Alright Rob
I'm in AA too, been working the steps with my sponsor...the feelings thing is weird isn't it?! There was a route to bar everytime i had a feeling before, now it is getting an understanding of why i am feeling like that and attributing it to something like learning how to live really.
Good money and strippers huh?! Mine was in london when i was about your age, wasn't even about the dances in the end...i rememeber asking a stripper for advice on the direction my life was heading a few times...some of them were nice actually but probably not who i should have been asking...VIP areas, casinos etc...yeah great times! Sometimes ended up in dingy brothels paying for the time to have another drink and not wanting to do anything...crazy!! Don't know whether you had someone to go with but i always ended up with this australian guy in awful places!
I'm 38 now, just got in a couple of months ago...finally got to the point where i was willing to do anything...working the steps has 'got rid' of a lot of the stuff i used to feel when i was trying to stop by myself like the massive failure bit, amazingly that has gone...i guess i am getting more of an understanding of how lucky i am to have this opportunity as i learn more about the real life effects of this disease. I call it a disease (call it mental illness whatever) because the things i did when drinking i simply would not do sober, and im not just referring to being drunk, i mean the days in between too...so it's pretty clear that it wasn't the real me who was doing all this stuff and living like that, making the decisions i made...i don't know about you but i doubt whether i'll be back at the strip clubs sipping a diet coke after an AA meeting...or jacking in good jobs and doing geographicals every friggin year?!
Keep working on it man, i'll do the same...
Cliff