What does "the disease of addiction" mean to me?
To me it means that there is a strong compulsion on my part to repeatedly act in a way that rationally makes no sense. I knew for a long time that my drinking was out of control. I wanted to stop, and yet I didn't want to. I wanted to drink and not have to deal with the consequences of drinking. Even when I did look seriously at giving up drinking, at the same time I considered going back to using recreational drugs as a way of maintaining the "oblivion option." Thus my addiction seems to be as much about the effect as the substance used.
Has my disease been active recently? In what way?
If the pointers of active addiction are that we become trapped in obsessive, compulsive, self centered routines, with endless loops that head nowhere but to physical, mental and emotional decay .... well then I'd say that yes my addiction has been active recently.
I find that I easily fall into obsessive thought and behaviour patterns.
Behaviourly at the moment I am finding it hard to break the pattern of compulsively surfing the internet, to the point of getting up early to do so, and also disrupting my work day in order to peruse alcoholic support forums, posting messages when I should be working. I'll re-read my own posts incessantly to ensure that I've got the wording correct, or look for answering posts scanning for re-assurance or praise.
Thinking-wise I just go around and around in my head with the same old arguments about addiction vs habit. Still on some level finding it hard to accept that I can NEVER drink again ... never get wasted. That thought has been troubling me a lot.
What is it like when I'm obsessed with something? Does my thinking follow a pattern? Describe.
I don't really notice at first that I am thinking obsessively. I mean they're my thoughts right? But after a while I realise that I'm thinking a lot about a certain thing that has happened or situation that I'm dreading ... or getting up tight about something, and it will be like a loop gets set up in my head and I'll go over it again and again ... "I should have said this or that" ... "I should have done this instead of that" ... "if only this or that would happen then everything would be OK" sort of thing.
I will detach from reality and drift into obsessively imagining scenarios where things that have already happened get altered by me doing or saying something differently ... or by other things happening to change the circumstances ...
I'm not sure I'm explaining this right. It's like an extreme form of wishful thinking I guess.
When a thought occurs to me do I immediately act on it without considering the consequences? In what ways do I behave compulsively
I don't know. I don't think I'm particularly impulsive. On the whole I'd say I'm quite a cautious person ... not so much when drinking though, and not when riled up and angry either when I can sometimes say stuff which I then go on to regret. Certainly in drinking terms I've built up sober time (weeks sometimes months) which I've then blown without any real thought for the consequences. Just somehow managed to convince myself it'd be OK without really allowing myself to think it through.
So I see that side of me is there, but on the whole I tend to over-think, if anything ... so thinking, wishing, dreaming and procrastinating without acting rather than acting without thinking.
How does the self centered part of my disease affect my life and the lives of those around me
When I was drinking I'd lie a lot about it. I'd tell Trev I'd only just opened the bottle not long before he arrived home when either it was the second bottle, or I'd got another one on the go out of sight on the shelf in the kitchen. Also I'd lie about situations, either exagerating episodes at work in order to justify drinking on days we'd agreed to keep AF ... or fabricating stuff in order to justify drinking. I'd try to manipulate the situation so that I couldn't just drink but could drink as much as I wanted to ... enough to get trashed. If I could manipulate the situation such that I could be alone and drinking so much the better. By doing this I erected barriers between myself and Trev which has had long lasting effects on the dynamic of our relationship.
I'd often cancel stuff that had been planned with friends or acquaintances. Texting or calling at the last minute with some half assed excuse when it was just that I wanted to stay home by myself and drink. My friends got fed up with this kind of treatment and eventually gave up getting in contact with me.
These days I think I still try to manipulate situations and/or people so that I can remain mostly inconspicuous in face to face dealings. Joining in if necessary, but only on the fringes. I'd say this is outside of my workplace where there are defined boundaries and I understand the roles and responsibilities. Work is a place where I feel most comfortable other than at home. When I am in other places and I have to interact with people I generally try to keep contact time down to a minimum ... to the point where I'll sometimes curtail events so I can get away to be by myself.
I think about myself a lot, but not in a constructive or structured way, more in a generalised messed up way.
How has my disease affected me physically? Mentally? Spiritually? Emotionally?
Physically, well appearance-wise obviously I have aged quicker than I would otherwise have done. My skin shows signs of my long drinking career. I have not had any medical tests done in the last 10 years so I can't say for sure.
Mentally, I have become aware of the obsessive way I think about stuff, especially recently. Going to meetings and listening to others share about their thoughts and feelings has helped me to recognise things that go on in my own head in a way I never seemed to be able to do before. My thought processes always seem very muddled and intractable ... and I tend to give up thinking about this stuff as it all seems too hard. I'm pretty sure drinking has compromised my mental acuity as I find it hard to focus and concentrate on things even now after 15 months without a drink.
Spiritually I'm not sure. I don't generally think in spiritual terms, but if I was to use the term psycholigically just for the emantime until I get a better understanding of what spirituality means in this context, then I can see that drinking has affected my ablilty to cope with life generally. I used to drink so I didn't have to cope. Now I have to find new ways to do so.
Emotionally drinking pretty much always made me feel better in the immediate effect of a couple of drinks ... but later on after a skinful I'd be maudlin and weepy ... often acting out and playing the victim or picking arguments and generally being a drama queen ... acting out fantasies and acting in ways I find shameful now. The legacy of this is guilt, remorse and shame ... an acknowledgment that I did things I shouldn't have and drinking is no excuse or get out of jail card in this respect. I have a low opinion of myself in some ways and an overblown one in others ... extremes without the balanced middle in other words. That should probably go under Mental Effects but I'm not sure where the line between mental, emotional, and spiritual/psychological is.
