How To Stay Sober for the Stubborn Alcoholics?

 After traversing the doors of alcohol rehab centers and AA for over 20 years without the success of becoming sober, I finally found the key or steps. It is really simple; overthinking the following will get you back to where I failed for two decades. Making a decision to become sober and staying in the sober living environment in thought can be evasive. The word decision does not hit home, be it from lack of understanding of the word or just a short circuit in your alcoholic and or drug addiction thinking.

The first part is identifying the enemy, and it is alcohol. Even if you have not lost your family, home, car, or job, you find that life is difficult, and you are constantly miserable, and things do not go your way. Your responses to situations are borderline insane, and lashing out at everyone who defies or questions you. In effect, we have become the functioning hung over race or the walking dead in spirit and physical condition. AA describes alcohol as cunning, baffling, and powerful, and this is true. When we fight not to drink, the allure of alcohol and our twisted thinking makes it almost impossible without help to defend ourselves. Put a face on the enemy; if the aforementioned attributes of alcohol were put into a human that was your enemy, you would want to accomplish two things: first, kill them, or second, have them thrown in prison for life.

Avoid your enemy as he has you outflanked and is much more cunning than you can ever hope to be in your lifetime. Treat liquor stores, the section of grocery and convenience stores that have beer and wine on their shelves, as if they are on fire, or rigged to explode. If you have ever put your hand in a fire or touched a hot frying pan, you remember not to do that again. Alcohol is so subtle in its magnetism that you have to attach a pain association to the poison that has kept your life on hold for these many years. It seems impossible after a period of sobriety to remember how miserable we were after waking up from a five-day drinking bender. So, associating that feeling with pain will help to remind us of the struggle that we lived in for so long.

Start attending meetings at your local AA meeting place. If you have been there before, don’t worry about it; we all have had slips from sobriety. If you are one of those people that just cannot seem to get the sobriety thing and have played with the notion for a long time, then change your actions and thinking. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different outcome. Look at the results you want to attain and change your approach to accomplish the decision to become sober today.

Hardcore alcoholics need hardcore action to become sober; Some almost seem too easy to stay within the bounds of not drinking, and we are not a part of a group. It is suggested that we attend ninety meetings in ninety days; this is not enough for the boozehound that has had little success previously. Making a meeting every day, if possible, for one calendar year is the minimum for heavy drinkers. It may seem a little extreme, but think about how much energy we put into drinking, hiding it from family and friends. This action is a small price to pay compared to what we paid in time, effort, and cash while practicing our vocation of drinking.