Drinking Your Way to Sobriety?

daily gratitude list 8.10.22

I’m grateful for dinner with my daughter. I’m grateful for a much cooler morning. I’m grateful for proof that the Program works. I’m grateful for enthusiasm and confidence. I’m grateful for ideas, inspiration and intuition when I’m connected. I’m grateful to be sober today.

I hope you enjoyed the debut of Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition:

Welcome to Growing Pains: Sober Girls Edition!

Jane is going to be doing that on Tuesday afternoons, so there’s something to look forward to! I’m excited about this for several reasons. First, Jane may be one of the most dynamic alcoholics I know and it would be hard to match her enthusiasm for the Program. Second, Jane’s perspective is different and I think that will add a lot to this whole enterprise.¹ So, you can now add Tuesday afternoons and Growing Pains to the list of things you’re excited about.

I put that there because I really do love the Substack app.² I’m a reader and there are a lot of great writers here. Also, this newsletter looks really, really good in the App—just saying. There is tons to discover here and I came across a newsletter the other day that is all about the Sinclair Method as a way of treating alcoholism. If you haven’t heard of the Sinclair Method, it was pioneered by a British doctor and it works like this: You take a naltrexone tablet, wait a little while and then you can drink as much as you like. As many days as you’d like. You are also supposed to log your drinks.³ I tried this “treatment” for a while in 2018 and I’m going to tell you that I thought it was fantastic. I drank without guilt or remorse for about three weeks because it was sanctioned by some medical doctor as a treatment for alcoholism.⁴

If someone finds something that helps them get sober, I think that’s great. I’m for as many people as possible getting better. I think the Sinclair Method is kind of a dangerous thing to suggest to real alcoholics. There is a Ted-talk by one woman who managed to return to controlled drinking and there is a study that involved about 150 people to support the Sinclair Method. At a minimum, I think people should make it clear that the Sinclair Method isn’t about sobriety, it’s about being able to continue drinking. That’s why it appealed to this alcoholic. Bill W. saw this pretty clearly way back when:

Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

Big Book, p. 30

The Sinclair Method, Baclofen, CBT/DBT, EMDR were all efforts by me to find an easier, gentler way. They were all efforts by me to avoid the “leveling of [my] pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires.” Big Book, p. 25. I think The Big Book has it right on this count: For real alcoholics, the only path to recovery involves a spiritual awakening and a continued attention to the widening and deepening of the spiritual experience.

Thanks for Letting Me Share

1. Whatever this “whole enterprise” is.

2. No, I receive no compensation for my enthusiasm and support.

3. I dutifully kept a log. The bar I used to go to served me a glass-and-a half. Did I log each of those many drinks as 1.5? I did not. I logged them as just one drink. In a log that only I would see. Do you see what I mean about lying to myself?

4. Spoiler Alert: This alcoholic was unable to drink himself out of alcoholism.