If you are worrying about being an alcoholic and need some support, there is no better person to understand how you are feeling and what help you need than a fellow alcoholic. Preferably one that is not drinking!
Being an alcoholic – the shared understanding
Your fellow alcoholic will understand exactly how you feel
- How each day you wake up feeling low and in despair. If you are still functioning through sheer grit and determination. Getting up and appearing as if all is ok will be a massive effort
- How each day you wake up feeling guilt and shame about the day before. How much you drank. What you did, how you are in a state of panic and anxiety about all you cannot remember. But hope you soon do
- Your constant feelings of stress and anxiety. With a dry mouth, nausea, shaking / trembling (trying to hide this)
- How you cannot sleep. Even if you pass out (often chemically induced sleep). You soon wake up in the small hours and cannot get back to sleep again. Your head is whirring. And you have no peace of mind
- Having no appetite.
- How you are constantly thinking about your next drink. Even though you know it leads to a repeat cycle of the days and weeks before. When you have been miserable. How to get it, how to drink it and how to hide all evidence that you have bought and drank more
- The need to get rid of any evidence of your drinking from the day before
- How you are worried about your health. Your liver, any other parts of your body you are worried are affected by your drinking
- Worrying about your job (if you still have one). And your performance at work
- How you never want to answer the phone. And wish people would leave you alone….
And so it goes on.
The role of willpower in maintaining sobriety
Your fellow alcoholic will know that there is only one real answer to your misery and that is to stop drinking. However, willpower is not going to be the answer to this. We are not weak people and we can stop through willpower – but it is not a comfortable way to do it. Using willpower just means that each day is stressful and difficult as we focus on getting through it without a drink. If that is ‘one day at a time’ it is a hard path which will eventually lead to failure when things either get too much or an irresistible opportunity to have a drink comes our way.
Acceptance is the key
The key is about acceptance – not fighting the urge to drink but accepting you do not want it. A subtle difference but a life changing one.
In order to get to this point of acceptance you may need to realise that you cannot fight your alcoholism on your own. You need help. And you do not know best. You need to be willing to change the way you feel about yourself, the way you deal with your anxiety, emotions, anger etc… You need to learn to love yourself again. Because no one who drinks like you do (to run away from their feelings) is happy and likes themselves and the way they are living.
So there is a lot of work to be done. Your fellow alcoholic will guide you to AA or an alcoholic rehab centre and here you can begin your journey of discovery – to recovery – and back to a life of fulfilment and happiness.