Here are some more clips and bits from Roger Ebert’s 2009 post and monumental list of 1,411 comments:
Terry: If you’ve ever thought you’re drinking too much, you are. If you ever “need a drink”, you’re a drunk or becoming one…. But, my god, what a colossal waste of my time it was to be boozed every night. Work 1/3, sleep 1/3 .. .and be drunk 1/3? Jesus, there’s better things to do than that with a life … So, whether [medications], AA, religion, or whatever does the job, all I can advise is there’s too much life out there to see it in a fog. It truly sucks after a while.
Ebert: I have no reason to attend an event where drinking is the purpose, and don’t.
Mike: Earlier you mention that drunks are bores when one is sober (not to mention boors). During my youthful debauches, I used to say to friends: we are each drinking to tolerate the other’s drunkenness.
Ebert:Alcoholism is the only fatal disease from which you can choose to recover.
Frank: I believe the Navy’s alcohol rehab definition of an alcoholic: “if you crave a drink, even if it’s only one a month or one a year and you can’t have peace until you have that drink, you’re an alcoholic.” Makes sense to me…
Ebert: If one is an alcoholic, drinking moderately is dangerous. If one is NOT an alcoholic, drinking moderately comes naturally and doesn’t require treatment.
Such great quotes, i have more coming. Now me, personally, i don’t brook with the word ‘alcoholic’, it’s part of my irritating rebellious nature. i like to substitute ‘boozer’ or ‘drinker’ … BUT I don’t let the wording rub me the wrong way, I just substitute a word that I can ‘hear’. I can hear ‘boozer’. I’m a chick who likes her booze. So all these quotes above apply to me. Nuff said.
Team 100 update: Welcome to Lane (day 12) and DDG (day 31). I’m on day 292 apparently. We are a little group of 37 members now. My husband also says he wants to join and do 100 consecutive days (he barely drinks any more now that i’ve stopped). So let’s add Mr. Belle as being on day 1. That makes us 38, and we have one male member now!
August 11th. Day 3 for me after numerous attempts. My poison…wine. I can easily put away a nottle an a half a night. My crash was falling down and cracking my head open in my back yard when my brother and his family came yo town for a nice visit. Blood everywhere…and me? Very little recollection. I started with an early “loosen up” glass early in the afternoon, and by after dinner? Out of the picture. I’m done. My passing out was a huge, mortifying, and ironic wake-up call. My life is good. Why do I choose to wantonly throw it away. I’ve read some of the posts a few months, and ready to start with 30 days of sobriety. But the idea of starting scares me. What will replace my destructive “evening-watching the news bottle of wine” habit? Ironically, in spite of tbe quantity I consume nightly, I never wake oup feeling bad.
I look forward to getting sober, one day at a time, with the knowledge each of you have made, or are making the journey. I look forward to eradicating that foggy part of my life which has kept me from being the better version of me I know I can become.
Thank you much much for the the link to the Ebert quotes and blog. what a nice discovery. Can you just give me more time in my day for reading and writing?
“and you can’t have peace until you have that drink”
That was the biggest signpost for me!!! I may not have hit rock bottom but I couldn’t take the noise of that inner drinking voice anymore. Oh the peace I have now, that’s real peace…
Wine never delivered what it promised anyway!
Big cheer for Mr. Belle
I’m right there with you. there is a lot of peace in knowing that I stopped ‘early’ … and yes, some days it is yucky, but at least I could stop … and stop I did!
Go Mr Belle! xxx
I like Mr. Belle already!
Frank’s quote is what I’ve been thinking about lately: aren’t we all choosing to use wine (I just like wine, OK?) instead of dealing with our negative feelings and thoughts? Even if it’s just a temporary, one-glass “escape” from the day, does anyone need that? Do we grow if we’re relying on that escape? I would say that mentally, being sober has challenged me to simply grow as a person, has opened me up to figuring things out differently. I like not having the security blanket because, for better or for worse, I’m forced to deal. This used to happen naturally before I started drinking, so I think of it as a baseline state. Aren’t we all “using” wine, to our personal detriment? Off my soapbox.
yes yes yes and yes. genius. sobriety as an amazing vehicle for self-growth. yes again. i agree. can you tell?
The great thing about Roger Ebert’s blog post is that you don’t have to be in AA or anything like that to appreciate and understand his position on alcoholism and it’s deadly affect. Alcoholism (or booze-ism or drink-ism…ha ha) is deadly, no doubt about that. Alcoholics die deaths that aren’t pretty. So glad to see ol Ebert die sober (that is what I tell my wife my goal in death is!)
Great to hear a dude has joined the party – high five Mr. Belle for me!
Paul