60 and off to the races!

[Pancreas]

In 2 hours it will be 60 days of sobriety, I will be selfish and say I am proud of myself. That said, there is only one thing different I did at this 4th “real� attempt at sobriety, I walked through the doors at an AA meeting and stayed. For me it will be 90 meetings in 60 days and I needed every one of them.

In the last 5 or 6 years of my second career, drinking, I never had a problem admitting that I was an alcoholic; my problem was the common mistake of believing I could control it on my own. When I did finally walk through the doors and stay, I found a group of people that I could relate with and rely upon, totally lacking in my past world of solitary drinking and social solitude. Also found was a strong spirituality long ago lost in the bottle. While I am not a religious person and have distrust in organized churches, I believe they have their place and are of use and help to many people, alcoholics or not.

The people left in my life are my close family and I have always had their support, but I had lost their respect. Getting that respect back will be a long road to travel, but what the hell, it took me 25 years of booze to get me here. I have my sobriety, spirituality, and support, the rest will fall in place as I grow in my sobriety and continued recovery efforts.

Sobriety is much easier than I thought it would be, continued recovery for me is the hard part. Honesty is coming easy, but guilt is a killer. I do know that working the steps will help with the guilt, but as with regaining respect it will take awhile.

In this forum I have read many opinions, from the extreme from hard line Christian fundamentalism to atheism. As for me, I have my personal belief system (spiritualism) and a relationship with God that brings me serenity and knowledge of the tools available to me to live a productive life. Again, I am selfish in that I will use free will, spirituality, AA tools, other people etc… all in the goal of 1 thing; my honest desire to not drink.

I thank each and every one of you for your time and devotion to these boards, as they also help my recovery process.

Al…

[1Marty]

Hi there, A big Congrats goes out to you! Be proud!

[mackat]

Hoo hah!!!
you said a ton in that post- good stuff
Isn't it amazing?- all that 'selfish' business and here you are sharing and helping another alcoholic-ME!
thanks
mackat

[Dan]

I'll take a piece of that.

[Chy]

Congratulations! You should be proud of yourself! Keep up the good work.