8 Months Sober...Who Would Have Thought It!
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 168
8 Months Sober...Who Would Have Thought It!
First of all I want to thank people on here who have offered their support to me. You are all living the programme of alcoholics anonymous whether you do meetings or not. You're helping me to stay sober and clean for another day.
I find it important to thank people now and to offer support to people because like every other alcoholic I used to be so consumed with myself that I lost my gratitude and my consideration for other people. I always thought I was so selfless and that I was really there for people but in reality I was only there when it suited me or if there was something to be gained by it. I am ashamed to say that at times but then at times I am grateful for remembering the person who I used to be because it reminds me that I don't ever want to go back being that way ever again. Being grateful and considerate isn’t something that comes naturally to me but as I progress through the fellowship and as I do my steps I believe that I will become that kind of person. The kind of person I have always wanted to be.
My drinking was pretty eventful! I also used a lot of other substances...basically anything that I could take to allow me to forget who I was. I hated myself and carried a lot of guilt around with me for a long long time. If anything happened I used to think that it was my fault. My Aunt died when I was 11 and I thought that it was God punishing me. I would dwell on that for years to come. From that age I was bullied and I can see now that from that day until I walked into alcoholics anonymous I didn't want to live anymore. I had what they call a hole in my soul and I would use everything that I could to fill it. I used to make lists of what I wanted and would always say that once I got all them then I would be happy. For a long time I suppressed my sexuality for fear of not being accepted. Then when I came out I was like "things will be better now". But it wasn't. It just brought a lot of other problems. I would go out and drink until I felt half normal but I wouldn't stop drinking. I would continue and often make a show of myself and other people. I would take drugs with people who considered themselves heavy drug users and would reassure them that they weren't because I was taking more than them and I didn't have a drug problem!
I didn't have a particularly bad childhood. Infact it was amazing by a lot of people’s standards. My Dad was in the army though so it meant we moved around a lot and I did struggle with that but I always saw my job as the family entertainer. My big sister was the difficult teenager, my Dad was the hard worker and my Mum held the family together. I loved being the centre of attention from an early age. I would suppress any negative feelings that I had and only deal with them in the confines of my own head. As I have mentioned though I was bullied from the age of 11 and that was when I first moved to Scotland. I retreated into myself a lot then and didn’t emerge until very recently. I turned to self harm and substance abuse to try and deal with things rather than being open and talking about how I felt. I used to think that if people knew what was going on inside my head they would lock me up! I think like a lot of alcoholics I just didn’t know how to live in an acceptable way. I would either be really extrovert and inappropriate or I would shut myself off from everyone and hide. For years I was convinced that I was bipolar but I’m not I’m just an alcoholic who needs to learn how to live without alcohol!
I first went to alcoholics anonymous on the 7th June 2008...my last drink was the Wednesday before that and my first sober day...the day that I consider my AA birthday was the 5th June. I had read in a book called Shoot The Damn Dog about AA and my sister had said to me that she thought I should try it. Even though I had been trying to control my drinking for as long as I can remember I didn't really think I was an alcoholic. Despite the fact that when I took alcohol I would end up in places I would never go to with people I would never associate with doing things I would never dream of doing sober I thought that I was ok with alcohol. On holiday after being abusive, being sick in the bath and getting put to bed at 6pm by my partner I decided that it was just the Spanish vodka and lack of sleep and that if I stuck to beer I wouldn't get drunk...I believe that's the insanity that they talk about! Until the week that I came in the doors of AA my partner had never told me what I was like drunk. That week she really let it rip and I remember sitting there thinking...if only she'd told me this before I would have stopped....the thing is people in the past had told me about my behaviour and I hadn't stopped. Or I had stopped but I'd done it for them. I knew from my first sober day that my partner was probably going to leave but ever the alcoholic I tried to persuade her otherwise. Hence the reason for my first meeting.
Something happened in that meeting though. I found out about the illness of alcoholism. I found out about this illness that I do believe I suffer from. I got so much identification from the top table that it blew me away. My preconception of an alcoholic being someone who needed a morning drink and who drank everyday was gone. I heard about the obsession that one day I really thought I would be able to control my drinking. I have realized recently that ever since I had my first drink at 15 I've been trying to stop. I can look back at countless times where I said never again. Where I stopped drinking for months only to start again. I heard about the allergy that kicked off in me which meant that a thousand drinks wouldn't ever be enough. I always just thought I was a greedy drinker! I was told to get to as many meetings as possible. To stay away from the first drink and to live my life on a daily basis. I was given peoples phone numbers which I did struggle to use at first but I got there eventually. My whole life I always felt that I was on the outside looking in, that I didn't really belong anywhere. I didn't feel like that here. I've been fortunate that I have found identification with every top table that I have heard.
