farmer

And thank you for posting it. I felt the same way. Twenty years later I am attending AA every chance I get because the meetings work and my method did not.

I drank through all the stages of alcoholism until it started to make me sick physically in each binge. I feel annual physicals have kept me alive. When my liver enzymes became elevated I started to get serious about my disease.

I still had to go to rehab to learn more about my disease and be carted to a meeting every day. Now I go on my own and it is key to my sobriety by making sober friends with the same disease. I can tell on myself there now and get good advice but it took a few weeks to get comfortable. I listened and kept coming back.

Now I would get a phone call if I didn't show up. I have to call my sponsor first before I think about drinking again. I promised him I would on my first meeting. He told me I am helping him stay sober as much as he is helping me. I am starting to see that.

I am puzzled how people can get and stay sober with just AA. It took rehab to get me there. My disease is serious and my thinking is really powerfully screwed up because I ran the show all my life. Now I can't, it didn't work well enough to keep me sober and I am a much better person sober.

I can't say I am totally happy yet but it will take awhile if I ever am. At least I am sober and have a program, something I never had in 40 years of drinking.

We each have to learn our own way or this disease will kill us. I am seeing that more every day. I don't scoff at it anymore like I did all my life.

Oh I can quit anytime I want to. What a lie, I couldn't.