Words Are Funny Things

Today in the newcomer’s meeting, the woman sharing–sober since 1975–said that her brand of alcoholism was “public & violent”. She repeated this a couple times in her lead, “public & violent”.

Then after, a guy sharing picked up on this and said that while he’d been listening to her, he asked himself what his Two Words were to describe his drinking years. “Dark & Lonely” came to him right away.

When he said this, i wondered what the words i would use to qualify my drinking. i immediately thought of, “Chaotic & Desperate”. Which was also a good way to describe my life at the time. But that was then, and now the chaos and desperation have evaporated…

So now i’m gonna ask you, what are your two words? What two words would you use to describe your drinking? Have they lost a little of their punch for you?

Update

Thank you all for your participation in this post (and to those of you who have yet to answer)! Looking over the words we’ve listed, i see a lot of common themes and feelings, and if your drinking was anything like mine, these weren’t just words used to qualify our drinking at the time, but our lives as well.

That sobriety has lifted these burdens from us is one huge addition to our gratitude lists, and something to keep in mind and heart the next time we’re tempted to take a drink.

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I’m Hooked

Last Friday i got lucky. (No, the other kind of lucky.)

i went to a meeting i don’t usually go to, that starts at 10:30 pm and finishes at 11:30. When i got there, there was only one other person.

We had a small meeting, just the two of us, and in that meeting she said we alcoholics have a “weakness for devastation”.

i loved that expression because i understood it on a deep level the instant i heard it. i was the kind of alcoholic who drank because i had a crush on destruction and drinking was the fastest way to get into destruction’s panties and screw it up.

We got on this subject because i realized something in our tiny meeting.

Here in Yeaman–because of some fluke alignment of religious and war holidays–i had a 5-day weekend last weekend and, even better, my ex had the kids. i had 5 days left to my own devices and there was a time a few years ago that my own devices would’ve been bottles of wine and cocktail inventing, fast food binges, internet porn, no sleeping no showering no leaving the apartment…i would’ve viced out.

Sharing with this young lady, i realized that i’d been to an art show, two movies, discovered a cultural walk here in Yeaman, written some good stuff, started riding bicylces, wrote fiction on café terraces with a founatin pen, cleaned, ran several errands i’d been putting off, woke up at 6:30 on a day i didn’t work to go to an 8am AA meeting and then hit a 10:30pm meeting that same evening, just because.

i didn’t tell her that then and i’m not saying it now to get pats on the back or collect brownie points…it’s just sometimes i forget how far i’ve come in 2 years.

i got lucky that i decided to go to a meeting just for the hell of it, because talking with another alcoholic in recovery helped me see that my life, while far from perfect, keeps getting better all the time.

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