I wrote an article for Drinking Diaries today, “a place where women can spill their drinking stories–from lamp-swinging hilarity to bottle-under-the-bed despair.”
My piece is called “How to Drink Around an Ex-Drinker.” Read, read, read… spread the word, have a party!
http://www.drinkingdiaries.com/2010/09/20/4986/
I came across an article today, “How to Quit Drinking without Alcoholics Anonymous.” Now bless its little heart for offering us alternatives—keep ‘em coming—but I want to say something about the “booze brain” idea the article talks about.
The article suggests that we objectify our “booze brain.” “Think of it as something separate from yourself, and learn to hear it speaking to you. It will try anything to get you to drink, because it falsely believes that you need to drink to survive. If you are feeling bad, it will tell you to drink to feel better. If you are feeling good, it will tell you to drink to party or celebrate.”
The problem I have with that is—it freaks me out! I don’t want to think there is some alien being in my head who will, “try anything to get me to drink.” Scary….
But—if you think it would help you to objectify your feelings—I have another way of thinking about unhealthy impulses or “booze brain” or “stinkin’ thinkin’” as it’s often put in AA. What I would suggest is that you try thinking about your sudden extreme impulses as emotions. And then think about those emotions as your children rather than some frightening bad creature thing.
Say for example you have a sudden overwhelming desire to get drunk or binge on an entire batch of cookies. You can treat that overwhelming desire with the same kindness and attention you would give to your child if they were begging you to eat only cookies for dinner. You can laugh or smile and say to that overly strong child/emotion impulse, “No, we’re not going to drink a case of beer or eat all those cookies. Sorry.” You would not destroy, hate or fear the child if the child/emotion persists. You remind yourself that you are the adult and you are in control. Change the subject, ignore the nagging and eventually the overpowering feelings will cease pestering you—until the next time, where you will practice again the same technique until it becomes natural and easy not to give into desires you know are not good for you. It really does get easier and easier to be good to yourself.
Many people believe an addict is born that way. I am not one of those people. I think most people, particularly those in developed countries, are born into complications of family which then reflects into society, and vice versa. I believe most addicts, particularly those who struggle with alcohol and food, are extremely sensitive to their own suffering as well as to the suffering of the world around them. The difference between the sensitive addict person and the sensitive non-addict person is that somewhere along the line the sensitive non-addict person learned how to handle their painful feelings and emotions in a functional manner and the sensitive addict person has not.
I’ve learned that the healthiest way to handle painful feelings and emotions is to discover for oneself that horrible feelings really are temporary. Even the worst feeling in the world lessens over time.
The irony is that we use substances—alcohol, food, drugs—to stuff temporary feelings into temporary submission. Suppressing feelings has never been a successful technique when it comes to healing fears and painful emotions. The way to heal fears of painful emotions has more to do with entering into those feelings than with suppressing them. The idea is to enter into the fear, feel it fully (for 5 minutes or so), and then to gently remind yourself that it’s just a feeling, it can’t hurt you, and it will pass.
As I flipped through a dated issue of Real Simple magazine in the hotel lobby, I paused to look over an article titled, “How to Host a Laid-Back Game Night.” I mainly focused on the pictures but I was curious—what kind of alcohol will they suggest? I was curious because, one, I still have a slightly sadistic but good-natured desire to tease myself about what I won’t be having at any given party, and two, I like to cook and entertain and really…what would go well with the chosen meal and theme?
The article advises, “Since the sweet and spicy flavors of chili and corn bread can overwhelm many beers, serve dark and malty full-bodied brews.”
I wondered if there is a non-alcoholic replacement for a “dark and malty full-bodied brew”? No, I concluded. There is not. Not only would the flavor and consistency of that particular beer be difficult if not impossible to duplicate, but so would the elevated spirits people get from the effects of alcohol as well as the lifted mood people have just prior to drinking, when they know beer will be served and there is a party coming on.
So then I wondered—if the food were tasty enough, would the “Laid-Back Game Night” party be as much fun without alcohol as it would be with alcohol? I think, yes, possibly. With the right movie stars, roller coaster rides, live bands, naked bodies, and, oh yes, great food, an equally exciting “sober” party is possible. However, it would not be the same as the party serving alcohol.
It occurred to me then, while sitting in the hotel lobby, that what would actually go best with the “sweet and spicy flavors of chili and corn bread” was not in liquid form at all. It was obvious once I thought of it. I was focusing on the wrong items of consumption. I was focusing on what food and drink would be going down my throat. But it has never been food and drink that fulfill my deepest hungers. My deepest hunger is not to consume a substance but to allow in deep feelings of joy and pleasure from life around me—in a party situation and otherwise.
