{We were sitting around a large round table all pleased that the deal had been brought to a “satisfactory conclusion". Boris was in a congratulatory mood and called to his servant to bring out the good crystal to seal the deal with a toast.
His hostess went around dropping a blue crystalline icy cube no larger than 5 mm ice cube into each crystal glass which melted upon hitting the bottom. Boris thrust his glass in the air and exclaimed ‘nostrovia’!
We echoed the toast and downed the drink in a gulp and a searing taste of vodka hit the tongue and suddenly I panicked. What was I doing!}
I sat bolt upright in my bed. Confusion swirled in my mind, sweat trickled from my neck and brow, my heart pounded in my chest and I had to wait until my breathing started to subside before the sweat would start to evaporate.
Drinking a toast? And who was Boris? What was I doing toasting? What was I doing drinking?
And then it occurred to me. A drunk dream. Only a drunk dream. Only a terrifyingly real drunk dream that I have from time to time that sets my teeth on edge and disturbs my tranquility for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week, depending on the content of the dream and perhaps the events that set it off.
And mine wasn’t the only drunk dream that recently disturbed the equanimity of some of the members of today’s “Twenty Four Hours a Day” reading group this morning. Several members had been similarly agitated and indeed needed to share about it this morning.
The reading thanked God for the rooms of AA that helped bring all of the “odd ducks” who found themselves out in the world of swans, into the rooms to be with others of their kind so that they would not feel so out of place in the world. And here we could discuss those trials, vicissitudes and ordinary daily ups and downs which only we could mutually understand as those “normals” out of the rooms would not, could not comprehend. And so it is with the experience of drunk dreams.
Normal folk do no awake in a cold sweat because they have dreamed about drinking alcohol when they believe that they should not have. That is not a normal experience.
But for the newly sober as well as for the experienced drunk, these are not uncommon encounters; they come unbidden, unwanted but not unexpected as a part of the recovery process. Some drunks with years of sobriety say that they never go away. They may spew forth from the past after remaining dormant from years of inactivity, only to strike one unawares, in times of mental turmoil to remind you that yes, you still must remember that you are susceptible to the attraction of the poison of alcohol.
But what do they mean? Are they warnings of impending drunkenness? Are they admonitions against any weakness of will toward one’s program of sobriety? There are many thoughts on the origins of these dreams that go from the sublime to the amusing, all of which serve a purpose for someone in the program if it works for them.
Al started his share that his drunk dream came unbidden last week in the form of suddenly drinking after almost a year of solid sobriety, in an out of the blue encounter with friends. Very matter of fact drinking about which he was horrified when he awoke.
I have shared my most recent experience above. And although we did not go into a complete analysis of each of these dreams, there were at least three currents of opinions that ran through the conversation.
Sam shared that historically, Carl Jung, as an advisor to Bill W. who was very concerned about the meaning of the content of the dreams, felt that the dreams were manifestations of God, (or of a higher power) in contact with the dreamer, keeping the person on the recovery course. Sam further elaborated that Freud, was of the opposite school, that dreams were purely a fiction, a construct of the subconscious and had nothing to do with God, higher powers or anything but the person himself and must therefore be interpreted within that context.
Mike, quoted his sponsor who said that drunk dreams, being a manifestation of a drunk mind were just an attempt of that mind to start to get sober. Which I followed by my own theory which is that drunk dreams are the mind’s way of telling us that we are still sober. In support of this I posit the following:
While in recovery we are fearful of many things among which are the loss of the self esteem, health, trust and personal pride that we have been working so hard to recover. Having lost these, over years of poor acting, deceptive behavior, prevarication and outright lying we are now attempting to recoup our position in our family, jobs and society and reacquire some moral high ground.
Having achieved even a modicum of these qualities and things, we now have too much to lose should we pick up a drink again. Too much trust we have worked so hard to regain, health we have reestablished, jobs reacquired, social standing reestablished ,we hold onto with a dubious grasp are now actually at risk of imminent loss should our drinking become known. Worst, regained love will be crushed, perhaps never to be retrieved again.
So drunk dreams are a constant reminder that we are on the right track, that we are doing the right thing; and of all we have to lose should we not stay on the right track. Why else would we react with so much anxiety were we not afraid of losing so much hard won territory?
As I said above, normal people do not have dreams like this. Even binge drinkers or those who drink too much but do not consider themselves alcoholics. Not even alcoholics themselves have these dreams. It is only the alcoholic in recovery whose subconscious carries the guilt of slipping and going out that permits all of that anxiety over the drunk dream in the first place. Otherwise the dream does not even occur.
Which sort of dismisses George’s theory that the dreams are warnings to those of us who are ‘on the brink’ of another drink. Maybe. But my money is on the person with the greater sobriety. The person on the brink is not dreaming of going out, he’s plotting it, and no amount of dreaming is going to stop him. He is already there.
No, I believe that the drunk dream is the safety valve, the somnambulist’s safeguard that nudges us every now and then to remind us in times of anxiety or joy to be on the lookout. We’re in a good place.
Don’t screw it up!
© res 6/12/2011
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