Those of you not following All About Addiction on Facebook (you should) or paying attention to our updates on Twitter and such might not have known that I was recently informed that in order to become a psychologist in California (actually, to get registered as a Psychological Assistant, which allows someone to get experience towards becoming a fully licensed psychologist) I was going to have to submit to a 3-year probationary period of drug and alcohol testing. I was completely sober for almost 3 years between January 2002 and about September 2004 following an arrest and jail stint for drug possession and sales (see here for part of the story). In the summer of 2004 I decided to take on the classic “AA Experiment,” meaning that I wanted to see if having an alcoholic drink would bring me back to drug use as so many in my 12-step groups told me it would. I am happy to report, that 8 years later the answer is still no – I’ve been drug free since 2002 but have been drinking alcohol socially since 2004.
Aside from staying drug and crime free, I also received my PhD, published dozens of articles, set up All About Addiction, started writing for Psychology Today, and had my convictions set aside by my judge after completing 5 years of probation without a single dirty drug test or violation of any sort. But the California Board of Psychology wanted more, so they told me I had to test if I wanted to move forward. I was offended, consulted with many other professionals I know about what I should do, and threatened to request additional hearings before eventually succumbing. The bottom line is that the Board is almost all powerful and can ask me to do anything they want. Besides, I am a 9-felony ex-convict asking to become a psychologist – maybe I’ll never live down my past no matter what I do (for my take on stigma, read here). So I have a probation officer again and I have to stop drinking.
Last Wednesday I stopped drinking alcohol – having a final glass of wine with my wife who is being nice and joining me (for now) in not drinking. Ironically, I stopped last week because I thought my meeting with my probation representative was in two days – I was a week off. And apparently I was so concerned about not drinking any more that I only drank half of my glass (my wife didn’t actually touch hers). Still, I have been drinking a drink or two 3-4 times every week for a while now and had gotten used to my glass of wine as post-work stress relief. So I’m wondering what the experience will feel like having to give up my coping tool for at least 2 years.
I talk to addicts and alcoholics on a regular basis and my own social drinking has come up as an issue many times before. I always said it wasn’t a problem and many others have told me I’m wrong – that I am either in the midst of a relapse or that I was never really an addict. The latter point is moot and I can’t prove that at all, but I know that this little experience might be an interesting experiment (the reverse of the initial one if you will) to see if returning to drinking was indeed a cop-out.
Having this website and all, I decided I am going to write about it. I’ll be giving weekly (probably summaries) of my not-drinking experiences and how quitting drinking has affected me in my daily life. If something comes up in between updates I might write an impromptu post to talk about it. I’d love to hear your thoughts as comments here or on our Facebook page.
Week #1 – September 1th-15th (short week since I stopped on Tuesday)
As I mentioned, we never finished those last glasses of wine. Still, Thursday and Friday were stressful workdays (I am now up to about 65 hours of work per week) and I have to say that realizing I won’t be able to have my nightly alcohol serving was a bummer. I had that thought a few times throughout those workdays and on the way home. I know full and well that for me stress is a trigger for alcohol use. Thankfully, I was not actually tempted to open up anything and drink once I got home. This is still early on in the process, so obviously it does not mean that I won’t be tempted soon, but I was happy to find that resisting a drink was not a difficult task even when I would have usually had one.
Also, I realized that my weekly (or so) friendly get-togethers with a couple of guy friends are either going to have to change venues or I’m going to be the only guy not drinking at a Happy Hour. We’ll see. I’m sure they won’t mind but I’m not sure how I will feel. Lord knows some of my clients frequent bars without issue while others are triggered constantly… If I’m right about my lack of alcoholic drinking issues, it shouldn’t be a problem.
More to come!