Good Morning Absville!
Welcome to Monday morning. Hope you are all well-rested from the weekend and ready to face another week.
Today’s topic is “willingness.”
Looking back through the history of our posts here, this is a theme that comes up time and time again. What lengths are we willing to go to to meet our goals? Recognizing, of course, that our goals may not all be the same. But we are all here because of a drinking problem, and we all want to get better – whatever “getting better” means to us. So just what are we willing to do to make that happen?
If I look at my own drinking career, here are some of the things I was willing to do in order to have alcohol in my life:
• Spend up to $20 per day just on booze (more on related booze-induced activities, such as hours-long phone calls, cab fares across town, etc.)
• Risk my own life and the lives of others, as well as my freedom, by drinking and driving
• Miss countless hours of my life in blackouts
• Spend countless days of my life in devastating hangovers
• Throw away almost every shred of self-respect
• Walk to the store for a bottle of liquor when it was 50 below zero
I think you get the picture. If I wanted a drink, as I frequently did, there was nothing that would stand in my way. Absolutely nothing. Have you seen homeless people begging for money? And you know that when they get enough they are going to buy a bottle with it? That could be me. Or the prostitute trying to earn enough for her next fix of heroin? Same thing. It’s only a matter of degree. If I look down my nose at those people I am being a hypocrite.
So, if I am serious about getting over my alcohol “problem,” then what am I willing to do? Ha – there is a part of me right now that is just rolling on the floor laughing, as they say. For me it is kind of like this: if a doctor told me I had cancer, but if I really committed myself to doing certain things, I could keep it at bay and I could live a normal life span. Is there anything I WOULD NOT be willing to do? I truly think that (in my case, at least) this is a life-and-death situation. If I were to go back to drinking, maybe it wouldn’t kill me this month, or next. Or even this year, or next. But it most certainly would shorten my life, and do so substantially. And in the meantime, of course it is a “quality of life” issue.
So, I will take a prescription medication – forever if necessary. I will take supplements. They are a little costly but not so costly as the booze was. And yes, I will do hypnotherapy. I will get off my lazy butt and exercise. I will get online for an hour or more a day and pour my thoughts out to people I have never met. I will stay away from bars and drinking buddies. (Change my playground and playmates.) I will occasionally go to AA meetings – even though they sometimes get on my nerves – because I do pick up tools I can use there. I will ride out the hard times or see a shrink or do whatever I need to to get through them. (God, please don’t let me change my mind.) I will do anything I can to beat this thing, because I believe my life depends on it.
Where the rubber meets the road, though, is what am I willing to do when I start to have a craving. What do I do when I feel like isolating. When I feel pissed off at others in my life. When I don’t want to do what I know I should. My willingness seems to VANISH when I am in a bad mood. That’s when I am most in danger. We all go through these feelings, and that is why I thought we should talk about this.
I just don’t think this business of recovery is something you can do half-heartedly. I have learned that all too painfully. I spent at least an extra year rolling in the mud because my heart wasn’t in it fully – I wasn’t willing to go the extra mile.
My biggest fear is that I will someday, somehow lose sight of my goal and my current conviction and become unwilling to do what I need to do to remain sober and healthy. I know all too well where that can lead. I can’t predict the future, but I want to do anything I can to stay on the right track.
So it’s out there. How would you rate your willingness? It’s not a contest…. It’s a chance to take honest stock of where you’re at. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say I’m at a 10 today. But that is not my constant state. Sometimes I’m at an 8, or a 6, or even a 2. It’s all in attitude, I guess. Ask me again in 2 weeks and I hope it is still a 10.
And if there’s something you find you’re not willing to do – is it that you are not ready to do it yet? Is it something you fear doing? Just tryin’ to get the discussion going here….
What is it you say now, Kathy?
Bump.
Welcome to Monday morning. Hope you are all well-rested from the weekend and ready to face another week.
