71 Days

I've been sober for 71 days now. Is it getting easier? Well not really. Some stressful events have crept up into my life, and I've spent the past few years coping with stress by drinking. Now that I can't drink, it simply makes me want to drink MORE.

It has kept coming into my head over the past few days: "Stop by the store, get a bottle of wine ... it's ONLY wine ... it can't hurt ... "

But the Big Book says: "No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death (30)."

Okay, so even a tiny bit of alcohol would ruin me. Then why -- when I know it will ruin me -- am I still tempted to drink? Why do I want to drink? My outlook of the future is pessimistic enough as it is, but the future isn't doomed to failure UNTIL the first drink is taken. BEFORE the first drink, there is still some hope left. But even now that I'm writing this, I still want to drink. I just don't understand ...

Perhaps the stress from feeling our lives "out of control" makes us feel hopeless. In the past week, I've had two disturbing dreams that left me with feelings of hopelessness:

1) I dreamed I was in my house, and I was looking out the window into a big field across the street. I just so happened to be looking out the window when I saw two skydivers jump out of an airplane. They fell and fell and fell ... but they didn't open their parachutes until right before hitting the ground. I knew for sure that they were both hurt, or maybe even killed. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 as I ran out into the field to try to help. As I arrived on the scene, a man was there already, mourning, beating his chest, and tearing at his hair at the sight of the two mangled bodies of his sons. (How did I know they were his sons? It was just a feeling.) I felt uncomfortable there -- like an intruder as he greived. But I wished he had not seen the bodies in such a mangled and gruesome state. I wanted to cover them to spare him the horrific sight, but it was too late.

2) I dreamed that I was standing on a street corner. There were many people walking up and down the sidewalk. Suddenly one person caught on fire. Nobody else noticed, and they just kept walking down the sidewalk. I couldn't move to help. She simply caught on fire and desperately tried to extinguish the flames by rolling on the ground and beating her clothes. But they burned off, and soon her skin melted away, exposing muscle and bone to the flames. She just kept burning and struggling until she died. Then someone else caught on fire -- and like the previous person, nobody noticed.

I have no idea what these dreams mean, but they both seem to be about hopelessness, powerlessness, and very gruesome types of death. I hope I don't have another one.

Surely our own lives are not so hopeless. We can make decisions, although they sometimes seem insignificant. But the decision of whether to drink -- in the case of an alcoholic -- is a major decision that either removes all hope, or sustains what little you have.