I know from my own experience that allowing in feelings of joy and pleasure takes practice. It would be unusual to suddenly, by sheer declaration of desire, experience deep feelings of pleasure. But knowing that is what you desire now makes it possible to achieve. So, just like a malty, full bodied beer needs time to brew, so should you allow yourself time to taste the flavor of your new healthier habits. You can learn to be the great accompaniment to any meal (your life) with your sparkling spirit and your own unique flavor. That way you can enjoy the party too!
This morning I decided to watch (via Netfix’s “watch instantly” feature) “The Lost Weekend,” (1945). It is the first movie to accurately portray an alcoholic in a character study.
In the following scene the main character, Don Birnam, an unsuccessful alcoholic writer, is in the middle of explaining to the bartender, “Nat,” the plot of a book he’s planning to write based on himself and his experience with the woman in his life, Helen. It’s about a how a high class lady got mixed up with an alcoholic.
Bartender: Okay, so they go to that cocktail party and he gets stinko and falls flat on his face.
Don: He does not. By this time he’s crazy about the girl. He drinks tomato juice. Doesn’t touch the liquor that whole week. For two weeks. For six weeks!
Bartender: In Love, huh?
Don: That’s what’s going be so hard to write. Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. It’s so simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rose garden in front of her house, the ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven’s Pastorale, a letter scribbled on her office stationary that you carry around in your pocket because it smells like all the lilacs in Ohio….
I find it interesting that both the cynical bartender and the alcoholic so easily—naturally—accept that love can make a grown man stop drinking.
Love—not only romantic love—is a central, essential human need. That is why I stress over and over the importance of self-care when healing from addictions. It is so important to nourish not only your physical body but your heart and soul as well, because that is where love blooms.
Returning to the movie…
Helen: The only way to start is to stop. There is no cure besides just stopping.
Don: Can’t be done.
Helen: Other people have stopped.
Don: People with a purpose, with something to do.
The “purpose” and “something to do” is that which inspires you to feel love towards yourself and love towards others. That is what will help you feel purpose and feel like you are doing (or can do) “something.” A good way to get started is to cultivate inner awareness. You can study from the teachings of the Dalai Lama or from those who have “examined” Socrates or from contemporary teachers such as Louis Hay, Shakti Gawain, Ron Scolastico. There are many others. Learn how to observe from those who have learned. You can expand your feelings of love, compassion and understanding.
An interesting thing happened just hours after I posted my last blog on moderate drinking. I was at a gathering of old friends I was meeting for the first time—friends of friends—so the spirit was celebratory. There was plenty of alcohol and the person going to the store was taking orders for more. “I’ll just do shots so get a bottle of….” “I like Heinekin but Amstel is good too….”
I was listening and thinking, “I wish I could say SKYY Vodka. I loved SKYY Vodka….”
And then began the hour or more of intense and aggravating self-talk so that I would not decide to drink. Not that I would have done it right there, but I could have made the decision then to drink as soon as I got home.
I thought it was interesting that after going on in my last post about the amount of work moderate drinking would be for me, I was confronted with at least an equal amount of work in order that I not drink at all.
The end of the story—and the end of my work that night—was that the husband confided in me that his wife, the hostess of the party, was a full-blown alcoholic. In fact, her last husband had died from an Alcohol related illness.
Wow. So I was having a reasonable reaction given that I was in the company of my old behavior—the excitement of drinking together was the sweet side and the husband dying of an alcoholic related disease was the poisonous side. When I connected all that, my work was done. I easily enjoyed the rest of the party.
I believe that certain people who have struggled with substance abuse can have a glass of wine without a problem. But I’m probably not talking about you.
I don’t think very many people who have struggled with substance abuse have reached the level of understanding and maturity that is required to drink moderately without a problem. I’m going to brag here and say I believe I have reached that level. I say that without having actually put myself to the test, so I can’t really know for sure. But I am not convinced for myself that “One drink is too many and 1000 is never enough,” as A.A. puts it.
I know that if I reintroduce alcohol into my life and try to maintain a light drinking habit, it will be a LOT more work for me than I care to take on. The daily conversations I would need to have with myself in order to continue that moderate drinking behavior are much more than I want to tackle.
So even though I think moderate drinking is possible for a select few
, I’m not interested in the challenge. But before you rush to the challenge yourself, I suggest you read this article.
The article covers the case of Audrey Kishline, the founder of Moderation Management (MM). Reading that article (and other articles on the author’s website) illuminated even more my understanding that even though successful moderate drinking is possible for me, it’s just not worth the effort. I think it’s possible to become a moderate drinker after struggling with addictions, but I do not think that most people in recovery who desire to do so are willing to do what it takes to accomplish that.