The fatal flaw in recovery from addiction seems to be the gradual and insidious onset of the utterly insane idea that you can engage in your old behaviors "a little bit" or "just this once" without causing any harm. For me, I begin to rationalize by telling myself that my drinking has never been as bad or as intense as many of my friends and family. I only sip beers slowly throughout the day. I don't slam them and get totally drunk and obnoxious (well at least most of the time.) So, I reason, because my drinking behavior is not as intense, I can keep it under control. I can have one or two beers tonight, and then just not have any more until I choose to again. That's where I'm wrong.
For me, having even one beer, is like toppling the first domino. It's like a slow motion bomb going off in my life. Ever so slowly, it begins to destroy everything positive in my life, one thing at a time. My personal goals, my health, my money, my job, my friends, my family, my spiritual enlightenment, my emotional well-being. One by one, they begin to topple, and at the same time, my consumption of alcohol continues to get larger and larger and larger, and more destructive; until one day I find myself down town, so drunk that I can't figure out how to get back home. I call my wife 10 times in 15 minutes, asking her to come pick me up, forgetting each time that I have the only car. I wake up the next day feeling close to death, and hating myself intensely. Hating what I've become. Hating what I've let slip away from me. Knowing that I'm killing myself. Wondering if I can ever find my way back to sanity again.
If only there were a sure fire way, to NEVER EVER FORGET what alcohol has done to me countless times before. If only there were a way to fix the INSANITY of thinking that enough time has passed that I can now control the way I drink. I have never been able to before. Why in the name of heaven would I possibly think I can do it now?
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