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Old 06-01-2010, 09:06 PM
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Aa

I went to an AA meeting yesterday and met some really great women and it was a very good experience but I then proceeded to get roaringly drunk all day long and into the evening - there was a bit of antabuse left in me and it was NOT pretty- so I went back today and called one of the women who gave me their number- which is a big deal for me- I have not been quite this pro active in my endeavors towards sobriety before, I am going to do the 90 in 90 and I hate being such a cliche but f*** it, I am also sick of being a drunk. I had an entirely different experience at this particular meeting than I have in the past- people were welcoming and interested and introduced me to other women which is what I need, and I already have someone to talk to every day until I find a sponsor and she rocks. FYI do NOT drink after taking antabuse. Don't EVER, EVER do it. I speak from experience, I thought I was going to meet my maker, whoever she is.
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Old 06-01-2010, 09:21 PM
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So the conversation went well with the woman? More meetings, more numbers. :-) I always show up a half hour early to mingle with my fiends. The "meetings" before and after the meetings are when we really connect if you ask me. Hang in there! You're making all the right strides - just stumbled a bit. I did too. I'll celebrate three years next month.
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Old 06-01-2010, 09:26 PM
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Yeah it was great! I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. This girl is about 10 years younger than I am and she is wise beyond her years from what I have gleaned so far. She's also a bit aggressive and stresses accountability which is what I need right now.
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Old 06-01-2010, 10:25 PM
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Thats great news about getting to meetings and infinitely better news that you have met someone you can relate to and rung them...thats a huge thing!

I remember going to my first real AA meeting (i say first because it was the first AA meeting i had gone to where i was serious about getting help!) and meeting this guy who i thought was real cool and had that something about him, we went to a meeting together that week and yeah i had some hope again...

Meeting someone, and getting to talk to them, who had some decent sobriety made a huge difference especially when they say you can do this i'll show you how...hmmm a life of sobriety beyond my wildest dreams or what i have been doing for 20 years...let me think which one would i choose...tough one lol

Enjoy and please keep us updated and remember keep an open mind and LISTEN:-)
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Old 06-01-2010, 11:26 PM
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Please keep talking to me, it helps. I need to know this is a good thing, I am sad that I couldn't do it on my own and I loathe the "cunning baffling etc." cliches. Seriously, I have a brain, I like to use it- and those trite, overused sayings lack originality and turn me off. Also, I have been reading the blue book and it scares me.
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Old 06-01-2010, 11:56 PM
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Cmon how you going to do it just on willpower and by yourself? I imagine you have been drinking for a while now, i drank for 20 years and all of a suddent as if by magic im going to stop and everything will be rosy and happy...i thought that it would be that simple but i was a fool!

Im not sure where people get the idea that people just quit drinking and thats it...there are a few people on SR that have quit drinking successfully and now have happy and productive lives without AA but they havent just put the bottle down and carried on their old behaviour...they have had to change as i had to change...they have had to do as much work as i have be it counselling, reading self help books, praying, going to church, yoga, meditation etcetc...soemtimes it comes across like all they have done is stop drinking but pry a little and you will find they have done a lot more than that...

Get this stupid idea out of your head that alcoholics/drunks/addicts just suddenly stop and thats it...it is misleading and dangerous for you, and you will find that the only people that say this are people that are in their first few months of trying to avoid taking the next drink or people that are living miserable and ****** up lives in the old behaviour and simply abstaining...who the hell wants to live like that, do you?

I am staying in a Hotel with a mini bar 2 feet away fully stocked, i go to the bar for coffees when bored, i sit in restaurants every night where the first thing they do is put a complimentary glass of booze in front of you etcetcetc because i am free to do what i want...

The other scenario is that i ring downstairs to reception when i check in and ask them to remove the mini bar, avoid the bar area and people and have coffee in room service and dont eat out at night and stay in my room...im not living like that id rather be drinking again!

The difference between recovery and abatiannace becomign a bit more clear now?

AA will show you how to recover, i dont know if you are one of the people who would recover without AA at some point or die along the way...but if i were you i would go the safe route for once and get in and get on with the work you have to do now! Not that it will matter to anyone but you anyway, the world will keep spinning and people on here and in AA will still be sober, relapsers will keep relapsing, lovers will keep loving, fighters will keep fighting etcetc...

