alcoholics

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You Do Not Ever Need to Feel Lonely Again


I am struck by how many people say they feel lonely a lot. Why is this? Is it because they do not have a mate? Is it because they do not know what to do with themselves? Is it because they are depressed?

I will start with the last thing first. Depression is a medical condition which requires treatment, first and foremost, by a psychiatrist. I hear many people say they went to their primary care physician to deal with it. If the primary care physician is not immediately referring such patients to a psychiatrist, shame on them! But once that condition is stabilized, the following suggestions apply to them equally as with someone who does not have depression.

The first thing you might do is read a book. Figure out which types of books are likely to be of greatest interest to you. Expect to find some that, after reading a book or two, did not hold you as you had hoped. Move on to another genre and do not stop until you have identified at least two genres that please you. Once that is accomplished, play a game with yourself to read as many of these books in a month as you can. Of course, libraries are a great resource in finding books but if you end up like me, you use your local bookstore to find them. And once you are done with them, please, do not throw them away. Simply put them in the library’s return book area or drop off device and be certain they will be welcomed.

Next, get outdoors and walk. Even walking is a great source of exercise but as another use, you can get out into nature and enjoy her. Most people own an automobile, so if you live in a city, make no excuses about there being nothing to find in the city. I can easily combat that idea, but that is for another time. In the countryside, find a walking trail. Walk slowly with the determination to find as many different animals as you can. Even when I am riding my bicycle, you would be surprised by all the animals I saw. And oh yes, bring a camera with you. You may see some animal you have seen frequently, but this is a photographic notebook of your travels. And no time of year is not good to do this. Once you start see certain animals and birds, of course, many times, find a spot where you can rest and watch these creatures in their habitat. Note how they move and which of their species they move with and how they do it. One thing you will find, birds love to be in the company of another of their species but of the opposite species gender. Note the color differences. If the bird is brightly colored, most likely it is a male. But do not stop a birds, notice bugs, and if you have the stomach for it, spiders, they are the most resourceful and creative of all insects, in my opinion. And for a mind blower, remember that scorpions are related to spiders!

Another thing to take note of is the flora of the woods. In northern climes, see if you can spot a lady’s slipper, a type of orchid which is rare but not impossible to find. If you see one, there are probably others near it. But do not pick them! They are an endangered species. Of course, also in nature are trees. There are nine different types of conifer trees, pine trees. There are 35 different species of elm tree, there are 600 different types of oak tree, there are 17 types of walnut tree, there are 13 different types of cedar tree, and the list goes on.

Can you find edible plants? There are 120,000 types of these plants.

Wild flowers abound and figuring out what you are looking at is a challenge unto itself.

I recommend that your purchase some of the different books that apply to each of the things above: trees, birds, wild animals, edible plants, rocks and other things.

Finally, if you find yourself “stuck” in the city and cannot get out for any reason, take a walk along the sidewalks. As you do and come upon a building you think is old, look up and find some of the most amazing architecture. Modern buildings are cold and without merit. But buildings dating back to the 1930s and earlier, were built with a lot of pride. You will find cornices, finials, balustrades, arched windows, colored glass, and windowed and non-windowed domes, some with bells. There are many other parts as well but that is what you will need to identify. Start with the easy buildings, old public libraries and other public buildings. Take pictures of these buildings, make a written note of them, such as what the picture is, and take them home and research them. It is not impossible to find a building dating back to the 1850s, or earlier! Note the progression of styles. Find out what their original use was. Let’s say you live in New York City. There are two buildings of note that I would bet most New Yorkers know nothing of their history. The first is the Flatiron building and the other is Grand Central Terminal.

Each of the things noted above are things you can do alone. And some beg you to do them alone. But the important part of all these exercises is that you will not feel alone while doing them and you cannot help but learn something new, never a bad thing.

One last important note. If you find yourself drinking every night or everytime you feel lonely, consider the case that you might be an alcoholic. Call your local Alcoholics Anonymous Service Center and talk to whoever answers. They are alcoholics in recovery and can give you some useful guidance.

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I’m Only 25! How Can I Be an Alcoholic?


