Am I a Victim?

I think of a victim as someone who is suffering the consequences of something they had no control over. So when I was drinking and if you asked me if I thought I was a victim my answer would have been an unequivocal yes. The fact that my life had become unmanageable had nothing to do with me. Oh, I had a litany of reasons or better yet excuses why my life was mess. There was heredity; being abandoned by my so-called friends and my parents of course. Even God Himself had forsaken me. So with all these forces against me what else could I expect? And the drinking, that was my way of coping with it all.

I needed to be in control. Drugs were too unpredictable for me, which is probably why I preferred drinking. When I drank I was in control of what was happening, or so I thought. I didn’t view those occasional moments of temporary sanity as opportunities to change my life for the better. They only validated my belief that I could control my drinking, and therefore drinking was not the problem.

In AA I learned to accept my alcoholism. Whether I believed my alcoholism was a disease or not was irrelevant. Even why I became an alcoholic had nothing to do with my sobriety. As an alcoholic I understood that I was in control as long as I didn’t pick up that first drink. Picking up that first drink meant I was turning control of my life back over to my addiction. And only I could make that decision.

With this new found sobriety my life became more manageable so it was easy for me to think that I was back in control. I needed to be aware of anything that gave me reason to question my alcoholism. In sobriety I learned that I was responsible for my actions. To keep my sobriety I could not consider myself a victim. If those thoughts became persistent, my bad thinking would eventually victimize me, and I would drink again. It was my choice.