Originally Posted by
773niki 
Hi friends,
I'm 111 days sober - yay! I embraced AA this time around and did 90 meetings in 90 days and got a sponsor and had a very firm program in place because I've tried for YEARS to get sober on my own and it never worked.
Once I completed my 90, I felt incredible. I never thought I could do it because I started out not liking meetings and I didn't even like AA. But it grew on me. Today marks my longest sobriety time since I was probably 13 and I'm 31. I still feel amazing and don't want or think about drinking, but I'm making up excuses - I haven't been to a meeting in a week! My therapist says I'm flirting with a relapse. Self-sabatoge.
I just am having problems getting back into the swing of things. I'm also unemployed (my job laid me off due to my alcoholism hospitalization) and I'm just kinda in a rut. I know I have to go but I'm getting this mentality that I'm not thinking about drinking so who cares - I don't have to go, but I KNOW this is a mid set that needs to be proactively dealt with. I know that answer to my issue - just wondering if anyone else feels this way...
Awesome to hear about your success with sobriety.
The amazing feelings that come with recovery are just that: feelings. Since there are many ways to become and stay sober and abstinent from alcohol, and all of these ways none of them can prevent any body from feeling kinda in a rut with their mentality, I would look to myself before I would look at taking apart what was working for me.
Recovery is a journey of sorts, with distinct events, accomplishments, achievements, and challenges. Living without alcohol is itself a huge change, and often enough in the early times, more changes in how we live must be created if we are to be happy with our new lives.
Eventually these changes have more to do with our quality of life and less to do with our past drinking. Eventually we make decisions based on a life without alcohol, and so in this way, our recovery becomes a foundation to build our lives upon, and less a survival tool to quit, since we have already done that - quit alcohol.
AA for me was and is just another way to get what I wanted - freedom from alcohol. AVRT, same thing - a skill set used to aid me being me without alcohol. I'm not one to say this or that saved me, or without this or that, I'm screwed, or floundering, or stuck.
Neither my use of AA or AVRT is responsible for my choices on what is a quality life for me without alcohol. All of the quality issues are of my own making. The buck stops with me.
I suggest having a realization that success comes with responsibility of sustaining that same success. New challenges will arise. New issues will present. New ideas will come to mind. New understandings and feelings will also be a desired place to be I'm sure, going forward.
Do whatever is right for YOU.