I have had a recurring dream throughout my 14 years of recovery. In the dream, drinking and AA are the central players. These dreams are emotionally vivid and memorable, more so than most other dreams. I’ve heard many fellow recovering alcoholics refer to them as “drinking dreams.” I wonder, though, whether these dreams are evidence not so much of romanticizing the drink but of the opposite. Since I’ve opened myself to AA all the way into the subconscious, I wonder if they are in fact recovery dreams in disguise.
In these dreams, I typically find myself with an open bottle of booze and a half-full glass in my hand. Sometimes other people are around; sometimes I’m alone. I realize that not only am I drinking, but I’ve been lying about it. I’m stricken with guilt, and rather than enjoying the booze, I’m enveloped in a crisis of conscience. Do I tell the truth to my AA fellows? Do I lie? Most of the time I decide I must be honest about what I’ve done.
The first time I had a dream of this type the experience really shook me. I was horrified by my dishonesty about drinking and in covering it up. In some of these dreams, I couldn’t decide whether to be honest or to keep lying and that really rattled me. The horror would stick with me for a minute or two after I woke up. Afterward prayer and a little meditation would carry away the bad feelings and grace would rush in. I would realize that the dream was my subconscious assembling for me a “remember when” experience. This was especially true for those dreams in which I was undecided about telling the truth—in fact a tacit decision to lie—and that taught me that I have a long way to go.
AA continues to influence and form me at the deepest subconscious levels. That’s what I’ve taken away from my dream experiences. The feelings in my recurring dream are controlled by my subconscious, not by my alcoholism. They are not occasions of pleasure, but of remorse. The scenes felt so real because they could easily become reality should I decide to take back my will, revert to dishonesty, shut off access to grace and break my connection through AA to God. I’m actually grateful for my recovery dreams.