This Stuff Works

I've heard it said that what this program gives us is all that we ever wanted from alcohol.

As for me, I drank because I wanted to feel a sense of general well-being; that life was simple and that it was safe to be at ease. I didn't really get that, but I embarked on thousands of drunks with that same unstated goal every time.

Tonight I felt the onset of what I can only describe as a panic attack. I don't like to throw around clinical terms so I shouldn't really call at a panic attack per se. But I'll just say that when I used to have these spells they were deathly frightening and completely debilitating.

So, when I felt the heeby-jeebies coming on the most natural thing in the world for me to do was what I have done hundreds of times. I had just finished giving a class. I was sitting at my computer. In the old days, I would have immediately gone downstairs to the storage closet, grabbed a bottle of whatever was left over from the kiddush and a 7 oz. Styrofoam cup. I would come back to my office, sit in my chair and fill the cup with Smirnoff or J&B or whatever there was on hand. Then I would make a brocha "shehakol" and down the first cup. I would instantly feel relief. Before the chemical could even possibly begin working on my body, my mind would already be at rest knowing that "help was on the way." I would immeditaely re-fill the cup even though I wasn't yet ready for another drink, but I can't stand for there to be anything less than a full cup. It's part of my obsession. Even when I drink soda now I have a terrible unsettled feeling if I am not sitting in front of a full cup. A few minutes would pass and I would start to drink the second 7 oz. cup. This time I would go slower, "nursing" it in three or four gulps over ten or fifteen minutes. By one or two in the morning, I would have had another several cups and then, stone drunk, I would drive the one and a half blocks home sure that it was too short a drive for anything to happen. I would stumble in the house thinking I was being quiet. If I didn't pass out, I would look for another bottle at home. I would awake the next morning after a few hours sleep, still half-drunk but sober enough to be full of terror.

Anyway, tonight when I felt the feelings that always used to precede precisely the binge I've just described, I knew that drinking was not an option. You see, what saves me is that although I still have reflexive urges to drink all the time, I just know it's not an option.

So what did I do instead? I did a Third Step. I gave it over to G-d. I let Him take my worries and anxiety and dread.

And you know what? I felt exactly that feeling I used to get the instant I had downed that 7 oz. cup. I felt a sense of general well-being; that life was simple and that it was safe to be at ease. I felt exactly what I had always wanted to get out of drinking. But it was real. And I wasn't insanely drunk.

I went to a meeting. The topic was prayer and meditation. This is what I shared.