A Meeting Saved Me From Drinking Tonight
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Michigan
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A Meeting Saved Me From Drinking Tonight
I was very glad I made it to my home meeting tonight. A woman who had 2+ years under her belt arrived very distraught, admitted that she'd had a big slip the night before, and was was pretty much inconsolable.
Her sharing that saved me from buying whiskey tonight, which means I'm going to see Day 7 again. I got blackout drunk on bourbon last Wednesday night before I was supposed to leave for a vacation. Woke up face down on my living room floor 11:30 AM Thursday morning, and hustled to leave, four hours behind schedule. Arrived at my friend's place late that night and made up an excuse about work (he knows I'm an alcoholic and probably knew it was BS, but didn't say anything).
Vacation was uneventful, mostly because 80% of it was spent backpacking and backcountry camping at a National Park in the middle of Lake Superior with no access to alcohol even if I had wanted it. Friend and I did a lot of catching up and offered each other advice (he is openly gay with hostile parents and lives in a conservative small town, and I am now semi-openly alcoholic with a mother who has become a bit of a helicopter since it came out - needless to say, it's an interesting friendship,
).
While on the island, I read a recent book called Being Sober by Dr. Harry Haroutunian, the director of residential programs at the Betty Ford and a recovering alcoholic himself. I came to the realization that Step 3 is where I am stuck, and I asked my sponsor for advice when I got back to a place with cell service. I need to learn to think of Step 3 differently - you're not bowing down before your HP, but simply asking your HP for guidance and help.
Unfortunately, I think being back home in a familiar environment triggered me again this afternoon (which I need to learn to recognize better and do Step 3 prayers when it happens). I had planned on going to that meeting anyway, and I am now very glad that I did. I am safely home, drinking club soda w/ lime and listening to some of my favorite cheesy 80s rock music. Sober life is good tonight. I am also going to pray for the woman who relapsed, as she clearly needs it.
In addition to continuing meetings and private counseling, I have sought the advice of my primary physician for a referral to a psychiatrist for a mental eval, so we can hopefully rule out clinical depression and other stuff, and I can just be an alcoholic who needs to take the program seriously and work the steps daily.
Her sharing that saved me from buying whiskey tonight, which means I'm going to see Day 7 again. I got blackout drunk on bourbon last Wednesday night before I was supposed to leave for a vacation. Woke up face down on my living room floor 11:30 AM Thursday morning, and hustled to leave, four hours behind schedule. Arrived at my friend's place late that night and made up an excuse about work (he knows I'm an alcoholic and probably knew it was BS, but didn't say anything).
Vacation was uneventful, mostly because 80% of it was spent backpacking and backcountry camping at a National Park in the middle of Lake Superior with no access to alcohol even if I had wanted it. Friend and I did a lot of catching up and offered each other advice (he is openly gay with hostile parents and lives in a conservative small town, and I am now semi-openly alcoholic with a mother who has become a bit of a helicopter since it came out - needless to say, it's an interesting friendship,
).While on the island, I read a recent book called Being Sober by Dr. Harry Haroutunian, the director of residential programs at the Betty Ford and a recovering alcoholic himself. I came to the realization that Step 3 is where I am stuck, and I asked my sponsor for advice when I got back to a place with cell service. I need to learn to think of Step 3 differently - you're not bowing down before your HP, but simply asking your HP for guidance and help.
Unfortunately, I think being back home in a familiar environment triggered me again this afternoon (which I need to learn to recognize better and do Step 3 prayers when it happens). I had planned on going to that meeting anyway, and I am now very glad that I did. I am safely home, drinking club soda w/ lime and listening to some of my favorite cheesy 80s rock music. Sober life is good tonight. I am also going to pray for the woman who relapsed, as she clearly needs it.
In addition to continuing meetings and private counseling, I have sought the advice of my primary physician for a referral to a psychiatrist for a mental eval, so we can hopefully rule out clinical depression and other stuff, and I can just be an alcoholic who needs to take the program seriously and work the steps daily.
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 39
Originally Posted by matt4x4 
Good stuff, I got a Q now - What if it was 9pm and there were no other meetings for the day until 8am the next day? I would need a different tool to "save me from drinking tonight"!!!!!
If it happens to be a Saturday, my home group does have a 10 PM Saturday open meeting. I have never gone to one, partly because they have 6 PM meetings every day and 6:30 AM meetings on M-W-F. Also in part because I suspect it might be a meeting that a lot of active alcoholics get dragged to by their loved ones, and I don't really want any part of that drama at this point in my own recovery attempt. Hearing tonight's relapse story was bad enough. I mean, to have over two years, and think you can handle going out with a group of friends for some live music at a bar, and then one thing leads to another and you're draining 22 oz. beers again...sheesh. We really do deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, and powerful.