Alcoholism is a disease. Alcoholism is a disorder. There are two camps of thought on this be regardless of which you chose, alcoholism is a problem that no one disputes, except the alcoholic of course. The NIH has 11 criteria for alcoholism only two of which need be present:

  • Had times when you ended up drinking more, or longer than you intended?
  • More than once wanted to cut down or stop drinking, or tried to, but couldn’t?
  • Spent a lot of time drinking? Or being sick or getting over the aftereffects?
  • Experienced craving — a strong need, or urge, to drink?
  • Found that drinking — or being sick from drinking — often interfered with taking care of your home or family? Or caused job troubles? Or school problems?
  • Continued to drink even though it was causing trouble with your family or friends?
  • Given up or cut back on activities that were important or interesting to you, or gave you pleasure, in order to drink?
  • More than once gotten into situations while or after drinking that increased your chances of getting hurt (such as driving, swimming, using machinery, walking in a dangerous area, or having unsafe sex)?
  • Continued to drink even though it was making you feel depressed or anxious or adding to another health problem? Or after having had a memory blackout?
  • Had to drink much more than you once did to get the effect you want? Or found that your usual number of drinks had much less effect than before?
  • Found that when the effects of alcohol were wearing off, you had withdrawal symptoms, such as trouble sleeping, shakiness, irritability, anxiety, depression, restlessness, nausea, or sweating? Or sensed things that were not there?But I am speaking specifically to those of you in your teens and 20s. The common refrain is: “But I’m on 25, how can I be an alcoholic?” Because 2 of the examples above are present.

Still not convinced? Okay, years ago Johns Hopkins University came up with 20 questions for those who doubt or think they might have a problem with drinking:

Now remember, you need only identify with 2 of the above to be an alcoholic.

  1. Do you lose time from work due to your drinking?
  2. Is drinking making your home life unhappy?
  3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people?
  4. Is drinking affecting your reputation?
  5. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?
  6. Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your drinking?
  7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking?
  8. Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?
  9. Has your ambition decreased since drinking?
  10. Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
  11. Do you want a drink the next morning?
  12. Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
  13. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?
  14. Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business?
  15. Do you drink to escape from worries or troubles?
  16. Do you drink alone?
  17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of your drinking?
  18. Has your physician ever treated you for drinking?
  19. Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?
  20. Have you ever been in a hospital or institution on account of drinking?

And here is what they say if you respond in the positive to any of these questions:

“If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be an alcoholic.

If you have answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are an alcoholic.

If you have answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an alcoholic.”

I answered “yes” to 11 of them. But still I did not believe because I was never an everyday drinker. I seldom got drunk. I lost only one job because of drinking. I was never arrested for DUI, nor even stopped. And when I joined AA, I had held the same job for 10 years, always showed up on time and did my job. So how could I be an alcoholic?

Because I, in a moment of honesty, answered yes to 11 of the questions above. Because I was in desperate straits and thought I was on the cusp of total destruction. Because I had almost no friends, my family desired I say away from them and I was a wreck. Anyone who observed me could easily have made the comment “you’re a wreck! You need help!” without ever seeing me take a single drink.

Well, let’s go back to my 25-year-old. First of all, alcoholism does not care what age you are, what your financial standing is, how smart you are, what race you are, what religion you are, or anything else you can think of which would preclude you from being an alcoholic. It simply, like any disease, does not care. Physicians and health care providers are at a loss to predict when any one person will cross that line from being a non-alcoholic to being an alcoholic. But they do know, once you become one, you are always one.

I have been in Alcoholics Anonymous for over 17 years now. But when I had been in A.A. for fewer than 90 days I saw a teenage girl of 15 getting her one-year sober medallion. Age is irrelevant. Alcoholism is so prevalent among teens and 20-somethings in our society, that with A.A. there exist hundreds of meeting referred to as “young peoples meetings.” I went to one once, was invited, and there was a room of about 30 or so young people in attendance. Each had stopped fighting the idea that they had a problem with alcohol. Each had made an honest assessment of their life up to that point and saw that denial of the obvious was a hopeless battle.

Today, five days a week, I go to a meeting in Boston in which there are usually about 6 people under 30. One just turned 20.

