>>>>Hi Neil,
>>>>
>>>>You are the first to identify the real problem, or at least the first to say so. True confessions time, then. I have been drunk all week. This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. I thought the motivation of working and making money again would be enough, but evidently not. The first two weeks went well. This week, off the wagon in a big way. I honestly have no explanation other than that it's a disease.
>>>>
>>>>I called my AA sponsor yesterday and he was drunker than me. He has gone back to old ways. He had been sober for a year.
>>>>
>>>>Reservations for the next two weeks are made. I am going to give it that long. If I can't get myself under control I will resign from the project and go back home. I was doing a lot better than this there. Many people, in AA and out, have told me my sobriety is the most important thing, more important than anything.
>>>>
>>>>The infuriating thing about it is I am happier sober.
>>>>
>>>>I do believe it's a disease but ask for no sympathy. People like Tamar and Tracy who kick my a** are what I need. The people I respect in my AA group back home are the same way.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Consider your a** kicked. Neil said it before I did, but I kind of guessed that was it.
>>>
>>>Get yourself to a bunch of meetings over the weekend and find another sponsor. Make sure you know where and when the Baton Rouge meetings are, as well. You can beat this.
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>I am not quite familiar with USA practice. Does it have something to cure this? I mean some medical solution, not just social meetings.
>
>People do recover. Back home I went to AA meetings almost every day and saw people who had been sober for years or decades. And they all said the same thing. No matter how long they had been sober, they knew they could be right back to it in a minute if they stopped working on it. I know one guy who has been sober for 27 years and goes to two meetings a day. It's a lifelong affliction. You don't get over it like you do a broken leg or pneumonia.

I tend to believe that you overestimate here. Imho, every person can and should deal with this issue based on personal responsibility, i.e. in quiet and efficient way. Over-dramatizing and/or over-publicizing are unnecessary and they could be harmful.

>
>There is one medication called Campral that has helped some people. I was on it for several weeks but the side effects were worse than the disease. One of them is it messes up some people's sleep and I was one of them. I was barely sleeping at all, literally, like an hour or two a night. I was a zombie.
>
If one can't deal with it without medications then this person must use medications.

>I wish there was some simple cure in pill form but don't think there is. It takes hard, unceasing work for the rest of your life. If I thought there were shortcuts, this week has disabused me of that.