Nov. 8, 2012 - Just for Today

Just for Today
Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012

"We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed.
"We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our types are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 3 ("More About Alcoholism"), p 30.

Just for today, as this narrative from the Big Book states, the first step in my recovery is to concede that I am an alcoholic, that I no longer drink responsibly - if I ever did - and that I will only get sicker and never better if I continue to drink. Disease, dis-ease, illness, condition or anything else, the word alcoholic is nothing more than a word. But if for whatever reason I cannot accept or even say the word, I can say simply that I cannot drink and work toward a new word - soberholic. As a soberholic, I will have the freedom to say I do not have and do not want to drink and to say that I am simply a person who does not drink. Today, I will start to live in the solution of soberholism and not in the problem of alcoholism. But I first must acknowledge that I simply cannot drink. Today, I cannot drink; it's that simple. And our common journey continues. Just for today. - Chris M., 2012