If I like it and do it twice I'm addicted.

     I like apple fucking pie, am I addicted to that?     

     I know it sounds stupid, but to us alcohol became a merciless obsession.

     It sounds stupid because it is stupid.

     Let's talk about obsession.

     Like how I am obsessed with getting out of this room.

     We have a physical allergy of the body, which triggers a mental obsession. When we're in it, we can't help thinking about it all the time.

     I think about it all the time because it's all we ever talk about in here. Maybe we should talk about baseball.

     I thought about the first drink all afternoon. As soon as I got it, I thought about how I could get more. All morning, I thought about why I drank so much and how hungover I was. Then in the afternoon it would start all over again and I'd start counting the hours until I could drink again.

     You should get a job where it's okay to drink, like me. I never have hangovers because I never stop long enough to let one set in.

     I quit periodically. Weeks or months at a time.

     Well, there's your problem right there.

     Then inevitably I would push the consequences out of my mind. I would see drinking and remember the good stuff, the girls....

     No details. Please, no details.

     ...the buddies, the laughs. I could make myself forget about the nights in jail,  the puking. I'd forget about getting beat up because I started fights with strangers for no reason.

     I'm guessing there was plenty of reason.

     But I was never happy not drinking. My mind raced all the time. I found myself substituting other things for alcohol. Sex for example.

     I thought we skated past this part. We really don't need to hear about this.

     My wife wanted to help me out. We had lots of sex when I wasn't drinking.

     Librium! More librium!

     So I would think about it all day. By the time I got home, the actual event could never live up to the expectation.

     Surprise, surprise.

     So I kept substituting things. Money was one.

     Good. I really don't want to hear about your sex life.

     I made a ton of money. I had everything I needed and then some, but since I was never happy, I always figured I needed more money. So I made some really stupid investments and lost everything.

     Another jackalope rancher. Dumb fuck.

     I could never enjoy myself. If we went to dinner, it was the same thing. I would think about it all afternoon and when I got there I would always find some little thing to ruin it. A spot on a fork. I'd spend hundreds of dollars and be unhappy because there as a spot on the fork. The food was great. I was the problem.

     I was your waiter, fuckstick. You left twenty on two hundred.

     It wasn't till I got on the program that I figured out that there was something wrong with my mind. An obsessive nature made it hard for me to function. When I fell in love with drinking, I obsessed over it. But even when I stopped the problems in my mind were still there.

     So you're miserable drinking and miserable not drinking. Tell me again why I'm here.

     I went through a lot of sponsors. Guys tried to help me but I wouldn't listen.

     Like I don't want to listen to you.

     Finally one guy figured me out. I was very unresponsive to him, kept quiet, but inside I was discounting everything he said. One time he told me to go to more meetings and I thought "If I go to more meetings I'm likely to run into you and why would I want to do that?" My little interior monologue joke was so funny I laughed right in the guy's face. He asked me if I did that a lot, kept coming up with answers in my head and keeping them to myself.

     Does he know? 

     "I didn't know what to say, but he did because he knew about obsession. He knew about living in his head and how dangerous it was for someone in recovery.

     Living in his head. Like me.

     He worked with me and I figured out my mind was never in what I was doing. I lived in yesterday's regrets and tommorow's fears, never in today. Alcohol was just a manifestation of insecurities most people get over when they grow up. I just never did. Not till I got sober.

      It never stops.

     That's why I say I'm addicted to anything I do twice and I like it. If my mind starts wandering into things that will fulfill me at some other time, then I'm missing out on the 'now.' Food and booze and sex and money don't quiet my mind. I've found a peace that makes me happy right now. I hope you guys do the same.

     He's looking right at me. He knows.