Weev,
we all know the anything to fix this feeling. feeling.
it is, in a way, the crux of the matter...and drinking doesn't "fix" in a real way.

i had to learn all kinds of new, different ways to be in feelings, or distract from them, or try to get away from.....and in a very real way, i had wanted to get sober so that i COULD feel the real feeling and not "fix" everything by drinking.

I know one, thing. I absolutely don't want to live the life set before me.

not sure what you mean by this...your life in front of you is not written in stone or fated, and what you do today will influence tomorrow, but not determine it.
whatever you see your life set before you to be, you have influence on.

it helps me to remember that feelings, and moods, change. and often, i can change them by actions i take or don't take.
sometimes something as simple as taking the dog out. or changing the radio station.

or, indeed, giving myself the task of making a quick three-item gratitude list in my head.

you only need everything in AA explained to you TWICE?

indeed, something to be grateful for:)

So funny, fini. Thank you for making me laugh.

I think I had a rage because I didn't want to start column 2 of my step 4 resentments. "The cause..."

Feel a bit sheepish now :happysad:

I know these resentments so well and some are years old. I'm just going to press on until the column is finished and hopefully this mood will be gone too.

Hope you're okay?

Thank you for helping. It means so much to me :thanks

if your HP doesnt want to hear the moaning
find one that does. :)

ok,soooo,imm gonna just say what imma readin:
expectations mixed with a weee bit of self pity.

as fini said, ya need everything explained ONLY twice!?! awesome!!!
idk about you, but i learned, and still do, tbrough repetition. back when i was a chitlin, i didnt just magically one day hop up onto my feet and was walkin like crazy. i had to fall and stumble now and then as i learned. but repetition taught me how to walk, which even today, 12 years later. lol ) i still trip and stumble from time to time.


"I'm lonely and want a husband to hold my hand :( actually anything to fix this feeling. "

if i hadda dime for every time i thought a relationship would make me feel better......
i found that the steps and my HP helped fix my feelings.
HOWEVER
i can still get in a rut. best for me to get out of myself and help someone less fortunante


" I don't like the person I am and don't know how to change."

i dont think theres too many drunks who sobered up and liked who they saw.
yes, you DO know how to change.
its in the steps. :)

T.I.M.E.=
Things I Must Earn.

hoestly it reads like a wee bit of impatients going on,too.
not to be confused with INpatients.:18:

4th step promises


When the spiritual malady is overcome, we start to straighten out mentally and physically.
We cannot be helpful to all people but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.
Just to the extent that we do what we think He would have of us and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.
We ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.
In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.
If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson.
We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality.
We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness.
We have begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on the them as sick people.
We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him.

Dearest tomsteve I do love you so.

You made me laugh with the inpatients because I was just thinking rehab is the place for me.

No-one can do self-pity quite like me.

Anyway, my advice to anyone putting off step 4. Don't do it. I mean do it. Now. It's interesting to find some behaviours that start in early life go on to affect all other relationships. Once you know them, then you can change them, no?

Big hugs ts and thank you for your support. :You_Rock_

are you challenging us????:dee

ok, heres something for you to do to help toss that asskikin machine out:

sit down and write out an assets list about you. write out qualities ya have.

you can start with
a sense of humor
kind heart

At times my gratitude list is for things I don't have or haven't happened to me - various illnesses, being impoverished etc.

Mostly, my problems are Cadillac problems and with the right perspective I have untold riches to be so very grateful for. Pride and self pity are first cousins and opposite sides of the same coin.

Poor me , poor me pour me another drink. Hogwash - good or bad this too shall pass. I don't drink.....the rest is just life on life's terms.

Your'e right on track it seem and getting it out WITHOUT DRINKING is the progress part so often heard. Spiritual progress is coming out of the valley still intact (sober).

Something is true, I'm in search of that with a whole heart. It responds, it's working better than my finite conjecture.

Weev, i expected step 4 to be a breeze for me.
i'm introspective, and carried all my resentments and hurts and grudges pretty obviously . .. obvious to me, anyway.

when it came time to write...it was as if i couldn't. which is ridiculous, of course. clearly, i didn't want to, for some reason:)

one of those reasons, i think, was the suspicion that then it would all be starkly clear to me, instead of just a generalized "jaja, there was this, and then they did that, and never ever this, and then that a33hole ..."
and my part? are you kidding??
i thought i knew what my part(s) were, but turns out i didn't, not really, until i sat down and actually wrote, longhand.
i had an old big Account book, and the pages are huge, and "Accounts" seemed like the perfect place to put the step 4 lists.

i steeped in it all a bit longer than advisable, and that was mostly because i couldn't make myself do the list for my exhusband. i finally had to grab the accounting-book and go to a very busy and loud coffee-shop and suddenly page after page flowed from the pen, and i shocked myself with all the "my part" i suddenly saw. wow.
when i snapped the book shut, after the last word, i had an immense relief. it was done.
a burden was lifted, just from finally having done it.

just sharing.