There is an entire chapter in Dr. Haroutunian's book devoted to relapse, in which he tells a personal story of the time he flew down to Hilton Head to play golf. He'd gone 5 years without a drink, but was thinking about checking out the nightclubs with his golf buddies - his AV was already planning a relapse. The story ended well and in a funny way - he stayed sober when his cabbie, having heard the basics of his life story and his original plans for the night, made a phone call and dropped him off at what the good Dr. thought was a private club, but turned out to be a hastily organized, on-call AA meeting
. However, the takeaway from the story and the chapter is that the decision to relapse is made before the first drink is ever even taken, the drink itself is simply the final act. The process of relapse can be arrested before the drink is taken, if the behaviors, signs, and moods are recognized ahead of time and action is taken to reverse course. These signs and behaviors are most frequently noticed by others in the alcoholics life before the alcoholic sees them.
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
Well stated and true might I add. Alcoholics who are recovered can spot them getting ready to relapse easily. Let's not forget the many who say they want to recover but had their fingers crossed behind their back from day one. However long they believe proves they are now able to "handle it" was determined before they detoxed. And those who just want to get well enough to drink again, until they get sick again.
Day seven is a milestone for all of us. Congrats! Each day makes the next one more likely, if we take care of today.
Day seven is a milestone for all of us. Congrats! Each day makes the next one more likely, if we take care of today.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
Restless, irritable and discontent are the classics, though the bedevilments on (I think) page 52 fit the bill pretty well.
I'm not sure it would occur to me that I was heading in that direction as I would be heading back to having no effective defence against the first drink. Instead I have been proactive in trying to live the AA program on a daily basis, in all my affairs, and that has kept me on an even keel emotionally, and very happy with my life.
On step three, to me it was a simple decision, like deciding to get a drivers license. Just making the decision does not make it so. The first thing to do, having decided to get a drivers license, is to learn to drive. The first thing to do having made the third step decision, is to take inventory. There are a number of other steps after that that ultimately lead to a faith that works on a daily basis. Step four is the first action resulting from step three.
Hope that helps.
I'm not sure it would occur to me that I was heading in that direction as I would be heading back to having no effective defence against the first drink. Instead I have been proactive in trying to live the AA program on a daily basis, in all my affairs, and that has kept me on an even keel emotionally, and very happy with my life.
On step three, to me it was a simple decision, like deciding to get a drivers license. Just making the decision does not make it so. The first thing to do, having decided to get a drivers license, is to learn to drive. The first thing to do having made the third step decision, is to take inventory. There are a number of other steps after that that ultimately lead to a faith that works on a daily basis. Step four is the first action resulting from step three.
Hope that helps.
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 39
I'm just here to report that I farked up anyway, regardless of the actions I took in the past 48 hours. I'm back on Day 0, and because I am still semi-drunk, I don't regret it yet. Once the bottle of bourbon is gone, and I come down to my hangover, I know I will. Regardless, here is my past 24 hours in the hopes it will help someone, or help someone else give advice to me:
I went to a new counseling clinic tonight (now last night, since it's after 5 AM and I've been drinking, playing video games, and surfing the Internet since 7 PM - yes, I know I am cross-addicted to the Internet). This one was recommended by my primary physician rather than my temporary counselor at my rehab facility back in May (both of whom I respect, but obviously no human power can relieve our alcoholism). I wanted a full psych eval because I think I might be clinically depressed, however the new clinic won't let you see one of their shrinks until you've done an initial session and established a regular rapport with one of their psychotherapists. I think that's very smart, since they are only LP or LLP counselors and can't prescribe. I liked this new counselor, she asked me about my attitude to meds, and I honestly told her, "I don't want them if they won't help or might be habit-forming. I don't want to replace alcohol with pill-popping. I just want to be a normal, sane individual." I told her (truthfully) that after the acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms from my two ER trips ended, I had flushed my remaining lorazepam (generic Ativan) and chlordiazepoxide (generic Librium) pills down the toilet. She understood and agreed. She also understood that my relationship with my current counselor has become more of a "secondary sponsor" relationship where we focus on discussing my issues with the 12 Steps, and less emotional/mental talk and eval. However, she insisted that I have to choose, because seeing two counselors will lead to conflicting messages. With 28 years under his own belt, the first guy is of the belief that one can eventually call oneself a "recovered" alcoholic (with reservations), while she (not an addict) and I are in agreement that recovery is constant, life-long, and we are always "recovering" (she has seen and heard of a number of people with 5+ years who relapse). I see my guy in a suburb we will call "C-ton" (Fellow Detroiters will probably know where I'm talking about) on Monday night, and I am going to lay down the emotional/depression/mental stuff for him, and we'll go from there. I believe they have a psychiatrist on staff there as well, so perhaps I just need to be more honest with the original counselor to shift away from the quasi-Step meeting format into an actual mental state eval and we'll go from there. However, C-ton is a much longer drive from my current home now, so it may be wiser to make the switch while staying on good terms with the first guy.
