Originally Posted by
Victoria74 
What scares me with aa is to admit to complete strangers that I am a drunk. And what if I am recognized..what if someone from my work is there and the word gets around. i have nothing against aa, maybe I can find a meeting a bit away from where I live. But it annoys the hell out off me that i cannot seem to do this on my own. I am successful at other things I set my mind to, why is this so hard?
Hard is not the same as impossible. Drinking becomes a way of life for many of us, not just an unwanted habit. Everyone who's tried to get sober has struggled, and the fight is very often painful and takes maximum effort. It's not about shame, regret, remorse, or self-loathing. It's about life and death.
If getting sober were easy, everyone would be doing it. Historically, less than 10% of all alcoholics and addicts in the States seek any kind of formal treatment. And only a few of those achieve long-term sobriety. But everyone who finds a way to stay sober is 100% successful at it.
I spent years poking holes in people and ideas that were a threat to my drinking. It's an easy thing to do when we don't want to stop. Everywhere we go, in every group of people, in every possible setting, we're going to find crazies, boors, nut cases and all the rest of it. This reality is not unique to AA.
No matter who or what you see in an AA meeting, no matter how crazy some might seem, no matter how overbearing some people are...each of them has something that people new to sobriety do not have. Everyone who reads this post knows what that its.