GOD AND THE TIME AFTER THE FIRST DAY

Before I go into the completion of my first week at the Treatment Centre where I would spend the next 4 weeks , I want to talk about God - My own personal God who I have believed in since I was a little boy.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not here to talk anyone into believing in my God, he is personal to me and mine alone! I have talked to Him for over 75 years. I have asked Him for forgiveness, for financial success, for the health of my family and friends, and especially to help me to shake off booze. He is always by my side, and I believe He was responsible for any success I may have had.

In Alcoholics Anonymous we learned the following what is called a prayer - "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".

This prayer is valuable in all circumstances, not only in coping with alcohol addiction, but with life's problems in all their diversity. It calmed me down in what I called alcohol emergencies, ie "I need a drink badly", or when the pressures of life close in on me, at work, at home with the family, or any other uncomfortable problem. I sincerely recommend everyone adopt this prayer, it can be very helpful.So much for religion.

Another factor really helped me with my healing. It was Antabuse. It is a pill that a recovering alcohol can take daily. When on this drug, should I have taken a drink, I would have had an alergic reaction which would be increased heart rate and an overall uncomfortable feeling. Now I don't recommend that anyone rush out and get this drug, until it has been cleared by your Doctor. The feelings are very uncomfortable only if you drink!I took antibuse for over 10 years, and I feel it helped me greatly. The reason that it works so well is, that to be able to get back to drinking, the alcoholic must wait a few days for the drug to clear the system. By that time the alcoholic's mood will have changed and no drinking will happen. I felt it was a wonderful tool for me, but I stress, YOU MUST consult a Doctor before using any such drug.

Getting back to the rest of the first week at the Treatment Centre, we spent the days watching lectures on the t.v., listening to learned members of the Medical scene emoting on various aspects of Alcoholism. We were not allowed to wander off the property for the first week, which was the defining factor for many of us. If we stayed, it was the first step in the gradual process of sobering up. An interesting footnote to this period was the reaction of one the patients to the withdrawal of the alcohol. Alcohol, I have personally found, alters the brain and the eyesight. This was brought home to me by a fellow inmate, a roofer by occupation, came into the Treatment Centre with a new set of eyeglasses that he had purchased just prior to coming. After a few days, his eyesight had so altered that he had to get a new set! That scared the hell out of me because it brought home the extreme effect the alcohol had on our bodies, starting with the brain and the eyesight.My motivation for going into Treatment Centre to beat booze was so strong, and it had taken me so long to get there that I was damned if I was going back to my old days!

I had been seriously drinking for 20 years and was at this point 40 years of age, and I was scared! Was I going to throw everything away, my family, my job, my whole way of life? Well, I got mad! I hated anyone or anything controlling my life. I had been a slave to booze and it had to change.

I knew this every time I woke in the morning with furry mouth, headache, blurred vision, and a self-loathing so complete that it was easier to go back to the bottle than to face life. Booze is a crutch to the alcoholic, it suppresses the hurt that life sometimes comes to us, but only for a little while. It provides a shield against reality. It is so powerful that that when an alcoholic wakens to another morning of the blues and hangover, he needs only to go to the bottle to get that instant relief, even at six in the morning! I recall the time when I lived in Sudbury at the age of 21 I lived in an old hotel owned by a rather tough gentleman, who told me that if I wanted to stay there, I was to keep my mouth shut and ignore anything going on. I soon found out what he meant when I heard the fights going on in the corridors, and the screaming of his wife as he pulled her by the hair down the same hall. There was no way I was going to get into that! Each morning when I woke up I automatically leaned out of the bed and got a prefilled tumbler of cheap whiskey off the floor, polished it off, had a cigarette, another drink, at which time I was ready to face the day.

With alcoholism comes the casualty of good personal habits, and good health. Many things get ignored. For some reason my system got upset, maybe from the alcohol or the lack of good food, and I got boils, lots of them! Up to 25 at a time. It was very painful and messy when they broke. I went to a Doctor, and he gave me a shot of something to help heal the boils. He told me not to drink, but I went straight to the hotel for beers, so much for real good thinking! I digress from my stay in the Treatment Centre. The first week spent there was mainly getting back to normal with some sedatives, which helped the 10 persons in our group, all in for that week. We congregated in a common room which we called Happy Valley. We were feeling somewhat better and life was looking good.Then we graduated to the second and third floors where we had private rooms. We continued with the films, lectures, and life learning exercises. We were introduced to group therapy. This group was made up of 7 to 10 patients, with a trained professional to oversee. It was very traumatic to me since I had to face reality, and the effects that my drinking was having on my family, friends, and occupation, which was with a large Canadian Bank.

These sessions became very serious, and I landed up having nosebleeds from the pressures I was putting on myself. It was quite intense as we faced reality. Alcoholics are great con artists and manipulators, in order to successfuly feed our addiction. But, In a group of master manipulators, one could not get away with anything phony, and many truths came out, exposing us to unpleasantness that we had alway hidden away.

It was good for us but it did really hurt. At the end of the three weeks we were ready to leave the Treatment Centre, and it was an uneasy feeling leaving the security of this place, whose inhabitants did not critique us but gave us support and a feeling that they really cared.There is a gate fever one feels when they leave the warm and caring atmosphere of the hospital. Back to the real world, and everything back to that scary normal.