What I like about AA is that you aren’t told you HAVE to get a sponsor, you HAVE to do 90 meetings in 90 days or that you HAVE to do this program. It’s simply suggested as a program of recovery. It is a tried and tested program by thousands of people and this thing works.
I got a sponsor within my first five weeks and I think that was important for me because I knew that I needed to really give my all and get into the middle of AA. It’s said that it’s like a roundabout – the closer you are to the centre the harder it is to fall off. It took me a while to get started with the meetings but I did the 90 meetings in about 100 days and it really did help me. I find that if I even go for two or three days without a meeting I can feel my head starting to race again.
Without AA in my life I made an awful mess of it! I was arrested, I spent thousands on alcohol and drugs and I lost a lot of friends. Now that I have this program in my life I am far from perfect but I am learning to live and to be a part of society rather than be apart from it. I can go into pubs and clubs now and not be bothered by the presence of alcohol. I just know that I can’t drink it but I don’t try and preach to other people like I did in early sobriety! I am learning what love feels like for the first time and enjoying all the joy that comes with being in a relationship. I can be there for my family and friends and I have people in my life because I genuinely want them there and not because I can get something from them. I can say for today that the desire to drink has left me and that’s something I really thought would never happen to me. I didn’t even know who I was without alcohol in my life! What I feel now for the first time is full of hope. Hope that the future is going to be a lot better than my past.
I still get bad days. I suffer from bipolar as well and take tablets for that and there are days when I really don’t know what I want to do but I know that I don’t want to drink. When I feel like that I can call someone in AA who understands me and who will offer their support. I can call on my higher power who I choose to believe is God and I can ask him for a hand to help me live that day to the best of my ability. Somedays when I can’t think about anything constructive I often just say the serenity prayer over and over and I start my day over and over again until it feels right. There are days when I can go to bed still feeling like the world is going to end but I can put my head on the pillow and thank God for helping me to get through that day sober. I can believe that this too shall pass and tomorrow will be a better day. And even if it’s not I have my AA tool kit to use to make me feel better and to enable me to live another sober day.
Sorry this was such a long post - lots in my head as usual!
I find it important to thank people now and to offer support to people because like every other alcoholic I used to be so consumed with myself that I lost my gratitude and my consideration for other people. I always thought I was so selfless and that I was really there for people but in reality I was only there when it suited me or if there was something to be gained by it. I am ashamed to say that at times but then at times I am grateful for remembering the person who I used to be because it reminds me that I don't ever want to go back being that way ever again. Being grateful and considerate isn’t something that comes naturally to me but as I progress through the fellowship and as I do my steps I believe that I will become that kind of person. The kind of person I have always wanted to be.
My drinking was pretty eventful! I also used a lot of other substances...basically anything that I could take to allow me to forget who I was. I hated myself and carried a lot of guilt around with me for a long long time. If anything happened I used to think that it was my fault. My Aunt died when I was 11 and I thought that it was God punishing me. I would dwell on that for years to come. From that age I was bullied and I can see now that from that day until I walked into alcoholics anonymous I didn't want to live anymore. I had what they call a hole in my soul and I would use everything that I could to fill it. I used to make lists of what I wanted and would always say that once I got all them then I would be happy. For a long time I suppressed my sexuality for fear of not being accepted. Then when I came out I was like "things will be better now". But it wasn't. It just brought a lot of other problems. I would go out and drink until I felt half normal but I wouldn't stop drinking. I would continue and often make a show of myself and other people. I would take drugs with people who considered themselves heavy drug users and would reassure them that they weren't because I was taking more than them and I didn't have a drug problem!
I didn't have a particularly bad childhood. Infact it was amazing by a lot of people’s standards. My Dad was in the army though so it meant we moved around a lot and I did struggle with that but I always saw my job as the family entertainer. My big sister was the difficult teenager, my Dad was the hard worker and my Mum held the family together. I loved being the centre of attention from an early age. I would suppress any negative feelings that I had and only deal with them in the confines of my own head. As I have mentioned though I was bullied from the age of 11 and that was when I first moved to Scotland. I retreated into myself a lot then and didn’t emerge until very recently. I turned to self harm and substance abuse to try and deal with things rather than being open and talking about how I felt. I used to think that if people knew what was going on inside my head they would lock me up! I think like a lot of alcoholics I just didn’t know how to live in an acceptable way. I would either be really extrovert and inappropriate or I would shut myself off from everyone and hide. For years I was convinced that I was bipolar but I’m not I’m just an alcoholic who needs to learn how to live without alcohol!
