The first half of this step – admitting powerlessness over alcohol – was merely a self perception but my actions were not aligned with this thought. If I truly knew that I was powerless over alcohol, then it makes no sense that hundreds of times I went out to ‘just have a few’. I always failed at this. It would be the same thing if every day I went out in the front yard and tried to push over a large oak tree. If I truly knew I could not uproot the tree, why would I keep trying to push it over? Somewhere deep inside me, I continued for years to believe that I could control my drinking on my own. In my mind, one day I was eventually going to drop that oak tree to the ground.
Some newcomers to alcoholics anonymous are put off by talk of “God” or “faith” or “spirituality”. That’s understandable since many of us had negative experiences in church at some point. AA members emphasize that the organization does not endorse or claim affiliation with ANY organized religion. Instead, they say, AA is a program that teaches a design for living that relies on some power outside of ourselves. Some members call this power God, but the power can go by any name the member chooses.
First of all, determine the extent of your problem. You can figure this out by doing some careful experiments. Understand that you have to take this exercise seriously or it will not reveal anything meaningful to you.
Alcohol abuse causes your brain to get out of balance. That’s why alcoholics seem to only be able to think about their next drink. The addicted brain of an alcoholic has a chemical dependency. It comes to rely on you giving it more alcohol. It needs it to handle brain function. Your brain’s neurotransmitters that handled these tasks got depleted. Ironically, they get replaced by the very thing that depleted them – alcohol.
As a generalization, it is better to avoid driving in occasions where drinking is involved. In fact, there are some states that arrest drivers who have a BAC level which is below the legal limit. This applies to those who are believed to show signs of impairment as witnessed by the law enforcement officer through the driver’s reactions and behavior in driving. While drunk driving can endanger other people’s lives, it can also put the driver’s own safety at risk. For this, it is safe to say that the only BAC level that should be allowed for those who are driving is.00.
Now if you do these two 30 day trials and take them seriously then you should learn quite a bit about the true nature of your drinking problem. If you do not struggle with either experiment, then chances are pretty good that you either do not have a drinking problem, or that you are so early in the stages of your problem that it is very easy for you to control it. This is the best case scenario.
The alcoholic loves all the negative attention you give them such as the fussing over them when they drink, arguing to them about their drinking, babying them by putting them to bed, cleaning up messes they make while drinking, paying their fines, and not to mention giving them money for alcohol. What is left for them to do? Loved ones enable and they don’t even know it! Enabling is synonymous with taking responsibility when it comes to being married to an alcoholic.
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