Step one scares the crap out of me...

[bartender129]

...and here is why.

You know I hear old timers at meetings talk about what convinced them of step one and what it took them to get there.

All the guys with long term success seem to have had to go to such depths before they achieved it. It seems like taking it to the brink is a prerequisite for the 12 steps to be helpful.

I have never been near a jail, hospital or rehab. I've never had to drink until it is all gone. I've never blacked out. I always stop when I hit 6 to 10 beers because I am so drunk I truthfully don't want anymore. I've never lost a job. My family is in tact and my wife is relieved by my recent relapse because she knows I'll go another year without drinking and she is 100% confident in that because I have done so three times before.

If I talk about this in meetings, I'm either told I'm in denial or that this is progressive.

Yet I will tell you with 100% certainty that I am an alcoholic. But I can never relate to other people in the rooms 1st step stories since I have never felt powerless.

That is some scary **** to me.

I'm going to work my ass of for it not to happen, but I haven't met one person with long term success with the 12 steps who doesn't have a far lower bottom then I do.

I don't want and I am terrified of a deeper bottom.

I'm grateful and scared at the same time.

[Music]

Hey Bartender,
I can relate to parts of what you said as far as never losing a job, family, etc., but you've gone farther down the scale than I have because you've been back out and tried to improve on your story. And, maybe that's why you've gone back out. You don't believe you qualify yet! You don't have to qualify!! We all have the choice of stopping the digging at any depth of the hole. You said your wife believes you'll stay sober for another year. That's nuts! You believe you can go out and drink periodically and come back. That's nuts too!! There's no guarantee that the next time you go out you'll make it back and then where does that leave your wife and family? It doesn't matter what anyone says about your sobriety. Personally, I think you're denying that fact that your drinking history is good enough as it is. You don't ever have to take another drink. You say you don't understand step one, or can't relate to it. If alcohol isn't more powerful than you, why do you keep drinking it? When you drink, you get drunk! Alcohol makes you drunk, just as it did me and that makes it more powerful than I am. I never stopped after that first drink. Thank about it man. Stop trying to impress AAs by digging a deeper hole. It's not necessary.

[RobbyRobot]

Originally Posted by bartender129

...and here is why.

You know I hear old timers at meetings talk about what convinced them of step one and what it took them to get there.

Yet I will tell you with 100% certainty that I am an alcoholic. But I can never relate to other people in the rooms 1st step stories since I have never felt powerless.

That is some scary **** to me.

I don't want and I am terrified of a deeper bottom.

I'm grateful and scared at the same time.

i'm an old timer [+27 years] and if you're so sure you're an alcoholic then what makes you think you don't relate?

not understanding powerlessness has nothing to do with bottoms and everything to do with addiction and recovery experiences. denying powerlessness as an alcoholic is part of that cruel garden variety addiction cycle. accepting powerlessness is part of the everyday life-saving recovery process... this is not rocket science

as for being afraid of a deeper bottom... who isn't... not just you believe me guy. the world is over-filled with drinkers not wanting things to get worse... lol

anyways... what really are you scared of... being alcoholic and drinking or being alcoholic and not drinking... or being sober...

as for denial... lol.. that is also just human nature as well... alcoholics don't have a special claim to that.

you may want to revisit your opinions on what you consider powerlessness to actually be in a persons everyday life

RR

[Tommyh]

your bottom is your bottom,thats all it takes

[CAPTAINZING2000]

Denial, isn't a river in Egypt.

For most of my life, I denied my drinking was out of control. I've had many a drinking friend that, was smart enough to stop drinking during the course of an evening.
When, I first starting drinking, I'd pour out that, can of beer when, I was alone. I was drinking more out of peer pressure. Later on, as my drinking progressed, I was drinking alone. I'd recall, I'd be getting glassy eyed, setting beers down all over and not recalling where, I'd placed them. I'd go open another beer.

I was a weekend warrior ecept, my weekends went to Wed. in my latter years of drinking. I only drank beer. An alcoholic, was the person on skid row and homeless. Pick your excuses as to why, you're not an alcoholic.
I've been in several drunk tanks. Never been in a rehab. Only came close to losing my lic. one time for drinking. I've not lost a job over drinking. Drinking certainly played a part in my divorce.


