I don’t know why some die and others find a way to arrest their drinking or drug problem. The stories in this book discuss people who had their lives ruined by the horrible disease of alcoholism before finding hope and redirection in Alcoholics Anonymous. These personal and sometimes interesting cases have become good leads into understanding people suffering from an addiction, why they continued to deny changing their lifestyle, and how they finally hit that elusive and undefined “rock-bottom” that became a turning point in resurrecting their lives and purposes for living.
My personal experience with alcoholism clearly showed to me the validity of that oft-used and catchy phrase: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” I knew that I was an alcoholic. I knew that my life was falling into pieces all around me. But as long I kept telling myself that my addiction had not reached the worst yet, I didn’t change. I didn’t want to change. As a friend of mine once remarked to me: some people don’t want to be saved, because they have become psychologically comfortable living in a personal hell, knowing it’s hell, but feeling that there is no way out of that hell.
For example, I would go on binges that would last around five days of non-stop drinking. Then I would be so sick, I couldn’t drink any more. I had to stop. My body literally would not let me take another sip until I sobered up again. Afterwards, I would tell myself: “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” and then the whole cycle of binging would begin all over again. As soon as I felt better physically, I would forget the misery of my withdrawals and return to drinking.
So many alcoholics can stop drinking. That’s not the problem, and that’s not the solution. The secret is to stay stopped.
I thought, too—wrongly, as it turned out—that the only thing I had to change in my life was the drinking. If I stopped drinking, I reasoned, the rest of my life would be a piece of cake. “Wrong.” I had to learn to care about other people. But first, I had to learn to care about myself and what the triggers for my alcoholic addiction were. Like any disease, I had to know what brought on the disease and take prophylactic measures to prevent its reoccurrence.
This is the same story for all who suffer from alcoholism, as you will be able to verify as you read through the personal episodes I have catalogued here.
If you know anyone who suffers from this debilitative disease or from some other destructive drug, you will quickly find that there is nothing that you can personally do. No matter how many times you tell a person he or she needs help, they’ll convince themselves—maybe not you—that their situation “isn’t that bad yet.” You might be able to convince one, if you are lucky, to try attending one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Otherwise, there is nothing else you can do except, perhaps, to say a silent prayer that they may find a way out of alcoholic bondage.
The last thing we want to do, however, is Don’t Count the Drunk Out. You might be surprised how versatile and adaptable the human spirit is.
Edward T. Plunkett