Its all about you, its you having to sit there in your own **** everyday because you are not doing anything about it...

Is that enough, going to the next meeting:-)
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Old 06-02-2010, 12:42 AM
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I read this today in a NA approved literature book that i read every morning, well the passage for that day anyway, i don't go to NA but a friend gave it to me and its applicable for addicts or alcoholics:

***Just for Today***

"...only when we know that the pain of change can't be as bad as the pain we're in today, are most of us willing to try something different.

Thankfully, the steps are always there, no matter what we're sick and tired of. The irony is that, as soon as make the decision to begin the Twelve Step process, we realize our fears of change were groundless. The steps offer a gentle program of change, one step at a time. No single step is so frightening that we can't work it, by itself. As we apply the steps to our lives, we experience a change that frees us."

Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. PO Box 9999, Van Nuys, California 91409 USA

So basically what i said but with much more wisdom and finesse;-)
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Old 06-02-2010, 03:59 AM
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Originally Posted by Alizerin View Post
So the conversation went well with the woman? More meetings, more numbers. :-) I always show up a half hour early to mingle with my fiends. The "meetings" before and after the meetings are when we really connect if you ask me. Hang in there! You're making all the right strides - just stumbled a bit. I did too. I'll celebrate three years next month.
absolutely, meetings before the meetings and the meetings after, and the rides to the meetings and the rides home from the meetings... and its progress not perfection, I went to the meetings before the meetings to get "my seat", but I had the look and the disposition that said "stay the f away from me" for a long time, but AA sucked me in and before I knew it I was chatting with some really good folks, the barrier came down slowly.

To the OP, don't worry about the blue book scaring you, I photocopied the doctors opinion and just read that for the first 6 months daily because it was all I could handle. Maybe you or your sponsor wants to do more, cool, but I didn't drink, went to meetings, and sometimes asked for help for the first year. Different strokes for different folks....

The cliches, hated them too! But now they are a part of my life and I cannot figure out how the hell it happened, and when I speak at the podium at least 3 or 4 big book quotes come out! How the hell did that happen?

It's all good, two years + sober and it is all because of that "freaking book" and those "stupid sayings", it is all because of AA. I owe my life to everything I hated when I first came into AA.
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Old 06-02-2010, 04:46 AM
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Originally Posted by sleepie View Post
I went to an AA meeting yesterday and met some really great women and it was a very good experience but I then proceeded to get roaringly drunk all day long and into the evening - there was a bit of antabuse left in me and it was NOT pretty- so I went back today and called one of the women who gave me their number- which is a big deal for me- I have not been quite this pro active in my endeavors towards sobriety before, I am going to do the 90 in 90 and I hate being such a cliche but f*** it, I am also sick of being a drunk. I had an entirely different experience at this particular meeting than I have in the past- people were welcoming and interested and introduced me to other women which is what I need, and I already have someone to talk to every day until I find a sponsor and she rocks. FYI do NOT drink after taking antabuse. Don't EVER, EVER do it. I speak from experience, I thought I was going to meet my maker, whoever she is.
AA is a life saver for many of us, i'm glad you found it. i remmeber what my sponsor always said to me...he was a reformed crook that had just about 40 years of sobriety

he'd crack a smokey toothless smile and say...

" make sure you do 90 meetings in 90 days, pray, share, call your sponsor and work the step your on..that's it...dont think...keep it simple....if you think left...go right until you talk to me." lol..i always thought that last part was a little extreme, but it works. hahaha...i miss that guy.

it soulds like left to your own devices, even with the antabuse, your best decision was to grace that meeting with your attendance because you decided that you just couldn't do this without some kind of program.

hopefully, you'll join yourself to the hip of your sponsor and completely immerse yourself into this program.

the biggest suggestion i can give you in starting out is to be honest. hold nothing back, if you feel it, say it. be an open book and be teachable. that's the only way they can help you.

as far as the old cliches', just take what you need and leave the rest. HA! there's another cliche'...see? it's not so bad! LOL no...seriously... it's better to be cliche' than a statistic from this awful obsession.

