Achieving Our Potential

Sister Anne Fulffs, one of my eight grade teachers was wrong about me. Despite her insistence’s to the contrary I did achieve my potential afterall.

I became an alcoholic.

What is a “Potential” alcoholic, anyway? One one of the best ways I know to find out is to see how Bill and the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous uses the word.

In “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the Big Book, they use it repeatedly – four times. If we locate these incidents then we can ask a question:

Is there a common thread in his usage of the term?

There is. In all instances the person being described is obviously and harmfully abusing alcohol – but not yet a real alcoholic.

To wit:

1) “To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years.”

2) “Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly failed my law course. At one of the finals I was too drunk to think or write. Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife.”

3) “Though you may be able to stop for a considerable period, you may yet be a potential alcoholic.”

4) “But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.”

The common denominator in each of these is that each is missing any descriptive of craving/physical allergy. The Big Books references seem to pretty well describe a person with an obsession to drink – but NOT a person who has damaged their bodies enough to have acquired the physical allergy which forces them to keep going once any alcoholic whatever enters their system.

They might keep going but for reasons other than the craving. They may drink way more than they should, even to the point of needing a doctors care – but maybe they are drinking to escape – to “not feel” or to just “belong”. Many of us start out just this way, Maybe they need Assholes Anonymous at this stage, or a calamity of the sort that will shock them into giving it up – loss of a job, family or body part.

The “Stopping” Bill is referring to in number four does not refer to the inability to stop AFTER taking the first drink. He is referring to an inability to stop taking the FIRST drink to begin with.

If we tell such an alcohol “ABUSER” they are potential alkys, and could develop an utter inability to leave it alone after just one drink (allergy), they are not likely to believe us and stop based upon that knowledge. I know I was warned and it didn’t stop me. At least I have achieved my “potential” in SOMETHING!

Sister Anne ! I know you must be dead and cannot read this article – unless there are computers in hell. But I thumb my nosed at you!

(Judgmental — aren’t I? Pray for me)

Here is an excellent example of a “Potential” alcoholic right out of the Big Book: MO30

Peace,

Danny S

Potential Alcoholics

The Big Book talks about “damaging” our bodies. I started and kept up the damaging as time went on and finally after walking the line I reached the point of no return; I “Crossed the line”.

Had I realized or cared about what was going on in my body by my repeated drinking, and had stopped before it was too late, I am sure I would not have become an alcoholic. I would have had a drinking “problem” since I was doing it so often – but alas I succumbed, either to that strange mental twist OR to just the simple desire to “feel good” a little too often, the aggregate of which took my body’s ability to metabolize ETOH like most folks over the edge. DAMAGED irreparably – for life – like a door hinge that over the years gets just a little too worn out from overuse – so the damned thing just falls off onto the floor.

Those times, while I drank, for whatever reason I did – even obsession – I was not yet damaged to the extent that you and I now are and therefore could not qualify as alcoholic by “Our description of the alcoholic” – but certainly I was potentially an alcoholic. Meaning the physical “weakness” to tolerate ETOH had not YET been fully exploited by my drinking habit.

I was potentially an alcoholic during those years before I cross the line – a crossing which only a few people ever make regardless of how much or how often they drink.

It’s nice to know I have reached my full “potential” in something.

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com