DougGuy
Today, I almost didn't even think about it, it almost slipped my mind, but we had a little band practice tonite, and me being the old guy having to school some of the younguns, did some digging and some story telling about times when my bar tab averaged 18-22 shots of Beam a night. And some of the stupider things came up, like riding a Harley 170mph on a public right of way, and blowing through red lights at 100+mph, but there were as many good stories and good days as there were stupid. Touring and playing bass in 2000 I drove 45,000 miles in 3mos and played all the shows since I was the only band member that had a valid license, and all that time never got pulled, never put a trailer tire off the road, never hit anybody or anything, and still played good.
It was like I loved to drink so much, that I was extra careful and tried extra hard to do things right so people couldn't throw that at me. I got pretty good at it after a while. Good enough that I was able to keep it up for years and years without really having issues related to or coming from the alcohol. I was a professional functional alcoholic. I made it work. <--- This... I will attribute to letting me pretty much wear out drinking, I had done everything I wanted to do, I had exhausted the subject and THEN some. Because of that, when I did eventually get a DUI in 2008, it made it easy for me to quit. There wasn't anything left anymore that made it fun, and I had become what they call a maintenance alcoholic, one who drinks not to get drunk, but to maintain. It was a day in and day out habit.
When I got my DUI, I got out of jail the next morning, I went back to my vehicle still sitting on the side of the road. There was a 6pk in there, and I simply slid the side door open (van) and tossed them into the ditch. At that moment, I *knew* I was done. And because I had wondered even, for years, what would make me quit, I *knew* there would come a day, that I would see the reason why and I would know, it was time.
I don't think I would have had the sense to quit, had I not completely beat that horse to death, I think it would still have held some temptation here and there to drink, but because I was SO thorough in totally exhausting my habit, all I had to do, was make the decision, and be sure I was going to stick with it. It would have been much harder had things forced me to quit earlier, I am not sure I would have been successful. I was lucky beyond belief that nothing really bad happened to me, or to somebody else, in those whiskey years. I look back on some of the things I did, and shake my head. It's anybody's wonder why I am still here.
To anyone who wants to quit, I say the will is within you. It will be much more effective if YOU can find the will on your own, instead of it being forced on you by the courts or by other reasons beyond your control. A lot of people don't get this luxury, a lot aren't quite so lucky, and if you feel like are holding a decent hand and life hasn't dealt you Aces and Eights, and you feel like you can do it, put your money on YOU winning this, throw the cards on the table and call. You have everything to gain, and nothing can hold you back once you are committed to the win.
I don't know if this will be a help to anyone or not. It was kinda hard to write the farther along it got. It was something I had to do on my own, I never was a friend of Bill, and I never walked the twelve steps. Bless those that do. This was my rite of passage. This worked for me. This is how I became sober, 7yrs ago today.
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