to present a new definition (well new-ish) “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, knowing what the result will be, and doing it anyway.” This is how addiction works for many of us alcoholics and addicts, myself included.
You see, I tried every trick in the book to stop drinking once I realized that ultimately my choices were sobriety or death. I thought journaling, health & fitness, religion, and church, socializing, new jobs, and new friends could help me get sober. When that didn’t work, I tried moderating my drinking. I decided I would drink beer instead of liquor, and then wine instead of beer.
Perhaps not drinking first thing in the morning, waiting until noon, not drinking in class, only drinking after work, but not an hour before bed would help. It didn’t. Honestly, the majority of the time, if I could even stay true to these commitments for a short time, I knew they wouldn’t work. I thought wrong, I tried anyway, and I failed to take into account that I had both a drinking and thinking problem.
Mistakes Were Made:
Here’s where I get a good chuckle looking back on the old me from back in those days. Once I discovered that everything I could possibly think to try wasn’t working to curb my drinking, I set out to find a way to broaden my thought process. It’s quite comical really, to honestly have believed that I could, somehow, think of something that I could never have thought of before. See, I was thoroughly convinced that I could think my way into getting sober. Little did I know at the time, it would be impossible for someone like me. Why? Because… like I said before… hello? I have a thinking problem.
Stubborn Pride:
Fed up. Hopeless. Helpless. Desperate. I gave up. Don’t be silly though, I didn’t give up the idea of figuring out sobriety by myself. No, not at all. I gave up the idea of getting sober altogether. Honestly, if I couldn’t figure it out, who could? (facepalm) Are you seeing the reoccurring theme here? Is it obvious yet?
Jumping Off Place:
There comes a point in every alcoholic’s journey where we are faced with two seemingly bleak but very clear options. We can go on drinking, miserable, full of self-loathing, fighting to the bitter end, or we can give up the bottle, follow suggestions, and get sober.
If you’re familiar with the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous there’s an entire passage dedicated to this very phenomenon. They call it, “the jumping-off place”. Allow me if you will to quote you a small portion of that passage: “[they] cannot picture their life with or without alcohol. Then [they] will know loneliness as such few do. They will be at the jumping off place. They will wish for the end.”
This is exactly where I found myself. Ironically enough, this wasn’t the first rock bottom I had faced in active addiction. To be honest, it wasn’t even the worst rock bottom I had experienced, but it was exactly where I didn’t want to be any longer.
There is A Solution:
I eventually crawled my way into the rooms of a 12-step program and asked for help. I gave honest attempts to follow the suggestions, do the work, and most importantly not drink and attend meetings. It helped, a lot! Baffled as to how a bunch of (former) drunks could help anyone, much less each other stay sober, I was in awe. Granted, I did have to have the outside help of medical detox and a short-term therapeutic inpatient program, but the A.A. was working for me!
Don’t get me wrong it’s not like the clouds parted and a magical sky daddy laid hands on me to heal me of all of my woes, but I was getting better. I was healing both mentally and physically. It was confusing and I was still struggling to grasp on to what seemed like the most basic concepts of sobriety. Why couldn’t I figure this out myself? What was it about me that was so broken inside I couldn’t figure out how to stay sober without a bunch of old sober drunks?
I remember voicing these thoughts to a member at my home group one night before a meeting. He kind of chuckled for a minute, like old-timers always seem to when asked a serious question about sobriety, and then he told me something I’ll never forget. He said “Honey, the thing about alcoholics like me, or you for that matter, is that we think that our only problem is the drink.” Continuing he added, “we’ve got it all wrong when we walk into these rooms. We don’t just have a drinking problem, we have a damn thinking problem to go along with.”
Moment of Clarity:
Essentially, my whole problem, outside of being a boozehound of course, was that I was trying to think my way into sober living. I had it all bass-ackwards, that’s just not how it works! If I want to get sober, and more importantly, if I want to stay sober, I have to forget everything I think I know. I can’t think my way into sober living, I must live my way into sober thinking!
Damn… How did I not think of that? HA!
Do you find that you also have a thinking problem? If so check out my other post “First Thought Wrong”
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