I first went to alcoholics anonymous on the 7th June 2008...my last drink was the Wednesday before that and my first sober day...the day that I consider my AA birthday was the 5th June. I had read in a book called Shoot The Damn Dog about AA and my sister had said to me that she thought I should try it. Even though I had been trying to control my drinking for as long as I can remember I didn't really think I was an alcoholic. Despite the fact that when I took alcohol I would end up in places I would never go to with people I would never associate with doing things I would never dream of doing sober I thought that I was ok with alcohol. On holiday after being abusive, being sick in the bath and getting put to bed at 6pm by my partner I decided that it was just the Spanish vodka and lack of sleep and that if I stuck to beer I wouldn't get drunk...I believe that's the insanity that they talk about! Until the week that I came in the doors of AA my partner had never told me what I was like drunk. That week she really let it rip and I remember sitting there thinking...if only she'd told me this before I would have stopped....the thing is people in the past had told me about my behaviour and I hadn't stopped. Or I had stopped but I'd done it for them. I knew from my first sober day that my partner was probably going to leave but ever the alcoholic I tried to persuade her otherwise. Hence the reason for my first meeting.
Something happened in that meeting though. I found out about the illness of alcoholism. I found out about this illness that I do believe I suffer from. I got so much identification from the top table that it blew me away. My preconception of an alcoholic being someone who needed a morning drink and who drank everyday was gone. I heard about the obsession that one day I really thought I would be able to control my drinking. I have realized recently that ever since I had my first drink at 15 I've been trying to stop. I can look back at countless times where I said never again. Where I stopped drinking for months only to start again. I heard about the allergy that kicked off in me which meant that a thousand drinks wouldn't ever be enough. I always just thought I was a greedy drinker! I was told to get to as many meetings as possible. To stay away from the first drink and to live my life on a daily basis. I was given peoples phone numbers which I did struggle to use at first but I got there eventually. My whole life I always felt that I was on the outside looking in, that I didn't really belong anywhere. I didn't feel like that here. I've been fortunate that I have found identification with every top table that I have heard.
What I like about AA is that you aren’t told you HAVE to get a sponsor, you HAVE to do 90 meetings in 90 days or that you HAVE to do this program. It’s simply suggested as a program of recovery. It is a tried and tested program by thousands of people and this thing works.
I got a sponsor within my first five weeks and I think that was important for me because I knew that I needed to really give my all and get into the middle of AA. It’s said that it’s like a roundabout – the closer you are to the centre the harder it is to fall off. It took me a while to get started with the meetings but I did the 90 meetings in about 100 days and it really did help me. I find that if I even go for two or three days without a meeting I can feel my head starting to race again.
Without AA in my life I made an awful mess of it! I was arrested, I spent thousands on alcohol and drugs and I lost a lot of friends. Now that I have this program in my life I am far from perfect but I am learning to live and to be a part of society rather than be apart from it. I can go into pubs and clubs now and not be bothered by the presence of alcohol. I just know that I can’t drink it but I don’t try and preach to other people like I did in early sobriety! I am learning what love feels like for the first time and enjoying all the joy that comes with being in a relationship. I can be there for my family and friends and I have people in my life because I genuinely want them there and not because I can get something from them. I can say for today that the desire to drink has left me and that’s something I really thought would never happen to me. I didn’t even know who I was without alcohol in my life! What I feel now for the first time is full of hope. Hope that the future is going to be a lot better than my past.
I still get bad days. I suffer from bipolar as well and take tablets for that and there are days when I really don’t know what I want to do but I know that I don’t want to drink. When I feel like that I can call someone in AA who understands me and who will offer their support. I can call on my higher power who I choose to believe is God and I can ask him for a hand to help me live that day to the best of my ability. Somedays when I can’t think about anything constructive I often just say the serenity prayer over and over and I start my day over and over again until it feels right. There are days when I can go to bed still feeling like the world is going to end but I can put my head on the pillow and thank God for helping me to get through that day sober. I can believe that this too shall pass and tomorrow will be a better day. And even if it’s not I have my AA tool kit to use to make me feel better and to enable me to live another sober day.
Sorry this was such a long post - lots in my head as usual!
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