I dedicate this post to my father and all the dry drunks in recovery.
My name is Jeff and I an an alcoholic and dry drunk in recovery. What makes me a dry drunk? I am still holding on to anger and that means, I cannot see my part in the past completely yet. I am blessed, I know I am a dry drunk, I know that if I keep working the steps it will get better and I know that I am better than I used to be because I practice daily recovery routines that keep me safe.
I have spent many years in and out of recovery and have been to hundreds of meetings. Over time, it becomes obvious who is working a program and who has leveled off and become a dry drunk. Bragging and Complaining, are clear signs of someone still in non acceptance of their issues. Any time tempers flair up in any recovery atmosphere, it is because people with unhealed traumas trigger each other. The term, "If you spot it you've got it" is one way of stating an absolute universal truth, we only see ourselves in other people and we are all really just talking to ourselves. What people hear, accept and remember from our words has much more to do with who they are and not what we want.
I like to take newcomers aside and tell them flat out, if you hear some old timer bragging about their clean time and how great life is, you can ignore them completely because they do not know shit.
I also explain, people who brag are in denial and people who are complaining are in the bargaining stage of grieving, trying to control something out of their control. Ultimately, bragging and chronic complaining are clear signs of a dry drunk who has no awareness of their conditions and they are what makes recovery toxic. Dry drunks stink up the place just like they did when they sat around bars drinking and complaining.
As I mentioned, this post is dedicated to my father. When my father died, he had 65 years sober and not a single day of recovery. His sickness mutated and he obsessed about numerous other things instead of alcohol. His obsessions caused him to beat his sons and molest his daughters. When he died, he died filled with resentments and completely unresolved issues. Frankly, he was a real asshole, and I am glad he is dead. I try not to feel much anger towards him, for all the beatings, abuse and the way he cheated his grandchildren out of college money so he could take out revenge on me. He was a pretty stupid in my opinion, because he failed to change or adapt ever. Stupidity has less to do with intelligence and more to do with adaptability, he was self-serving to the very end and he made the terrible mistake of underestimating me. I can be a far bigger asshole than my father ever was, he knew it and he was afraid of me. His fear was wise, and I am not allowing his death to stop me from letting him know what I thought of him.
Today as I celebrate 4 years of continuous sobriety in spite of how I am still working on a few major resentments, I would like to share an article about my father that I posted on my personal website. I want anyone who ever searches for his name to see who he really was and how he treated his children so that his memory is cursed and he is forced to spend his days in purgatory. It is not an angry thing, it is what it will take to break him and help me release the anger I have towards him.
I have already hit bottom, I know my anger is killing me and it requires daily maintenance. Still, if there is any way to get to him on the other side, I will find it. He picked a fight with me just before he died and I have accepted the challenge. Sucks for us both I guess, but what can you do?
Read more about my father here if you wish.
https://jeffrounds.com/ro...
