SOBER WHY REASON: FREEDOM

The cornerstone of our country!

From the land of the FREE to the home of the brave… it's freedom, baby!

You are an adult. You live in America and you are… free.

Free to do whatever you want to do. And when it comes to drinking, you bet you are free to do it. Drink up, because nobody can tell you what to do, it's your life. Whose business is it that you like to drink once in a while? No one's! You are over twenty-one. (Yeah, like anyone waits till they are twenty-one to drink. Let's get real. Eleven, fourteen, sixteen?) You don't need anyone's opinion about your drinking! You have the freedom and the right to run your own life, make your own decisions, do whatever you want. It's your life, nobody controls it but you. Yeah!

All because everyone in the world thinks you should stop drinking—screw 'em all, you will do anything you want to do. So go ahead. Drink up.

I'm so there with you when it comes to: our right to do, our freedom to live our own lives. I'm on the front lines with you in defending that one!

FREEDOM…

We fight wars for it (well, mostly for land, religion, and politics, but we cram it all under the heading of freedom)… freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the power and control, we so adamantly defend. It is important.

Power is important. Have you ever met anyone who likes to feel weak? I don't know too many people who would give up power, control, and freedom in their lives. If someone walked into your home and took over as if they owned it, what would you do? Fight like hell. Defend with all your might. You certainly wouldn't just hand it over. So?

Why are you?

All you have to do if you want to figure out exactly where I'm going with this is have a look back at the last few times you sat down and had a drink.

Freedom? Power? Control???

Truth be known, none of the above has anything to do with your life the minute you pick up the bottle.

I can tell you firsthand that there wasn't anything powerful about me when I was so drunk that I couldn't stand up.

There was nothing empowering about having my friends Lynann and Phyllis pick me up off the dance floor.

The conversation I had with my dad years ago, when I spent days after avoiding him like the plague because I hadn't been able to get the words out properly!?

How about that slurring, when your tongue gets thicker with every drink? There's control, huh? That's empow-er-ing…

There is nothing about alcohol that empowers. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Let's not pretend, you and me, right here, that your right to continue to drink has anything to do with you having any power, any control, and certainly it ain't about you having freedom in your life.

Your power is gone the minute you pick up a drink.

Drinking is a power hemorrhage, and the bleeding doesn't stop when the night of drinking ends. How about that morning after???

Now there's some power. Nothing like being so sick and feeling like you are going to die!

If you've ever been hungover like I've been hungover, and I know you have, you can honestly say that it's one of the weakest positions you've ever been in.

When you can't stand the voices of the people you love most in the world because it's all just too loud? Power, control, freedom? I don't think so.

Alcohol made me feel more broken than I've ever felt in my life.

There is no power in pouring the only energy you've got into trying to get the most basic things done so you can find a place to hide till you feel better.

Having to explain what you're not even sure happened the night before (but you know it was something stupid) is a weak, weak position to be in, no matter how much you cloak it all in the "big night of drinking" humor that helps us get by.

There wasn't an ounce of power in me having to lie to my son when he so gently and lovingly came into my room to see if there was anything he could do because Mommy was feeling sick.

And Mommy lied to him.

My son with his innocence and love.

Me with my lies and disease.

My son asking questions that deepened the hole and highlighted the truth. "What's the matter, Mommy? You weren't sick last night. How'd you get so sick so fast?"

If you want to talk about moments when there is nowhere to go, when the truth is blinding, this would be one of many that I can tell you from my heart—when this disease had taken every ounce of power and freedom away from me and given me nothing but a bed of lies, the deepest shame I've ever felt, and humiliation and pain, to lie in. There is nothing powerful in drinking. There is no control when you and I pick up that bottle.

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