HAPPY (hic) NOOYEAH !

(burp)
It Could Be Worse.
You Could Be Drunk And Fat.

As an alcoholic who carries around thirty or so pounds of extra blubber just below the thorax - and who if not so tall could be mistaken for a nun bouy swimming in my pool in a red Speedo - not to mention having a very poor 'body image' - I have what I strongly feel is acute vision - right or wrong - about the two conditions that clearly are are both "rooted" in the same simple and universally human spiritual dysfunction which has a simple name: PRIDE - even though their manifestations are independent of each other and veer off in two directions away from each other becoming two very distinct problems fitting very different descriptions. They have the same beginnings but separate descriptions at their "ending"s - they each advertise different and similar symptoms. Some overlap - some do not.

Why Real Alcoholics Can't Drink
In alcoholism for example - I have two aspects in describing the malady - one being a "physical" aspect. I do not metabolize the carbohydrate EtOH - aka 'ethyl alcohol' - the offending but still endearing substance in potable liquor - the same way that a non-alcoholic metabolizes it. When I stand in a bar next to a non-alcoholic and we both toss down an identical shot of Vodka - we will not be having the same experiences with it. His will be a whole different experience, physically . Whenever so much as the smallest amount enters my body I gat a reaction that is quite abnormal, that is to say 'I CRAVE MORE‘. Most people, probably you, do not get that same reaction. It does not matter if I "feel it" or not. It does matter if I get drunk.

It does not even matter if I "feel it" - get tipsy, or even an "Asian Flush" from it. If the stuff gets "in there" I go "out there".

"Out there" probably means to a liquor store, then a drug spot and then a strip club - all this not being very conducive to being a good daddy to my kids and good husband to my wife a good worker to those who rely upon my craft and surely not to anyone who might otherwise enjoy my company on my 'off-drinking' hours which are now spent being a restless, irritable and discontent prick of a man stepping on the toes of everyone who meets the unfortunate fate of having anything at all to do with me - because of the way I am failing to deal with life in general.

I can't even go to Tedeschies or hear a news broadcast without copping yet another resentment and bitching like a scorned child.

You know how to tell an alcoholic in a restaurant? Easy. He's the one demanding to see the manager.

"Don't you know who I AM?"

THIS is why I must abstain from all food containing EtOH the same way that some other possible folks must monitor their consumption of peanut product. No sauce, candy, baked good - nothing with so much as a trace of EtOH in it. And no it does not cook out sufficiently for me to eat those things. Thats is a myth and it is a killer.

Does peanut 'dust" cook out of candy bars sufficiently for those folks to eat MARS BARS - Maybe it does - but have you seen the warning labels on a Milky Way these days? Someone's got some heavy duty lobbying skills going for them man. It is too bad that we alkies are not taken as seriously as they.

Diabetes and Alcoholism Related?
So how to relate this? Well, eating food does not cause me to crave alcohol. Whether or not it causes me to crave food - I haven't yet the key to that lock. Don't know. I know that diabetics cannot process sugar and do crave more sugar if they get some. Very similar to alcohol isn't it? A physical aspect that is shockingly similar, I think. Add to that the fact that the pancreas is the primary working 'agent' in both the processing of sugar and alcohol and one is very tempted to begin seeing a relationship between the two illnesses - alcoholism and diabetes. Then the idea takes an ever further leap toward understanding when we see just how many alcoholics are ALSO diabetic. or hypoglycemic. It' s little spooky if it were so physical.

The other 'aspect" to my alcoholics is a mental one. That is a mental “obsession". That is what we call it. It may not fully fit the conventional definition that the ‘certified’ brain mechanics' hold of "obsession" but never-the-less we in this alcoholism "biz" have brought it into our lingo. What happens here is that even though we know that alcohol is going to produce an unwelcome, deleterious effect that will ruin us many times in the short term and certainly in the long --- we do it anyway. As the Big book co-authors point out, "The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove." (24:3)

Two Two-Fold Maladies?
Putting the two above described condition together makes alcoholism a two-fold illness - putting aside that "3-fold disease" theory we have all been hammered to death with for the moment - If I didn't have a malfunctioning pancreas I would not have the "physical problem. I could drink - metabolize that EtOH just like anyone else. I could get sloshed or not and stop whenever I wanted stop - needed to stop or both.

