Dry and Sober: What is the Difference?

When I first thought about getting sober because I thought I may have a problem with alcohol, I felt that I would be fine if I just didn't take that first drink. I went to the occasional AA meeting but didn't feel that it was necessary for me to go often or attend 90 meetings in 90 days (as is strongly suggested when you first start going to meetings) to stop drinking.

Well, this disease of Alcoholism is no joke. It is cunning and baffling and it will lie to you. "Oh, you're ok," "I can go out with my friends and just drink cola," "I can control my drinking,"  "You aren't really an alcoholic." And the list goes on and on.

It's easy to live as though our problems will just go away. We say tomorrow, next month, or next year will be better. We keep some kernel of hope that things will change, even though we haven't done anything to change things.

When I decided to quit drinking I didn't go to the bar (that is two blocks from my home) and I didn't buy any alcohol from the store to have on hand if someone came over to visit. I had to stay away from it completely.

That is being dry; also called a dry drunk. I wasn't drinking but I wasn't doing anything else but going to an AA meeting here and there and staying away from alcohol. I didn't even have an AA Big Book. I wasn't that bad so I thought I could quit on my own. In a meeting I heard that it was my best thinking that got me in the position I was in, and that wasn't so great.

After a couple of weeks of not drinking I found myself sitting at the bar drinking a cola. Not a good idea. My friends were at the bar and I wanted to enjoy the comrade and play some pool. Where I live, I haven't found a pool table anywhere that the establishment doesn't serve alcohol.  I was thinking, "Awww, I can have one beer, it's no big deal." It turned into a big deal when I lost count of how many drinks I had and all of a sudden my lips were on some other guy's lips. I was able to walk my drunk self back to my home before I got very sick. I slept on the bathroom floor for almost 20 hours and I had started throwing up blood before I finally stop vomiting.

The next day I had to go back to the bar because I didn't remember what happened. When I told the bartender what I remembered and asked her how my lips got on that guy’s lips she said, "Oh, you were all over him. He has a girlfriend too and it's a good thing she wasn't here, she would have kicked your ass." Ok, that was bad. I had a horrible black out, and that wasn't the first time. I had to stop drinking.

I started getting sober when I started attending AA meetings almost daily, started looking for a sponsor,and  got a Big Book .Sure there are some people who don't need AA to get sober, but I knew I needed help.

There is no reason to get sober on your own. You want to get better. So hedge your bet and get yourself into an Alcoholics Anonymous Program. I wasn't comfortable going to meetings at first and I didn't speak I just listened. There were people who were so willing to help me get better. They were outgoing and genuinely interested in how I was doing.

One morning I asked a more mature woman if she would be my sponsor and she told me that it would be better if I got someone closer to my age. I was angry, but it was her prerogative to tell me no.I still went to meetings but didn't have a sponsor until a woman reached out to me and volunteered to be my sponsor.

I became sober when I began going to meetings regularly, talking to my sponsor every day and started working the steps. I don't even walk by the neighborhood bar on my way home anymore. I walk down the next block instead because I don’t want to run into anyone I know and be tempted to stop in for a few minutes. I am making new friends.

Things won't get better overnight but I promise you they will get better. We need to be positive, to let go, and to live one day at a time, but we also need to be sensitive to points in our lives that require us to take action. Do the steps, change your life - change your playmates, change your play things, change your playgrounds.

In addition to going to meetings, I also make sure that I read some of the Big Book, or another book on addiction or recovery I have, every day for at least 30 minutes.  This is all an investment in my future. I want to become a sober alcoholic, not a dry drunk.

We talked about this topic of dry and sober at a meeting last week and I had to chuckle when it was my turn to speak. I told everyone that this topic could have been a show and tell for me if I had known the topic ahead of time. Someone very close to me is an alcoholic and she seems to always have a different answer when I ask her if she's an alcoholic. I wondered how she was doing in her desire to stop drinking this past weekend while she was over. I asked, "Amy, how are you doing with not drinking? Are you an alcoholic?" Her response was, "Only when I'm drinking." She and I exemplify the definition of dry and sober.