Giving Up Insanity

 Physical craving plus mental obsession. What a double whammy! My daily habit became a compulsion. My compulsion became a craving when I didn’t (couldn’t) drink. Bummer. I so wanted to simply enjoy my drinks. Turned out, I needed them.

Toward the end of my ‘drinking career’, I would rouse from being almost asleep to join my husband, who worked a swing shift, in his nightly drink. I couldn’t let him drink alone! I’m altruistic like that. Besides, I’d have been very pissed if a bottle of something I thought of as mine had been emptied without me. I’m selfish like that.

When I first noticed the cravings, I brushed them off. It was alarming, but I could excuse them as normal. One little white-knuckled shot of almost anything (I drew the line at scotch) would calm me down and make it all okay. It wasn’t a problem, I thought - but I started seeing patterns. Any time I was away from my routine, inner alarms would go off, telling me that these were cravings which demanded to be fed. And as I maintained my daily habits, I would more and more normalize the binging - the ‘special occasions’ which gave me permission to have no limits. Any occasion could be special, and they occurred more and more often.

I didn’t have a ‘lightbulb moment’ in a dramatic way. Rather, I had the slow, steady, and ultimate recognition that this drinking was alcoholism, and that I needed help to find my way back to sanity. I found my way to AA, and met people who had experienced and transcended the same challenges. I met people who held on to their ‘daily reprieve’, and saw many more who weren’t quite ready to make changes. I chose to do whatever was working for those who stayed.

I look for how that same insanity still shows up in my life, in compulsivity and lack of impulse control. I can see it more clearly with these sober eyes, and in a general willingness to see. It’s a daily challenge which I am now able to face - before deciding that I could learn to like scotch.

I go to my Higher Power, consult with my sponsor, and talk with others who are doing the same. All together, we are giving up insanity, one day at a time.