Selfish Alcoholic...

I Picked up my new/used car today and it being tuesday my first drive was to my weekly meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Once again I didn't really want to go as I was comfortable watching television in a nice warm house. This weeks meeting saw four of us attending in a small, cold catholic school classroom near the local church. In the many years attending A.A. meetings (in between drinking bouts) I have always been used to meetings of twenty people or more so having only three or four people at a meeting is taking some getting used to. It always amazes me that when I don't want to attend a meeting, and I still go, that something is usually said that really sticks for me.

I related immediately to one member described his drinking habits as starting off "having a few..." and then having his selfishness kick in. After it kicked in he then always decided to have a few more. After a few more nothing else matters, not the wife and kids at home, not the financial consequences of continuing to drink, not the legal implications of (eventually) driving home drunk, not the possibility of an accident along the way or possibly killing some other person in the process... Nothing else matters anymore. Just the selfish actions of a selfish man who can't stop drinking and puts everything else a poor second to his addiction.

I never started off drinking to be selfish. It was always to be "normal" and have "just a few" but it always became a very selfish act. Not caring of the consequences after that "few" became several and then many. Drinking abandoned to selfishness. It is good to remember what I am like when drinking. It is good to have the memories reinforced. It is a reminder of my true nature when inebriated, that of just another selfish alcoholic...