Tamerua

I agree with others that face to face is key. I was going to do group therapy but didn't want it on my insurance so I did AA instead and I'm glad I did. I also didn't start AA for a week or more after not drinking so it can be done.

Congrats on quitting and making that change.

BarbieKen

Hi Liz,
Fellow win-o here! Oh yeah, every night till blackout ....that's how it ended for me. I can only say what has worked for me for 2 years. Being an active participant in my recovery from this disease of alcoholism. I do that via AA Meetings, having a Sponsor, working the Steps everyday, and being of service. My old friends ( not many left, I isolated in my kitchen) are drinkers...no surprise here. If I hadn't attended meetings from the beginning, well, probably would have stayed in my kitchen. Not what I wanted for me anymore.
I've been coming to SR and to the 24 hour check in since April of 2013. I sign in each night. This site has definitely been a powerful tool in my recovery. I hope you'll come here each day too. Real people ( ha ... In the flesh) are very important to me....so I go to 12 Step Meetings, Marathons, BBQ's, Picnics, Bowling, Lunch, Conventions etc etc.....these people are my friends and family now. I love em!
Bobbi

Hawks

^^^^^^^ that's making the most of everything AA has to offer.

Well said and well done

Eddiebuckle

The only way to find out if AA will help is to go. I can say that it took me a little while to truly be comfortable in meetings, but I believe it is what got me through the rough times. My five year anniversary was a week ago, and I cannot imagine what my sobriety would have looked like if I didn't have outside support. I still go to 3 meetings a week on average.

Zebra1275

One thing that AA provides really well is access to other alcoholics. I have found the face to face fellowship to be an important part of my recovery.

48heath

I have tried sobriety with and without AA meetings.

Without AA I stayed sober for 3years.

With AA I have stayed sober since 2003,to me the meetings are an essential part of my recovery,I need to be in a meeting to hear others experience,I can help newcomers and be of service.The programme is also essential and I need to practise it continually.

I am just home from a meeting,it was packed,someone with one days sobriety up to someone with over 40 years..

desypete

i agree with your post almost 100% the only thing i dont do in aa is go to conventions
i dont like them and see them nothing more as a money making machine for aa

i dont like the idea people have to pay for a ticket for aa, i dont like the idea that people are out there and leaving the meetings empty where new comers might show up. but each to there own and this is just my personal view on conventions although i did learn a good lesson in the one and only convention i ever went to and i will post it here.

i went to 1 convention in my area where i was given a ticket by the intergroup as a sort of thank you for my work i had been doing i was on the dole back then and bringing up my kids so money was tight so someone paid for a ticket for me

i went to the convention and heard the speakers etc then it came to dinner time and for 15 uk pounds you could have a sit down carvery in this hotel

that was almost a quarter of what i had to live on for the week !!!
so no way could i afford that
i seen all the others in the room go off for that slap up dinner without a thought about poor old me who had no money

so i went walking around the city moaning to myself about how it is to not have enough money, complaining about all the rich aa members compared to myself etc i was having a great time stuck in my head : )

i went and bought myself a sausage roll and a can of coke and sat in the city moaning to myself

then up pops a tramp who was as drunk as a lord happy as larry he was carrying his booze looking as rough as hell but he was in a good place in his own head

i enjoyed my sausage roll and my can of coke a lot more when i seen him as i felt so grateful that i wasnt him

i soon forgot about my moaning i had nothing : )

Hangnbyathread

Liz,

First let me thank you. I am non alcoholic. Don't have it in my family and in my line of work they were instantly unemployed. So I never rationalized AC as a real thing in my life. Your story is important to me. As your pattern of drinking was very similar to what my XAGF did.

When we first met, I didn't pass judgment on her for drinking, but I saw what drinking did to her and simply placed distance between us when she drank. I didn't counsel her about it, she is an adult, that makes choices. After we dated awhile, I saw the pattern and pretty much said to her, I like a lot of what you are as a person, but you have a self destructive side that won't fit into my life. At that time I didn't know enough about AC. To me at that time an AC, was drunk, wreaked of it from their pores, obviously impaired, and had obvious outward appearances. She wasn't what I knew about AC. She tried to hide all of the life dramas she was always having, but it doesn't take long for anyone with common sense to sense all was not well, I just didn't assume it was drinking. But it came time for me to wish her well and move along. I told her that she can't fit into my life, with all of her dramas and out of control choices she made. She rationalized them all enough for me to say OK, well now we have this exchange and understand each other better, lets see how things go now.

