Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014
12-05-2013, 12:26 AM
Quote: (12-04-2013 02:20 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:
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.
I expected someone to say that and I understand your perspective.
There's a big difference though. I'm not taking a challenge nor am I "on a wagon" for a year. I just don't drink anymore - I'm all in. Just ended up in this thread because it sprouted out of the other non-drinking thread I was already posting in.
And given that I just don't drink, taking one sip to appease an old Korean guy's sense of hospitality, as in my case, isn't akin to a failure. Maybe if I had a drink or two I could see your point but not a courtesy sip. By my "rules," that's like saying the grandma who takes a ritual sip at Thanksgiving every year is a drinker. It's not like I sat there in a battle of wits with myself and lost. In my case there is no battle of wits.
But just to be clear, I didn't bring that up to convince readers here they should drink sometimes when someone offers it just to be polite. My real point was that if you walk away from drinking tomorrow, there's no reason to think you'll struggle against some insane urge for years on end.
That's all mental and you can change your mind about it if you want.
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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.
I agree. I did it on a regular basis when I used to drink. Sometimes up to 4 months (never took the year challenge but considered it). In the end, after I renewed the habit, I always eventually ended up right back where I started.
Again, though, we're talking about two different things here. While I'm a big advocate of subjecting yourself to periods of strict self-discipline, in this case I'm not doing this to prove anything to myself or anyone else. Therefore, someone telling me I'm not on some nonexistent wagon just because I took a taste of some wine to be polite doesn't hold any meaning to me (with all due respect).
I get it, though, I really do. And I encourage it too.
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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.
We'll have to agree to disagree with all of the above.
I know these are common ideas about alcoholism, but simply put...if I read that busting the paradigm makes it easy...I follow the directions and it is suddenly very easy...friends I know who have been miserable alcoholics for decades do the same and find it easy...and thousands of others report the same...well, then I must say that brings me to a point where I'm wholly convinced a lot of these things you mention are just a product of the beliefs we attach to alcohol.
Society has a long reputation of convincing themselves of things that aren't exactly true. I'm of the opinion that's the case with "addiction."
I know addiction well so these aren't light issues to me. My father and my uncle both od'ed on heroin and most everyone in my family is a raging alcohol or ex-druggie. But I've also seen that people do it to themselves because they go back and forth without making a real decision. Or have built a lifelong habit of quitting every good thing they start. Or convince themselves they are addicts rather than someone choosing to take an addicting drug.
In every case where I could see someone actually meant they were done with a substance, they never went back.
That said, I don't want to get into a debate about what works and what doesn't. Or discourage them!
Anyone making an honest effort to stop or abstain for a while gets a solid in my book, and I wish them luck.
If the approach they take doesn't work for them, well, then they know and can try something else next time.
Every step forward is a step in the right direction.
Beyond All Seas
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling
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