COERCED SOBRIETY

COERCED SOBRIETY

                            
You are not alone. A lot of people come in to the program with a fifth in their hands & with foot-prints on their backs of their boss, a spouse, or sheriff who picked them up for DUI, or the doctor who gave them a warning of serious consequences of health. How do you deal with being forced to get clean when you really have no interest in staying clean? While you know it is not permanent, this kind of forced sobriety and threatening is playing with one’s freedom, which makes you feel really down and hating life. One gets excited at the thought of dying and not having to deal with all this. On top of incarceration, the government will also slap one with a long paper trail, meaning if one fuck up one goes right back to being locked up, and wasting his youth in jail.

What is your drug of choice and why are you being threatened? Its sounds like addiction more then anything, maybe if you'd be at least willing (not even want) to attempt what’s being offered perhaps things may work themselves out. How do you deal when you are constantly stressed, hate nearly every aspect of your life, unwillingly are forced to be clean, and cannot relate to anyone you are surrounded by?

The main problem with forced sobriety/treatment is that it fails to account for the fact that one must want to be sober to get sober. They can force you to detox, they can force you through a recovery program, but if you still want to get high, then you'll find a way to the second their backs are turned. Being forced it often makes one want the opposite all the more, which increases relapses yet more. Many of the people are as honest as you are about their feelings. They don’t own up to the fact that it is “against their will” that they really don’t want to change their way of living, that they bitterly resent being forced to bring the good drinking times to a dead end. They just go through the motions, pretending to be interested in sobriety.

But that doesn’t doom them to failure. It is said” that if you bring the body, the mind will follow.” All that’s necessary is to be open to change. The odds are that deep down somewhere that’s what you want, or you wouldn’t have gotten involved in recovery no matter what the pressures are. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a "booze cure" or a psychological means of controlling one's excessive or obsessive drinking. It is a life-changing program and operates when a recovered alcoholic passes along the story of his or her own problem drinking, describes the sobriety he or she has found in A.A., and invites the newcomer to join the informal Fellowship.

AS you have come this far, give sobriety a chance. Life down the road could turn out to be a lot more enjoyable sober. Give it your best shot by working your program faithfully and give it some time. Enough time so that you’re over the initial discomforts and your head has cleared. Usually this takes about a year- though it may seem like ten for the body hormones to stabilize and the shakiness to go away. Then evaluate the situation, using your own judgment and the impressions of those around you and ask your self few questions

• Is life more satisfying?
• Are you feeling better?
• Have your relationship improved?
• Are you doing your job better?

One thing is sure: your health will be better. In the mean time, keep in mind that the drinking you enjoyed so much was slowly but surely terminating you. And that sobriety, like any treatment for a disease, isn’t fun and games. No body has ever heard that AA’s 12 step program hurt any body. You can leave and come back any time, we will always welcome you.