It is extremely difficult for a young person to believe that they can possibly be an alcoholic, particularly when they see all their friends “partying” and drinking to their heart’s desire. But the question cannot be about what they are doing and why. It necessarily must be about you and why you are drinking. When I first started drinking I was 19. A late comer who did all he could do to make up for lost time. But more importantly, I wanted to be a person who could party, comfortably. I had no self-confidence that I, as a sober person, could possibly have fun at a party. I would be too shy, too withdrawn, too something to enjoy myself. And so, like when I got a headache and took some aspirin, when I was going to a party I made certain that I drank prior to arriving. Alcohol was medication to me, and it worked! Oh yes, it did indeed work. I had a good old time. But I failed to ask the question, at what expense? I failed to see people inching away from a drunk, me, who was making a fool of himself. I failed to see, even more importantly, that I was using alcohol as an anesthetic to cover over my underlying problems. My shyness was the result of something. My social awkwardness was the result of something, my inability to enjoy myself sober at a party was the result of something. The non-alcoholic addresses those issues and others straight on. The alcoholic decides that there is nothing quite like a good numbing agent.

There is a ton of bad logic in alcoholic thinking. Most importantly, the alcoholic convinces himself through drinking that he can do something he might otherwise think impossible. The bad logic there is simple: sober people who try something and fail either go right back at it again or seek out help in overcoming their problem.

So here we are. If you are still reading this, you are probably struggling with the possibility that you might have a problem with alcohol. I will give you an easy way out. Find an A.A. meeting in your area. They’re everywhere and you can usually find a phone number in the phone book of an A.A. help line. If you cannot, contact me and I guarantee I will find you not one, but a dozen meetings so that you will have choices. And once you attend that first meeting, if you cannot say the words “I am an alcoholic” then simply say “Hi, my name is Joe, and I don’t want to drink today.” That phrase is accepted in AA everywhere around the world.

But go to the meeting with a purpose beyond just seeing what it is all about. Go there with the idea of finding someone who you identify with who you can talk with after the meeting to help you with your decisions.

Now, I have a challenge for you. Imagine that for Lent this year, it starts February 10, you gave up alcohol. Lent only last for 40 days so that should be an easy task. Now here’s the curve ball, you know for fact that on February 13, just 3 days into Lent, there is going to be this huge Valentine’s Day party at which you know there is going to be a ton of alcohol. How likely is it you can attend that even and limit yourself to drinks which contain no alcohol? Oh, and for the record, those drinks which call themselves “non-alcoholic beer” and others like it, contain alcohol. They can claim to be non-alcoholic because they contain 0.5% by volume of alcohol. Therefore, you would be not allowed to drink such drinks either. The non-alcoholic finds such a task laughable because they feel no need. When the non-alcoholic takes on the job of designated driver, she is quite content with drinking coke, juice or even just water. It does not have any impact upon how much fun she will have.

One of the great lies alcoholics tell themselves and anyone who will listen is, “I can stop anytime!” But the truth is they cannot. The police love hearing “I only had two bears” when they stop the obvious intoxicated driver. You see, the “I only had two beers” is an incomplete sentence. The full sentence goes, “I only had two beers when I stopped counting.”

There is no shame in deciding you are an alcoholic. They only shame is denying the obvious or at least the possible. There is no down side to never taking a drink again. If a sober person were told by his doctor that he has this rare genetic condition which will cause death if that person continues to drink. For an instant the sober person might think, “well that sucks,” but to the doctor he will say, “okay” and with the knowledge that his life is in the balance will forever restrict himself from the use of alcohol. For the person who already is an alcoholic, the same is true, his life lies in the balance if the use of alcohol is not discontinued.

Years ago there was this young woman, Melanie, who was trying to get sober because she knew she needed to. But her participation in A.A. was sketchy at best. One day I received a text from her which read “please help me!” But before I could get to her she was dead. Alcoholism. Four years ago there was another young lady I knew because of AA. She came from an upper middle class family who loved her. She was a graduate from an Ivy League college, a Navy veteran, an extremely popular person with everyone who knew her, she was quite athletic and beautiful to boot! She had it all, that is, until January 7 when she decided at age 31 she still hand another round of drinks in her. Turns out she did not. She is dead.

Medicine is a science within which there is a lot of guessing. It is not that the doctors are all incompetent or inept, but that where every person’s physical makeup is different, so too is their ability to tolerate disease. The only known treatment for alcoholism is total abstinence. That works every time. And once free of alcohol, the individual will sudden find he has time to deal with all the problems which caused him to drink. He will find out through the social interactions with AA that his worries, his shortcomings, his disabilities are very common and that the AA member is usually more than happy to talk about how they overcame those issues without having to use alcohol.

If alcohol is the answer, then it is a sure thing you do not know or understand the question because alcohol is never the answer to anything.

