Writing About Alcoholism on Medium
And Making It to the Medium Partner Progam
Photo by cottonbro studio: https://tinyurl.com/2tsevv5m
I’m taking stock at the moment because I’ve been welcomed into the Medium Partner Program! It’s taken a lot of work and focus to get here. As a writer on a new venture, it’s a marker. I believe wholeheartedly in acknowledging important steps along a journey.
The biggest positive for me is that I’ve continued to write even when it felt pointless because it seemed that no one was taking notice.
I believe I have some useful things to say that may help people with alcohol problems. It’s a deadly illness at its worst. I know that aspect of it as I’ve had friends die from it. Dead is dead.
It is still my sober anniversary as I write this. Today marks 34 years of continuous sobriety. I haven’t had the need to take a drink since 1989.
Discovering writers here who are succeeding in staying sober, or are grappling with the idea of it and maybe struggling to get sober, has opened my eyes to people who are having a variety of experiences and approaches.
Being sober has become a lifestyle and/or health choice for many people. It’s a choice to be made, a very positive choice.
It was different for me. I didn’t think things over and then decide to make a healthy choice.
I was driven to my knees, hitting bottom with despair, emptiness, and fear that I’d never be able to deal with my problems. My denial was so strong that I wasn’t aware that I had a serious problem with alcohol.
I had a moment of grace that was followed by a few more moments of grace. And now for 3+ decades I have committed and worked to keep the gift I received when it was suggested to me that I could go to the Alcoholism Council of Greater New York. This came to me at the exact moment I was ready to hear it.
Medium is amazing in that so many topics and ideas are written about.
Over 17 thousand people follow the subject of Alcohol, and close to 9,000 follow Alcholism. 7,000+ for Sobriety. 40,000 are following Addiction, and close to 8,000 follow Addiction Recovery.
These numbers are small compared to many topics on Medium, of course, but they’re not insignificant.
If something I write helps any one of these many folks who are investigating their relationship to alcohol, that will be amazing.
It works like this - I can only stay sober today. Anything that helps me to make it through today sober is an amazing thing.
This is quite probably my biggest danger as relates to me making the disastrous choice to take a drink. I was a garbagehead drug user. I was ready to snort, smoke, or swallow just about anything. I drew the line at heroin although I snorted morphine and smoked opium whenever I could. I tripped on mescaline, LSD, and mushrooms hundreds of times.
But I didn’t really have one single addiction to a particular drug.
When I was drunk, my defenses were down and my choices were stupid.
The drugs that are out there today scare the hell out of me.
Sober, they hold no interest. But in a blackout, who knows what I would choose to do?
This is life and death for me.
I wonder if it is that way for you?
Are you writing about it? Asking for help?
Seek your truth. You’re worth it. And if I can do it, you can do it.