Corking the Bottle

If you find yourself digging a deeper and deeper hole, the logical first step is to get rid of the shovel. Then you can plan how to get out. "You hit bottom when you stop digging," the Big Book says on page 325. As long as that shovel was available, however, I was determined  to keep digging. I didn't really want to stop, even though I told others I did. A narrative in the Big Book, "It might Have Been Worse," describes our predicament. "Again I promised to do something about it (drinking). Broken promises, humiliation, hopelessness, worry, anxiety -- but still not enough (to make me lay down my shovel).... "Like all alcoholics I wanted to handle my problem my own way, which really meant I didn't want anything to interfere with my drinking. I was trying to find an easier, softer way." Right in front of me was God. He had been there the hole time, waiting for me to find the answers on my own. He isn't an easier, softer answer, bu...

A big hammer in my sobriety toolbox is a drug called Antabuse, or Disulfiram. It's supposed to make me very sick if I ingest any alcohol. Others who have dared test the drug tell me: Don't test the drug! I could drink if I stopped taking it for five days. But my problem has been spur-of-the-moment bottle buying. I'm not going to plan to drink five days from now. But two pharmacies have told me Antabuse no longer is manufactured. What's up with that? It must have been profitable because my insurance was paying $1,785 a month for it. I'm waiting until my doctor returns from vacation later this week to ask him about alternatives. Meanwhile, I posted a question on Teva Pharmaceuticals website. I will let you know if I get an answer.

(First published June 14, 2018 and edited today) I'm not very handy when it comes to fixing stuff. At one time, my excuse was no good tools. Now I have plenty of tools and no legitimate excuses. Repairs may take me a long time, but I can only blame lack of knowledge or lack of effort when I fail. I've got plenty of tools in ye olde toolbox. Same thing when it comes to drinking. I'm not so handy when it comes to fixing myself. But when I mess up, I don't degrade myself. I add another tool and sometimes get rid of the ones that aren't helping me. I started off going to A.A. meetings once in a while and going to a local government-supported therapy program. I soon found I needed more than those two tools alone. My toolbox is now full. I regularly: Have a sponsor. See a psychiatrist. See a therapist who exchanges notes with the psychiatrist. Take antidepressants and 500 mg of Antabuse, which is supposed to make me sick if I put alcohol into my system. Sti...

[First published on May 20] I have been told and read since I was knee-high to a bourbon barrel that alcoholism is a disease. That's still my opinion and I'm sticking to it. But a book I am currently reading,  Scripts People Live   by by Claude Steiner, contains a different view (page 233). I will save you the wordy reasoning, but he writes that "real" diseases require micro-organism changes to some organ. No such bodily alterations cause mental illnesses and no drugs cure them, leaving afflictions like addictions as un-diseases. He goes on to claim, "At present no drug has proven effective to cure depression, madness, or drug abuse ... since these tragic scripts are not the result of chemical or micro-organismic changes in the body but the result of the scripted interactions between people.... Thus, alcoholism is not an illness." Not so fast, Claude. The Big Book disagrees. So do  Staying Sober  authors Terrence T. Gorski and Merlene Miller (page...

Home basketball season opened last night for the University of Louisville women's basketball team. I have been a season ticket holder for several years, just a few rows up in the corner of the KFC Yum! Center. We have made the final four three times, including last year, and played in the national championship twice, getting clobbered both times by Connecticut. Ugh!  I enjoyed the game last night immensely, We beat Miami (Ohio) by 22 points. What made the game so great was that I watched it completely sober. I missed a few games in the past because I was too drunk. One time I went and forgot where I parked the car. During the first round of the NCAA tournament last spring, which we hosted here, I saw us beat Boise State, but I was only half there. I didn't make it to game 2. On the way there, I rear-ended a car and woke up in the  emergency room. I wasn't hurt, but I was completely out of it. I don't remember the accident or the ambulance ride. So, how fun was dri...

I hope this series of blog posts will enable you to recognize some symptoms of relapse. I meant well and tried hard, but I kept relapsing anyway. There was often a nagging little voice telling me to go ahead and try a drink. Maybe this series of blog posts will help you or a loved one break out of the relapse pattern sooner and easier than I did. Terence T. Gorski, co-author of  Staying Sober , identified 11 phases of relapse in his book Staying Sober ( https://www.amazon.com/Terence-T.-Gorski/e/B001JSA9K8 ). I hope you will find this series helpful enough to review again and again -- at once or in parts. An idea might be to checkmark symptoms in the 11 phases to see if you or a loved one is in danger of relapsing. Then take action. Gorski's research involved 118 recovering patients who had four things in common: They completed a 21- or 28-day rehab program; They recognized they could never again safely use alcohol; They intended to remain sober forever through A.A. and ou...

"I don't drink to get happy or forget the pain. I drink to stop the voices in my head."  -- Andrew Dice Clay I'm sorry for quoting a potty mouth like Dice Clay. But his words, in this instance, apply to the message I wanted to deliver to you today. I once drank because I wanted to. I didn't want to quit. When I finally came to the realization that I had to stop, I still didn't stop. I relapsed again and again. When I bought liquor, it wasn't some part of a big plan, because I was depressed, because I was celebratory, because I was hopeless, or because I was angry. I drank because the voices in my head told me to. "Come on," they said. "Prove to yourself you aren't an alcoholic." "You can just drink a little at a time and you won't get drunk." "Nobody will ever know." "You can drink only late at night and it will help you sleep better." "Don't let Kathy (my w...

I have been told and read since I was knee-high to a bourbon barrel that alcoholism is a disease. That's still my opinion and I'm sticking to it. But a book I am currently reading, Scripts People Live by Claude Steiner, contains a different view (page 233). I will save you the wordy reasoning, but he writes that "real" diseases require micro-organism changes to some organ. No such bodily alterations cause mental illnesses and no drugs cure them, leaving afflictions like addictions as un-diseases. He goes on to claim, "At present no drug has proven effective to cure depression, madness, or drug abuse ... since these tragic scripts are not the result of chemical or micro-organismic changes in the body but the result of the scripted interactions between people.... Thus, alcoholism is not an illness." Not so fast, Claude. The Big Book disagrees. So do Staying Sober authors Terrence T. Gorski and Merlene Miller (page 39-40): "Addiction is a physical ...