madscientist

Thanks all for the continued welcomes, it is much appreciated.

I'm still trying to process everything surrounding going to meetings. Haven't quite gotten myself to go, though I was pretty close tonight. I know logically that everyone there is there for the same general reason.

I'm having a hard time getting myself to really recognize the fact that this has become a problem I guess. Going to a meeting, or really telling anyone but a few very close friends and posting here all seem like I'm putting on some neon sign advertising the fact that I have a problem.

I know that part probably doesn't make sense, heck it doesn't even really make sense logically to me and I wrote it.

CarolD

Hmmm...
I left my 1st meeting at half time

"Geez! who are these people?
I am not that sick!!"

Caught a cab and went to a bar.
3 years later I crept into a meeting.

My mind was saturated with booze
I could bo longer think rationally.
Yes...now I was ready for recovery.

You will meet members just like we are here.
And you too can walk away into insanity.

snowgoose

Yes, MadSci, you are among people who understand this as we've all been there. Arg, it was an awful feeling to be a respected professional who had fallen as far as to be an alcoholic. And to think that maybe others in my smallish community didn't know it (in fact they did not except for a few exceptionally perceptive folks; I was a closet drinker and covered the damage with makeup) would now know that I wasn't just an alcoholic but a WOMAN alcoholic, which certain vocal people with small minds in my hometown thought was particularly horrible.

Yes, my anonymity was broken at the institution where I worked by the wife of an alcoholic who had been taken to a meeting. But basically I acquired a group of especially nice friends via AA. And even more than that, I had a reason to practice an extremely effective way of life that I would not have otherwise been exposed to. I used to wonder why people in meetings would say that they were grateful to be alcoholics. Well, that's the reason, we get to practice this program. I can't imagine that we would do it unless we had to and then there are all these "gifts" of learning how to live life, learning things that used to elude us.

Now I always hope that the right people know that I go to AA because if they do, they'll know who to come to when they need the help. And I am proud of my accomplishment of staying sober One Day at a Time for a number of years.

Blessings from the Snowgoose.