It's Best to Just Surrender

For the years that I've used the Internet, I like many have found information and amusement via the usenet newsgroups. What began as just a few hundred different interest groups has grown to close to 90,000 different groups. 'Pretty amazing. If a hobby or personal interest exists, there's probably a group where you can find information from people all over the world posted in the newsgroups. Of course, a fair estimate would be that 50% of the groups are empty or hardly ever used, i.e., very few messages are posted there on a daily basis.

One group in particular, alt.recovery.addiction.alcoholism, is where you can find messages posted from those who are sober and from those who are just contemplating being sober. And in a sense, this newsgroup, like many others, is a microcosm of the discussions that are held in real life, e.g., within the walls of AA group meetings.

Recently, as I was reading through some posts there, an observation that came to my attention. There's been a concept for many years in discussions of drinking and recovery from drinking, that includes the word "control". I see the word used quite often and it's a very common point elsewhere, too. An active drinker might say,"I have my drinking under control" or "Don't worry, I can handle it." Along with this idea, that one can manage his drinking, are related words used during one's attempts to stay away from alcohol, in the early stages of one's recovery. There is the "white-knuckles" approach of keeping our craving for booze under control, a metaphor that I think means trying to hold on tightly. To the point here, we can look at how we might keep our sobriety from different viewpoints. We can see sobriety as a way of living, except every day we struggle to keep from the temptations of our addictive substances. In this perspective, we spend numerous hours of daily time reminding ourselves not to use. Our lives can evolve into a constant level of negation, in that we live almost completely not to do something.

Or, we can view sobriety as something quite different, as a new way of life, where drinking is what other people can do but where it's not a good option for us anymore. In this other perspective, we take on a much more positive outlook, our lives full with thoughts of what we can do. One way sees sobriety as something lacking, living without, while the other perhaps sees life as just a different though healthier way to go.

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