Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014
12-04-2013, 02:20 PM
Beyond Borders,
I always read your posts about this with interest and I usually agree with what you have to say.
That said. In my book, a wagon means no drinks of any kind for any reason for the specified period of time. No exceptions. This is the way that I would like this "1 year challenge" to be taken. Not one drink from the starting date, whatever it is, to the same date one full year later.
If you had "about three drinks since you quit drinking" then to me that's not the same as being on the wagon for that entire period. That's not a moral judgment, just a matter of what the word means.
Of course, I agree with you that there is no need for the AA drama where "falling off the wagon" necessarily entails some sort of nearly life-ending binge. However. If someone has a drink for any reason, their wagon is over. They then can, and indeed should, re-start their wagon immediately. But it's a new wagon, and the count starts again from that date.
Now, this may all seem excessively formalistic but I don't think so. There are very good reasons to impose this strict discipline of no drinks, ever, for any reason for the specified period of time.
First, it is good to accept a challenge like this and to show yourself you can do it, no excuses, no bullshit, no exceptions. It's good for a man to stake his pride on something and then get it done.
Second, there are very good physiological reasons for this. People who have been hard drinkers are sensitized to alcohol and any taste of the drug triggers certain cascades in your brain. While this doesn't mean that any taste compels you to go on a binge, it is important to go for a long period without those cascades ever occurring to really reset some of the pathways and change your relation to it.
Finally, there is no need to either understate or overstate the difficulty of doing this. For people who have been hard drinkers giving it up is not easy. There is a whole structure of habits that has to be abandoned -- not just the drug but all the social and solitary rituals that go with it, and all the ways in which these rituals seem to beguile certain periods of one's days and nights and seasons. There are other and better structures that replace them over time, but this doesn't happen immediately. It takes months or more. And in the interim there can be a good deal of emptiness and boredom that bring the temptation to return to the seemingly tried and true ways of drinking.
It is also true that this is absolutely doable and is entirely within any man's power. But it does take some commitment and some backbone. In short, it's neither easy nor impossible, rather, it's a challenge but one that can be met and that brings great rewards to those that stick with it.
I always read your posts about this with interest and I usually agree with what you have to say.
That said. In my book, a wagon means no drinks of any kind for any reason for the specified period of time. No exceptions. This is the way that I would like this "1 year challenge" to be taken. Not one drink from the starting date, whatever it is, to the same date one full year later.
If you had "about three drinks since you quit drinking" then to me that's not the same as being on the wagon for that entire period. That's not a moral judgment, just a matter of what the word means.
Of course, I agree with you that there is no need for the AA drama where "falling off the wagon" necessarily entails some sort of nearly life-ending binge. However. If someone has a drink for any reason, their wagon is over. They then can, and indeed should, re-start their wagon immediately. But it's a new wagon, and the count starts again from that date.
Now, this may all seem excessively formalistic but I don't think so. There are very good reasons to impose this strict discipline of no drinks, ever, for any reason for the specified period of time.
First, it is good to accept a challenge like this and to show yourself you can do it, no excuses, no bullshit, no exceptions. It's good for a man to stake his pride on something and then get it done.
Second, there are very good physiological reasons for this. People who have been hard drinkers are sensitized to alcohol and any taste of the drug triggers certain cascades in your brain. While this doesn't mean that any taste compels you to go on a binge, it is important to go for a long period without those cascades ever occurring to really reset some of the pathways and change your relation to it.
Finally, there is no need to either understate or overstate the difficulty of doing this. For people who have been hard drinkers giving it up is not easy. There is a whole structure of habits that has to be abandoned -- not just the drug but all the social and solitary rituals that go with it, and all the ways in which these rituals seem to beguile certain periods of one's days and nights and seasons. There are other and better structures that replace them over time, but this doesn't happen immediately. It takes months or more. And in the interim there can be a good deal of emptiness and boredom that bring the temptation to return to the seemingly tried and true ways of drinking.
It is also true that this is absolutely doable and is entirely within any man's power. But it does take some commitment and some backbone. In short, it's neither easy nor impossible, rather, it's a challenge but one that can be met and that brings great rewards to those that stick with it.
same old shit, sixes and sevens Shaft...