UniqueNewYork

I am an overly emotional person for a male. I can wish to fight someone over the smallest disrespect, or get teary eyed because someone hurt my feelings over a lot of nothing. I am at 60 days sobriety. I know a lot of this goes back to childhood. I am wondering if normal people have these wild thoughts or if I'm special. Sometimes I debate if it would be worth the jail time to throw down with someone who disrespects me. I never act on it, but still, it seems like a crazy thought. As I get older and my parents get older, some day it will be only me and my higher power, and whatever I carried over / remembered about my parents values they instilled in me.

I think a major flaw in my program is I haven't formally run through the steps with a sponsor. I've done parts of each step at some point whether its reaching out to another alcoholic or asking someone for forgiveness, but I've never actually run through them with a sponsor.

Does this kind of make sense to some people? I mean halfway through a thought i'll be like "really dude what the **** its not worth getting that worked up over". Lately people are getting my goat so I am noticing this more.

Kjell

Hi NY-

Sorry, NY, but you're not special. There are millions of alcoholics in the U.S. alone and we all, at some point or another, suffered from "terminal uniqueness"

This is usually a major hurdle directly in our way to true sobriety and recovery.

I don't know you or know your program, but I know there is some truth to this.

Maybe it's time to get rid of some old ideas?

Kjell~

CarolD

For me...formal; Step work..in order and done to the best
of my abilities has been an awesome experience...

Please don't short change yourself...get busy

Well done on your sober time....

David 1

At 60 days I was also pretty emotional. Over time, I learned to channel that energy to focus on what I can do to get better and become an even better person.

Controlling negative emotions comes with time and sobriety.

Dave

BullDog777

i think most alcoholics are thin skinned. what most people shrug off, we drink over.

i drank because people hurt my feelings or made me mad or disappointed me...it didn't really matter. if i felt something that made me uncomfortable, i drank.

an yes, sometimes i'd like to blast some douschebags with some left handed haymakers when they make me mad, but i don't think i'd dig prison....and that's really the only reason i don't sometimes. as long as i don't act on it, you know?

as far as the steps, don't get your hopes up. i did the 12 steps when i was in AA, and it wasn't the "elightenment" some of them boasted it would be.

that has to come from within.

Steven Seagal once said "what does it take to change the essence of a man?"....for me, it was almost dying and realizing i just had to grow up and keep trying to better myself in all aspects even when i didn't want to.

My feelings still get hurt alot...people still disappoint me, but the difference now is i don't drink over it and i just try to keep my side of the street clean. other than that, i'm not sure what else we can do.

yeahgr8

Go through the steps and change...sooner you do it the sooner all this other crap will make sense or just plain end:-)

ste

I can't change peoples opinions with a Superman punch, even if they deserve it. I can't save people from themselves, even if they really need it. That's all thoughts, and time, wasted that I should spend on saving myself from my deluded self.

Charity starts at home.

aasharon90

Be kind to yourself because you are a
special person. It was suggested to
take care of my alcoholism first then
tackle other issues as they come. Even
childhood ones too.

Emotions are natural, so go with the flow.

Be kind and gentle to you and others is
what my HP would want me to do. How
about you?

keithj

Every year, Unique, I see hundreds of people fail to stay sober in AA by working parts of Steps after a fashion of their own making. You may be an exception, or you may not be.

Cornczech

WOW. Thanks for that response. Pretty powerful.

Ethos23

Unique, take some time to write down exactly who you want to be, the person who would be comfortable in any situation. It's not easy, but spend some time doing it. Then, identify the steps necessary to make the change. Make small changes each day. You will notice, that if you are living the life you want to live, then it doesn't matter whether someone disrepsects you or not because you love yourself. You will also notice that your reaction isn't so much of a reaction, but a choice.

Stimmed

Never been a highly strung person, but i was easier to bug throughout my drinking days, and only if someone messed with me or my intrests. Im still the same, but in Sobriety more so, and it now takes a very sharp poke to get my goat.

12 steps? Go through them with a sponser and see if anything changes. However its still early days yet, but well done on 60.

In terms of someone being special? ummm... if theres only one thing we have in common, it would be, we are all unique. That sounds pretty special to me but depends how you look at it... 'if at all you need to'? Heh i dont have time!

DayTrader

UNY.... it was those same things that for me, basically scared me Into Action. I was "encouraged" to do a lot of writing early on and the result of those inventories revealed that a lot of the insanity of my drinking days was still present in my "sober" life - the part of my life when I wasn't drinking. My emotions, like yours, were all over the map. Lots of fear of the future, lots of control issues, lots of defiance, lots of super happy moments followed by depressing, woe-is-me, pity party depression.

When I was shown that it was those same mood-swings that helped me rationalize drinking like I used to, I put two and two together to recognize that these manifestations of self almost certainly STILL had the power to take me out to my next first drink all over again.

That scared the hell outta me. Here I was "x" months sober (physically) but there was still a lot of craziness in my head. "This shouldn't be happening," I'd think. --> That led to a HUGE experience with the first step and "unmanageability." The drinking was behind me. I was living a better cleaner life. I "felt" like I was a much better person.....yet this "baggage" seemed to still be with me. And truth be told, this wasn't "new" baggage either.......it was the same old crap that had been in my life as far back as I could remember.

"Holy cow, How do I change/fix these 'issues' that have been with me for 10, 20, 30 years?" Reality is..... I probably can't. If 30+/- years of trying has netted zilch, what's the likelihood of me fixing it now....probably still zilch.

I, much like you're probably doing now, realized I needed a COMPLETE re-working....a complete frame-off restoration (for you car nuts... ), I needed to be a new person. There are nuuuuuumerous places in the BB where it tells of having revolutionizing spiritual experiences, being reborn, complete changes, etc etc. That wasn't enough to convince me.....but the speakers I listened to and the folks I met in the meetings who spoke about actually EXPERIENCING these things for themselves gave me enough hope that I finally bought-in.... I finally DECIDED to give this 12-step recovery program my best effort.

Life's not perfect......that's for sure, BUT...... the ferocity and the frequency of which those old demons still haunt me has dropped off considerably. Did I do that??.....no. I did some work though...and I did what I could.....and I took working those steps as probably my only shot at a truly happy and content life...... heck, I wasn't even really convinced it'd work for me..... but I can tell you for sure, it's working.

Veritas1

I think the steps are designed to give us freedom from what you are describing. I would find a sponsor and get going.

You could also begin listening to the Joe and Charlie Big Book study online.

Reaching out to a couple of members on this board may be helpful via pm.

Since you are a guy I am thinking Daytrader, or Keithj...there are many more as well.

Begin to reach out and ask for some direction.

Yes, the book tells us that we are sensitive. It takes awhile to outgrow. But I don't know if it's so much 'being sensitive'.

For me, I have unreasonable reactions. I need to work on how I react to situations, to people, to life. I need to work on "me". The steps help me work on me. To change me. I can't change anyone but myself.

~

The Family Afterward

"We alcoholics are sensitive people. It takes some of us a long time to outgrow that serious handicap."

Appendix II, Spiritual Experience
"He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life; that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone."

The steps get us to the spiritual experience so that we have a profound alteration in our reaction to life.