So what! There are gasoline stations everywhere and I am not going to go light myself on fire. There is a Dunkin Donuts, a liquor store, or convenience store around every corner but that does not mean I have to buy a bottle of Jack, a Doughnut, and some cigarettes everyday.
Why is it that I have to sit and read the twitter feeds and read the blogs of alcoholics who are constantly overwhelmed by the presence of alcohol in their lives. Then a holiday comes around and these same people take the social media like ants to a picnic or more like dogs to their crate during alighting storm.
It's because people love labels and AA and 12 step programs as well as rehab centers and doctors love labels. Labels free these people and organizations of the responsibility they have to being human and understanding the true nature of what exactly happens when you label yourself.
This fourth of July I ran 7.5 miles and continued my journey on as I prepare for a long distance obstacle course race. 8 years of sobriety without one single slip or mishap. I actually went straight from detox to the bars with my friends and hung out all night. Then I quickly got rid of those friends. The next days that followed I went to all the liquor stores that served me when i was shaking and had just puked on myself. I asked each person there why they served me when they knew I was slowly killing myself? The answers I got were varied and the whole process was very amusing and telling. I'm going to tell you that those people that I once considered friends were diseased and part of the group psychosis that affects everyone in this country. It's unsaid understanding that everyone should drink. If you are not drinking something must be wrong with you or you are just an alcoholic. I will also tell you that the people and bartenders that serve people booze until they cant see straight or walk out and get intheir car are also diseased. They feed into the same group psychosis and unsaid understanding that everyone drinks and that if they were not serving people their competitors would.
So then there is you and I. We are told from the time we we first go to AA from a court order or as a rehab mandate that we are diseased. However in this instance it is not an unsaid concept. It is is actually encouraged that we call ourselves diseased and spend as much time as possible with other people that are diseased. Then on top of that we admit that we are powerless to control that disease. Then we keep the company of all these defeatists who have created their own disease with the help of the American Medical Association and the Pharma companies so that we can avoid the pitfalls of the disease. We form our own local secret club to replace the friends we had and to fill the void in our life of the need for belonging and the need for both empathy and sympathy. It's the secret club that everyone knows about but that you just don't tell people about at your job or among people you don't consider very close friends. You know what I have a surprise for you. even your very close friends think less of you because you have a disease.
Well I don't know about you but the last place I wanted to be on the 4th of July this year was in a room full of people quivering at the thought of alcohol and telling stories. So * years ago I got up and walked out of an AA meeting because I decided that the people I was surrounded by were doomed to a life of living with a label that did not need to be there. I will go ahead and say that is you are in AA and if you believe in everything they tell you, you are cutting yourself off at the knees. My grandfather dies of cancer. He had a disease. I started drinking one day and it almost killed me 15 years later. It's called bad habit that takes over your bodies systems and can kill you.
However, you started it and you can control it and end it. This fourth of July I ran 7.5 miles. I am in the best shape of my life and some would say I am middle aged. I ran a six minute mile the other day in 90 degree heat. I was told I had diabetes at 185 pounds and so i lost 50 pounds and took myself off insulin against medical advice. That was a year ago. I don't have a disease called alcoholism because there is no such thing. The habit starts, you feed it, you can get medically detoxed, and you can never drink again. If you do that, no doctor in the world will examine you off the street and tell you that you have "alcoholism"
Another fourth of July and there was alcohol all around me as I went to three different business and social gatherings over the past few days. I watched people act ridiculous, I saw people grossly overweight, I saw people who definitely had a problem, I saw people who drank socially, I even saw people who were just drinking a cold bottle of water. Imagine that! They must have been an alcoholic. The best part is that the phenomenon continues to show itself and no matter how many times someone sees me I have the opportunity to have a pleasant exchange with someone who really needs for me to have a drink in my hand. Sometimes it's just someone being social, other times it's a drunk asshole who feels guilty about the fact that he is drunk.
My favorite exchange was with a drunk asshole last year while I was watching the fireworks with my son at a public fireworks display. This guy had the balls to ask me if I wanted a beer three times before saying," what the fuck is the matter with you man, are you some kind of alcoholic or something? My honest response was this;" i don't really know what that means but if I had to guess I would say that an alcoholic would more likely be the guy who is pushing drinks on strangers, wasted at a public fireworks display in front of his family and is probably 50 to 60 pounds overweight and carrying all of it in his gut from all the carbohydrates in beer." The guy guy looked at me very puzzled and said that I was an asshole and that he would kick my ass if I was not in front of my little boy. I explained to this guy that i really had no idea what an alcoholic was because I don't know any and that i was not drinking alcohol because I don't like it and it does nothing for me. He said, ohh okay well I thought you were some AA nut or something." That's an alcoholic and if he doesn't stop what he is doing he will die.
I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a three sport athlete with almost no body fat on my body. I'm a Director level executive at a company and father and a husband. However those are all labels. I guess the most important thing I learned over the past 8 years is that I don't want to be around alcoholics. They are either in the training phase, the dependence phase, or the defeatist diseased phase and none of those type of people appeal to me. I guess the only label I would have for myself is that of a rational thinking human being that had a problem with alcohol and decided to put an end to it. Was it easy? no? Am I diseased? You tell me? Could I drink again? I could but why? I'm so much better off without it.
Can I help you? Yes! You just have to believe that you are not diseased and that you should not feel any different on the 4th of July or new years or any day just because there is alcohol around. Truth is I think mostly everyone else is diseased and I am right where I need to be on the evolutionary ladder. another 4th of July, another analysis of my sobriety and truth.
