One week today!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Indiana On the river
Posts: 15
One week today!
Well I made it a week! I have only been to one meeting but have been very busy. I just can't get into them. I don't like talking or socializing with people. My attitude has always been "if you don't own a truck, fish or hunt, then we have nothing in common". It's always been "the life in your years not the years in your life" for me. Maybe it's the Taurus in me that has always made me feel at peace in the outdoors. I work to afford time off to do what most would say "I don't have time for". Of course no kids or wife also helps. It seems AA people have a social void that I do not possess. I'm just gonna have to force myself to go.
I having been doing a lot of fishing this last week which I have always enjoyed sober. Next week bow hunting starts and I am planning a 5 day camping trip with my Labs to Hoosier National Forest (no showers, toilets or any facilities). I will be a hour to the nearest liquor store. My neighbor buddy is going to join up with me for the weekend. His dad was an alcoholic and passed away a couple years ago after 20 years of sobriety. I have kind of adopted him since he used to fish and hunt alot with his dad. He drinks but but realizes the dangers and doesn't want it controlling his life.
The anxiety has stopped but headaches are getting worse. My head feels like it's shrinking but it's tolerable. I ready to be one with nature and all that my higher power has created. If hunting offends you please don't make an issue of it here. Wish me luck or yell at me for not getting into AA. I am always open minded.
I having been doing a lot of fishing this last week which I have always enjoyed sober. Next week bow hunting starts and I am planning a 5 day camping trip with my Labs to Hoosier National Forest (no showers, toilets or any facilities). I will be a hour to the nearest liquor store. My neighbor buddy is going to join up with me for the weekend. His dad was an alcoholic and passed away a couple years ago after 20 years of sobriety. I have kind of adopted him since he used to fish and hunt alot with his dad. He drinks but but realizes the dangers and doesn't want it controlling his life.
The anxiety has stopped but headaches are getting worse. My head feels like it's shrinking but it's tolerable. I ready to be one with nature and all that my higher power has created. If hunting offends you please don't make an issue of it here. Wish me luck or yell at me for not getting into AA. I am always open minded.
bona fido dog-lover
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: SF Bay area, CA
Posts: 99,772
I don't know if AA people have a 'social void' or not, I've not noticed that. I don't go to many meetings but do look forward to my home group.
Congratulations on your sober week! Sobriety rocks! It's great to do the things you enjoy clear-headed and safely. Enjoy your sobriety and keep moving forward, one day at a time!
Congratulations on your sober week! Sobriety rocks! It's great to do the things you enjoy clear-headed and safely. Enjoy your sobriety and keep moving forward, one day at a time!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 43
Wow, a week, that's great! Congrats! I love what tennis71 said about a week you never have to do again.
Have a great time on your hunting trip next week. Have you asked your friend who is coming to join you not to bring alcohol with him? Or if not, have you thought about your game plan if he's drinking and you want to join him?
Have a great time on your hunting trip next week. Have you asked your friend who is coming to join you not to bring alcohol with him? Or if not, have you thought about your game plan if he's drinking and you want to join him?
Try lotsa different meetings and find one you like!ever closer...
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Greensboro, NC
Posts: 361
One week down! and maybe one of the hardest weeks ever. We were talking atour AA meeting yesterday about this very topic. There are certainly people in the rooms you would have never been friends with otherwise! But everyone brings something and proves to us time and time again that we are not unique.
Maybe you need to give the meetings a litllte more time before you pass judgement. When I go I just sit and listen, I rarely speak up. At work and in my regular life all I ever seem to do is talk and make decisions and suggestions, in AA I just listen and it is wonderful.
You will find so much serenity in the mountains if you are open for it! Congrats to you on 1 week!!! and keep (start) coming back!!!!
Maybe you need to give the meetings a litllte more time before you pass judgement. When I go I just sit and listen, I rarely speak up. At work and in my regular life all I ever seem to do is talk and make decisions and suggestions, in AA I just listen and it is wonderful.
You will find so much serenity in the mountains if you are open for it! Congrats to you on 1 week!!! and keep (start) coming back!!!!
Forward we go...side by side-Rest In Peace
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Serene In Dixie
Posts: 36,740
Well done on your week sober....
My AA hone group has many outdoorsmen
we have a fish fry twice a year
thanks to their skills. 2 are huntsman
and share their deer kills at our
holiday parties. and trucks?
In the parking lot of our meeting hall
you will see more trucks than cars .
Maybe you should move down South
My AA hone group has many outdoorsmen
we have a fish fry twice a year
thanks to their skills. 2 are huntsman
and share their deer kills at our
holiday parties. and trucks?
In the parking lot of our meeting hall
you will see more trucks than cars .
