Robert Ebert outs himself

In one of the best articles I have read on personal recovery from alcoholism, "My Name is Roger, and I'm an alcoholic", Robert Ebert outs himself as an alcoholic explaining:

An A.A. meeting usually begins with a recovering alcoholic telling his "drunkalog," the story of his drinking days and how he eventually hit bottom. This blog entry will not be my drunkalog. What's said in the room, stays in the room. You may be wondering, in fact, why I'm violating the A.A. policy of anonymity and outing myself. A.A. is anonymous not because of shame but because of prudence; people who go public with their newly-found sobriety have an alarming tendency to relapse. Case studies: those pathetic celebrities who check into rehab and hold a press conference.

In my case, I haven't taken a drink for 30 years, and this is God's truth: Since the first A.A. meeting I attended, I have never wanted to. Since surgery in July of 2006 I have literally not been able to drink at all. Unless I go insane and start pouring booze into my g-tube, I believe I'm reasonably safe. So consider this blog entry what A.A. calls a "12th step," which means sharing the program with others. There's a chance somebody will read this and take the steps toward sobriety.

Yes, I believe A.A. works. It is free and everywhere and has no hierarchy, and no one in charge. It consists of the people gathered in that room at that time, many perhaps unknown to one another. The rooms are arranged by volunteers. I have attended meetings in church basements, school rooms, a court room, a hospital, a jail, banks, beaches, living rooms, the back rooms of restaurants, and on board the Queen Elizabeth II. There's usually coffee. Sometimes someone brings cookies. We sit around, we hear the speaker, and then those who want to comment do. Nobody has to speak. Rules are, you don't interrupt anyone, and you don't look for arguments. As we say, "don't take someone else's inventory."

I commented. along with hundreds of others. Roger has definitely struck a chord with many.

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

I'm back in Alaska ...

Once again I am back in Interior Alaska.This trip is for five weeks from the end of July to the beginning of September. It's an adrenalin pump ... meeting old friends, three of whom are among my few — I have more fingers — best frends.

In the span of the month from late May to late June before I started my trip, I was in the hospital three times. First time for emergency surgery to f ix a bowel obstruction. The surgeon removed ten inches of my small intestine. Two days after I was released from the hospital I was back in through the ER for possible internal bleeding. It took them five days to be sure I wasn't bleeding. Then a couple of weeks later I went back for scheduled surgery to clean out the gunk in my left carotid artery ... just like the anti-smoking ads have been showing on TV. And yes, I had smoked for over 30 years, quiting in 1985 as I got off my flight from Seattle to Anchorage.

Besides the stress of the operations, I am on dialysis. I had to arrange for dialysis in Fairbanks while I am here. That had its complications, and there is adjusting to new medical personnel at the Fairbanks clinic who are not as familiar with me as the staff at my home clinic.

But I didn't drink ... even though two of my best friends do. The other is in recovery like I am and we have a perpetual 12-step program underway whenever we are together.

AA works ... for this alcoholic. On April 1st it was 15 years since I had my last drink. And if I don't drink, I don't get drunk. Now why was that so hard to understand?

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

Under the Influence ... the book

I have learned a lot from this book.
Front cover:



Back Cover:

Buy it online at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Under-Influence-Guide-Realities-Alcoholism/dp/0553274872

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

The biochemical insanity of addiction ...

I came to realize over the course of my addiction to alcohol that my brain was subconsciously working against me. I learned in the aftermath of my repeated episodes of drunkenness that I was emotionally compelled to repeat behaviors that would justify my drinking.

If getting angry with someone I cared about and then storming out to find solace at the closest bar brought the warm fuzzy fog of intoxication ... that is exactly what I would look back and find out that I had done.

But even more insidious was the celebration of successes ... so that my productive life became centered on achieving enough to keep drinking alcohol. I isolated from any situation where someone might have the opportunity to intervene ... and in our society where alcohol consumption is glorified, I was hardly noticed ... as I separated myself into my addictive syndrome.

I was like the story I related in an earlier post ... I was the frog in the pan of hot water on the stove, slowly turning up the heat ... so I didn't notice I was being boiled.

Until I understood how I was powerless over the effect of alcohol on my biochemical system — my body and brain — and become committed to not taking the first drink today ... and learning how to do that from the experiences of others ... I would repeat the downward spiral of my addiction cycle until I was in a body bag, in handcuffs, or in a straight-jacket.

