January 25: Just Beer, Just Weekends

Maybe the problem was the whiskey. Maybe if you just stick to beer. Or wine with dinner. Or only on Saturdays.

This is one of the bluntest verses in the Bible. As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. Nobody likes reading it about themselves. But Proverbs isn’t trying to insult anyone. It’s trying to wake us up to a pattern we can’t see from the inside.

The pattern with drinking often looks like bargaining. You make a deal with yourself. Only beer. Only after work. Never alone. Only two. Not on school nights. Each new rule feels like the one that will finally work. For a while it might. Then it bends, then it breaks, and you’re back where you started, often worse.

Then you try a new rule.

Almost every person in recovery has a long list of these deals. Switching brands. Switching drinks. Moving to a new city. Getting a new job. Swearing off for Lent or for a month. Some lasted days. Some lasted months. But the drinking always came back, and when it did, it picked up where it left off.

Step One asks you to look at the list and see what it says. If the rules kept failing, maybe the problem was never the type of drink or the day of the week. Maybe the problem was that once you start, you can’t reliably stop. That’s not something a better rule can fix.

There’s a strange freedom in admitting this. You can stop negotiating. You don’t have to design the perfect drinking plan anymore. The only plan that has worked for people like us is not taking the first one, one day at a time, with help.

That help can come in many forms. Meetings. A sponsor. Your church. Jimmy and Sarah in the Steps & Scripture app can talk through the old deals with you and help you spot the next one before you make it.

One thing today

Write down every drinking deal you’ve made with yourself. Put a check next to each one that eventually broke. Show the list to someone.

A prayer

God, I’ve made a hundred deals and broken most of them. I’m tired of bargaining. Help me stop looking for a better rule and start leaning on You.

For more on starting over, see help with relapse. Back to Step One.

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