Topic for the week: Remembering Your Last Drunk.
For this week’s meeting, I am sharing an excerpt from the book Living Sober which reads:
A friend who offers us a drink usually means simply that one sociable glass or two. But if we are careful to recall the full suffering of our last drinking episode, we are not deceived by our own long-ago notion of “a drink.” The blunt, physiological truth for us, as of today, is that a drink pretty surely means a drunk sooner or later, and that spells trouble.
Drinking for us no longer means music and gay laughter and flirtations. It means sickness and sorrow.
One A.A. member puts it this way: “I know now that stopping in for a drink will never again be–for me–simply killing a few minutes and leaving a buck on the bar. In exchange for that drink, what I would plunk down is my bank account, my family, our home, our car, my job, my sanity, and probably my life. It’s too big a price, too big a risk.”
He remembers his last drunk, not his first drink.
Hi I’m Rachel, and I’m an alcoholic. This past Monday, January 20th, I celebrated 10 years of sobriety, a great milestone for me. I couldn’t help but reflect on my last drunk 10 years ago. It had all the typical parts: I swore I would only have 1 drink, then no more than 2, and before I know it I’m blacked out and driving home. The next day, sitting at work with a horrible hangover, my husband mad at me, I decided I cannot keep living like this. I had already gotten sober once and then went back to drinking because I thought I could control it. But I just had too much to lose at that point, and I knew if I kept going like that, something very bad would happen. I continue to remember that last drunk because it reminds me every day that, no matter how much I think it, I can never just have 1 or 2 drinks. My worst day sober is still far better than my best day drunk.
I’d love to hear about your last drunk and how remembering it keeps you sober today!
Thanks for letting me chair and share!
Rachel S.