Maybe you should move down South
Follow Directions!
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Fredericksburg, Va.
Posts: 9,730
First of all congrats on a week, that is awesome.
I had to laugh when I read that, before AA, the last 5 yearsof my drinking, my social life was work and sitting in my garage by myself drinking, alcohol took me away from anything social, I was sitting on the outside of the world looking in. The longer I drank the less I socialized, drinking became far more important than being social, those last 5 years if I could not drink the way I drank I did not go.
Hunting and fishing for me became more about drinking and less about hunting and fishing. The last 5 years of my drinking I drank while hunting, something for many years I had sworn I would never do, but alcohol took me there, my alcoholism led me to beleive that I was special, I could handle a loaded gun while drinking, the amazing thing was I was still getting deer every year. Hunting was my time to drink bourbon, real good bourbon, the kind that comes in plastic bottles that way it did not make noise when taking the top of for a slug of warmth!
When I first got sober it was suggested to me to spend as much time on my recovery as I did drinking. This meant that for the first 4 or 5 months I was going to at least a meeting a day or over at my sponsors house taking the steps. I have now cut my meetings back to 3 a week, sometimes 4 if someone I know is celebrating an anniversary.
As far as a social life goes...... well today I am a part of the world, I live life to its fullest, I do things with my wife and kids, I fish without drinking and actually have started to catch fish again!!! I will be hunting this fall and some how I have a feeling I will be far more successful then just one deer a year, rumor has it that deer are not attracted to the aroma of bourbon!!! LOL
We travel now, the last 5 years I was drinking my family traveled without me, now I am part of my family now. I go to parties with sober AA friends and also go to sporting events with or without AA friends.
My life today revolves around life, not around drinking like it used to.
Meetings are a part of AA recovery, but in reality, the program of AA is geared towards becoming a happy, fully functioning, member of society as a whole.
I did not get sober in AA to spend the rest of my life going to AA meetings, I got sober in AA to live life, I go to meetings for support and to offer to others a new life that was given to me thanks to the program of AA and that life is not in the rooms of AA, but outside of those rooms, in the rooms I learn how to live a happy life outside of the rooms, not inside them. Any body can live a life inside a room full of people not drinking, the program of AA has led me to be able to live a joyous life out side of AA meetings.
It seems AA people have a social void that I do not possess. I'm just gonna have to force myself to go.
Hunting and fishing for me became more about drinking and less about hunting and fishing. The last 5 years of my drinking I drank while hunting, something for many years I had sworn I would never do, but alcohol took me there, my alcoholism led me to beleive that I was special, I could handle a loaded gun while drinking, the amazing thing was I was still getting deer every year. Hunting was my time to drink bourbon, real good bourbon, the kind that comes in plastic bottles that way it did not make noise when taking the top of for a slug of warmth!
When I first got sober it was suggested to me to spend as much time on my recovery as I did drinking. This meant that for the first 4 or 5 months I was going to at least a meeting a day or over at my sponsors house taking the steps. I have now cut my meetings back to 3 a week, sometimes 4 if someone I know is celebrating an anniversary.
As far as a social life goes...... well today I am a part of the world, I live life to its fullest, I do things with my wife and kids, I fish without drinking and actually have started to catch fish again!!! I will be hunting this fall and some how I have a feeling I will be far more successful then just one deer a year, rumor has it that deer are not attracted to the aroma of bourbon!!! LOL
We travel now, the last 5 years I was drinking my family traveled without me, now I am part of my family now. I go to parties with sober AA friends and also go to sporting events with or without AA friends.
My life today revolves around life, not around drinking like it used to.
Meetings are a part of AA recovery, but in reality, the program of AA is geared towards becoming a happy, fully functioning, member of society as a whole.
I did not get sober in AA to spend the rest of my life going to AA meetings, I got sober in AA to live life, I go to meetings for support and to offer to others a new life that was given to me thanks to the program of AA and that life is not in the rooms of AA, but outside of those rooms, in the rooms I learn how to live a happy life outside of the rooms, not inside them. Any body can live a life inside a room full of people not drinking, the program of AA has led me to be able to live a joyous life out side of AA meetings.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Indiana On the river
Posts: 15
Originally Posted by Kristina 
Wow, a week, that's great! Congrats! I love what tennis71 said about a week you never have to do again.
Have a great time on your hunting trip next week. Have you asked your friend who is coming to join you not to bring alcohol with him? Or if not, have you thought about your game plan if he's drinking and you want to join him?
Have a great time on your hunting trip next week. Have you asked your friend who is coming to join you not to bring alcohol with him? Or if not, have you thought about your game plan if he's drinking and you want to join him?
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