I can't afford to pick up a drink ever again. I'm not willing to lose anything due to my drinking at, this point in my life. Life is too good sober for me to even be tempted by a drink today. There's nothing for me to prove today by drinking, no friends left that, are still drinking and drugging.

Ask yourself, is there something in your life worth risking today for a drink.


I'm kind of grinning re reading your post again.

This isn't a pissing contest. Every meeting I've ever been to, had at least one guy sharing their day that, made my day look like a stroll in the park. I've been to meetings where I thought, I had the best day ever and someone would share what a great day they had and made mine pale by comparison.

Every one makes it to AA by their own design. I do admire a person that, makes it to AA without back problems.

You're to be admired for admitting, drinking is a problem for you.

Don't blow it and try and find a bottom you can't get out of

[sugErspun]

Bartender - why do you say your an acoholic? What is your definition of it?

I will tell you mine from a very high level: Once I start drinking ~ I want more, there is nothing I can do once that starts happening. Will I drink until it's all gone?? I don't know ~ because I am not in control of my consumption once I start drinking.
-ALSO- I can't seem to stay away from that first drink no matter how hard I try. With that first drink comes the inability to stop and the cycle starts all over again.

[Believe808]

Bartender, Never say never. I also use to say I never this, I never that. Well, I went back out and alot of those nevers did happen this time. Good luck with your sobriety.

[shaun00]

alcoholics tend to be complicated people....

So imo we tend to complicate the ass out of everthing.....well i do anyway.

What does the step say....we admitted we were powerless of alcohol..right.

When you start drinking and intend to stop can you stop?

Do you get home when you say your gonna get home.

Can you guarentee that when you start drinking you know when to stop.

if you cant then you have no power over alcohol right?

Hence you are power...less......right?

Easy for me....if i had a few bucks for food and i had no booze...guess what i bought?.....even though i was starving and had every intention of buying food.

It has very little to do with rock bottoms or depths of bottoms.

Life unmanageable?.....i dont believe that if you are an alcoholic that your life is managable....

Take a long look how alcohol effects your life and that means ever avenue..

I would try to complicate the steps without even knowing it.....i was looking for the hidden messages ....looking round the step rather than at it.

My sponsor would say....open the book and read the black bits...lol..lol

This simple program of recovery is working for thousands of very complicated alcoholics all over the world...im sure

good luck with it........and god be with you.................trucker.

Ps this is only my opinoin......check out the whole thread and see what you think.

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by bballdad

your bottom is your bottom,thats all it takes

So true.

To quote an old cliche', "don't compare your insides to other people's outsides." The alcoholic ego will use anything it can to convince you that your case is different, thereby seperatiing you from the ones who can help you.

Bottom is a place or a circumstance or external conditon, although the place you end up in and your circumstances can be a reflection of the inner.

Bottom, or I like the term "hopeless" is a state of mind and a state of being. It happens when I simply realize "I can't do this anymore." I know people who have experienced it in a penthouse suite and I know people who have experienced it on a park bench or in the de-tox. It feels the same regardless of circumstance or surrounding.

Those old-timers you speak of aren't successful in their recovery because they hit a lower bottom than you. They are successful because they met the only real condition: Surrender, totally and unconditionally. They surrenderdd to the truth of a fatal, progressive, illness that they couldn't beat. And based on that, the rest of the steps become a life and death errand. Until you are convinced of that, you will have trouble with The First Step. In fact you won't be able to take the following steps, because once you've truly experienced Step One, there is no place left to turn.
Jim

[lizw]

Something that I have noticed, the longer I've stay sober, is that I have more 'normal life' to compare my drinking/using life to and this seems to give me more evidence as to how powerless I am.

It's sort of like I had to expereince 'successful living' before I could see and admit how 'unsuccessful' my way really was.

It would also pay to keep in mind that if you are an alcoholic, it's pretty normal for your head to be telling you that you don't belong in AA and that you are different. But if you share that out loud at a meeting, you'll find people will tell you they thought the same.

Take it easy

[Pinkcuda]

I will tell you with 100% certainty that I am an alcoholic. But I can never relate to other people in the rooms 1st step stories since I have never felt powerless.

