Monday, April 30, 2012

Today, April 30, 2012, is my 7,301st day of continuous sobriety.

Unlike those who can order a glass of wine with their dinner and then leave half of it untouched (a blatant example of alcohol abuse, in my opinon), I have never been able to have ONE alcoholic drink in my life.  'Not drinking' meant having only two, three at the most, and then gritting my teeth through the next few hours as I struggled mightily against the physical craving set off as soon as I ingested the drug ethyl alcohol.  People without this craving, this allergy of the body, will never EVER understand it.  They may be able to compare it with cravings of their own - their craving for sugar, say, or watching bad Western Movies, but unless you are like me you will never get 'it'.

What is 'it"?

"It" is that horrible knowledge that no matter how many times I prove to myself that I am an unsuccessful drinker of alcohol, there will come a time when the pain I feel when I am stone cold sober will become so great I will absolutely disregard my good sense and historical fact and I will drink again.

"It" is that ugly feeling the day (or two) after a binge when you open your eyes and you are not real sure where you are, or who that person is next to you, or where your clothes are, or what time it is and the shame that sweeps over you because you never, never, never meant to do this again...but you did 'it' anyway.

"It" is when you look into the eyes of a loved one and see puzzlement, disgust, pain and sometimes even hatred and you have a vague memory of spewing verbal excrement at them the night before while you fumble with (another) tearful apology.

But the worst part of 'it' is the trying  to stay sober over and over and over again, never wanting to hurt anyone and just wanting the pain and lonliness you feel to go away and knowing that it is inevitable - you are going to drink again.

And for me, to drink is to get drunk.

Today I have over 7 thousands days of sobriety.  How did that happen?

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