I'm CURED From Alcoholism. AA Says You Are ALWAYS Diseased. The Final Phase Of Alcoholic Recovery.

I have covered in previous articles the first three phases of alcoholic recovery. In those articles, I boldly state that one can claim full cure from the addiction once the two year mark is reached. The word cure, of course, is heresy to the proponents of Alcoholics Anonymous. For those pundits do not believe one is ever cured from the addiction to alcohol. Their members are in a constant state of recovery. They are also in a constant state of living in “the rooms” instead of living their now sober lives. The few who actually stay sober under the umbrella of the AA philosophy.

And that is my contention with the AA protocol. I state you cure yourself from the addiction, which one can claim at two years.

The reason I use the two year mark is because of the point in the recovery process known as the protracted withdrawal. In layman’s terms, this simply means the time after the initial jolt into sobriety when the physiology rebalances itself. Basically the time needed for the neurochemistry to adjust to a life without John Barleycorn. A new normality, so to speak.

Most sources will state that the protracted withdrawal phase will last one to two years. That is why most in the rooms will say that the second year of sobriety is pretty much like the first. If someone were a lighter alcoholic or had a short duration of the addiction, he might get away with wrapping up protracted withdrawal within a year. I had thirteen years of heavy alcoholism and a prior ten years developing the friendship with J.B. in the first place. So I got the full tour of this withdrawal phase with all scenic sites visited.

Now understand, this much longer phase isn’t nearly as bad as the first three phases. There are psychological and emotional symptoms for sure. Cravings will continue but will not be nearly as intense as the first six months, especially the first thirty days. Insomnia may visit you at times. But unlike the AA method, at this point I am propagating a complete reinvention of self on all planes: physical, emotional, career and spiritual. Engaging in my program will lessen these symptoms far more than the physically and emotionally unhealthy endeavors associated with the AA protocol. And here is what you can expect in episodic intervals during that duration to the two year mark.

First, there are the emotional symptoms that will continue to fluctuate. You have to remember that your neurochemistry has been relying on the alcohol to gain the natural “highs” in life as well as to just maintain a baseline emotional state. Suddenly, that additive is no longer there. The brain has to now begin to find the normal emotional state on its own. Daily endorphins will drop once again, but it will take a while before the brain can manufacture them regularly without artificial means. Usually one to two years.

So there will be many periods of depression in this protracted phase, waiting for the rebalance. There will also be periods of anxiety. Sometimes you will have trouble sleeping. But you have been through this with much greater intensity before, during the previous two phases. This is what you hang on to—that you are getting better and these symptoms only continue to decrease.

The physical and emotional reinventions I have described in other articles will help greatly to counter these on and off symptoms of the protracted withdrawal phase. I advised that at the beginning of third phase (after forty-five days sober) that you must begin a physical fitness program. It should be cardio in nature and forty-five minutes to an hour, four to five days a week. I said in a previous article that I go two days on and one off, which keeps me from ever feeling burned out. This should be matched by a clean diet, the elimination of smoking at all and minimal coffee and sugar intake. The exercise will drop endorphins, which of course make you feel better. The clean diet of proteins, whole grains and vegetables and fruits aid in repairing the alcoholic damage over the years and also help in giving a sense of tranquility. If you don’t believe me, spend one day with a lot of sugar intake and McDonald’s and the next with a healthy diet. See how you feel each day.

This is one of my contentions with AA. Their members are forever ingesting unhealthy and toxic substances during their meetings. One should not have to rely on smoking, sugar and caffeine to counter cravings and anxiety once past the forty-five day mark at the conclusion of second phase. These substances may be needed to get through the worst of the cravings, which is in those first thirty to forty-five days. They definitely should not be for life. But this is what AA does. Their methods do not return a person to normality. They keep him stuck, living in the rooms for life with this unhealthy intake.

The “emotional workout” I described in a previous article should have started in third phase as well and should continue. One can do Tai Chi, yoga, meditation or whatever suits that person. You can teach yourself any of these techniques right on our modern day YouTube. I do fifteen to twenty minutes a day with these methods.

And whatever you pick is carried around like an emotional tool. If you feel an anxiety attack coming, you don’t have to go to a gym. You can do five to ten minutes of meditation wherever you are. Even at work by just sitting at your desk and engaging in these breathing techniques for a few minutes. No one will even know what you are doing. To this day, sometimes my brain will go very south into a panic attack that will last up to forty-eight hours. During that time, I am engaging in meditative techniques throughout the day. The symptoms are usually greatly diminished until the attack passes.

Versus the AA method of going to the rooms and constantly hearing negativity of the past. People tell their stories every meeting. Even if they have decades of sobriety. This is something that should be done in the beginning stages of recovery. Not long term. You do not need to keep reminding yourself of those terrible days in addiction. You need to move forward with your life.

As you are “reinventing” your physical and emotional planes after the the first few months, this is the time to also advance the rest of the spheres of being. The career and spiritual realm. Now that you have a somewhat clear head, you decide how you are going to improve yourself. Maybe it is time to change careers or advance in training for the one you have. Progression of Self defeats negative thoughts. I say this to people who weren’t alcoholics. One always feels better in life when they are actively waving the sword. For myself, it was becoming proficient in various philosophies in physical therapy treatment techniques. I also learned how to engage in short term investing. Added to which, I wrote books and started social media endeavors like this blog. I sell only a few books a month. That’s better than not selling a few books a month. When trading on the dips on the investments several times a week, I make profits. Sometimes a sell only profits twenty-five bucks. Well, that’s twenty-five bucks I didn’t have. Another small progression forward.

