One of the subjects I think we forget sometimes is not drinking. I’m not sure that it’s because we get caught up in the more “sophisticated” aspects of alcoholism or because we become more “problem” oriented. But too often I wish we mentioned it more frequently.
I know a lot of alcoholics like to refer to Bill’s remark that bottles were just a symbol of this disease. In fact I know a lot who say that their drinking was just a side effect to what their real disease is. And, too, I think some of this is the result of so many drug addicted alcoholics, who are focused more on their drug addiction than what they drank.
I was reminded of this today by an “old” CD by Sandy B. He said that he too was remiss in mentioning his not drinking. After all he pointed out, that was the whole point of why we are here. We couldn’t stop drinking on our own.
The reason none of us, who are sober are sober, is that we haven’t been drinking. He said to those who were having trouble staying sober, they should look and see if they were drinking.
The miracle of this program to me is that I’m not drinking today. That’s so important to me. After all we celebrate our anniversaries or mark them as milestones in our sobriety, based on when we stopped drinking. This disease of alcoholism could never have manifested itself if we hadn’t started to drink.
This is what Bill was talking about in The Doctor’s Opinion, when he said that the alcoholic must believe he’s as physically abnormal as he is mentally.
We don’t say to the new alcoholic, go to meetings and keep on drinking and you’ll get sober. We tell them don’t drink and go to meetings. Hmm. Must be something important about not drinking.
We almost over emphasize the mental and emotional aspects of this disease and forget it all started because we drank. The physical part of this disease is gravely important. After all, Bill tells us to drink again is to die. So drinking and not drinking is an important part of recovery. Without it I would have been dead a long time ago.
Just thinking and being grateful to God and the program that I’m not drinking today.