I had no idea that both were possible.

[AW2486]

"Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.

We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed."

Time to ask yourself some questions.

Will I, Someday, Somehow be able to control and enjoy drinking? - At the end of my last drunk I was convinced that was not possible. I did not have the power to drink that way. I gave it my best shot and I could just not make it happen. - I became dangerous when I blacked out, and blacked out most everytime I drank towards the end.

Will I ever be able to drink like normal people? - Nope, If I have one drink, my body will crave more, I will drink to the point of blackout and become dangerous. No doubt about it.

Also there is a whole section of stories in the Big Book about people with "High Bottom". Might not hurt to read a few and see if you can find yourself in any of them.

[Freedom1990]

I existed in my own self-imposed prison in active alcoholism. I was never comfortable in my own skin till I found sobriety through AA. I learned to listen for the similarities (internal), and not the differences (external).

[BP44]

If you aren't powerless over alcohol, why is your wife relieved that you will be " not drinking for a year". I was asked to consider that I might not know the truth about anything. What was helpful for me was to take the first 46 pages in the Big Book including The Doctor's Opinion and turn the statements into questions. For instance, When I take a drink, does the drink take me? Yes, when I take a drink, my plans end. I go places I never planned on going, do things I never planned on doing, with people I never planned on being with. This occurred on a regular basis. The drink may take me to jail, the hospital, another town, another state, another girl, another job the list goes on. And that particular episode doesn't end until the drink lets me go, which may be a couple hours or couple of days. It's when ever the craving is satisfied. What happens when I'm separated from a drink? Can I not pick up a drink? Can I choose not to drink? or does the drink choose me? My experience was that while I would know I needed not to drink, my mind would take me to a place called "at certain times", and it would tell me, " you're irritable, you're restless, you're discontent with life as it is right now" " Here is not okay" " I'm not okay with me, I'm not okay with you" "I know what will make that pain go away" It's called a drink. Then I'll do the most insane thing I can ever do from the point of a state of conciousness sober and that's to pick up a drink. What's you life like inside yourself when you are separated from a drink? What's your life like inside yourself when you take a drink? This isn't about consequences. If you loathe what your life has become drunk, that's a Hell of a bottom. I'd take a look at why your wife is relieved. That tells me a lot.

[chris1959]

Fear and pain are two of the great motivaters that bring people to AA. Me I was a tough guy, big Marine, afraid of nothing! So it took lots and lots of pain and near death experiences before I finally consined to my inner most self that I was licked.

Many years ago, though I knew I was alcoholic I went back out so I would have a better story even though my story was already tragic. It Took me years to get back and years to rebuild what was left of a human being, I'm still in the process. I share my story in hopes that maybe someone doesn't have to go as far down the ladder as I did.

IMHO alcoholics are great con's. Trouble is we don't know when we are conning ourselves. I cannot rely on my own thinking when it comes to drinking, period! I don't know about you, but I have to spend a lot of time checking my BS meter and remembering to go straight to the source of the problem, the mirror !!

[sailorjohn]

Originally Posted by bartender129

I have never been near a jail, hospital or rehab. I've never had to drink until it is all gone. I've never blacked out. I always stop when I hit 6 to 10 beers because I am so drunk I truthfully don't want anymore. I've never lost a job. My family is in tact and my wife is relieved by my recent relapse because she knows I'll go another year without drinking and she is 100% confident in that because I have done so three times before.

welcome!!!

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...niqueness.html (Terminal uniqueness)

Had a lot of very good personal observations posted as replies in this thread, you may find something useful there.

Keep coming back, you'll find a lot of support here.

[chris1959]

Yet I will tell you with 100% certainty that I am an alcoholic. But....!

It was that "but" word that kept me going back to the bottle and the needle. Today I only use that word when I say, "But for the grace of God there go I."

I still suffer from terminal uniqueness "but" in my case it is thinking that my way is "thee" way.
I have to remember that the only reason I am clean and sober today is because I haven't picked up a drink or stuck a needle in my arm. The way I do that is by following a few simple rules.

