Living sober (12 page)

When our sobriety has a foundation firm enough to withstand stress,
then
we are ready to work through and straighten out other aspects of our lives.

25 Getting out of the 'if' trap

Emotional entanglements with people are not the only way we can get our sobriety dangerously hooked to something extraneous. Some of us have a tendency to put other conditions on our sobriety, without intending to.

One AA member says, "We drunks* are very 'iffy’ people. During our drinking days, we were often full of ifs, as well as liquor. A lot of our daydreams started out,
If
only...' And we were continually saying to ourselves that we wouldn't have gotten drunk
if
something or other hadn't happened, or that we wouldn't have any drinking problem at all
if
only..."

We all followed up that last "if with our own explanations (excuses?) for our drinking. Each of us thought: I wouldn't be drinking this way...

If it wasn't for my wife (or husband or lover)...if I just had more money and not so many debts...if it wasn't for all these family problems... if I wasn't under so much pressure...if I had a better job or a better place to live... if people understood me... if the state of the world wasn't so lousy...if human beings were kinder, more considerate, more honest...if everybody else didn't expect me to drink...if it wasn't for the war (any war)... and on and on and on.

Looking back at this kind of thinking and our resultant behavior, we see now that we were really letting circumstances outside ourselves control much of our lives.

When we first stop drinking, a lot of those circumstances recede to their proper places in our minds.

At the personal level, many of them really clear up as soon as we start staying sober, and we begin to see what we may be able to do about the others some day. Meanwhile, our life is much, much better sober, no matter what else may be going on.

But then, after a sober while, for some of us there comes a time when—plop!—a new discovery slaps us in the face. That same old "iffy" thinking habit of our tippling days has, without our seeing it, attached itself to not drinking. Unconsciously, we have placed conditions on our sobriety. We have begun to think sobriety is just fine—
if
everything goes well, or
if
nothing goes askew.

In effect, we are ignoring the biochemical, unchangeable nature of our ailment Alcoholism respects no ifs. It does not go away, not for a week, for a day, or even for an hour, leaving us nonalcoholic and able to drink again on some special occasion or for some extraordinary reason—not even if it is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, or if a big sorrow hits us, or if it rains in Spain or the stars fall on Alabama. Alcoholism is for us unconditional, with no dispensations available at any price.

It may take a little while to get that knowledge into the marrow of our bones. And we sometimes do not recognize the conditions we have unconsciously attached to our recovery until something goes wrong through no fault of ours. Then—whammy!—there it is. We had not counted on
this
happening.

The thought of a drink is natural in the face of a shocking disappointment. If we don't get the raise, promotion, or job we counted on, or if our love life goes awry, or if somebody mistreats us, then we can see that maybe all along we have been banking on circumstances to help us want to stay sober.

Somewhere, buried in a hidden convolution of our gray matter, we had a tiny reservation—a condition on our sobriety. And it was just waiting to pounce. We were going along thinking, "Yep, sobriety is great, and I intend to keep at it." We didn't even hear the whispered reservation: "That is,
if
everything goes my way."

Those ifs we cannot afford. We have to stay sober no matter how life treats us, no matter whether nonalcoholics appreciate our sobriety or not. We have to keep our sobriety independent of everything else, not entangled with any people, and not hedged in by any possible cop-outs or conditions.

Over and over, we have found we cannot stay sober long just for the sake of wife, husband, children, lover, parents, other relative, or friend, nor for the sake of a job, nor to please a boss (or doctor or judge or creditor)—not for
anyone
other than ourselves.

Tying up our sobriety to
any
person (even another recovered alcoholic) or to
any
circumstance is foolish and dangerous. When we think, "111 stay sober
if— *
or "I won't drink because of—" (fill in any circumstance other than our own desire to be well, for health's own sake), we unwittingly set ourselves up to drink when the condition or person or circumstance changes. And any of these may change at any moment.
[* Some of us AA's refer to ourselves as "drunks," no matter how long we have been sober.

Others prefer "alcoholics." There are good reasons for both terms. "Drunks" is lighthearted, tends to keep the ego

down to size, and reminds us of our proneness to drinking. "Alcoholics" is equally honest, but more dignified and more

in keeping with the now widely accepted idea that alcoholism is a perfectly respectable illness, not Just willful self-

indulgence.]

Independent, unaffiliated with anything else, our sobriety can grow strong enough to enable us to cope with anything—and everybody. And, as you'll see, we start liking
that
feeling, too.

26 Being wary of drinking occasions

We have worked out many ways of handling occasions when other people are drinking, so that we may enjoy these occasions without drinking.

Back on page 21, we talked about whether to keep liquor or other alcoholic beverages in the house when we decide to stop drinking. In that discussion, we acknowledged that we live in a society where most people drink, and we cannot realistically expect that fact to change. Throughout the rest of our lives, there will be drinking occasions. Chances are, every day we will see people drinking, see drinking places, see and hear dozens of advertisements urging us to drink.

We cannot insulate ourselves against all such suggestions, and it is futile to bemoan that fact. Nor do we have any need or wish to deprive other people of drinking. We have also found that we do not have to forgo the pleasure of being with companions who drink. Although it makes sense to spend more time with nondrinkers than with drinkers when we
first
start staying sober, we have no wish to withdraw from the world forever just because so many people drink. Those who cannot eat fish or nuts or pork or strawberries don't crawl into caves. Why should we?

Do we go into bars, or into restaurants or clubs where liquor is served?

Yes—after a few weeks or months, when we have a
legitimate
reason to be there. If we have time to kill while waiting for friends, we do not choose to spend it perched on a barstool, swilling a cola.

