AA FROM THE WOMAN’s SIDE
You Can’t Ever Drink Again
The greatest words that were ever said to me were, “You can’t ever drink again”, for I was set free – free from bondage. However, some alcoholics feel that the words of “doom” were spoken. “How in the world am I ever going to live.” “I’ll never have any fun without ever having another drink.”
Go ahead, have your drink; but while you are having “your fun”, you may ram into a car and kill an innocent family. You can’t live without a drink? That family didn’t live because of “your drink”.
Go ahead, have your drink: but while you are having “your fun”, what’s happening to your own family? Is their world becoming a world of “without”? Without food, clothes, security, and love. Have fun. You are destroying your family, for their world is becoming a world full of fear, hate, and anxiety.
You can’t live without another drink? Go ahead and have “your fun”. But what about your job, your employer, and employees who depend upon you? Remember, they don’t owe you a living.
What about society? Should they take care of you like a little child for the rest of your life?
What about God? How long will you go on defeating His purpose for your life? If you say God is dead – then you are saying you are dead, for there can be no “real living’ without God!
“You Can’t Live Without a Drink?” So, go full speed ahead and have “your fun”; for soon “the drink” will live without you!
Drink, drunk, destroy, DEATH. Billiette S.
Remember – “Nothing is so bad; a drink won’t make it worse”.
Receiving Billiette’s Call! You Can’t Ever Drink Again
These words “you can’t ever drink again” are being read as my recent thoughts since my last drink six months ago has been about having a beer. It seems Billiette really struggled with drying herself out and I remember some of those battles. I experience the “call of beer” but I have learned to acknowledge it and so far, I have been able to dismiss it. It passes on not calling again for days at a time. It is a slow process extinguishing this acquired need – it really is “one day at a time”. The key idea is using one’s imagination, imagine after having a drink what you are going to feel like the next morning, yes painful headache, plugged nose, but more importantly, you have let yourself down, you have to begin all over again. This is very depressing!
Go ahead, have your drink, Go ahead have your drink. Billiette begins the next two paragraphs with go ahead, get yourself shit-faced, kill a family on the road, deny them life, while at the same time destroying your family’s life – they live in fear, hate, and anxiety. Just for a moment pause… see if you can feel the experiences of fear, hate, anxiety. Really, try and put yourself in your spouse, or your child’s place. This is the essence of empathy, a key to overcoming alcoholic behavior – our challenge is to increase empathic understanding. Mom then extends this devastating destruction and pain to our job, our boss, our fellow employees – we may severely be endangering many lives and at the same time expecting them – society to take care of us.
The last issue Billiette addresses is the death of God. Mom is a Christian and with her family attended Fargo First Methodist Church every Sunday – she raised her sons to believe in the Christian God. I often discussed our beliefs with Mom and the “death of God” idea originally suggested by Hegel and quoted by Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche’s use of the “phrase to explain his idea that the Enlightenment had only eliminated the possibility of the existence of God” (Wikipedia). Nietzsche’s complete statement is: God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? (Wikipedia) The challenge Nietzsche leaves us with is, “Must we ourselves not become gods to appear worthy of it?” This is The Enlightenment and if one drinks alcohol “the drink will live without you!” We will eventually have to deal with wine being the blood of Christ. Remembering – “Nothing is so bad, a drink won’t make it worse”. Steven S.
Happy 100th Birthday Mom – November 19, 1921.