My name is Michael, and I’m an alcoholic.
I did not choose to be one, had no idea I was one when I took my first drink, and had no idea how to manage the disease for 25years. I thought I was less than my friends and family that drank responsibly. I truly believed that I was weak, and pathetic. Every day I promised myself that I would not drink, and every day I broke my promise.
Looking back the solution seems so simple; don’t drink alcoholic beverages. Ever. Sometimes looking back is exactly what I need to do. It is easy to forget just how overwhelming an addiction is when you have managed to control it. When I forget how difficult it was to finally admit I was powerless over alcohol, another drink becomes closer to reality. I’ve managed to put 14 years of 24 hours together by taking things one day at a time, and am pretty sure that today, I will not waver.
So I write about alcoholism, and alcoholic patients. Complacency is deadly to a recovering alcoholic. Keeping the misery close to the front of my mind helps me stay sober. Helping other alcoholics helps me, and I have helped countless alcoholics while tending my own disease. The language of recovery is heard loud and clear by the people who need to hear it, and I like to think that my words, spoken in the back of the bus, and now written in confidentiality have made, and continue to make a difference.
These three articles address the problem head on. Many of my other articles strive to deliver the message of hope in less direct ways.
Thank you for reading, and helping keep me sober.
When the drunk driver is one of us
The state police arrived just as we extricated our victim, who emphatically slurred to us that he was an EMT and “on the list” for the next Providence Police Department Training Academy. With a DUI charge pending he’s no longer on “the list.”
The season of ‘cheer’ is hard on alcoholics
Our good friend Ethyl Alcohol is ready to infiltrate the body, mind and spirit of those who suffer from alcoholism, making their lives a contradiction of joy and despair. The holiday season amplifies the need to imbibe and pushes away the urge to resist.
Saving a life with ‘the monkey on my belt’
He wasn’t always an alcoholic, he said, eyes downcast, voice barely audible. He went on, telling us of a childhood spent in foster homes and orphanages due to his birth parent’s inability to provide proper care for him and his twin siblings.