Question: Why is my pancreas so damn scruhrooed up?

Answer: I BROKE IT!

Like an overused hinge on a door - opening - closing - opening - closing - after a while it just wears out and the door falls off. Some hinges will last a lifetime - others, perhaps having come from the factory a little defective will not - my pancreas had a 'shelf-life' of enough years to get me into middle adulthood - and then SNAP! No more control of that doorway.

Just as a person can foul up their pancreas by overindulging in sugar rendering their pancreas about as useful as that broken hing - I did it the same thing to the poor thing with EtOH. Why did I do it? Here is MY answer: I lived a life in which I went spiritually bonkers. That's it. Simple. Blame my environment for taking me away from God if you like. Blame my broken home. Blame my over controlling mother. Blame my mean spirited, pressuring teachers. Blame whomever the hell you want - but if it is they who stole my birthright childhood with God as my heavenly father there am I still in the middle of it all - holding all of those resentments in me, getting sicker and sicker and just as hateful as those who inflicted injustices upon me NOT going back to my heavenly Dad - running away from him in shame for being the bad little boy with no "earthly" paternal daddy to steer me right - to set the proper example of how to be a good man - and toward Him.

That is MY fault.

It Is The Alcoholic's Fault After All
This is why "whole" family units are so necessary and why absent fathers, whether they are either "gone" emotionally or physically are how we all go astray to begin with. Mother alone cannot do it! It doesn't matter how many soccer games she manages to attend - hours she works - meatloaves she doesn't burn or time-outs successful deployed. It's a spiritual thang -not just a question of "equality" in financial, civil and legal postures. The tempering paternal spirit is missing and like it or not it is how this "go forth and procreate" business was setup - with a system to manage it. A natural one. A spiritual one.

It took me going back to Him to get well enough to break the deadly cycle of alcoholism. I could have taken up eating more than alcohol - in that case maybe I would be a three hundred pound sober guy. Or I could have taken up drugs. Then I would be a skinny, sober junkie. My mix of "solve" was ninety percent alcohol and ten percent Big Macs and cake. That was the solution to my spiritual problem.

I believe that one day I will fit all this together and my food problem - down to about eight percent now - will also be solved. I won't solve it on my own. I am human and it is a problem of super humanity or maybe 'metaphysical' would be a better term. But if I continue to grow spiritually then the problem will leave as my awareness increases.

"Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically." (64:3)

Whew . . . . no matter where you are . . . there you go!

These ideas are not very well received sometimes, by many people, so I really don't go around telling lots of people about I have come to view them. All I can say is that they are the result of spiritual growth and they have come from my spiritual endeavors through meditation. That is not to say they I insist that everyone accept them - even if they are right. I could also be crazy, you know. In that case you would be right now be reading the logorrhea of an insane madman.

Self discovery is probably the number one important property of the truth that I could ever think of. Unless something comes from ones own experience it can lead us to the truth -- but in of itself it is not the truth. This is the mistake that the religions have made and the mistake we all make when we seek truth from books, blog like this one, sermons, preaching, AA speakers at podiums, anyone or thing that is not a born of true inner Guidance. So please be careful - even in listening to a blowhard like me. Even AA's own Big Book, "Alcoholics Anonymous" seeks to save the alcoholic from his own Big Book. What? You didn't know that? Oh shit. Stay tuned.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and

Peace,
Danny S

^{* Pride - HOW I WANT OTHERS TO PERCEIVE ME - my egotistical alter-ego.}