keithj

What Step are you are on? It sounds like a trite answer, but it's the only one I ever found. And maybe you have no interest in AA. If that's the case, then I have no options to offer you. I don't mean to make it sound like early recovery is easy. The days are more characterized by hanging on for dear life to not pick up a drink, than this trigger free bliss some of us talk about.

Hanging on for dear life to not drink requires some hope that you will make it through OK. I don't see how people manage to get through the first few weeks without that hope. Many do, but I just don't get it. A friend of mine says that the period between quitting drinking and starting the steps is the absolute worst time for an alcoholic. That's why he urges getting into the steps right away. I started working the steps with a sponsor the first day I didn't drink. Showed up to meet that sponsor a couple of times, after I had been drinking most of the day. When he gave me that first direction, hell, when he answered the phone, I felt some hope. That, and immediate action, kept me from picking up.

So, that hope was essential for me. Where does that hope come from? Well, it comes from seeing the truth. The truth that I was absolutely hopeless, and life sucked, and it was never going to get any better, and I was just going to go on like this for a very long time with everything getting worse. That hope came with full knowledge of my condition. I simply couldn't go on another day as I had been living.