I never made any progress stopping the merry go round by myself.
Remember the merry go round? The actual one on the playground?
The big, heavy, steel merry go round? We could get it going all by ourselves. It took a while. We had to get that momentum up. Our little bodies weren't strong enough to push it very fast. But once it got rotating, we found it took less and less effort to get it going faster. We were THRILLED!!!
Oh, how fast could we make it go!! THE POWER!! THE EXHILARATION!!!
And then we'd jump onto it.... we'd become dizzy with it's power and overwhelming fun!! Maybe we'd hop back off again and push it some more as it slowed down. Faster, faster, FASTER!!!
But then at some point we became scared. The dizzy was no longer fun, it was overpowering. We felt our grip loosen. We were sure we'd go flying off it. We feared for our safety... for our very lives!!!
MOM!!!! DAD!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!
We found we needed someone else. We needed help. We ourselves got that merry go round whirring madly beyond our ability to get off of it.
We needed a power greater than ourselves to stop that terrifying thing.
This is where AA has been a critical tool in my sobriety.
It gave me the real help that I needed to stop that merry go round, get off it, and stop hopping back on for another terrifying ride.