desypete

but they might also of ended up killing themselves sadly people do kill themselves if they get into a relationship it fails and the go back on the drink we might never see or hear from them again

Aellyce

This reminds me of what my meditation teacher said to us once in a session, when he tried to explain how to deal with these kinds of temptations mentally, if they distract us from practice, in a visualization exercise. It goes like imagine your object of desire vividly, then do a mental dissection. Strip the image down to bones and guts and all, step by step. See if still distracting from original goal (meditation)?

Unfortunately I'm an experimental biologist and lab work does not repel me much...

I'm pretty darn certain that even an immaterial online board like this does not block these kinds of thoughts and impulses occasionally. To me, the area to keep so clean and shiny is not the thoughts and feelings, it's how we react to the thoughts and feelings.

dollpart

This has turned into a really interesting discussion!

dollpart

I'm moving back to London soon so there'll be more groups to choose from. As it goes, I like the ones I go to at the moment, i just find this gender distinction thing weird, though the more i read of this thread the more I am coming to get a clearer picture.

dollpart

Thank youuuu Croissant xxx

robgt350

doll
i think if you feel most comfortable talking to men, then do it. sometimes i feel more comfortable talking to women at times. i guess cause my past, i grew up with a single mothers and had sisters. but at the same time, my friends are sort of split 50/50 between men and women.
so i think do what works best for you. and if it works go with it

dollpart

Thanks Rob, kinda the answer I'm leaning towards atm

desypete

examine your motives on why you wish to help someone or be close to that person and be honest with yourself
sometimes we only want to hear what we have already made up our minds to do

if you honestly want to be a friend to a female or male and you can honestly say its not that they attract you, then it should be ok

i had a mate around aa i nick named him penis paul

he was always trying to work the 12th step on pretty ladies who came into aa i would point out to him that he doesnt seem to want to help men
he said he got more out of helping women
i then pointed out that he doesnt seem to help the large ladys or the less attractive ladies its always the pretty ones ??

his reply was please mind my own business as its his sobriety and he knows best.

Aellyce

I agree this is an interesting thread. For someone who does research on behavior, like myself, especially. Particularly on a boring day like this that I'm spending with stupid administrative work.

Now it reminds me of a personality theory system I got very much into several years ago. Part of it analyzes and classifies people's motivations based on their dominant instinctual preferences, and how this affects their orientation to the social environment. The whole system is interesting, but here is a link to the relevant part (scroll down for descriptions on what they call "instinctual variants" in behavior).
How the Enneagram Personality System Works

OK maybe enough of me now, I'm really rambling here

aasharon90

As a stay at home mom and wife in early
recovery, the last thing I wanted to talk
more about was kids and homemakers
stuff or womens stuff. As a women, one,
which is me, is enough.

I drank to escape all that "boring" stuff,
which is what I use to call it.

I was first unhappy in my marriage
relationship due to lack of communication
and understanding. I luved my babies
and raised them on my own inside my
marriage not wanting much help from
family.

When I got sober, I didn't want to be
in women groups chit chatting about
each others marital wose or women
topics.

I had my women sponsor and followed
in her footsteps as she led me thru her
actions in recovery.

Women have so many emotional problems,
including myself and didn't want to add
anymore of others to my own.

I was always drawn to the "old-timers"
men in recovery and listened to them
share intentively to each shared their
own ESH of what their lives were like
before during and after alcohol.

If my sponsor was out of town, she placed
me in good hands so to speak, that I could
talk to if I got squirrelly.

Then as time went on, I began to watch
golf, learn the lingo and players so I could
carry on a conversation with the men. I
guess I find men more interesting in their
lives than I found women did.

Not to put women down, because I'm
very much a southern belle , love to
look nice but also luv being physically
strong all to the best of my ability.

Anyway....I see nothing wrong with
having men friends in recovery as
long as our priorities are in the right
place.

So many women look for something to
fill in that emotional void we may not
be getting inside our marriages. Which
would not be good for our own recovery.