She told me a story that she'd worked with a guy who was in his mid-30s. Drank alcoholically for 10 years, often reeked of vodka during his sessions. Finally saw the light, did rehab and AA, only to die in his sleep after a couple of months because he'd already pickled his organs beyond self-repair. Ugh. I made it clear that she doesn't have to scare me - I hold a Masters degree and my academic ego had already done the research (I believe this is true for a lot of "high-functioning" addicts - we love to know exactly how our drug of choice works and affects our bodies, it's part of the ritualistic process). The bad news is that constant heavy drinking affects every organ in the body; the liver clogs with fat converted from alcohol sugars, eventually swells to hepatitis, and a period of continued drinking later (could be months or could be years, it's highly genetic and also seems to take much longer for men) scars to irreversible cirrhosis. At that point, the portal vein is so hypertensive that its tributary capillaries swell and often burst, so if the liver doesn't fail first, then the alcoholic bleeds to death through their esophagus and stomach. If neither of those kill you, the pancreas swells (eventually chronically) and often develops cancer, the heart and nervous system become so overactive that they eventually fail, the brain literally rewires its dopamine and seratonin reward pathways to cause depression when alcohol isn't present, and then literally rots (causing holes in the brain) if drinking is resumed/continued for long periods, etc. leading to the phenomenon commonly known as "wet brain" even when an individual is sober. Therapist says, "Good. Maybe you'll be teaching this to others someday." I laugh and say, "God willing."
The thing is, I knew all that for over a year, and none of it scared me into attempting recovery until this past May. She expertly sensed that I was angry at life in general (at a smoldering level), and I agreed. After leaving the session, I promptly went to the store (as I had planned for hours before) and bought $50 worth of booze. It has become my frenemy - I love and hate it.
I'll give it the weekend and Monday's session in Clarkston, but I think this decision has already been made. I can get Step 12 advice from meetings and my sponsor, and the new counselor is much closer to home and has a different, non-addict perspective.
As for my sponsor, I think a change might be in order. We mostly speak via text, and I feel that he's available less frequently than will be needed in my second honest attempt at 90 days, which will begin Sunday, since I drank after midnight tonight.
I went to a new counseling clinic tonight (now last night, since it's after 5 AM and I've been drinking, playing video games, and surfing the Internet since 7 PM - yes, I know I am cross-addicted to the Internet). This one was recommended by my primary physician rather than my temporary counselor at my rehab facility back in May (both of whom I respect, but obviously no human power can relieve our alcoholism). I wanted a full psych eval because I think I might be clinically depressed, however the new clinic won't let you see one of their shrinks until you've done an initial session and established a regular rapport with one of their psychotherapists. I think that's very smart, since they are only LP or LLP counselors and can't prescribe. I liked this new counselor, she asked me about my attitude to meds, and I honestly told her, "I don't want them if they won't help or might be habit-forming. I don't want to replace alcohol with pill-popping. I just want to be a normal, sane individual." I told her (truthfully) that after the acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms from my two ER trips ended, I had flushed my remaining lorazepam (generic Ativan) and chlordiazepoxide (generic Librium) pills down the toilet. She understood and agreed. She also understood that my relationship with my current counselor has become more of a "secondary sponsor" relationship where we focus on discussing my issues with the 12 Steps, and less emotional/mental talk and eval. However, she insisted that I have to choose, because seeing two counselors will lead to conflicting messages. With 28 years under his own belt, the first guy is of the belief that one can eventually call oneself a "recovered" alcoholic (with reservations), while she (not an addict) and I are in agreement that recovery is constant, life-long, and we are always "recovering" (she has seen and heard of a number of people with 5+ years who relapse). I see my guy in a suburb we will call "C-ton" (Fellow Detroiters will probably know where I'm talking about) on Monday night, and I am going to lay down the emotional/depression/mental stuff for him, and we'll go from there. I believe they have a psychiatrist on staff there as well, so perhaps I just need to be more honest with the original counselor to shift away from the quasi-Step meeting format into an actual mental state eval and we'll go from there. However, C-ton is a much longer drive from my current home now, so it may be wiser to make the switch while staying on good terms with the first guy.