Oh, by the way, AA meetings are not overwhelming older men wearing trench coats or people who are homeless or living in shelters. To the contrary, such a person is the except in meetings. My daily meeting is full of professionals, doctors, lawyers, financial analysts, psychologists, teachers, professors, brick layers, iron workers, policemen, and just about any other profession you can think of. The average meeting is not filled with people over the age of 50. Most meetings have significant numbers of people in the 30s and 40s, not to mentions those in their teens and 20s.

The young person who comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and stays invariably tells the story of the many “miracles” he, or she, has experienced since becoming a sober person. Their wildest dreams have come true and then some. The “and then some” are those wonderful things they experience which had not crossed their mind when they were simply trying to get and stay sober.

The AA Promises

“1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed

before we are half way through.

  1. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
  2. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
  3. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
  4. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience

can benefit others.

  1. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
  2. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
  3. Self-seeking will slip away.
  4. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
  5. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
  6. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
  7. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for

ourselves

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us –

sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.”

Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84

 

Everyone who hangs around AA long enough and invests the time and energy needed to succeed, will tell you that not only do all those promise come true, but they come true to an even greater extent than initially imagined.

If you need help, the Alcoholics Anonymous World Service, located in New York has a web page at www.aa.org

If you want to ask me a question about anything feel free to contact me directly. My personal email account is: osgoodp@comcast.net

 

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A Tale of Susannah — Desperately Seeking Sanity


At 31 Susannah had it all.  She was beautiful, a tall woman with long naturally curly auburn hair, beautiful wide-set eyes, and a smile that immediately engaged anyone towards whom it was directed.  She had graduated from Wellesley College magna cum laude and at the delicate age of 20.  From there she continued her education within the ivy covered walls of Harvard University.  She was not contented with being good.  At Harvard she had become editor of the law review after a summer clerking for a justice at the Massachusetts Supreme Court.  And at the age of 23, on a particular hot day in early June, she joined 6500 other students in the Harvard Yard to receive her doctor of jurisprudence.  And that, a day that should have been the culmination of her greatest success, seemed, at least to Susannah, a sad day, if not a failure of a day.

That early Thursday morning as she and her fellow law students gathered in one of the law buildings, started as a grand day for Susannah.  Her mother had promised to phone her as soon as she and her father found their seats with the other 10,000 guests who crowded the college’s gates at 7 that morning.  It was just before 8 and her mother had no yet called so Susannah called her.  After her mother answered, and when they had briefly chatted, Susannah had asked her mother to put “daddy” on.  Her mother went quiet, mumbled a bit, and then told Susannah that her father had “not been able to make it.”

It was at that moment Susannah questioned her entire life up to that moment.  She had spent her entire life thus far desperately trying to please her father.  He had always said how proud he was of her.  She thought back to how he had seldom been able to attend her basketball games when she was in high school, how he had been suddenly “called away” when she had graduated from both high school and Wellesley, and now this.  Her first instinct was to say “screw this” and leave the ceremony even before it started.   But she did love her mother and even as angry as she was with her father, she would not spoil the day for her mother.

But at that moment Susannah took mental leave from the morning’s ceremonies.  She did not hear Harvard’s president’s message or that of any of the other speakers of the day.  Instead she formulated a plan for her immediate future.  She had been offered, and accepted, a position as an associate at the 2nd largest law firm in New York.  Before 9 that morning she not only no longer wanted the position, she despised the idea of working for corporate America at any level.  But at her father’s insistence she had considered her future using that track and her personal doubts not withstanding, she knew she could succeed in that culture.  But it had not been what she wanted.  It was what her father wanted, and now all that was counterfeit.

It was Thursday, that graduation day, and Susannah promised herself that by the end of the next day she would not only resign her position in New York, but she would find a suitable replacement in Boston.  She decided that the suitable replacement job would be at the public defender’s office.  And that is exactly what she did.  The woman who ran the PD’s office, after a quick review of Susannah’s credentials and the incredulity she felt about Susannah’s seriousness for wanting the job, took her on, happily.

Her first year in the practice of law saw her succeed far beyond what her employer could have hoped.  In the process, Susannah had ingratiated herself to all she came in contact with.  Her boss had on any number of occasions suggested she talk to the partners who visited the sparse PD’s office seeking to hire Susannah away.  But she rebuffed all advances, never accepting a single interview, and seldom even seeing the partner who had ventured to see her.  She claimed, though her boss assured her she was wrong, that the hours for the PD’s office were far friendlier than any could expect at a top law firm.  And certainly there was far less pressure in the job.  Susannah obstinanancy became legendary in both her office and the legal community.  And not just because of her resisting being recruited, but her dogged determination before the bar.  She was oft heard to say that failure was unacceptable, never allowing that it was in fact inevitable.