I had to work on remaining sober
first before adding any new veritables
in the equation like romance, love, lust,
attraction.

Keeping everything honest in our recovery
will reward us with awesome gifts down the road.

pumpkin1

There is a womens meeting I go to that just happens to work with my schedule. I didn't go there really on purpose but it's turned out to be great. All the woman say that they never got along with woman as well as with men when they were drinking or preferred the company of men over woman. But being able to express yourself for real about things like being a mother or stuff you might consider shameful about your behavior while drinking is really a great thing to get off your chest if you really want to stop drinking for good. For me at least part of my cycle for continuing to drink despite the bad consequences was because I thought I was a failure due to guilt over a child and broken relationships and my poor judgement when it came to men. I didn't want to think about it so I drank over it. I found that all these woman at least in my group were feeling the same way and some of their stories were a lot more harrowing than mine. This is stuff you wouldn't talk about in front of men. You are only going to be able to get that context from other woman. It helps in the long run to keep you sober because you're gaining perspective to your own experience which is usually a pretty isolating one.

FlyerFan

Nobody ever told me I couldn't talk to men, they just suggested that I not get one as a sponsor, because i am a woman and I was newly sober. And lets all be honest, we were all really screwed up being newly sober and hormones aren't all in order, and bad things can happen when sobriety isn't put first.

I have a male friend who has a female sponsor. I also know women who have men sponsors. It all depends on a variety of things.

matt4x4

I do not know where this statement came from, probably from rehabs. There are lots of silly statements like the one you mentioned. People get out of rehab and the just repeat things they heard, yet they dont read the Big Book.

The classic is "Fake it until you make it" yet our literature states that we must be rigorously honest, 100% honest. The other one is 90 meetings in 90 days, like what you graduate and are cured on day 91, I think not. There are many statements that are untrue, or misleading that kill people left right and center. Another one is "We will love you until you can learn to love yourself" or "Just take your time, no rush, do a step a year" or "Come in, take a load off, there is no rush, there are no musts in AA" Well our basic program states that there are musts, over 100.

You see just puting the bottle down is not sufficient to recover from alcoholism. Alcohol has nothing to do with our drinking problem. Its not drinking that must change, its our thinking.

It is fine and alright to obtain a male sponsor if you are more comfortable with males then females. I have seen many solid members of AA do exactly that, they got a sponsor that was the opposite sex of them. We all have different backgrounds and issues. Our basic text book of Alcoholics anonymous is basic, there is more to learn, but we must not mix and match and change things around then go off and spout it off at a group.

Which brings me to another saying
"Take what you want and leave the rest"
Ya how many people has this statement killed. It suggests that you can pick and choose what steps you want to do. Perhaps you might want to skip steps 4, 5 and 6, do 7,8 skip 9. And to have a pipe dream that it will still have a 75% recovery rate attached to it. Ya we alcoholics play all the games in the book. We are like that.

Nuudawn

OK..that made me chuckle.
Gawd...there probably is an effect on boobs though.

My life might not be the only thing that would have been fuller had I not drank away a couple decades.

Carlotta

That!!!

rowd44

Hey Dollpart. I am male and prefer to talk to a female and do in AA. However my sponsor, the one that helps me with the 12 steps is male and that is kind of an unwritten rule. Here's a good rule of thumb, do what helps you stay sober. If that means talking to a male, go for it! In time, you may become comfortable talking to a female. Who knows. Take Care!

dollpart

I don't kn ow what to say here, but this post here really had an effect on me, because those are exactly some of the thinkings I've been having re: taking what I like on the offchance of success, mixing and matching... So, thank you.

dollpart

*giggles*

gardendiva

And how many has it saved? The big book is not a stone tablet of comandments. It is a suggested program of recovery from alcoholism.

PaperDolls

You know what kills people? Alcoholism. Not the stupid tish people say. People say stupid tish all the time and then people use it as an excuse to keep harming themselves.

People will do their recovery how ever they see fit. I share based on my experience. Nothing more. Nothing less. That's the only thing I can do. That's my responsibility.