Wholesome

I don't know why I'm so fcuking thick in the head that I can't get this part right. I cannot drink and control it! As soon as it enters my system all bets are off and I'm going to keep going until it's all gone or I pass out.

Why can't I accept this truth? I play constant head games with myself about it. I'm sure you all can relate. The absurd justifications.

How did you come to a place where you accepted that you could never ever drink again?

I know that it is a very personal experience but I'm interested if you are willing to share?

Boleo

In my case, the two things I hated most in life were; drinking and not-drinking.

I suffered from alcohol-issues as a result of drinking.

I suffered from alcohol-ism as a result of not-drinking.

I eventually treated the suffering part and the the drinking stopped along with it.

awuh1

I came to the point where I knew that I was going to seriously hurt myself and/or someone else. There was no doubt about it. I knew that I needed to do something different. I had quit hundreds of times and always with the same result. Even when I first got into AA I avoided doing the steps. Again I found that I needed to change course. I found that I needed to do the steps in a way that was meaningful to ME.

Just do things very differently this time zen. It will not feel comfortable but I'm confident you'll be OK.

Wholesome

Last time I quit I started to get a lot of anhedonia probably from PAWS and instead of riding it out I folded like a cheap suit. I should have tried to treat it.

I was in AA years ago but I never completed the steps. I want to this time.

This time I'm going to practice AVRT and open my heart and mind to AA.

But I need to really really deep down accept that I can't drink anymore. No matter what. Forever. My mind balks at the thought! I immediately start thinking of all the future scenarios......

I guess that's where the one day at a time saying comes from eh?

paulokes

A simple suggestion. You seem to have half the problem down pat. You know you can't drink safely. Many would call that the "phenomenon of craving", the physical aspect...50% of what makes you an alcoholic of our type.

Why can't you accept this fact? Why does your brain trick you? Because you're an alcoholic That's exactly what the other 50% of the problem is. The mental component, the obsession of the mind. No matter how convinced you are of part 1, your defective head will convince you that you could, you should or f*** it, you will take a drink anyway.

A person in this predicament is pretty stuffed. No amount of effort or determination will sort you. Take a drink, you're in trouble. Try as you may, you can't not take a drink.

If you fit the above, you might just be an alcoholic of our type. Depending how far gone you are, you may require a spiritual solution to your predicament...a drastic rearrangement of ideas, emotions and attitudes to break you out of this destructive cycle.

The good news? There is a Solution

P

mick3580

Step one in aa does not mean accepting that you can never drink again. Step one is admitting I am powerless and that I will drink unless I find power not to. The rest of the steps allow that power to work in my life.

Wholesome

All I know is that I keep doing it even though I know I don't want to. Seems pretty powerless to me.

Where during the steps do you accept that you can never drink again if not on step 1?

paulokes

Ok...Step 1...not JUST that I could never drink safely. But that without help and a change of some kind...I WOULD drink again.

Subtle difference, hard to accept for some. Can you see it?

P

Wholesome

Absolutely!! There needs to be a shift in the bedrock foundation of my mind and I can't do it by myself. I've tried and what I'm doing isn't working.

paulokes

Ok...do you think there might be something genuine going on in AA that other folks are doing, that might have the desired effect?

P

Gal220

The "shift" really is the "spiritual awakening" that happens as the result of doing the steps. It takes time and work, and doesn't just come from making a conscious decision. If it did, we wouldn't need help. We could just say, "You know what, drinking always ends up being a bad decision. So I'm not going to drink any more." And that would be it.

I'd say for me personally, that came around the 90 day sober point. I had just enough sobriety to realize I didn't want to go back to the way I was.

That being said, there have been several times in my sobriety where I have had to make a conscious decision to not drink. I've had to go back to basics and think about what drinking was like and why I went to AA to begin with. So even though most of the time it's not an issue and I just consider myself someone who doesn't drink, I can't honestly say to myself that I never will pick up a drink again. I don't plan to though, and I haven't found a good enough reason to so far. But the reason I got to that place is by examining myself, letting go, cleaning up my side of the street, and focusing on being the kind of person I can be happy with - in other words, doing the steps. It's weird, because after a while, I realized it's not really got much to do with alcohol.

