Can drunks ever drink socially again?

“Can I ever drink socially again?” is a question you often here asked from newly recovered drunks. It is also something that people might ask even after years being sober. This is a dangerous line of thinking that has been the cause of much suffering for many of us. In my twenties I picked up alcohol again after two years sobriety because I allowed this question to make itself comfortable in my mind. I began to wonder if it would be possible for me to go and drink like a so called normal person.

The answer for me at least is that I can never drink socially again. I didn’t drink socially to begin with anyway. I just never saw the point in a beer now and again to be social. From my early teens the point of alcohol was to change the way I felt, and the more that I was able to consume the greater the effect. Drinking like a normal person or drinking socially just had no appeal to me. It still doesn’t.

I often hear about groups like moderation management that teach former drunks to drink socially again. These groups seem completely pointless to me, but maybe they work for some people. Why would I want to go back and do something that was once responsible for making my life so miserable? It is not like I’m missing out on much now is it? If drink isn’t going to allow me to completely numb my mind then it doesn’t seem to have much going for it.

I prefer the life of complete abstinence because I know that there is not one tiny bit of enjoyment left in alcohol for me. I made sure of that, because I drank enough for twenty lifetimes. It has been since walking away completely from alcohol that my life has been enjoyable. Even during the best days of my addiction there were never days like the ones I currently now regularly experience. Why would I even consider touching alcohol again? Why would any drunk? For me trying to drink like a normal person would be as silly as trying to avoid bruises like a lucky jay-walker – why would I want to take the risk of jay-walking?

The benefit of helping other addicts

Somebody recently asked me why I still think about my recovery from addiction? Why do I still write about it? This is a fair enough question. After all, I don’t belong to any recovery group exactly because of this reason; I don’t want to be constantly thinking about my previous problems. In fact for my first year away from alcohol I avoided anything even connected to the topic. For the last couple of years though, I have spent a bit of time thinking about my former addiction. Why is that?

I now like to stay involved with those involved with addiction problems for two main reason; the first is that I do believe that if we forget the mistakes of the past we are sure to repeat them, and secondly because there is just so much joy to be found in helping other people.

I had a book published a couple of years ago. It was a memoir about my former addiction. Of course it was a great joy to have something I wrote published, and I still get a thrill when I see my book in shops. The greatest reward though, has been when people contacted me to say that my book helped them in some way. Some have even claimed that it convinced them to get help for their addiction.

During the last days of my addiction I spent most of it drunk and wishing that I wasn’t. Most evenings were spent searching the internet for anything that would help me. I felt desperate, but found surprisingly little that worked for me. There were some great sites out there, but just not for me. It wasn’t until I found a web-site dedicated to the treatment of addicts here in Thailand that I got anything that really appealed to me. Maybe something I have to say will work for somebody else. If not, no problem because it doesn’t cost me much; I enjoy pottering around on the computer anyway.

I don’t try to help others because I see myself as some type of Mother Theresa type. I don’t. I learnt years ago that anyone trying to help other people usually benefits from it far more than the person they are helping. Maintaining contact with addicts also reminds me of where I have come from and what would happen if I were ever to go back.

I spent two decades in the midst of addiction. This time does not need to have been wasted if I can use the knowledge learnt from it to help other people.

Slowly does it

It can sometimes feel that I have stopped making progress in my recovery from addiction. It can occasionally even feel like there has been a big step backwards, and I’m behaving in a manner that seems frighteningly similar to how I once acted as a drunk. It is easy during these times to feel negative and wonder where I have gone wrong. When this happens I find it useful to remember exactly where I have come from. It seems likely that when any recovering drunk or druggy compares where they are now to how it was during the height of their addiction they are sure to feel a lot more positive about things currently; it is usually true for me anyway.

It is strange the way that we go from having such low expectations of ourselves in the midst of our addiction to expecting that we should be now flawless and always positive. That is just not the way it works. Entering recovery is not the end of the journey, but only the start. Previously I had been going around in ever decreasing circles with no hope of ever arriving at anywhere that I might want to be, but now that I am on the correct path, but have to travel a while before I reach my destination. As someone once told me, it doesn’t matter how fast we are going; the main thing is that we are going in the right direction.

Progress tends to only become noticeable over a period of time. The dramatic changes that occur during the early days of recovery from addiction occur less frequently. It is only by looking back on how I was a few months ago that I can say, yes I am now able to deal with this or that better than in the past. Sometimes the greatest progress seems to occur during periods where I have felt that I was going backwards. Some people compare this going backwards as preparing ourselves for a sprint forward.

How to deal with the bad times in sobriety.

Just because we get sober it doesn’t mean that we will be exempt from bad things happening in life. Nobody gets a free ride it seems. The great news is the fact that we are sober means that we can deal with bad times far more effectively, and won’t be adding to the problem by drowning our sorrows. My life has been going well recently, but I know that there will likely be bad times in the future. Unlike my life previously though, I don’t allow this possibility of future pain to stop me from fully enjoying my current happiness.

While my life has been going well, I have been recently talking to people who aren’t having such an easy time of it. It has made me thing about the whole experience of bad times and why they happen. Since getting sober I have noticed that following each of these episodes of a rough patch that my life has had something really positive enter it afterwards. On each of these occasions the good that came afterwards was actually far more significant than the bad that came before. I remember someone once telling me that sometimes when we are going backwards it is to allow us to sprint forward and this definitely has been my experience with the whole thing.

So these bad times seem to be similar to the common cold that makes its rounds each year. We will pick these bugs up, but the best thing to do is get on with things as best we can until we shake it off.

The greatest gift of sobriety - my son

I drank away my late teens and continued into my twenties and wasted over half my thirties on my destructive obsession. During this time all that was really important much of the time was feeding my addiction. People who came in contact with me rarely benefited from my arrival into their lives; many people suffered because of it. I was just too selfish and self-absorbed to be of any use to anybody really. I had given up any dream of starting a family early on in my drinking career; I saw it as a sad but necessary sacrifice.

Yet, here I am about to celebrate my son’s second birthday. My little boy is getting bigger and bigger. I am in the peculiar position of wanting to watch him grow, but wanting to freeze every precious second that we spend together. It is all happening so fast. People said it would, and I thought that I knew what they meant; I didn’t. He is growing right in front of my eyes and every day I notice changes. He is not the same boy he was last month.

I am my son’s world and he is mine; at least for the moment. He is continuing to grow though, and one day he will discover that he doesn’t need me as much as he does now. He will realise that I’m not perfect. That is probably the fear of all fathers. The fear that our child will one day not need us quite as much as they do now.

This time next year my son will have changed all over again; the boy he is now will have disappeared. Maybe his current Thomas the Tank Engine obsession will be replaced by something new. One day he won’t need me to set up his train track and read him bedtime stories about the Island of Sodor and the naughty trains. One day he won’t scream with excitement when one of these imaginary trains come of the rails and the fat controller gets angry. One day he will realise that trains are just trains. One day I will be left wishing that we could go back to these simple times.

My son makes me feel a bit unworthy sometimes. Why should somebody who wasted so much of their life deserve to be a father to such a special boy? I can’t answer that. All I know is that my son is my life and for the moment I am his.