hang in there.
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Old 06-02-2010, 05:19 AM
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Originally Posted by sleepie View Post
Yeah it was great! I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. This girl is about 10 years younger than I am and she is wise beyond her years from what I have gleaned so far. She's also a bit aggressive and stresses accountability which is what I need right now.
So, mine. Nine years younger. :-)
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Old 06-02-2010, 05:23 AM
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The people in AA are very diverse. My sponsor was a boom thumper. But, it's what I needed. Think of the book as a historical document. Written in the predominant Christian era of the 1930's for the alcoholic man. If this stubborn 30-something year old Atheist female could find herself in the book - So can you! ;-)
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Old 06-02-2010, 05:55 AM
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AA has been key for me. I go to a big clubhouse which holds meetings beginning at 7:30 in the morning and ending at 11pm. Some people go to multiple meetings throughout the day, and sometimes I'll hear the same things from the same people in the meetings. I'm like, "Dude, you just said the exact same thing in the noon group!" But there's always something really important, even if it's only 1 specific thing, that I need to hear in each meeting. There's always someone there I need to talk to before or after the meeting, and I usually don't know I needed to speak with that person until after it happens. I keep a pad and pen with me to write down things that I want to remember, since my brain's still kinda hazy from all the drinking and drugs and whatnot.

I need to, and will, get more involved with my Step work. It's not that easy for me to trust people, i.e. my sponsor, but I need to be more willing to open up and listen to what other AAers tell me about getting into the Big Book. I'm glad I haven't drank in 10 weeks, and I believe I experienced a psychic change the day I put down the bottle, and I pray to my God every day and ask that I be used according to His will and not my own, since all my will did was land me in jail and AA. But I hear from people who have done it that the real change happens when you go through the Steps and are able and prepared to help other alcoholics. So I need to get going with all that.

Good luck to you, Sleepie, and I'm glad you've enjoyed AA. It's helped millions of people, so I don't see why it can't help you and me.
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Old 06-02-2010, 08:39 AM
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I am doing the 90 meetings in 90 days or as close as I can to it. I don't see anything preventing it. It's only three months. Thanks for all the input- good food for thought. I've already been quite surprised by some of the speakers. I like that one really can't judge a book by it's cover, and I rediscover that each time I go- for instance my new acquaintance who's sticking with me until I find a sponsor looks like my natural nemesis, the sorority girl type... She walked in and I rolled my eyes thinking, "Oh, somebody had a couple too many cocktails once or twice and now she thinks she has a problem, well I'VE been drinking every day for eight years and painting and getting things done, and I can even drink (NOT) on antabuse". How ridiculous is that? As if there's a hierarchy in alcoholism. Then she was introduced to me, and wowed me- for lack of a better term. She had sad eyes and glitter on her face- and a voice that sounded to hold some hard gained stories and wisdom to impart. She was aggressive about staying in touch- I suppose she was introducing me to the accountability factor, which was new to me. It was an eye opener and I've had one at each meeting I've attended so far, few as they may be. But, that aspect that alone inspires me to keep coming back.
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Old 06-02-2010, 09:34 AM
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Thumbs up Beginning the AA Program....

Hi Sleepie,

I remember going to my first AA Meeting when I had decided I was going to quit drinking with help & follow the suggestions. We are a small & rural community but did have meetings every evening but one & two at noon. The woman's group I went to was at eleven until noon so on Monday's I took my lunch hour then.

I can remember my shaking hands & voice, my red face, my irritabillity, & restlessness. I couldn't understand why everything was repeated so many times. It wasn't long before I discovered that there was a reason to repeat the slogans, & all the readings before the meeting...."my mind was so overwhelmed with everything that I wasn't able to concentrate on any one thing."

One of my daughter-in-laws was showing me her face-book page & she had the Serenity Prayer on it. It surprised me so much...it is one of her favorite prayers & she isn't an alcoholic but when she was still married to my son..he was a practicing alcoholic.

The Serenity Prayer is still a very much part of my life today. With 21 years of Sobriety I still use it daily & it works for me plus a lot of other tools in my box of Slogans, Sayings, Prayers, & Meditations. I have chronic depression & anxiety that is a daily mood altering check-in to see where I am for that day & remembering to take my medication for depression.

Keep coming back. SR is a good place to come to along with your AA Meetings. When I was first sober I needed other sober people to be with & it worked to get to the meetings a little early & stay a little after the meeting.
Since I live in a small town it seemed like I saw many AA people out & about during the day...it was a wonderful feeling to know I had AA friends. :ghug3


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