Today’s topic is “willingness.”
Looking back through the history of our posts here, this is a theme that comes up time and time again. What lengths are we willing to go to to meet our goals? Recognizing, of course, that our goals may not all be the same. But we are all here because of a drinking problem, and we all want to get better – whatever “getting better” means to us. So just what are we willing to do to make that happen?
If I look at my own drinking career, here are some of the things I was willing to do in order to have alcohol in my life:
• Spend up to $20 per day just on booze (more on related booze-induced activities, such as hours-long phone calls, cab fares across town, etc.)
• Risk my own life and the lives of others, as well as my freedom, by drinking and driving
• Miss countless hours of my life in blackouts
• Spend countless days of my life in devastating hangovers
• Throw away almost every shred of self-respect
• Walk to the store for a bottle of liquor when it was 50 below zero
I think you get the picture. If I wanted a drink, as I frequently did, there was nothing that would stand in my way. Absolutely nothing. Have you seen homeless people begging for money? And you know that when they get enough they are going to buy a bottle with it? That could be me. Or the prostitute trying to earn enough for her next fix of heroin? Same thing. It’s only a matter of degree. If I look down my nose at those people I am being a hypocrite.
So, if I am serious about getting over my alcohol “problem,” then what am I willing to do? Ha – there is a part of me right now that is just rolling on the floor laughing, as they say. For me it is kind of like this: if a doctor told me I had cancer, but if I really committed myself to doing certain things, I could keep it at bay and I could live a normal life span. Is there anything I WOULD NOT be willing to do? I truly think that (in my case, at least) this is a life-and-death situation. If I were to go back to drinking, maybe it wouldn’t kill me this month, or next. Or even this year, or next. But it most certainly would shorten my life, and do so substantially. And in the meantime, of course it is a “quality of life” issue.
So, I will take a prescription medication – forever if necessary. I will take supplements. They are a little costly but not so costly as the booze was. And yes, I will do hypnotherapy. I will get off my lazy butt and exercise. I will get online for an hour or more a day and pour my thoughts out to people I have never met. I will stay away from bars and drinking buddies. (Change my playground and playmates.) I will occasionally go to AA meetings – even though they sometimes get on my nerves – because I do pick up tools I can use there. I will ride out the hard times or see a shrink or do whatever I need to to get through them. (God, please don’t let me change my mind.) I will do anything I can to beat this thing, because I believe my life depends on it.
Where the rubber meets the road, though, is what am I willing to do when I start to have a craving. What do I do when I feel like isolating. When I feel pissed off at others in my life. When I don’t want to do what I know I should. My willingness seems to VANISH when I am in a bad mood. That’s when I am most in danger. We all go through these feelings, and that is why I thought we should talk about this.
I just don’t think this business of recovery is something you can do half-heartedly. I have learned that all too painfully. I spent at least an extra year rolling in the mud because my heart wasn’t in it fully – I wasn’t willing to go the extra mile.
My biggest fear is that I will someday, somehow lose sight of my goal and my current conviction and become unwilling to do what I need to do to remain sober and healthy. I know all too well where that can lead. I can’t predict the future, but I want to do anything I can to stay on the right track.
So it’s out there. How would you rate your willingness? It’s not a contest…. It’s a chance to take honest stock of where you’re at. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say I’m at a 10 today. But that is not my constant state. Sometimes I’m at an 8, or a 6, or even a 2. It’s all in attitude, I guess. Ask me again in 2 weeks and I hope it is still a 10.
And if there’s something you find you’re not willing to do – is it that you are not ready to do it yet? Is it something you fear doing? Just tryin’ to get the discussion going here….
What is it you say now, Kathy?
Bump.
I frustrate the *#*$%! out of myself sometimes. So I will have to make a few calls this morning and get replacements faxed to me, but it was too early to do so right now, so I thought I would get on and say hi! and respond to Mike (you devil! LOL!)
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