Thread: Falling Apart
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Old 02-05-2018, 05:55 AM
  # 13 (permalink)  
Gottalife
12 Step Recovered Alcoholic
 
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 6,613
My family offered to have no alcohol in the house when I was newly sober. I declined their generous offer because it was my problem, not theirs. I had already done enough harm to them without interfering with their liesure time.

I learned that what people do around me has no bearing on whether I could recover from alcoholism. People have feet of clay, they will always let you down at some point, hence my reliance on a Higher Power.

But I did find in early sobriety something that surprised me. Not everyone was pleased to see me trying to get well, and even if they were, many were not convinced of my sincerity, some were downright skeptical, so they knocked me around in various subtle and not so subtle ways. I could have got upset about that, complained that they were not giving me my due, but what would that have accomplished? The truth was that I had a pretty big part in making them like that. I learned that they will mostly come round in time if they see a practical demonstration over time that I had changed my ways.

Indirectly you answered my question about treating your alcoholism, and I hope you noticed that my earlier post referred to alcoholics of my type (the hopeless variety). Your answer is if no consequence to me either way, I merely raise it as something for you to consider, an effort to help you find the truth in your situation.

Again, for alcoholics of my type, it is sometimes very difficult to see the reality of a situation. Denial is what its called, but it is not a very fair way to put it when I simply could not see the issue. Truth is the way to break through to reality, and truth, not sympathy, was what saved my life.

When I first got sober I wanted two things, sympathy and someone to tell me what to do every waking moment. I found at meetings where I shared anything with the motive of getting a bit of sympathy, a problem shared became a problem doubled. I also found that people, especially me, don't make good higher powers.

I hope you will forgive me if I seem a little direct, but what I am sharing is the experience that saved my life and led to permanent recovery, not opinion. If you get something out of it, great, that was the idea. If not, no worries.
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