Social Drinker? Page 2
CHAPTER TWO
Getting Help
1. If your family throws you a party and as you get home you park by a van from The Shady Oaks rehab facility, you take a long swig of your beer before getting out of the car, then go inside and see a 'bon voyage' banner and you don't have plans to go anywhere, you might not be a social drinker.
2. If the people sitting in the circle under the 'bon voyage' banner are mainly family and co-workers, but you also notice the family minister, your doctor, the driver of the Shady Oaks van and the guy you punched-out at the grocery store last week, you might not be a social drinker.
3. If you pull a flask out of your back pocket and take a big gulp of the real stuff, exhaling loudly as you say, 'goes down smooth', then you ask if anyone would like a cocktail before starting your intervention, you may be a thoughtful host, but you might not be a social drinker.
4. If as your intervention is ending, you nod quietly in agreement, sheepishly stand up to say a few words, then take a wild swing at the Shady Oaks van driver, trip over the stool and crash head first into the wrought iron coffee table and the next thing you remember is waking up face down on the front lawn wearing a fancy new jacket, you might not be a social drinker.
5. If you have been on a cash basis at the rehab facility because your insurance company limits the number of 28 day treatment programs and the director of Shady Oaks treatment center has opened a new wing in your family name, you might not be a social drinker.
6. If the head nurse at your previous rehab facility sends you a Christmas card and is worried because she has not seen you recently, you might not be a social drinker.
7. If they save your room and you don't even need to call ahead at Shady Oaks, you might not be a social drinker.
8. If you are reading this book while looking down your nose and thinking being alcoholic isn't funny, you might not be a social drinker who is in recovery.
9. If you think Alcoholics Anonymous is for quitters, you might not be a social drinker.
10. If you hear 'don't drink and go to meetings' and you think it means that you can drink the other 23 hours of the day when you are not at a meeting, you might not be a social drinker.
11. If you have been around long enough to understand number 10, you might not be a social drinker.
12. If you take your AA white surrender chips to Vegas and they comp you the presidential suite, you might not be a social drinker.
13. If your idea of sponsorship is putting your favorite beer's logo on your boy's little league jersey, you might not be a social drinker.
14. If you hear someone mention the twelve steps and think of the distance between your bar stool and the urinal, you might not be a social drinker.
15. If someone suggests you are powerless over alcohol and drinking is a problem for you and you reply, "I'll drink to that while taking a swig out of the flask you carry in your back pocket," you might not be a social drinker.
16. If the only power greater than yourself that you can think of is the judge presiding at your DUI trial, you might not be a social drinker.
17. If your sponsor tells you that you must turn your life and will over to a higher power, but you can call your higher power whatever you want and you choose to call him Jack Daniels, you might not be a social drinker.
18. If you made a searching and fearless moral inventory but we're in a blackout and can't remember where you put it, you might not be a social drinker.
19. If when you admitted the exact nature of your wrongs to yourself, your higher power and another human being, you thought you had found a loophole by talking to the mirror with Jack Daniels nearby, you might not be a social drinker.
20. If you get to step eight and make a list of the people you have harmed and you decide it would be quicker to just call every name in the phonebook, you might not be a social drinker.
21. If you are pretty intoxicated by now and getting angry because you were lured in by the pretty girl on the cover of this book and you are starting to realize that the pretty girl was just bait and switch and you want to kick my ass, you might not be a social drinker.
(Chill out dude! Relax. Violence has never solved anything. The following pictures are just for you.)
THE END
ALSO BY NICK J.
Author's Website
AUTHOR BIO
Nick Jimbanis has been an alcoholic, mostly sober, for nearly forty years. Graduating from Florida Southern College in 1975, a BS in Journalism, Nick has lived in Florida, New York and has retired to North Carolina with his wife Debbie and their two current dogs, Marley and Happy.
Published by: NickJPub.
Contact: Njimbanis@nc.rr.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Over indulgence in alcohol is a serious matter. But a sense of humor certainly helps.
Rule 62
Don't take yourself so damn seriously.
The Story of Rule 62
The story is described in Alcoholics Anonymous book The Twelve Step and the Twelve Traditions (known in AA as the 12 and 12).
If you or someone you know needs help with a drinking problem contact your local branch of Alcoholics Anonymous in the phone book or on line.