On this morning, some eight years later, as Susannah awoke in her bed, and after she noticed the throbbing headache, she wondered, for the millionth time, why she was not happy.  She came from a well-to-do family that, at least on the outside, looked like they had it all.  She knew she was a pretty woman, although she doubted any man who described her as gorgeous, which she found curious at the regularity that such compliments happened.  She had long ago decided that such men wanted one thing and one thing only.  She knew they did not desire her for her mind.  And to that end, she had long ago decided that the only men she would go out with would be the ones she chose and never ones who chose her.

At that moment it hit her.  She needed a job, and that was the plan for the day, to find a new position.  She remembered how her job at the PD’s office had ended badly when she had failed to show at a 9AM bail hearing.  The defendant, a man who her boss felt had a strong case, had been remanded to jail and denied bail.  Susannah had apologized profusely to her boss explaining that an emergency the night before had kept her up quite late and she had slept through her alarm.  It was not a true story, but it was the best she could come up with at the moment.  Her boss, however, having heard one too many such excuses over the years, asked Susannah that she clean out her office that day.

Susannah had recovered well from that setback, she thought, as she landed a new job that same day at a fairly large law firm that specialized in tort claims.  When friends heard of this new job the questioned her working for an “ambulance chaser” but Susannah had vigorously defended the position noting that everyone was entitled to protection from unscrupulous insurance companies, companies who denied their employees worker’s compensation for disabilities incurred on the job.  She lasted there a little over two years and left, she always laughed to herself about this, when the firm refused to pay her disability after she had injured herself at the office one day, and tore her ACL in the process which kept her laid up for over a month.  The firm had let her go “for cause,” they said.   And while Susannah had admitted to having had a drink with her lunch that day, she categorically denied that she had been gone for nearly two hours and had returned to the office drunk.  But upon the advice of “her attorney,” she did not press or pursue the issue.

That had been her last job as a lawyer, and that had been almost two years ago.  She told her friends that the bad economy affected lawyers just like any other field, and that she was actively pursuing a promising job at a prestigious firm.  The truth was, there was no firm.  There were not even any prospects.  She was at present employed as a waitress at the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant in Boston’s posh Back Bay., and that had been almost two years ago.  She told her friends that the bad economy affected lawyers just like any other field, and that she was actively pursuing a promising job at a prestigious firm.  The truth was, there was no firm.  There were not even any prospects.  She was at present employed as a waitress at the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant in Boston’s posh Back Bay.  When her friends question her about this job, she claimed that she was seriously considering a job as a chef, and that it was something she had long considered doing.  But she had also told them she had long considered becoming a legal consultant, a software developer for law firms, and fifteen other jobs all of which were plausible, given her intelligence and education, but none of which had ever been something she had truly considered, or even wanted.

As these and other thoughts raced through her mind, her headache racked mind that morning, she tried to remember her plan for the day.  And when nothing came immediately to mind she rolled over to stroke her cat who invariably slept with her, only to find a man occupying the space her cat should have been in.  For a moment she could not for the life of her think of who this man was, and then she remember the night before, and in that memory came the reason for the horrendous headache.  She remembered the bar, the crush of other young people just like her, who were fully enjoying themselves.  She remembered going to the ladies room where she was startled to see a woman snorting a line of coke.  It had briefly shocked her, but she had not moved, and when the other woman took notice of her, had offered her a line of coke.  Susannah had never done cocaine but she had said to herself “what the hell” and tried it.  The tipsiness she had been feeling was immediately transformed into an alertness she loved.  And she had returned to the bar and renewed her effort to enjoy the evening and join in everyone’s festivities.  But she could not remember this man at that bar, or for that matter, ever having left the bar and what had happened afterward.

The thought immediately went through her mind, “never again!”  She promised herself right there and then that she would not drink that day and that she would hence force control her drinking so that incidents such as she was presently experiencing, would never again happen.  This was not the first time she had awakened next to such a man, nor the second or even the third, but she promised herself it absolutely would be the last.  She knew she was more than smart enough to overcome her present condition and all she had to do was resolve to herself to never drink like that again.  Or at least never touch cocaine again because, after all, that had been the agent that had allowed her to drink more than even she thought she could.

