Woman & Sobriety!

[kelsh]

When I first sobered up we had one woman's group with about ten members. We all went to the evening meetings also. Our woman's meeting met every Monday at 11AM. I took my lunch hour early so I could go. It wasn't near as scary at first & of course there....we could talk about woman issues with getting sober.

We live in a small rural community so was surprised we had so many woman. One lady was a judges's wife with many years of sobriety. We were from all walks of life. At that time just a few of us worked. I worked at Senior Chore Service because I needed to work part time. Another worked for the Forest Service. One lady was retired. Then some didn't work.

All of those ladies, including myself, are still sober and I do have 19 years of sobriety now. It seemed impossible to me to get more than a year sober but when I learned that I didn't have to think about staying sober for ever but just One Day At A Time, it was easier to put everything into prospective.

I also had Chronic Depression but my counselor said that he needed to wait six months after my last drink to diagnose the depression. That was a big mistake...he knew that I had been treated for depression since a teen and that my depression was worse with the alcohol but I almost ended it all before I was admitted to a psyc-unit and diagnosed with Major Clinical Depression....the worst that this psychiatrist had seen in years after I did the MMPI test.

The Pdoc also said that the amount of AD I was on might as well have been an asprin for all the help I was getting. He put me on a theraputic dose and I saw him every day for nine days, before my insurance ran out and I had to go home. So then I was getting counseling for my alcoholism and depression from different counselors at the same time. That is what worked for me. Then I also attended many AA meetings for the first year. Most meetings I listened unless I had that "GUT" feeling that I needed to respond to the topic of the meeting.

I wanted to be sober more than anything else in my life and I took it seriously this time around. I had had a 14 year relapse after my first try of sobering up. Not too
good a track record.

Thank you for those of you that read this long post.

Retiredmom_oldwoman

[CarolD]

Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

Congratulations on your sober years

[51anna]

I have found a great bond with many wonderful women since I became sober.

I hope you keep posting.

[indigo]

Wow that's inspiring, you've overcome so much. Welcome and congratulations on your sober time and on finding us! Hope you'll keep posting.