If I am in a relationship, I am of the feeling that trust should not be hard to grasp. So for instance if someone tells me they are working late at work and won't be home til later, that is what you believe. No reason to 2nd guess it. I don't dwell on it or think about it. It is taken at face value. I don't or won't expend energy thinking anything else about it. No need to. When it comes to relationships, I am very laid back non control type of person. We both be what we are with each other. We either like each other or we won't.

So if my partner needs to work late, say 10 times a month, OK that's the way it is. I won't check up on, question, or give it a second thought. That by itself was the beginning of my spiral into her drinking life. She would simply hide it with I need to work late, get back to me when she was sober, and I never questioned her.

Then we move in together. This now becomes the next level of life. NOW she had to figure out how to hide it while living with me. So this is where your story comes in. She was a chef. And a good one. To stay at the top of that game, you are always around food and wine. They sort of go together. They even give you a degree in wine (whatever its called). She never drank wine in the time I knew her before living with her. It was always hard liquor. So wine, without my knowing it, became the new alcohol delivery of choice. Again I still don't know I'm living with an AC. Wine and food isn't like "Go to a bar and drink", you sort of just didn't think about it the same way. I just knew that now my home life was unsettled and getting worse. It was always my fault, it was always shine the light anywhere but on her. When it hit bottom, which I won't go into here, was when she could no longer hide what was going on. She would start drinking wine with work starting at about 9 or so in the morning. Then you always serve wine with a meal, so she had an excuse to have a glass of wine in her hand always. What it amounted to was she was going through about 15 or so bottles a week. She started out being able to cover it with work, but then she had to start hiding it at home. She did that by always inviting over her girlfriends so they could talk and have some wine. She would make me elaborate meals that took hours, all because it allowed her to drink wine while she was cooking, and then drink while we ate. I would leave for work and she would dispose of the stashed empties so I never saw them. And if I was out of town, she would binge drink into blackouts any chance she got, and be absolutely sober when I got back.

We as family members need to see or hear from YOU, that YOU no longer want to have alcohol in your lives. Saying it isn't enough. Showing it is! If you are in a program to placate our anger over you, YOU are not wanting to stop drinking for you, you are trying to stop drinking for them. While that sounds good and noble and honorable, it is still not coming from YOU realizing YOU need alcohol out of your life.

Now recovery. There are many ways to recover. Many programs. Many philosophies. While I do not bash AA and its 12 steps, nor it's Al-Anon sister program. For some it has literally saved their lives. However, I am not naive to the fact that for many it doesn't work for them. Even though I don't support it for me, I can absolutely take away some very good concepts they instill. Realizing that alcohol has caused your life to get out of control and damage you and others around you, is a VERY VALUABLE idea that doesn't matter where you get it from, as long as you GET IT!

For me Detachment is what saved me. I had already been to mental health counseling before my g/f came to realize she was an AC. In that counseling, I was taught about detachment and it was the beginning of me finding myself again. Then I go to Al-Anon and guess what, they teach Detachment as part of that program. It isn't a specified step, but eventually, if you can wade through the program, others get to learn about it. But for someone else, in AA, Step 2 and 3 will be a lightbulb moment they need to see, that makes the rest enough to get through. We are all unique in our own way in what we respond to. It is sort of like going to school. Man if you hate Algebra, don't understand it, and fight with it making sense, you are going to work 4 times harder to maybe get a C, with a huge relief you won't have to go through that again. The best feeling you will have is to never have to see Algebra again. But maybe in English Lit you can gobble it up and ACE the class because you GET what they are trying to teach you and it comes easily.

And I so want to thank you again for coming her and saying this. One of the things I hope any AC gets in recovery, is how much it helps to show others to see that THEY GET IT! A family member never really gets to ask much about AA. We are taught in Al-Anon. You can't ask, you can't place expectations, you can't expect them to have your schedule or happiness in their treatment. Which would be wonderful if you are the struggling AC. But it doesn't help squat to the others trying to figure out if the next train wreck is going to happen or not.

Michael66

Hi Liz. I think we all find our own ways. I found listening to AA talks on line really useful (see https://www.xa-speakers.org/). And this place was invaluable. Most of all, for me, I had to come to a place where I accepted that I couldn't drink, ever. AA may be essential for you, or it might not be. Don't judge yourself depending on the answer to that one - I think you just need to find what works for you, and then stick to it. God bless, and well done for joining the sober wagon. These early days are the hardest for many of us, so we'll done for starting!