Okay. Tough talking BB at your service seeing as you state that's what you want...
I don't think the 'fighting ' talk is disturbing. Although it does make me sigh and perhaps do a little eye roll (but it's earlg here in the UK, and Monday, and a heatwave, so perhaps pretty much anything would get an eyeroll at this moment in time). It's more that I think we all felt that way at some point, and then realised that just doesn't work. You're talking about pitching your own self-will against your own self-will. Well, I hate to state the obvious, but Q. What part of yourself do you think drags us back down the drinking route when our AV kicks in? A. Our self-will. Like 2 equally matched arm wrestlers locked in long-term combat, too-ing and fro-ing, trying to 'fight' it like that is just exhausting. And when we're exhausted, what do we give in to?
You are no different to any of us. And alcoholism is not just physical. If the problem is not just physical its no good just having physical solutions. We need to change our thinking as well. I know plenty of people who came into the rooms and left saying it didn't work for them, only to come back when they'd tried other ways for a while and after being back out there were ready somehow. AA doesn not stop us drinking, or even shut the AV up. What it does, if we engage in the 12-step program of recovery, help us understand where our thinking was faulty and change that faulty perspective so that we can change. And that is what we need to do. We dont really drink because of x, y, or z. Those things are just excuses. We feel pain. We drink. We do and say stupid stuff to hurt others and ourselves and put ourselves in more pain, so we drink... and that can go on and on til we die. Or we can recognise that we need to change the way we deal with stuff. I strongly believe that AA meetings without actually working the recovery program has limited value. And besides, there are plenty of ways of making your own plan apart from AA that extend beyond ginger beer and exercise.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...y-plans-1.html
We don't have to WANT to do this stuff. Willingness is much more important than desire. And Acceptance is more useful than any fighting talk. It could be time to leave your ego at the door and start taking some quiet, low key responsibility for yourself. Stirring up a bunch of melodrama in our head focussing on the problem under the guise of 'fighting it' is often a great way of procrastinating so we don't have to engage in the solution. Especially seeing as its not top of any newly sober alcoholics list of fun things to do. No one wants to go to those first meetings as a newcomer, or take suggestions from people who we thought probably never really had drinking problems like ours to start off with (I mean, how could they? Look at them all sitting there, recovered, calm and happy!) And I've never heard anyone say that they wanted to go to rehab. Or want to go talk to their doctor or consult an addictions therapist.
What you have been doing has not worked this far, and if nothing changes then nothing will change. It is insanity to repeat the same actions and expect different results. You've obviously convinced yourself that AA won't work for you because you left before wanting a drink. But presumably without AA meetings you still wanted to drink, because that's what you did. Why not go back and actually try working the program. Just meetings is like trying to balance on only one leg of a stool. Nowhere in the Big Book does it say that meetings are the program. I know that I exhausted myself with all the fighting nonsense for far too long. I also did the one-leg-of-the-stool balancing act at AA for far to long, complaining that it wasn't working for me and it must because I'm so different (read special) to everyone else.
What would you rather be in this gale ? A big old tree that can come crashing down, or a soft supple reed that bends in the wind and at the end might be a little battered but can recover and grow strong again? Strength doesn't always look how you might expect it to look. I have found more strength in Acceptance, Willingness, Humility and Integrity than I ever found with my blustering old fighting bull-talk.
I wish you all the best for your sobriety and recovery. BB
How it works..."If you have decided that you want what we have (sobriety, manageable life and relationships, waking up without shame or anxiety) and are
willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps (do the work on your recovery, even if you don't really
want to do it).
At some of these we balked. We thought that we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas (sound familiar?) and the result was nil until we let go absolutely (letting ho is acceptance, not all this 'fighting' melodrama).
Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us (but luckily there's plenty of help available, we just have to supply that willingness). ...
Half measures availed us nothing (half measures would be, for example, a recovery program based on ginger beer and exercise - by the way, let me guess, you probably
like ginger beer and exercise right?). We stood at the turning point...."
Are you at the turning point yet? Or are you just going to keep floundering down the same old road, using all your energy wrestling with yourself and becoming increasingly frustrated with yourself and who you are?