For me there is a constant battle between pride and humility and the longer I am sober the deeper I have to look inside myself to understand how easy it is to go in the wrong direction. Can't you all see how humble I am Damn it!!!
I'm so humble I got banned from the chat room, HELLO !!
I used to wave my "know it all" banner all the way back to the barstool.
I think the only difference today is that through practice I have learned to recognize when I am going astray and headed for trouble.

I know I say this alot "but" I believe, "It is not when or how much I use, it is what happens when I do."
I sure wish I could of got hammered on 6-10. How much money I would have saved. Take care.

[Deb045]

We are an alcoholic when we say we are--I never [I]felt [I]powerless or unmanageable either. The pain and confusion led me to the 12 step program. I was tired of doing the same things over and over again that kept me at a stand still. I couldn't move forward in my life with or without Alcohol. AA is where I found the steps and principles that give me options to live a life without picking up that first drink. I am free to choose to pick up a drink or not. I have chosen not to pick up that first drink for over 2 years. My mind and Spirit is clearer and my loved ones have more options now too. They aren't forced to worry about whether I'm drunk or not.

[FightingIrish]

It took until the age of 35 for me to accrue my first serious consequence (e.g., one that was visible to others).

I have never had a DUI, only got out of hand with my public drinking about 20% of the time (e.g., "I could control it"), and I even had my supervisors comment when I told them I needed to stop drinking, "but you always just have one or two at work functions - you seem fine", even though my absenteeism was on the rise.

I did most of my drinking at home, alone, because I knew there I would have the fewest consequences. I did, however, black out on a regular basis since the age of 15.

But, I happened to be vacationing in a town that doesn't appreciate a guy with a BAC of 0.33 passing out on the beach at 9pm, and so when I was approached by the police, apparently I got pretty violent. I don't remember any of this, but had to glean it from the carbon copy sheet of paper that was slipped between the bars of my cell door the next morning at the county jail.

Fortunately, for this altar boy and national merit scholar, going to jail once was enough to get my attention.

M

[navysteve]

In A.A.'s pioneering time, none but the most desperate cases could swallow and digest this unpalatable truth. Even these "last-gaspers" often had difficulty in realizing how hopeless they actually were. But a few did, and when these laid hold of A.A. principles with all the fervor with which the drowning seize life preservers, they almost invariably got well. That is why the first edition of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous," published when our membership was small, dealt with low-bottom cases only. Many less desperate alcoholics tried A.A., but did not succeed because they could not make the admission of hopelessness.

It is a tremendous satisfaction to record that in the following years this changed. Alcoholics who still had their health, their families, their jobs, and even two cars in the garage, began to recognize their alcoholism. As this trend grew, they were joined by young people who were scarcely more than potential alcoholics. They were spared that last ten or fifteen years of literal hell the rest of us had gone through. Since Step One requires an admission that our lives have become unmanageable, how could people such as these take this Step?


It was obviously necessary to raise the bottom the rest of us had hit to the point where it would hit them. By going back in our own drinking histories, we could show that years before we realized it we were out of control, that our drinking even then was no mere habit, that it was indeed the beginning of a fatal progression. To the doubters we could say, "Perhaps you're not an alcoholic after all. Why don't you try some more controlled drinking, bearing in mind meanwhile what we have told you about alcoholism?" This attitude brought immediate and practical results. It was then discovered that when one alcoholic had planted in the mind of another the true nature of his malady, that person could never be the same again. Following every spree, he would say to himself, "Maybe those A.A.'s were right..." After a few such experiences, often years before the onset of extreme difficulties, he would return to us...

That is from AA's Twelve and Twelve. The bottom had been raised years before you ever showed up. There is no jail or institution prerequisite here. And folks like you have an extremely valid message to others who come in and are on the fence. Concede to your innermost self that you are alcoholic and guess what????

You just did step one!

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by Deb045

We are an alcoholic when we say we are--I never [I]felt [I]powerless or unmanageable either. The pain and confusion led me to the 12 step program. I was tired of doing the same things over and over again that kept me at a stand still. I couldn't move forward in my life with or without Alcohol. AA is where I found the steps and principles that give me options to live a life without picking up that first drink. I am free to choose to pick up a drink or not. I have chosen not to pick up that first drink for over 2 years. My mind and Spirit is clearer and my loved ones have more options now too. They aren't forced to worry about whether I'm drunk or not.