I was powerless over the effects of alcohol because my brain had succumbed to the false idea that alcohol is good for me because it made me feel good, and in the moment of inebriation removed all doubt about my ability to whatever it was I wanted to do ... whether I ended up being able to do it or not. It was only after I "reprogrammed" my brain in recovery to let its normal drive for survival — pursuing healthy satisfaction of needs — that I was able to get back to living a normal life. I believe it is that "higher power" of life's struggle for real survival that takes over and gives addicts their lives back.

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

The revolving door of rehab ...

Let's get something straight ... 30-60-90 days of rehab was NOT a solution for my addiction. I tried it all.

In my early adulthood — to 50 — "sobering up" in a "professional program" sooner or later turned into, "that wasn't so bad" ... or ... "looks like I have learned how to drink responsibly" ... or "I've changed, I'm older, more responsible with more to lose." I won't get drunk, and if I do, I now know what to do.

Finally when I became sick and tired of being sick and tired I was willing to take the cotton out of my ears and put it in my mouth ... and heard from a wonderful, beautiful middle-aged woman, "Gus, if you kill yourself in the first 5 years of recovery, you'll be killing a stranger."

I had to give myself time to recover ... one day at a time for the rest of my life. Each day I learned how to do what I needed to do to not take the first drink that day, and was hearing from others around the tables of AA what others were doing in their lives ... some at the same stage, others at other stages of recovery ... so I could also learn what lay ahead ... and have mentoring contacts — sponsors in AA — to help guide me with their example and experience.

From these mentors — one who is now one of my closest friends — I learned that the only thing I am an expert on is my own recovery, and all I can do is share my experience, strength, and hope in my recovery ... as honestly as I can ... with others who are open to listening.

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

The holiday season ... for this alcoholic

Once when I had been sober for a couple of years I was offered a drink at a Christmas party.

It immediately flashed in my brain that I had this alcoholism thing licked, and I could handle a drink.

So I took the drink and cautiously sipped on it for an hour or so ... and nothing happened ... then.

I didn't take another drink that evening, and because of that was able to convince myself that I had "learned" how to drink.

Within a few months I was back to periodic bouts of alcoholic insanity.

There is only one "cure" for me ... doing whatever it takes to not take that first drink ... today. The rest is smoke and mirrors ... for this alcoholic.

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.

A frog in hot water

Before I walked into that fateful AA meeting at the Fremont Fellowship Hall in Seattle, Washington, in early April, 1994, I didn't know it, but I was a frog in a pan of hot water with the heat being turned up so slowly that I didn't notice I was cooking.

I had learned how to control my drinking all right. That was my life, controlling my drinking. If you don't think that is a chemically induced insanity, think again!

My whole life revolved around being able to work to earn the money to pay for drinking and then drinking.

I had learned over the years "how to drink". I'd go to the bar each night and keep repeating a set routine of one drink — usually an Absolut Screw or a Teachers and water — an hour, followed by a bottle of Perrier mineral water, getting a buzz on and maintaining it throughout the evening until around midnight when I would take a cab to wherever I was crashing at the time.

The next morning I would get up, rinse off the booze from the night before — inside and out — and go to work as an independent systems contractor that more than paid for the all too frequent daily cycle called cooking my brain.

I had been doing this for a couple of years after I "fell off the wagon" having gone for a little over three years without a drink. It started slowly but by the fall of 1993 it was becoming an almost nightly ritual. By now I had shed any relationship that might have possibly intervened ... or so I thought ... and abandoned myself to the slow slide into oblivion of the end stages of alcoholism in advancing age. This was the early nineties and I had turned 50 in the late eighties.

I even had a strategy worked out to explain to anyone who asked why I was spending so much time in bars. It was the music. Pioneer Square in Seattle had a shared cover charge for several of its live music nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights. I got involved in promoting this venue as a sideline ... just enough to show someone who might possibly worry about me what I was planning to do, so they wouldn't think my time spent was strange, but not enough to do anything that would interfere with my drinking. Chemically induced insanity ruled!

I had decided that if there was nothing I could do about my drinking — by now I had failed in staying sober so many times, and totally destroyed any relationship that would have made a difference — then I was going to make the best of being an alcoholic.

Little did I know what was in store for me.

Notes & References:

Forty-two personal stories of recovery from alcoholism can be found in the AA Big Book available online at www.aa.org/bigbookonline/.

The website of Alcoholics Anonymous is www.aa.org

The link to the Big Book of AA is www.aa.org/bigbookonline/

The link to finding AA meetings is www.aa.org/lang/en/meeting_finder.cfm

The above websites are available in English, Español, and Français.