Thanks fini, I've just sat here for 3 hours surfing threads on SR instead of starting column 3. But I have just started. It seems too simple just to tick a box relating to affects my self-esteem, etc. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong.

I identify with being an introvert and having no problem knowing what my grudges are. They're all fresh in my mind even after a long time. I'm surprised there's any room in my head for anything else.

How are you today? I with all my heart you are well. Love Weev

"Thou shalt not renegotiate the terms of surrender" - love it, If!

It was a bit of a shock to me to find that some of the things people said about a HP were true. I didn't think anything could be unknowable by me. I'm glad you've found that relationship too. Wishing you a peaceful day.

introverts unite!!!
seperately
in your own houses. :)

being an introvert is NOT a character defect nor shortcoming
i wouldnt say youre doing it wrong, but it reads like youre using a printed out worksheet?
even then, you could check a box, but do you honestly believe that what ya tick is truth?

You make me grin from ear to ear, Mr tomsteve,

I have this printed sheet with Column 3 tick boxes, 9 of them under 4 headings from the big book. It seems pretty easy to tick 4 or 5 boxes for each resentment.

But I'm not learning anything about myself. So, my self-esteem was affected. I don't seem to have any self-esteem to affect.
Yes, personal relationships were affected but since my only personal relationship is with the Dog and you guys here on SR, it seems irrelevant. Ditto sex: no men. Ditto security since I lost the house, job, etc.

Does that make sense? These resentments are all long gone. Perhaps it'll all become clear in Column 4.

I *am* incredibly angry at myself though and the way my life has gone and it says on p.66 if we want to live we must be anger free.

So I'll tick some more boxes.

Thank you for your help and my kindest wishes to you and yours

one of my favorite passage things from the bb

See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you - until then.

notice Great Fact is capitalized. :)

trudge!?!?!?!?!?:aargh4:

its well worth it, my friend

I suggest grabbing a pencil and pad of paper. Write down "self esteem."

Under it jot a few times your self esteem was harmed, see if you can categorize your situations.

Then take a few minutes to really think about each situation.

Write a paragraph or two or three, just write, don't think now, just write.

Complete paragraphs for each situation.

Put the pad away. Don't read it. Wait.

Tomorrow, take out the pad of paper and read it.

Please wait until tomorrow to read it, see if you have any new insights, tomorrow.

Something happens when we free-flow write and then let it sit......

thanks for asking, Weev, i'm fine.

yeah, i knew what all my grudges were, too, but not til i put pen to paper did i get more understanding about the why's of the grudge.
hm....more accurately: until i wrote down the most honest, truthful thing i knew about the grudge, i was still fooling myself with glossing over the harsh truth about myself.

i had no boxes to tick, so no experience with that.
and i know that if i were to say oh, this affected my self-esteem, that little phrase covered up a lot of fear, and arrogance, and sense of entitlement...those kinds of things.

do it the best you can, now.
you will, i bet, know deep down if the box- ticking route is right for you vs a more lengthy writing out.
when you sit with yourself, deep down you'll know if you're trying to take an easier way.

haha, tomsteve, love the Introverts Unite! separately in our own houses!
thanks for the laugh:)

My experience was that step 4 was simply a fact finding mission, just like a store taking an inventory of what's on their shelves. Step 5 is where most of the "learning" took place for me, just like a store learns from analyzing the results of their inventory. I did see patterns emerge while writing out my 4th step which gave me some clues, but it was doing step 5 with my sponsor where things really became clear for me.

I found this helpful from the 12 and 12; We want to find exactly how, when and where our natural desires have warped us. We wish to look squarely at the unhappiness this has caused others and ourselves. By discovering what are emotional deformities are, we can move toward their correction. Without a willing and persistent effort to do this, there can be little sobriety or contentment for us.

After 35+ years of drinking and brief sobriety I worked on 4th step with guidance from a sponsor. My brain was still very foggy, but I wanted to keep moving. Online templates and forms confused me, though I was sure there was an easier way. After a few daze of this, I simply shredded all of them and but pen to paper one night at 2-3am. I had memorized the 3rd step prayer and my heart was finally opened to doing the best I could at the time.

I am also reminded of this, also from the 12x pg 68 - Only step One, where we made the 100 percent admission we were powerless over alcohol, can be practiced with absolute perfection. The remaining eleven Steps state perfect ideals.

Good for you on doing a 4th step. Many never get this far........

Thanks for sharing the last 2 paragraphs.

Reading them always makes me feel like a million bucks.

Just checking in to let all you good people working the steps know I'm thinking of you with love and grateful that I'm not alone doing my step 4.

Once you let a HP in, things start to happen. I had a major breakthrough in my part of the resentments against my husband after reading To wives and putting myself in the mans place. There's a lot of truth in that chapter and I avoided it at first because it's old-fashioned. I never thought I was so selfish.

Had a calm day, day 60. Head clearer finally.