What Matters Is What I Do, By Carl W.

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What Matters Is What I Do About It

By Carl W.

I find feelings of "shame, self-hatred, or helplessness" to be distinctly unproductive when it comes to getting sober. I was riddled with them at first. Even more damaging was my fury at all I had lost professionally, financially, and otherwise from my alcoholism. I really beat myself over that. These feelings made it difficult to stay sober. My customary way of dealing with such emotions for years had been alcohol. It was hard to learn completely new behavior to escape the cycle of regrets and drinking.

I read a lot about alcoholism. I discovered just what an intractable problem alcoholism is. Alcoholism is the despair of not only those victimized by it but by those who spend their careers trying to help us. If you think it's tough being alcoholic, consider the plight of the therapist/counselor. Most alcoholics never make a sincere effort to get sober no matter what. Of those who do go into a therapeutic program, most numbers I could find show that about two thirds relapse within sixty days. Very few are sober at the end of a year and at two years. Something is wrong with how we treat alcoholism (I happen to think that the bureaucracies' heavy commitment to AA and rejection of scientific approaches is a large part of the problem).

I don't have many feelings of shame, guilt, or regret nowadays. I consciously tried to get over that. This was not easy, since I was reared in an extremely fundamentalist Protestant home where every question, especially something like alcoholism, had a moral dimension. But I rejected that ridiculous religion and the notions of guilt and morality associated with alcoholism and it helped me immensely.

My present attitude toward why I am alcoholic is kind of a muddle, but I think it's a kind of helpful muddle. Most therapists I think would agree with it. I don't buy the disease model of alcoholism. What I do believe is that I have an inbred predisposition towards alcoholism. I didn't have my first drink until I was 21 in the Navy. I instantly loved it and was drinking alcoholically almost immediately. That tells me something. I didn't have a clue about alcoholism and didn't consider myself one for several years. It wasn't discussed as much in those years as it is today. I happened to read a column in The New York Times one day on alcoholism. It had one of those little checklists to help you determine if you're an alcoholic. I aced it, which rather distressed me. I knew then what I was dealing with or at least what its name was. I didn't try to get help until a few years later, however. I just felt terrible about being a drunken alcoholic.

I finally wound up in AA, which was a big relief for awhile. At least somebody understood what a struggle I was going through. I bought it hook, line, and sinker, or at least made a strong effort to do so, because I was desperate. I objected to religion and the messy logic of AA, but I suspended my usual skepticism because I was desperate and the way I was living was only causing my life to deteriorate markedly.

I have finally pieced together a group of attitudes toward alcoholism that work for me. It took me a long time to get where I am now, but I have stronger sobriety than I ever have. My present attitudes are based directly in my own experience and draw from my reading and observations of others. I don't feel guilty about any of my drinking. (This was a long time coming.) The bitterness over what I have lost because of my drinking has been the most difficult part. But I have been able to get over even most of that. I don't feel responsible for being alcoholic. It's just something I was saddled with when I was born. Whether that is a gene or whatever doesn't matter to me. Because of a particular confluence of heredity, family, culture, etc., I became an active alcoholic. What matters is what I do about it. The regrets over my losses I have come to accept as having been predetermined as well.

Life is notoriously unfair. What we get from life is largely determined by sheer luck. It has far less to do with our conscious efforts than we like to think. Even the capacity to work hard to be a "success" in life is largely determined by genetic and social factors over which we had little or no control. I have known a good many extremely wealthy people in my life. Some of them are very nice, interesting people. But I can't think of a one who "deserved" what they had. It was all largely accidental, and the ones among them who have any sense will tell you as much. I just happen to have been given the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to what life can offer.

A counselor told me just a month ago when I was going over my history that my life had been a string of horrors. The mere fact I was still alive through all of it surprised her. She kept probing about suicide. Finally, I asked her, "You think I'm vulnerable to suicide, don't you?" She paused and said, "Yes, I do. You have strong indicators that place you in the highest risk group. I am interested to see how you've escaped it." I knew exactly what she was talking about, but suicide has not been particularly a problem for me.

I think my attitudes toward the unfairness and happenstance of life has a lot to do with my ability keep going even though things appear very bleak. Looking at life in terms of good and evil, just and unjust, is an immature attitude borrowed from Christian religions who manipulate through guilt and forgiveness. It is simply an incorrect, nonproductive world view ... unless you're the pope or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or head up a drug enforcement task force and have a vested interest in continuing the delusion.

Relapse has been a huge problem for me. I think it is for most alcoholics and I also think most people who do it don't talk about it. It's far more pervasive than even the dismal data show. My attitude toward relapse now is that it is a part of trying to get sober. Even if you don't actually relapse, you are deliberately dealing with the possibility of relapse to stay sober. The key is to get back on track on immediately. Gradually your periods of sobriety will get longer and it will get easier. You also must work not to just accept relapse by saying, "Well, it's just part of it and I couldn't help myself." Somehow you've got to get to be able not to beat yourself up over a relapse but not to get comfortable with relapsing either. If you accept relapses easily, before long their duration will increase and you'll find yourself back in full blown drinking, quite likely just as bad as when you first tried to quit or even worse.

Study your relapses. What are you going through when they occur? For different people, it's different things. For me, almost all relapses occurred when I had money, time, and was determined to have a sexual adventure. Once set in motion, the relapse caused a return to my old cycle of drinking every few days or once a month or so. For some people, they relapse when they undergo some sort of reversal ... never a triggering factor for me. For others it's the attitude of their mate. What it really is, is one's alcoholic tendencies trying to find a way to express themselves. It has little to do with actual circumstances.

I charted my relapses for a while. I was amazed to see that there was a cycle of about 45 days for relapsing for a long while. It had not much to do with what was actually happening in my life. It was as though there was some sort of built in clock determining when I would relapse. That knowledge proved very useful. Our attitudes often don't bear a close relationship with what is actually happening (ever laugh at a funeral?) They are biologically determined. That does not mean they aren't subject to conscious management if we are aware of them.

Dealing with alcoholism becomes a process of looking at life in purely mechanistic terms for me. I call it the "monkey wrench philosophy of life." My life is like an old car. It calls for constant maintenance, creativity in finding missing parts, and prolonged commitment. But keeping up an old car is not only ecologically responsible and very cost effective, it's an exercise in discipline and gets to be kind of fun. It marks one as counter cultural. I love being that. If I manage my old car properly and keep it up, anticipating what it needs, not just reacting to breakdowns, over time I will end up with a unique, attractive car, something to be genuinely proud of.

I recently acquired my grandmother's old 68 Chevy Impala. I can't wait to restore it. Every day someone stops to relieve me of the piece of junk in my driveway. I don't tell them I know exactly what I've got. I just tell all rednecks who stop, "Oh I dunno, I'll hafta thank about it and get back to ya. Ya see that was my mama's and my grandma's car and I wouldn't feel right a-selling it." They hate me. I love it.

Posted May 19, 1999

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