There’s a therapist I interviewed for my book, and one of the things she does is go through each drink of an evening, and mark what benefit you get from it. I really came to understand – the only real joy is in the first drink, that affords you a change of state. The second drink, and every subsequent drink you have, is a vain attempt to recreate the feeling that first drink gave you. And I found that helpful. But what if you’re drinking for oblivion? If you’re drinking for oblivion, obviously, moderation isn’t going to work.
Adrian Chiles
The night I stopped, what followed was really hard, traumatic work. But that first feeling was complete relief. It was like I’d stepped out of the boxing ring. That relief, I never have to think about whether I can drink again, because I’ve decided not to.
John Robins
We alcoholics will argue that it was that `last pint´ that got us, — that up to then everything was going fine. That’s like arguing that it was the eighteenth wagon of the train that did the damage when we were run over, not the locomotive.
Patrick Little
In a very interesting article in The Guardian this week, two British broadcasting personalities, — Adrian Chiles and John Robins, — share back and forth on their experience with alcohol, heaving drinking, alcoholism, moderation, and abstinence. It seems they both recognised the need to cut back on their heavy drinking a few years back. That decision has led Adrian towards his current approach of moderate drinking, whereas John, having tried that for a while, is now abstinent.
The topics addressed in that conversation are still clouded in confusion, even stigma, in many European countries today, including Germany, where I live. Alcohol is still the Number One killer drug in Western Societies, with estimates that approx. 15% of the overall population seriously damage their health through heavy drinking, with perhaps a third of that total not being able to quit, even when life circumstances indicate that quitting is warranted and/or they have made that decision, only to discover that it is easier said than done.
In real numbers, this final category, — those who can’t quit even when they want to, — would comprise roughly 22 million people in the EU and 17 million in the US. There may be several hundred million people addicted to alcohol, worldwide, but figures are difficult to compile and verify, due to what I call `collective denial´.
Denial is a key element of the alcoholic’s malady, helping to delude the protagonist into believing that `everything is fine, there is nothing to worry about´. The deeper we dig ourselves into the hole, the less capable we become of recognising the fact that we are in a hole.
Addiction, — alcoholism is one of the most common forms of substance addiction, — is a unique malady in this respect. In addition, there are many forms of behavioural addiction such as gambling and workaholism, to name only two. Cancer or diabetes, when they manifest, become very apparent to the patient, and will generally stimulate the affected person to take countermeasures. Not so with the addict. We are like the frogs in the saucepan under which heat is slowly applied. We gradually become groggy and are in peril of boiling to death unless some intervention of sufficient driving force jolts us to our senses.
Furthermore, as one of my mentors, Anne Wilson Schaef, points out: `The characteristics of addiction are powerful elements in our culture that have affected all of us. Whether we want to call them addictions, dysfunctions, or obsessions is irrelevant. What is vital is that we recognize the pervasiveness of this dysfunction and see the need to heal from it.´ Collective denial, — on the family, community, societal, and cultural levels, — is the manifestation of resistance to admitting this widespread dysfunction. In our culture, we still embrace a judgemental `us and them´ attitude; (we are non-addicts, i.e., well/good; they are addicts, i.e., sick/bad) and content ourselves in sweeping the issue under the carpet.
I drank alcoholically from the age of 16 until I was 42, finally quitting in 2003. I have been graced with a life without alcohol or other mood-altering drugs since then. My version of denial sounded like this: Alcoholics are people who drink half a bottle of vodka before getting up in the morning and sleep under bridges and, since I never drank vodka before getting up and only sometimes slept under bridges, where’s the problem?
Now, grateful to be living in recovery, with a true sense of purpose in my life, a key element of my work involves raising awareness about addiction, from the addict’s perspective. Target groups include middle and high school pupils and teachers, the professionals who work in the field of addiction and recovery, parents, fellow Transformation Coaches and Mental Fitness Trainers, and the population at large.
My hope is that the better informed we become, the more effective we can be in dealing with this global public health crisis. I’m also engaging in raising awareness as a service onto myself. In order to keep it (my sobriety), I need to give it away. That is one of the many paradoxes of this transformation we call recovery. I believe it holds true for all forms of transformation.
When Adrian Chiles quotes the therapist, he interviewed for his book, as follows: `the only real joy is in the first drink, that affords you a change of state´, what does that mean in practical terms? We alcoholics do not drink for the taste or the social satisfaction of the moment. We drink for the change of state of mind because the default state of mind is characterized by anxiety, tension, and alienation. The change of state takes the edge off reality, a reality we generally experience us unbearable.
To quote an early innovator in treatment, Dr William Silkworth, writing in 1938: Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks —drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
This differentiates alcoholics from others who can take a drink, or leave it. We need to be in an altered state of mind to feel good. The second factor, which makes the dynamic so deadly dangerous is that, when we start, a physiological craving is activated such that, on aggregate, we cannot stop. This leads to the familiar `loss of control´ which turns the aimable Dr Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. In my case this often led to blacking out. This happened probably several hundred times.
People who do not understand the condition, — often well-meaning professionals, family members or friends, — encourage alcoholics to `pull themselves up by their bootstraps´ or to quit, if not for their own sake, at least `for the sake of the lovely wife or beautiful children´. This implies that willpower is the solution, which is not the case. Less visible strategies, like the surrender expressed by John Robbins above, followed by the entire psychic change mentioned by Dr. Silkworth,are required.
Moderation does not work for me. I spent twenty-six years in the ring with an opponent who out-pointed me in every aspect of the game. In a moment of clarity, as I sat in the rubble of my dreams, I knew I was licked. It was time to climb out through those ropes and to commit to a different approach. I got help in the Twelve Step community, from people who had already graduated from the boxing ring to a sober life on a new footing: happy and free.
Support has also come from very capable and caring recovery professionals along the way. Additionally, I have recently adopted a daily practice of PQ Mental Fitness. This programme, in which I have now qualified as a Trainer, augments the quality of my recovery in terms of consistency of practice, resulting in increased vitality and improved well-being.
I put this down to the fact that, like the Twelve Step, it comprises 20% insights and 80% practice. The PQ practice is served up in effective exercises on an easy-to-use App throughout each day, encouraging me to stay on the beam and allowing me to track my progress as I proceed. Just like my regular physical fitness regime, which I commenced years ago, Mental Fitness is a choice for life, in which I engage every day. I don’t even think about drinking these days. Instead , my focus is on acquiring and cultivating the resources which enable me to live life on life’s terms without needing to take the edge off anything.
If you find you are drinking a lot, and are not an alcoholic, moderation may be feasible, advisable, and beneficial for your general state of health and well-being.
If, however, you suspect that you may be caught up in an addictive dynamic, whether substance or behaviors-related, and wish to become free from this scourge, you may, like me, benefit from the trident approach described above: Twelve Steps, excellent medical and psychological support, and PQ Mental Fitness.
I can highly recommend exploring each of these components.