Possibly your new craft is woodworking. Something you always wanted to do but were too busy in the bottle. So now you take the courses or teach yourself. Maybe your hobby rates you selling a few pieces of furniture here and there. A small progression in life.

The point to these endeavors is progression of Self keeps the demons at bay. Which opens the spiritual plane of seeing where you fit in the universe. For if you are constantly progressing various areas of your life, you will see yourself as an active part of this universe, not one who is just drifting in its tide.

And let’s once again compare my program to AA’s. They spend their time sitting in the rooms in which they are afraid to leave. So not only is this negative for their soul, but they are not progressing their planes. If they stay with AA philosophy, they will remain stuck in the horrors of their past.

As far as the cravings in the final and longest phase to the two year mark, you will still have them. But I can promise they will be with far less frequency, duration and intensity than the ones sitting in the rooms. Because you are on a clean diet and exercising. For myself, after six months, I can’t even say the cravings were daily. They were more at a few times a week frequency and would last maybe an hour. Every once in a while, I would have an intense one, but even after just six months, this was infrequent. By that time in recovery, I had defeated so many of them that I intuitively knew I would defeat them in this phase as well. As I said in my other article, you ride it like a surfboard over a wave. The more holistically healthy you are, the less effect the cravings will have. And remember, once you have reached the cure mark, the cravings will be a rarity if you are living correctly with the program I created. To the point where even today if I go to a lounge after work, their effects would be compared to a mild twinge of want and nothing more.

The one syndrome you will find more than anything in this phase of recovery is a sense of feeling disconnected with this new world in which you are not familiar. It is true that you are far away enough from the bottle that you can’t comprehend that you were so addicted it, waking ill every morning because of its effects. But you also don't know how to exist on this new terrain. I lost two long-time friends whose toxicity I only recognized because I no longer possessed it. So I began collecting new people with whom to associate. People who didn’t have a beer in their hand at nine in the morning. People who didn’t have constant drama in their lives, which I never noticed under John Barleycorn’s haze. Once you become sober and cured, you are a brand new individual. And you may find that new person doesn’t have anything in common with ones from your past. If you recognize those prior people are no longer enhancing your life, you must move on from them. Because positive people help you progress, even if their influence is only subconscious. And that influence goes for negative people as well. The cured person at the two year mark should be nothing but a radiating being of constant progression and positivity.

I had mentioned in another article that I went to two AA meetings in two weeks at two different locations when I hit eleven months sober. I was well into my holistic recovery program when I entered their doors. So I can easily contrast my existence with theirs—especially the ones who had far more time sober than I did. The first thing I said when we went around the circle was state: My name is Charles. I used to be an alcoholic.

You could hear a pin drop. No one rebuked me that second. But I could feel the ice in the looks of the senior members. I then listened to their stories, watched them smoke the cigarettes outside and noted their anxiety as the circle rehashed their former dismal existences. No one there was exercising, meditating or eating vegetables. They didn’t have side hustles to improve their lives. Their “advancements” were becoming a sponsor, joining a committee or getting ready for the national AA upcoming convention. Everything in their lives once revolved around alcohol. Now everything in their lives was about their recovery, which would never end. It was strange that I had an intense craving after each of those meetings concluded. Then I realized that it wasn’t strange at all. It made perfect sense. Every former alcoholic feels cravings when their mind falls into a depressive state. And every AA meeting will induce that very feeling.

It took them about a half hour from my initial declaration that I used to be an alcoholic before one of the senior members approached me to correct that no one used to be an alcoholic for he will always be one. When I repeated that I certainly wasn't, he asked me how long since my last drop. He assumed that it was a few weeks. His jaw dropped when I confirmed I was clean eleven months and had never gone to a meeting nor started a step, had no sponsor nor intended on getting one. He then reiterated that AA was the only way.

One would think that he would be happy for me as I was sober far longer than most who step through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous. He wasn’t. He was enraged. He was angry because I wasn’t complying with the cult. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a cigarette in my hand, sucking coffee, filled with anxiety. They knew the way, and by God they knew best.

Except their failure rate says otherwise.

At the end of my book, I did proclaim I was cured after two years. By then the symptoms of recovery had dwindled by ninety percent as did the cravings. As the years passed, the cravings only continued to shrink. A few years later—if I found myself suddenly being surrounded by alcohol at a get-together, it largely had no effect on me. Every once in a great while I might have a trigger that induced a craving, even an intense one. A neuro reminder of the past. But for the most part, I rarely thought about alcohol or what it had done to me at all. Versus the AA members, the minority who stay sober, who think about it five and six nights a week in the rooms for the rest of their lives. Those who aren’t spending their sober time progressing forward. Who aren’t physically and emotionally fit. Those who are afraid to step out of the rooms and live their lives on their own. Existing in a fear that if they leave AA, they will return to their addiction with John Barleycorn.

Ask yourself—which life you would rather live?

And to reinvent all of your planes to progress forward check out:

REINVENTION OF SELF: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND BEING FOREVER

For those who prefer the youtube version click this line

John Barleycorn: taken from Jack London's memoir of his alcoholism. John Barleycorn: First published, 1913