You're so fucking sober!

Adam likes to say this a lot when he does something that's super plan related. "I went to a meeting, hung out with other alcoholics, and read the big book," he'll say, "I'm so fucking sober!"

Well, looks like I'm getting there, too. Today I read As Bill Sees It, twice, Daily Reflections, and went to a meeting. I talked to other alcoholics and will email my sponsor in a minute. Wow. This plan really sucks you in!

I know people call it a cult, but it's super helpful. They don't ask you to do anything; the steps are but a suggestion. The whole program is a suggestion. It seems to work best when you do what they say, but you sure don't have to. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. The only thing you HAVE to do is not drink. Meetings, readings, and other people are only the icing on the cake. They're what helps me stay sober, at least.

But I still have urges, sometimes. I promised myself if I went to a meeting I could get frozen yogurt (I wanted to take a nap instead), so I left the house with my ATM card, which I normally just leave with a buck. I have to walk past two bars to get to the meeting, and each time I passed I thought, "I'll just go in and order a beer and stare at it. I won't drink it." But I know that's my disease talking. It wants to take back over. It's sick of this spiritual shit, this not drinking "experiment." It wants to drink with the rest of the people! It just wants us to be "normal" again.

But I was never normal. Normal kids don't start drinking so young. Normal kids don't drink to excess and black out in their 30s. You should know better by now, right? Smart kids don't drink and drive. So I'm going to be a smart kid from now on. I'm on the straight and narrow. I haven't taken a drink today, and for that, I'm grateful.

Addiction is a bitch

"One sense of 'normal' is statistically normal: what everyone else does. The other is the sense we mean when we talk about the normal operating range of a piece of machinery: what works best." Paul Graham

He's really talking about our technology addiction, but I think it applies pretty well to our addiction to alcohol and drugs. It's hard to not do what everyone else does! All my friends drink, and they drink to have fun, and drink to get drunk, and drink to celebrate life. They drink all the time... but they stop at some point, and I never could. So my relationship with booze became unmanageable. Whenever it was around I was on it until I blacked out. And it was "normal" to drink that much, for me at least.

So now, what works best is not drinking, and that's going to be my new "normal." Boozing to the point of blackout never worked best, it just worked for the purposes of drowning my sorrows or dulling my emotions. Now I need to trust that this new normal will be the right path. I need to trust that this spiritual path is going to work; that I can become more spiritual and that God will help me stop drinking.

Keep coming back, it works if you work it. At least, that's what they keep telling me.