choice
AA and recovery is a gritty subject and one that DEMANDS to be discussed and turned over and over and looked at from every angle. By ALL MEANS POST, there are as many types and views in AA as there are bars and booze and reasons that we drank!
I really believe that AA is a living and growing fellowship, and it is when we quit asking and thinking that we may as well go back to drinking. After all wasn't the stagnant non-productive world where we lived when we were drowning in the bottle.
Thanks for making me examine my views on choice. After all, it was still my CHOICE to respond.
Thanks again,
Jon
I really believe that AA is a living and growing fellowship, and it is when we quit asking and thinking that we may as well go back to drinking. After all wasn't the stagnant non-productive world where we lived when we were drowning in the bottle.
Thanks for making me examine my views on choice. After all, it was still my CHOICE to respond.
Thanks again,
Jon
The way I understand the power of choice. In living the steps we have a temporary relief from evil depending on our spiritual conditioning. We turn our lives over to our God to run our will and our life. Step 3 = We turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him. In my opinion step 3 is the key to the choice's we make. Aren't we serving our own will, if we are making the choices.
My belief's are that you would have to turn your back on God and the steps, in order to have a choice.
Yo RUFUS what's *******, GO COLTS!! alabama_________. fill in the ????????
My belief's are that you would have to turn your back on God and the steps, in order to have a choice.
Yo RUFUS what's *******, GO COLTS!! alabama_________. fill in the ????????
I belong to a program, that has been around for over 30 years, it is a self help, empowering program for women.
We believe we have choice in all things, our attitude, our actions and picking up that first drink.
Many women grew up with little or no self esteem or self confidence and the reason this program resonates with so many of us, 7000 online members, is that we are empowered to take charge of our lives, and recognise that we have total and absolute choice....until we choose to pick up that first drink.
I love being in recovery, I have moved towns, gone back to school, bought a new house, got my dream job, I have many new hobbies and activities....I was proactive in my own recovery, I needed to be.
To each their own, do what works for you, there is no "one size fits all" program out there.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-programs.html
Seren
We believe we have choice in all things, our attitude, our actions and picking up that first drink.
Many women grew up with little or no self esteem or self confidence and the reason this program resonates with so many of us, 7000 online members, is that we are empowered to take charge of our lives, and recognise that we have total and absolute choice....until we choose to pick up that first drink.
I love being in recovery, I have moved towns, gone back to school, bought a new house, got my dream job, I have many new hobbies and activities....I was proactive in my own recovery, I needed to be.
To each their own, do what works for you, there is no "one size fits all" program out there.
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-programs.html
Seren
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
Today thanks to AA and the steps I have a choice, the obsession has been lifted, if I decide I wish to return to the bowels of hell I will make a choice and pick up a drink, today I do have the ability to choose.
Once I decide to drink that drink is when I will once again rapidly walk through the gates of hell and once again lose the ability to choose whether or not to have a drink or not, for you see I am one of those alcoholics they speak of in the BB, I have a physical allergy that is kicked off by that first drink which leads straight to a mental obsession for alcohol, which will quickly led to a physical requirement that I drink in order to maintain any sort of a feeling of normalcy to my insanity!
Choices, Choices
I don't know much about AA so I don't know what they say about choices. I do know that being sober for over a month was a choice for me. I know that being an alcoholic for years before that was a choice for me, a bad one, but it was my choice. Being sober, I chose to stay busy, work out, go to church, get support from my friends and online groups such as this. If I were to pick up a shot of whiskey right now that would be my choice too. All-be-it, a stupid choice, but my choice. And once we make a choice and act on it, it becomes a reprocution which we have to deal with in one way or another. For every decision, or choice, that we make, there are reprocutions that we must face as well. I don't know, that's about all the sense I can make out of this "choices" discussion. Hope I got close to the purpose of it. lol
I have a friend..has struggled for years with alcoholism. Well educated, made a lot of money - just kept choosing to drink I guess. Lost the job, lost his wife. I saw him at my uncles funeral last October. He was living in a rehab facility down here in SoCal. He didn't really want to talk about the steps or recovery - but he was 6 months sober for the first time in a long time. Got a small job and had moved into a sober house with some guys from the rehab... There was a lot of drinking at the funeral and he was VERY uncomfortable around it. I, having a little more time than he (like 2 months more) could not relate - the alcohol did not bother me at all. I had just finished up my fourth step and would be taking the fifth up return to SoCal (the funeral was out of state).
He took my number and said he would call - I had expressed that I knew a meeting right near where he was living which I thought was particularly strong (lots of recovery and active folk). He said he had a meeting that he liked which conflicted with the one I mentioned (did not invite me to it) but he would call me to make an exception one night and go with me to my weekly meeting.
I got a call this past Monday that they found his body hanged to death in a motel room in San Francisco. He knew how bad his alcoholism was- had almost died of it last time he drank when I saw him.
I wonder why he chose to drink when he knew it probably meant death. Maybe he didn't have a choice and the pain was just too much to take anymore - he had nothing but human power to rely on, God had not removed the problem for him.
Keep on choosing not to drink, not only is it a miserable way to live - I believe (through my experience) that there are alcoholics who absolutely had no choice to drink, and that God removes the choice to do it again through the twelve steps.
It's sitting right there if you want it.
He took my number and said he would call - I had expressed that I knew a meeting right near where he was living which I thought was particularly strong (lots of recovery and active folk). He said he had a meeting that he liked which conflicted with the one I mentioned (did not invite me to it) but he would call me to make an exception one night and go with me to my weekly meeting.
I got a call this past Monday that they found his body hanged to death in a motel room in San Francisco. He knew how bad his alcoholism was- had almost died of it last time he drank when I saw him.
I wonder why he chose to drink when he knew it probably meant death. Maybe he didn't have a choice and the pain was just too much to take anymore - he had nothing but human power to rely on, God had not removed the problem for him.
Keep on choosing not to drink, not only is it a miserable way to live - I believe (through my experience) that there are alcoholics who absolutely had no choice to drink, and that God removes the choice to do it again through the twelve steps.
It's sitting right there if you want it.
I’ve made the choice to quit drinking many many times. Then why did I keep drinking? Weak? Selfish? Insane? All I know is that it wasn’t until I accepted that I am an alcoholic & I made the decision to do whatever it takes that I had any hope at all of following through on that choice.
Once I pick up that first drink, my choice has been taken away. The craving and compulsion will kick in and I'm off to the races. I choose to turn my will and my life over to the care of God and I have not taken a drink since. For this hopeless alcoholic, did I just get lucky and finally discover will power after 25 years of drinking? I think not? I quit trying to do it my way and found sobriety.
To each their own, some need the "higher power" way of going about sobriety, others seem to get on just as well using self empowerment and self responsibility.
I take the "pray by all means, but do row for the shore" approach.
The whole point, I think, is having a healthy and fulfilling sobriety, and keeping self righteousness down to a dull roar.
I take the "pray by all means, but do row for the shore" approach.
The whole point, I think, is having a healthy and fulfilling sobriety, and keeping self righteousness down to a dull roar.
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