The great obsession of every abnormal drinker

I thought about drinking a couple of days ago (I may post later about why, etc.), hence I have selected a few things from the Big Book that I was reading just now on Step 1, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Today, even more so than most days, I am incredibly grateful to still be sober. If ever I question whether or not I might actually be an alcoholic (which is where my head has been the past few days), all I have to do is read the Big Book. I related to these words the first time I read them. There was great fear involved in this initial read of the Big Book, but now there is comfort - because I am reminded every time I pick up this book, that there is a solution.

"The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.

We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization....Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." Page 30

"Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they are in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic." Page 31

"Most of us have believed that if we remained sober for a long stretch, we could thereafter drink normally...We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again: "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in a short time as bad as ever. If we are planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any kind, nor any lurking notion that someday we will be immune to alcohol." Page 33

"To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers, who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics, are astonished at their inability to stop." Page 33

There was a tremendous urge to cease forever. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it - this utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish." Page 34

And finally, "If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic." Page 44

Most days, I feel like staying sober is the easy part - life is the hard part. Drinking hasn't crossed my mind since last October probably. Then every once and a while I am humbly reminded about this part of the disease. I found myself beating myself up for thinking about it, for obsessing over it. I found myself questioning myself these past few days - am I really an alcoholic, am I really sure? I remember when I first came into the program and my friend who brought me there finally pointed out that only alcoholics sit around questioning whether they might be alcoholics. My sponsor says I don't need to figure out why I have been thinking this way. The answer is simple. It is because I am an alcoholic. I should just be grateful that on most days, I live free of the desire and the compulsion and I should consider it a miracle that these moments are few and far between for me.