Susannah poked the man next to her.  She desperately wanted him out of her apartment.  He had been lying there with his back to her and when he turned towards her, she saw a man who was easily her father’s age.  At that moment she thought, “Oh God, not again.”  But her greatest surprise was yet to come.  When she asked the man to leave so she could start her day, he had informed her that she was in his apartment and any leaving that must be done would be on her part.  And that was followed by the information that not only was she not in Boston, but she was actually in one of the remote suburbs and the man had said he could not possibly take her back into town as he had to get to work himself.

It took seven phone calls to various friends before she found someone who was willing, though not happy, to retrieve her from her inconvenience.  On the drive home her friend, Sarah, had suggested to Susannah that she might have a drinking problem and that she might consider attending a 12 step meeting.  But Susannah had assured Sarah that she did not have any sort of a drinking problem, that she could stop anytime she wanted, and besides, she was just 31 years old and everyone knew you cannot be an alcoholic at so tender an age.

As soon as she got home Susannah surveyed her apartment.  Sure it was a studio apartment in Boston’s South End but it was “nice.”  What is lacked for direct sun light it more than made up for in character.  After she had showered she decided to make a plan to find a job that day, or within the week at least, that was worthy of her extensive talents.  Yes, she told herself, she did have extensive talents and any company would be lucky to have her.

As the morning turned to afternoon, a Susannah considered her lunch options as he looked over her refrigerator, she noted the half-full bottle of wine sitting next to the milk.

This time when Susannah woke up she immediately knew by the hardness of the bed that she was not in her apartment.  But when she turned over her relief that she was alone in the bed was immediately replaced by the stark realization of where she was, in a hospital bed.  It was at that moment that a nurse entered her room and said how nice it was that Susannah was awake as she had a number of questions for her.  It was the first question that most unnerved Susannah, however.  The nurse had inquired as to her name.  Noting Susannah confusion, the nurse explained that she had been brought into the emergency room without any sort of identification on her person.  She had wandered into the ER and had promptly collapsed.  She had remained unconscious since.

But then Susannah noted she was attached to an i.v. and a heart monitor and queried the nurse why this had been necessary.  The nurse related, to Susannah’s horror, that she had suffered heart failure.  She told Susannah, in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, that such things happened to alcoholics, even young ones.  Susannah responded by denying that she had any sort of an alcohol problem.  The nurse simply replied by telling Susannah to rest.

About an hour later the attending physician stopped by Susannah’s room to see how she was doing.  She suggested to Susannah that she might do well to go to a detox upon her discharge from the hospital.  This time when Susannah informed the doctor that she did not have a drinking problem she heard the doctor say words she found hard to believe.  The doctor, a woman about her own age, and certainly very good looking, informed Susannah that she was an alcoholic.  Susannah had responded by questioning how a young and obviously very successful doctor could possibly be an alcoholic.

The doctor had given, in Susannah’s mind, a most unacceptable response by saying that how she would be an alcoholic was irrelevant.  What was relevant was the fact that she could not drink in safety.  That when she took a single drink she never knew where that drink would lead.  But it was the final admission by the doctor that most surprised her.  The doctor related that not only had she suffered through a failed marriage because of her drinking, but that her license to practice medicine had been temporarily suspended and she had lost custody of her two children.

For Susannah, this was just the beginning but unfortunately it was not the end.

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Are You Sober or Do You Just Think You Are?


During most of my adult life it never occurred to me that maybe I should be in Alcoholics Anonymous, and yet for over 13 years now I have been.  I did not get there via a detox, or an intervention.  I was not court ordered nor did it follow any incident after which I knew for a fact that I needed A.A.

What I had become expert at was denial of the obvious.  I was never a daily drinker.  I did lose one job because of drinking but otherwise I was fully functional.  No one ever suggested that I possibly had a drinking problem.  That was until July 3, 1998.  But I will get to that in a minute.

Until I joined the Army I was not a drinker nor had I ever gotten drunk.  I did love the taste of my father’s port sherry but I never stole any from him. I only took the sip offered and nothing more.  But from a young age when I first tasted it, I adored it.  I was in flight school at Fort Wolters Texas when I got drunk for the first time. I managed to drink myself into a blackout.  From then on, the next 30 years, I would drink for effect and that effect was to change how I was feeling.  I would binge.  And that is what my drinking career looked like.  I would drink for a while and then not drink for a while.  But I always drank as a means of self-medication.

