Friday, April 30, 2010

The difference between a drink and a pill.

Alcohol brought me into the recovery world nearly 20 years ago. I am a bing'ish drinker. I didn't drink every day and if there was less than a 12 pack I wouldn't even bother.

Now the reason I say that is because during the past 2 weeks I have been made keenly aware that I am way more a real live addict than I ever was an alcoholic. I would never want to drink a single beer but I would take a pill in a heartbeat.

I would go through many steps to avoid taking all the pills in a new script in one day but most of the time it happened anyway.

I've always thought, truthfully that N/A was less old white men in button downs than AA and much cooler. But I never felt comfortable there because I had not done my own independent research project of becoming a junkie.

It is so great to be around people like me who have no control over the outcome once the first pill is swallowed. The N/A book says addiction is insidious, AA says alcoholism is cunning, baffling and powerful.

It's both odd and nice to be started a recovery program where I haven't heard it all before. N/A is a whole new beast.

NO PILLS. That is my new rally cry and it amuses me. When you are lucky enough to get to the space where you can monitor what you thoughts are saying with them running the show, it boggle the brain just how much errant orders are issued to take a pill. I was completely fine yesterday and I had a thought, "wouldn't it be good to mellow out with a downer and nap a while".

I'm thankful I had enough experience to make it back but not so much experience that I crossed it off the list because it hadn't worked yet. Just right. Today I am just right. Just right now.