She told me a story that she'd worked with a guy who was in his mid-30s. Drank alcoholically for 10 years, often reeked of vodka during his sessions. Finally saw the light, did rehab and AA, only to die in his sleep after a couple of months because he'd already pickled his organs beyond self-repair. Ugh. I made it clear that she doesn't have to scare me - I hold a Masters degree and my academic ego had already done the research (I believe this is true for a lot of "high-functioning" addicts - we love to know exactly how our drug of choice works and affects our bodies, it's part of the ritualistic process). The bad news is that constant heavy drinking affects every organ in the body; the liver clogs with fat converted from alcohol sugars, eventually swells to hepatitis, and a period of continued drinking later (could be months or could be years, it's highly genetic and also seems to take much longer for men) scars to irreversible cirrhosis. At that point, the portal vein is so hypertensive that its tributary capillaries swell and often burst, so if the liver doesn't fail first, then the alcoholic bleeds to death through their esophagus and stomach. If neither of those kill you, the pancreas swells (eventually chronically) and often develops cancer, the heart and nervous system become so overactive that they eventually fail, the brain literally rewires its dopamine and seratonin reward pathways to cause depression when alcohol isn't present, and then literally rots (causing holes in the brain) if drinking is resumed/continued for long periods, etc. leading to the phenomenon commonly known as "wet brain" even when an individual is sober. Therapist says, "Good. Maybe you'll be teaching this to others someday." I laugh and say, "God willing."
The thing is, I knew all that for over a year, and none of it scared me into attempting recovery until this past May. She expertly sensed that I was angry at life in general (at a smoldering level), and I agreed. After leaving the session, I promptly went to the store (as I had planned for hours before) and bought $50 worth of booze. It has become my frenemy - I love and hate it.
I'll give it the weekend and Monday's session in Clarkston, but I think this decision has already been made. I can get Step 12 advice from meetings and my sponsor, and the new counselor is much closer to home and has a different, non-addict perspective.
As for my sponsor, I think a change might be in order. We mostly speak via text, and I feel that he's available less frequently than will be needed in my second honest attempt at 90 days, which will begin Sunday, since I drank after midnight tonight.
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: C.C. Ma.
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Originally Posted by matt4x4
Good stuff, I got a Q now - What if it was 9pm and there were no other meetings for the day until 8am the next day? I would need a different tool to "save me from drinking tonight"!!!!!
GOOD question Matt. I think that since I became sober some basic truisms have been forgotten and being simple they are overlooked.
CALL OR SEE your sponsor, that’s why we have em! Just don’t have the first drink so we don’t have to try to get sober AGAIN, ASK FOR HELP even if we don’t believe in it. Eat a quart of high test ice cream, and stop think about drinking, think about not drinking. Those are all things that work IF WE WORK THEM!
BE WELL
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Michigan
Posts: 39
I went to that 8 AM meeting, which is actually held at a Catholic church that my parents and I used to attend when I was a teenager. The familiar setting helped put me at ease, despite never having attended that particular meeting or been to that church in probably a decade. Nothing has changed, building-wise. :p
It was a BB Meeting, and we ironically read pages 40-43. Very poignant for a guy who is once again on Day 0. I had no defense against the first drink last night. I just said (excuse me) "**** it all!" and did some drinking.
However, I found my way to that meeting this morning and back to the halls of AA. Even got a referral to Step study meetings at my former rehab clinic that start on Thursday evenings in September. So I did the next right thing for now.
It was a BB Meeting, and we ironically read pages 40-43. Very poignant for a guy who is once again on Day 0. I had no defense against the first drink last night. I just said (excuse me) "**** it all!" and did some drinking.
However, I found my way to that meeting this morning and back to the halls of AA. Even got a referral to Step study meetings at my former rehab clinic that start on Thursday evenings in September. So I did the next right thing for now.
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
good on ya!!!
ya know, I recall the many times sayin f-it. that was long before I got into AA.
now it can be the simplest way for me to perform the 3rd step prayer. 'f-it- its yours!"
you mention step 3 is where yer stuck, but im thinkin with a sponsor to guide ya through the steps using the big book will help.
this is how I look at step 3:
my will is my thoughts my life is my actions. I am turning them over to the care of god. doesn't men he has them. just in his care.
the the 1st part of the step-:made a decision- to turn it over and continue with the rest of the steps. by turning my will and life over I was able to continue through the steps.
but without the 1st step there was no chance of recovery.
keep comin back! it works if ya work it so work it yer worth it!
ya know, I recall the many times sayin f-it. that was long before I got into AA.
now it can be the simplest way for me to perform the 3rd step prayer. 'f-it- its yours!"
you mention step 3 is where yer stuck, but im thinkin with a sponsor to guide ya through the steps using the big book will help.
this is how I look at step 3:
my will is my thoughts my life is my actions. I am turning them over to the care of god. doesn't men he has them. just in his care.
the the 1st part of the step-:made a decision- to turn it over and continue with the rest of the steps. by turning my will and life over I was able to continue through the steps.
but without the 1st step there was no chance of recovery.
keep comin back! it works if ya work it so work it yer worth it!
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
Originally Posted by leviathan
Ive heard this a couple times now. What are the recognisable signs that other alcs pick up on?
I could narrow it down to Easing God Out. ive heard many,many times from peopel comin back:" I stopped praying."
those things have gotten me close to a drink.
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