On July 3, 1998 I was on the banks of the Charles River in Boston enjoying the day.  I had been sitting for a while with a friend talking and enjoying the day.  We got up to move on and after we had moved only a few feet I was overcome with the feeling that it was difficult to breathe.  My friend looked at me and told me I was ashen gray in color.  She offered to call an ambulance, suggesting it a very good idea.  I said I knew I could make it the short distance to Massachusetts General Hospital.  I made it but I was very fortunate.  It took every ounce of strength I had.  Once there it took the doctor examining me about 17 seconds to decide I was having a heart attack.  After he told me that he suggested I stop drinking and drugging.  I told him that I did not drink.  The truth was I had started drinking around 11 that day and had done a good deal of that.  I did not use drugs so that was not an issue.  But there it was.  Denial in the first degree.  It was not 24 hours later a cardiac surgeon had to do emergency surgery on me, that was a Saturday and a holiday, July 4.  He said I would not live if it was put off any longer.

Still, it was not until late October of that year that someone suggested I might want to try an A.A. meeting.  I did and the rest, as they say, is history.  My life truly sucked in October 1998 and I was certainly feeling the desperation for a change that I had no idea how to make.  I embraced the 12-step program because all my previous attempts to make things better had failed.  At that time I did not believe A.A. would actually help, nor did I believe I had a problem with alcohol, in spite of the fact that a certified physician had suggested that I did have a problem.

My life today is fabulous, in no small part due to my active participation in A.A. and my complete acceptance of its principles.  I have managed to turn around every thing that I viewed as negative.  I now view whether I had a drinking problem or not as being irrelevant.  I do know there is no down-side to not drinking, nor is there an up-side to taking a drink.  I am not going to mess with success.

The reason I am writing this is to hopefully get someone who reads it to do a self-assessment.  I have seen too many people struggle with the concept of whether or not they are an alcoholic only to die in the process.  Most recently I had a very dear friend die.  She was only 31 years old.  She was very athletically strong.  She was very smart, a Yale graduate.  She was a veteran having served as a Naval intelligence officer.  She came from a wealthy family so she did not want for money.  She had lots and lots of friends.  She also believed she had another drunk in her, but she was mistaken.  To look at her you would say, “no way she was an alcoholic.”  But she was.  Alcohol wanted her alone, and then it wanted her dead.  It got both.  The two pictures below are of her just before she died, January 6, 2012.

My point in bringing up someone who young is that age is irrelevant.  A person’s income, social status, education, and most other things are irrelevant.

People who do not have a drinking problem do not plan their next drink.  A person who does not have a drinking problem is unlikely to get a D.U.I.  A person who does not have a drinking problem does not lose family, friends, jobs, or anything else because they had a drink, or even a few drinks.  A person who does not have a drinking problem does not worry who sees them having a drink, nor do they hide their alcohol at home, nor do they lie about having a drink.  A person who does not have a drinking problem frequently has a problem remembering when they had their last drink.  A person who does not have a drinking problem does not see running out of beer or any other alcohol as a problem.

One of the biggest problems in any person’s life is their ability to deny the obvious.  People with alcohol problems are particularly good at it.  People with a drinking problem frequently try to shift blame for their own problems to other people, institutions, or things.  They are seldom interested in taking responsibility for their own actions.  They are someone who, when faced with a problem, decide they “need a drink.”  Whenever I hear someone say that, my ears perk up.  That is because I have the simple belief that no one “needs” a drink, ever, for any reason.  To the contrary, the well-adjusted, together person, wants to plow through the problem fully sober.  A drink only serves to muddle.

You do not have to drink every day to have a problem with alcohol.  You do not have to have been in jail as a result of drinking to have a problem.  You do not have to be homeless to have a problem.  Shortly after I stopped drinking I met a man who had a Harvard MBA, was a high-powered financier, and was getting ready to do some serious jail time which he admitted had been the result of his drinking.  Drinking never seems like a problem until it is.  And when it is denial comes to the rescue that permits the person to continue drinking.  Like any disease, untreated, it always gets worse.

I hope this makes an impression on someone who might be wondering about their drinking.  Feel free to contact me if you want more.  Better yet, go to an A.A. meeting, if only to gather information.  You have absolutely nothing to lose by doing so, and everything to gain.  If you do not know where meeting exist close to you, go to www.aa.org and you will find everything you need.