“At the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last
time. Treatment seemed wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens.” (Bill’s
Story)
I said to Doug, in 1993, “I’ve given up drinking.” He said,
“Princess, it gave you up.”
I have never stopped drinking, at least not as an act of the
will.
There was a last drink. I lifted the bottle to my mouth and drank
from it.
The bottle was taken from me.
The evidence that I should stop drinking was there for years
but largely invisible to me.
What is stopping?
Recognising a drink drunk as the last drink then progressing
gradually to an alcohol-free state.
The insight I should stop was a gift I neither earned nor
bade come to me.
The ability to formulate an actual plan to stop was a gift.
The ability to implement that plan was a gift.
The ability to withstand the withdrawal symptoms was a gift.
Some people need considerably more help to proceed through
the period of the alcohol leaving the body and the body adjusting to the new circumstances.
The availability of resources to help me was a gift.
Once I was fully detoxed, a second project, staying stopped,
came into play.
This involves not having the first drink.
This involves not drinking the first drink when the thought
of a drink occurs to me.
This involves being defended by an overriding force when the
thought of a drink occurs to me.
This involves being on an entirely new footing, in the
process of eliminating every shred of selfishness from my life.
If I am progressing in that project, diligently and swiftly enough,
the overriding force is activated.
I do not avoid the first drink as an act of the will.
I commit to not having the first drink, ever again.
I then commit to a course of action that enables that to be
implemented.
But not by be.
Back to stopping drinking:
Many people never stop drinking, because they cannot conjure
the forces that must necessarily intervene from outside the system, and the
forces never intervene.
No other person can conjure those forces. No group of people
can conjure those forces. Sometimes someone is ‘trying to stop’ and everyone is
‘trying to help’ but nothing shifts, not an inch.
They have Good Ideas that are Ideas but are not Good.
They follow those Good Ideas into the forest and never
return.
I now understand with horror that I never stopped drinking
but was separated from alcohol.
I was released: I did not release myself.