But if a business or social event occurs in such a place, we attend and participate in all but the drinking.

For the first non-drinking months, it's probably a healthy idea to stay away from our old drinking buddies and haunts, and to find reasonable excuses for skipping parties where drinking will be a major entertainment. It seems especially important to stay away from such affairs if we feel nervous about them.

But, sooner or later, there comes the time when a family or business obligation or a friendship makes us feel compelled to go—or perhaps we just want to go. We have developed a number of ways to render such occasions easy for us to take, even though we abstain. Now, we are talking primarily about the big cocktail party or the fairly large but informal dinner-with-drinks evening.

If the host or hostess is an old friend we can level with, sometimes it helps to tell him or her in advance that we are not drinking right now. We do not ask for any special treatment, of course. But it's reassuring to know there will be at least one person present who is completely sympathetic to our efforts to get over a drinking problem. Sometimes, we can take with us a more experienced nondrinker, or at least a companion who knows we are abstaining and realizes how important it is to us.

It is also beneficial, before you go, to talk with another recovered alcoholic or with someone else on your side, who is rooting for your health and fully understands the pressure you'll be under. Arrange to call back later and tell how it went Another recovered alcoholic would appreciate such a call very much. Believe us! We AA's get a thrill from every such message.

It is a very good idea to eat a sandwich or other snack before going to a party, even if you know food will be served later. Something nourishing in the stomach, as we've already said, takes the edge off many trying situations. (And you might carry along a small packet of your favorite mints or a dietetic substitute.) This is even more important when you are headed for a party at which there are likely to be some long heavy-drinking hours before food appears.

When you know that will be the schedule, you may prefer to skip the first hour or so of the drinking and arrive only shortly before dinner is served. Many of us do this. Then, if there is going to be a long drunk evening after eating, we have found it is also easy to leave early. The very few who do notice our slipping away, we have discovered, hardly mind our departure at all. They are too busy drinking, or whatever.

Upon arriving at such a party, it is usually best to bead straight for the bar and get a glass of ginger ale or other soda. No one knows whether it is an alcoholic drink or not. Then we can walk about socializing, glass in band, without feeling conspicuous.

This experience was quite revealing to many of us when we first had it. We discovered to our surprise that (1) other people's drinking is not what we thought it was, and (2) very, very few people observe, or care, whether or not we drink alcohol. (Some exceptions to the latter are likely to be loving friends or relatives, who are usually glad to see us doing something about our drinking.) Many of us used to say, and believe, that "everybody" drinks, and we could argue that we did not drink a lot more than the other drinkers we knew. To tell the truth, as our drinking went on over the years, many of us tended to associate less and less with nondrinkers, so of course it seemed to us that "everybody"—certainly everybody we saw—drank.

Now, sober, when we see "everybody," it is a revelation to find that not all of them do drink, and that many of the others drink much less than we had supposed.

Anticipating occasions like these, the newly sober alcoholic wonders what to answer if drinking friends and relatives say such things as:

"Come have a drink.''

"What are you drinking?"

"Why, you
can't
be an alcoholic!"

"Don't you drink?"

"Just one won't hurt."

"Why aren't you drinking?"... and the like.

To our relief, we found that these questions come up less often than we expected, and our answers seem to have much less importance than we thought they would have. Our not drinking creates less of a stir than we feared it would.

There is one exception. Once in a while, a really heavy drinker will get pretty pushy about our not drinking. Most of us come to believe that such an attitude is very suspicious. Civilized, polite people simply do not carry on that much about what other people choose to drink or eat, or not to drink or eat, unless they have some hang-up of their own, do they? We find it curious that anyone should try to get a person to drink who does not care to; and we especially wonder why anybody wants a person with a record of drinking-related problems to try to drink again.

We learn to steer clear of such people. If they do indeed have their own hang-up to contend with, we wish them well. But we need not defend our choices to them or to anyone else. And we do not argue with them, or try to change their minds. Again, our attitude is "Live and Let Live."

But back to those questions asked politely and casually by well-meaning friends and relatives, and our answers to them. There are probably as many good ways to handle these situations as there are nondrinkers, and your own intelligence will lead you to the one that works best and is most comfortable for you.

However, the outlines of several different successful methods have emerged from the years of accumulated experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. The past has banked its wisdom, and it is foolish not to draw on it.

Great numbers of us (but not all) believe that the sooner we establish the truth with our acquaintances, the better it is for us. We do not have to keep up any pretenses, and most good people appreciate our honesty and encourage our efforts to stay free of our addiction. Saying aloud to other people that we do not drink helps greatly to strengthen our own determination to stay sober. And there may be a by-product: Occasionally, we find that making such a statement encourages someone else present who also needs or wants not to drink.

Therefore, many of us do not hesitate, when it is appropriate, to say, "I'm not drinking now."

"I'm not drinking today (or this week)" or simply "No, thanks" or a straightforward "I don't care for any" often satisfies the questioner.

If we feel the need to explain any further, we try to do it without lying, and in a way that other people can rapidly understand and accept. For instance, there are old standbys like "Health reasons,"

"I'm on a diet," and "Doctor's orders." Most of us, at one time or another, have been given or have read some such advice by a physician.

"I've had my share," "Had all I can handle," and "Found out it doesn't agree with me" are also truthful.

While we AA's do not use, among ourselves, the expression "on the wagon," it is something most people certainly understand and respect, as long as we do not urge others to abstain.

Although we certainly cannot recommend untruthfulness, because of the way it makes
us
feel, occasionally some of us in desperation have resorted to the "little white lie," one of those small fibs believed to be harmless and sometimes described as necessary lubrication for the smooth operation of society.