I get it

I used to not get it.  I used to not get it at all.  I just couldn't get my brain around why or how someone with any  number of years of sobriety would go back out and drink.  I just couldn't make sense of it even though it happens all the time.  A different version of the same story.  But why?  People talk about the compulsion to drink - it's been a long time since I felt that compulsion - that feeling of having to have it even though you don't really want it.  God knows you don't want to throw all your time away just for some alcohol.  Over the years I have always thought no, not me.  Never.  After having accumulated the amount of time I have, it could never happen to me.

Well, it hasn't happened, but now I get it.  My roommate and I have this sort of unspoken about rule that she can have wine in the house and cook with it and keep it around as long as it doesn't bother me.  And the second it bothers me, it has to be dumped out.  On one day I might not care at all.  I might not think twice about it.  But the next day it might really bother me.  I might be obsessed with the fact that it's sitting there.  I might not be able to get it out of my mind.

The other night there was wine in the house, and I had a brief moment when I had considered asking her to dump it down the drain.  Ultimately I decided it was ok, but for a split second I felt that compulsion again.  I felt that loss of control over myself and the feeling that I might not be able to stop myself.  Luckily I am free of that feeling 99% of the time.  It was weird to feel that way.  It has been so so long since I have even come close to thinking about drinking.

But now I understand how it happens.  It just happens.  That's the scary part.  Although you ultimately make a choice to drink or not drink. it seems to happen as if by accident.  I don't know how to put it into words, but I get it.  It makes sense to me.  I'll never do it, but I've realized that I am a little more vulnerable to it than I really thought I was.