Let's not give the new guy here wrong information right off the bat. Was is pain and cofusion but an outward sign of an inward unmanageability?

First of all it is helpful to know what constitutes alcoholism. If I'm going to call myself an alcoholic, I should know what alcoholism is.

A true alcoholic cannot control his/her drinking when they start. In my case I would start with the intention of having a few and it might be a few hours or few days later before I stopped. I never knew how it was going to go. I never knew how much I was going to have, where I was going to have it, or who I was going to have it with. I have an allergy to alcohol which manifests itself in the form of a phenomenon of craving for more alcohol when I put it in my system. I don't drink ntil I'm done, I drink until it is done.

That is the physical symptom of alcoholism. But the main problem centers in the mind. If drinking alcohol was the problem, not drinking alcohol would solve the problem. But the true alcoholic has lost control. Not only can he not control the amount he takes when he starts, he cannot control the time and place when he is going to start again. He has lost the power of choice.

In my case, it is really simple. I drank when I didn't want to drink. I drank when I had every good reason not to drink. I would promise I wouldn't show up drunk and I would show up drunk. I'd tell you that I'd be there and then I would have a drink and not make it. Many times I'd find myself drinking after a short period of sobriety and wonder how it happened. Alcoholics drink for a lot of reasons and for no reason at all.

I know that as long as felt that I had choice, it was a constant struggle to not drink. You see, thinking about not drinking is as much an obsession as is thinking about drinking. When I felt that I had choice, I was always torn. Eventually it is a battle I cannot win. So I gave up the fight and gave the whole deal to God. In active alcoholism, there is no choice but to drink. In a recovered state, living in the sunlight of the spirit, there is no choice to drink, because the problem has been removed.

Whenever I felt that I had the power of choice, I drank. I don't get up every day a decide not to drink. It is not even a thought and hasn't been for a long time. If it was about having a making a choice, you would think that I would have made the wrong choice at least once in the past eighteen years.

One last thing, and this is to the new man: you do have the power of choice in the matter of deciding whether you are alcoholic. In fact, you are the only one who can decide that. If you are not sure, there a few ways to find out.
Jim

[navysteve]

I never knew how it was going to go. I never knew how much I was going to have, where I was going to have it, or who I was going to have it with.

I would like to tag in on this if I may Jim:

All of that was true for me as well but: I did not always drink recklessly. The key is that I had no choice once I drank. If I made it home in one piece it was not my doing. I could start drinking in Baltimore and wind up in Florida wondering how it happened. Often times though I ended up in my bed with the alcoholics potpourri ( P!ss/blood/puke) or occasionally I woke up with no evidence of the night before at all.

The old AA fable that no one ends up in AA by mistake is BS ( Bull something or other...) But, not every alcoholic plunges to the depths others have. I got sober when I was 22 and at the time I thought I had a low bottom ( jails/ one psych ward living on the streets etc...) in AA I found folks who had my life for decades and that I only had a taste of alcoholic despair. Or did I?

Inside I felt dead. Alcohol was not just a beverage, it was a solution, the Big Book tells me that alcohol was just a symptom of a bigger problem and the 12 steps were my new solution.

[jimhere]

It is a given that once I start, all bets are off. There is no choice.

However, for me at least, that is not where the hopelessness of alcoholism lies. Like I said, if drinking was the problem, I would just stop drinking and the problem would be solved.

The scary part is that I never knew when I was going to start again. That took place sober, not drunk.

[Pagekeeper]

I went 15 months sober and drank again. I went almost a year and drank again. I've went 3 months and drank again. I've went 6 weeks and drank again.

Notice the pattern here? I'll give you a hint, it's in the word "again."

Powerless over alcohol?! *raises hand*

[navysteve]

The scary part is that I never knew when I was going to start again. That took place sober, not drunk.

Which is right where I was at 60 days sober when everyone was just saying go to meetings and don't drink. I was dying sober and I was scared to death that I was going to drink because I saw it as the only way out. Once into the solutions ( 12 steps) I was relieved of that obsession