Bama…
Dry drunk is one word for that miserable place.
It’s not that drinking (one may substitute any mind altering substance for liquor) did something TO me, it was that drinking did something FOR me.

If drinking was my problem, that would be great!
All I had to do was quit, and all those unpleasant things will stop happening. If drinking was the problem, rehab centers and detoxes would graduate success stories all the time. No more alcohol in the system, no more problems.

It’s when I know what will happen if I drink, my wife will leave me, my kids will hate me, I will lose my job, my self respect, my home, maybe my life, and I start drinking again anyway. THAT is the difference between someone who just drinks too much, and an alcoholic.

Men would tell me “don’t drink and things would get better” I knew better than that. When I didn’t drink things went from bad to real bad, and they went that way fast. I had nothing between me and this hostile world.

Liquor quieted the committee in my head, it changed this hostile world into a kinder, gentler place. But the problem was I couldn’t stay drunk, I always came to. And that intolerable pain started all over again. So there I was, I knew I couldn’t drink, and I couldn’t stop.
That is the hard place we all find ourselves in when we, having crossed that invisible line into alcoholism, try to change.
If we can’t find relief from the torment of sobriety, we have no other real choice but to start drinking again.

It doesn’t matter what path one chooses to get sober, if that path doesn’t produce happiness and comfort, we won’t walk that path long.

As a man once told me, “Yea that I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, screw walking, run as fast as you can. Get on the other side of death valley, and do so quickly.”

That Bama is the trick to long term, happy sobriety.

On the road to the good stuff,
Richard S.