Ever been depressed? Most Alcoholics have been. In fact many of us have to deal with depression on a regular basis.
I have had more than my fair share of depression. I'm not complaining that's just the turn my life has taken. As a result I've had to learn ways to cope with depression.
To begin with my coping mechanisms were negative, unprofitable and unsuccessful. Mostly my coping mechanisms involved drinking, drugging and schemes. I was looking for somethingto make me feel better.
I think that is the common experience of most Alcoholics, we turn to alcohol in an attempt to feel better. That it does not work is fairly obvious but not at all obvious to the practicing alcoholic.
I regularly drank at the end of the day with the thought I can drink enough this evening so that I won't feel so bad that I have to kill myself. And so I did. Yet it did not really work and in the end I was as miserable with the drink as I was without it.
Since then I have learned a way to live that does not require me to drink. My former way of life created such feelings of depression that as I stated drinking was necessary in order to deaden the pain.
The fact that much of the pain was due to my drinking did not totally escape my attention, I simply had no other way to cope.
Now I do. Some of the skills I've learned I'm not especially good at but I do them as best I can and they do work. Here are three that I've become very good at I rely on them a lot.
One of my first coping skills is being aware that a drink will not make things better. As my sponsor is fond of telling me, "Myke I never had a problem so bad I couldn't make it worse by putting a drink on top of it!"
My next coping skill is prayer. Why is prayer not my number one coping skill? Because if I take the drink my prayers will be empty, my conscious contact with God will vanish; my faith will disappear like a mist on a hot summer morning.
Not taking a drink motivates me to prayer, if I am not taking a drink to resolve my problems I need something I know to be powerful enough to resolve those problems. Prayer is that power. The power alcohol promised but never delivered, prayer promises and brings those promises to pass.
My third powerful coping skill is simply going to a meeting. If nothing else happens at the meeting I will pray twice, once at the beginning, once at the end, I will hear things read from AA literature, I will fellowship with other Alcoholics as we share our experience strength and hope.
I have many other coping skills and perhaps I'll list them another time. Don't take the drink, pray, go to a meeting, these three will stand the test of time.