Joe Nerv

AA didn't work for me the way it works for most. At least in the beginning. I realized many years after getting sober, that getting sober wasn't really my intent. I just wanted to stop hurting, and I was convinced that the only way to do that was by putting down the drink. And then accepting the program of recovery that AA had to offer.

The first step was something I couldn't swallow however. My life was unmanageable, without a doubt, but I didn't want to quit for life, and I just couldn't bring myself to believe I was powerless over an inanimate object. It didn't make sense to me.

What did, fortunately, make sense to be was the 3rd step. I believed in a HP so I immediately began praying and begging to it. I listened closely to what people were saying at meetings regarding the 3rd step and I did all I could to apply the things they said to my life.

I lived my first year a day at time, stating many times that I'll drink tomorrow if I still feel as I do today. At a certain point, I turned that into I'll drink after a year. I never picked up. I got into all the steps, and had a lot of experiences along the way that cemented my sobriety into place.

What I'm basically saying is, if you're struggling with the first step don't knock yourself out. Jump to the third and start doing your best to incorporate that into your life. I believe it's impossible to work a thorough 3rd step, and continue drinking.

I detailed my 1st step experience in my blog, "If only she knew". If you have the time you might want to give it a read.

Turtle82

I didn't. Never drinking again wasn't part of my thought process. Winding up alone for life, a bag lady or raped; rolled and/or dead in some parking lot or on my floor from a blackout I didn't wake up from was... maybe not tomorrow but next year or one sometime later if I didn't get a grip on myself. I accepted the truth that this is a progressive disease. I accepted the truth that this is often not a pretty world and it wasn't going to take care of me. I had to do that.

So a start is what truth are you trying to accept? Where is your focus? Is it on a perceived sacrifice you're making or on saving yourself? DO you love yourself enough to even consider saving yourself? I asked myself what it was I was so afraid of that I would choose to face the certainty of a horrible death if I stayed on the path I was on rather than face whatever it was I was too scared of or too weak to face stone sober. I'm saying, I never thought about not drinking. I thought about staying alive and I thought of that with each morning I awoke and kept reminding myself as I needed to during that day. I decided to be a survivor instead of rolling over and playing dead until I was.

JaneLane

This is a fantastic thread, thank you so much for starting it and for everyone sharing.

I am working on step one with my sponsor and can really relate to Zen's feeling of just not "getting it".

amp123

Thanks for sharing. Interesting reading here...

Db1105

When I finally tried to prove everyone wrong by not drinking, I found out I couldn't. That voice from the bottle was to strong. That's when I knew that I had to follow the program of a Alcoholics Anonymous to beat that beast.

mraouf

Dude, who said you're not going to have drink for the rest of your life?
You're not gonna have a drink "today" only. When tomorrow comes, we'll see about it.

One day at a time brother

I learned from step 1 to stop whining about my problem, and finally start looking for the solution. I could keep whining and try to fight it forever, but what ever I do, it will not change. So maybe I need to change on how I could live with that problem, enjoy life, and be finally happy.

Grungehead

Step one is identifying the problem. Step two is identifying the solution. Step three is making a decision to apply the solution to the problem. The rest of the steps are the process of applying the solution to the problem. It sounds to me like you have identified the problem.

tomsteve

Once more: The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a Higher Power.

sg1970

I'm just going to throw something out there that may help and it may not. I spent my first 3 months trying to figure everything out rather than working the steps like was suggested. I really had a problem with the higher power concept. I was over thinking and over complicating everything. The reality was I didn't need to have everything figured out. You can sit around and think about this stuff all day but action is what's needed.

When I finally got with my sponsor we knocked out 1,2, and 3 in a day. I did 4 within the next month. 5,6, and 7 in a day. At some point I got some major relief from something in there. So much so that I drug my feet on 8 and 9. What I am trying to say is I wasted a lot of time thinking instead of just "doing" and trusting the process. When I started "doing" things got better rapidly from a struggling standpoint. No more obsession and no more white knuckling. No more struggling with the thought that I couldn't ever drink again.