Pat Moore Foundation: Guest Post

Here's a guest post from Recovery Rob at the Pat Moore Foundation:

It’s true what they say in the halls of Alcoholics Anonymous, or any alcohol and drug treatment center for that matter – “If you don’t take that first drink, you can’t get drunk.” It seems so basic, so easy, but yet it’s so incredibly hard to stay away from alcohol. Our disease just doesn’t want us to succeed – plain and simple.

Whether we’re newly sober, have some serious clean time, or maybe just considering if we are alcoholics we often find ourselves having a conversation in our heads about how we can just have one drink this time. Just one drink that will take edge off or help make a situation better than it is. But then time and time again we wake up the next day or days later to discover that that one drink turned in to many. We try drinking only certain beers, or only hard liquor, or wine, or only on the weekends, or some other promise that the future waits to stomp all over.

The problem is that when we worked go-arounds to prevent ourselves from getting and staying sober we work hard with the mental and physical gymnastics of keeping what we do, how much we drink, and where we go a secret that it’s just too much to handle. We might even consider taking that ‘needed’ break to prove, “See, I can do it. I can stop any time I want!” But then again, we are right back where we left off – drinking heavily and making our life more difficult than it needs to be.

So, instead of working hard to discover the right combination of what works best – four drinks, on Tuesday, at “such and such” bar, and with our “so and so” friend – we need to remember that we just don’t need to pick up that first drink.

Again, it’s a simple concept and oh so hard at the same time. But you know what? It’s helped millions of people stay clean every day because no matter how much clean and sober time they have they still take their sobriety one day at a time.

Recovery Rob BIO

Recovery Rob is a 48-year-old man who has more than twenty years of sobriety, whose drugs of choice at one time were alcohol and drugs, and he has worked in and around the field of addiction for more than 30 years. Recovery Rob hopes to reach out and continue to help others who work through their process of addiction and recovery. Recovery Rob is a professional writer who has published two novels and is currently working on his third. He has been writing and working as Pat Moore Foundation’s premiere blogger and content writer, which helps keeps Pat Moore Foundation’s drug treatment addiction and recovery blog top-rated.