ananda,
since day one, i have participated in online forum, at first solely in Lifering, and years later here.
i did a lot of reading, of "theory" but mostly personal stories of the diverse ways people got and stayed sober.
such as Sober For Good, and Marty Nicolaus' book "Recovery by Choice" was hugely useful to me, and right up my alley, though i did not ever do the written exercises; i just ruminated about it all along the lines of his questions.
i joined a LR meeting, since there was one in my town, and i kept going back with enthusiasm, even though originally i had decided this would be a one-time thing, just to make myself do it, because i sure didn't want to, and knew there would be value in doing it exactly for that reason.
i later started another meeting with a sober buddy of mine.
throughout all this, i developed a more open mind. what i mean by that is that when people expressed concepts to me about alcoholism which contradicted my convictions but seemed to "speak to" me somehow, or resonate somewhere inside, i purposely stopped and looked. a lot of this was grudgingly done . this is where open-mindedness came in.
i found that as far as my drinking and alcoholism, my beliefs and my experiences often didn't match.
this was a very challenging process for me, upshot being i had to (well no, i chose to) look more deeply and honestly at my experiences and what i and it had been like...and all this, years later, led me to understand the benefits of the 12-step program, so that is where i went next.
i could have never gone there first.
yes, an individual journey, with tons of other people
