I believe I've finally come to understand what "surrender" means when people refer to it as a prerequisite to successfully abstain from alcohol. The concept was very difficult for me to embrace because whenever the word was mentioned, it was pared with "to your higher power," or "give your will to god," and "to something greater than yourself," etc. For me, that meant that you were no longer responsible for your own actions, that somehow magically, if you only surrendered, really surrendered, then you would be free of the shackles of alcohol. You would no longer crave it or think about alcohol. Suddenly, your life would be wonderful and that you could now get on with the business of really living. However, the catch was that you had to "surrender." So, I'd say, ok you win, I surrender. A few days or weeks would go by and I'd start thinking about how great it would be to sit on my porch with a great book and a lovely glass of win (or ten.) So why was I thinking about drinking when I had surrendered?
Then it came to me, it's not about giving your will to god, or abdicating responsibility or relying on your higher power to fix things. It's about surrendering to yourself. Admitting to yourself (not a higher power) that you and you alone, are responsible for your actions. I no longer told myself that I was powerless because I had a disease. I told myself that I had made the conscious decision to drink and then to repeatedly drink way too much. I took full responsibility for my first drink, my second and every drink after that. It's not that I couldn't stop, it was a conscious decision not to stop.
Why didn't I stop!? I was overworked and needed to unwind, I felt stressed out, I had buried some very important people in the last few years, I bought and sold three houses and moved an equal number of times in the last five years, I had trouble sleeping, I suffer from tinnitus, I liked the buzz (not from tinnitus lol)...In other words, I was living life and had decided that was a good excuse to let alcohol abuse me.
My choices were clear, continue on my self-destructive path or, I could surrender. I could make the conscious decision not to buy alcohol, I could go to events or be with friends and family and make the decision not to drink and I could surrender the ridiculous notion that I was ever powerless against alcohol!
TS
