Hola Sober July

BY BETH MT.

I mean it’s not like you were an alcoholic, were you?

meetings where I have said that I was an alcoholic, and the sky didn’t fall in around me. And the people who attended the meeting were just normal human begins like you or me. That is because that is what we all are, normal people with a problem with alcohol. This has made me realise how important the work that we are all doing in the new recovery spaces (and the old) is. It is vital. It’s so easy for big alcohol to put the blame on us drinkers, we are the drinkers that have failed. We are the drinkers that didn’t ‘drink responsibly’. It’s so much easier than addressing the culture around us that encourages us to drink alcohol from our teenage years onwards. Only to act horrified and as if there is something is wrong with us when we become addicted to the addictive substance.

I mean it's not like you were an alcoholic, were you?

I recently reached my 1st year sober birthday. Obviously, I was delighted to achieve this, but I also felt that I was now comfortable even in my own skin enough, to share my sobriety with others who aren’t in the sober community. The reactions have been various, but after the initial reaction, I often hear, “I mean it’s not like you were an alcoholic, were you?” followed by a wide-eyed expression and bated breath. This has made me wonder what the word alcoholic conjures up in people’s minds and why are they so scared of it? I personally, don’t use the word because I prefer to say that I was addicted to an addictive substance. But I have attended AA

HOLA SOBER JULY 2022

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