Sohard

I start again today. Thanks for checking up!

Sohard

You are so right. I know it.

tomsteve

i found getting sober was a bitch but staying sober has been easy.
although working the program as laid out in the big book is how i managed to get sober, meetings were very detrimental for me.
why wouldnt ya want to go to meetings?
even then, getting the big book and using it as a coaster or letting it collect dust doesnt help.
its the actions that are necessary- with AA or ANY recovery program.

Sohard

Well, I really like hearing "staying sober" has been easy for you. Seriously. That gives me hope that maybe it can become easy for me, too. And I totally see what you are saying about "actions". I really did mean I would go and study that big book back to front as best as I know how. But, it seems you think meetings are a necessity. I just hate not knowing anyone or who will be there or what I'll be expected to say or do, etc. But, I might have to go after all, it appears. Thanks for your advice.

Redmayne

First thing you have to remember when dealing with anything is my self penned,'Michael's Law' which says that,'When you have examined everything and all that you are left with is the illogical,m that to must have its own logic.'

To do that you have to change your perception. Alcoholism is sometimes, with good reason referred to as 'The Illness of Perception'!

Above all you must constantly remind yourself that,'No one and nothing is trash' which was the first lesson Soko Morinaga, who as a poverty stricken and ignorant young novice monk who went on to be a highly respected and much revered Zen Master at the hands of the Abbot of the first Zen Monastery that took him in, again it's all a question of perception.

See his book,'Novice to Master - An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity'...

Grungehead

Sohard,

You can read the Big Book for free online here: https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/alcoholics-anonymous

If you do decide to start attending meetings I would suggest buying a hard copy of the book (many meetings have copies for sale), as it comes in handy if/when you decide to start working the steps with a sponsor. I bought a copy at my first meeting in 1990 and still have it (with many passages highlighted and notes in the margins).

Done4today

In the big book, I think in chapter 3 more about alcoholism. It states, the alcoholic thinking they can drink like a normal person has to be smashed. Once we accept this and surrender then you know alcohol isn't an option and start working on the real problem. Your thinking thinking thinking.

good luck

Done4today

I would suggest reading chapters 2 and 3 over and over until you identify. My experience that is my drinking history almost word for word. Then read chapters 4 and the first part of chapter 5 past the list of steps to the words now you are on step 3. At this point go to meetings and just listen to others share. When you hear someone describe what they have now and that's what you want. ASK/BEG/PLEAD for them to be your sponsor and do what they tell you.

Reading this string it sounds like you are on the same path as I was. It took me a while to identify as an alki. I could say I was an alcoholic because I believed it. I just didn't want to believe that I couldn't drink like the rest of the people. Once I surrendered and accepted that sobriety was my ONLY option at a life that didn't involve police interaction, hospital visits, and possible incarceration. Being sober has given me such an amazing life in just 22 months. Nothing really on the material side of life but the spiritual, human connections, relationships, personal mental well being, and calmness. Please don't ever give up on reaching for sobriety, you won't regret it.

Good luck

Stayingsassy

Maybe you haven’t found the right meeting. They are all different. I had to go to 5 or 6 of them before I found some I liked.

I recommend making a commitment to attend meetings.

tomsteve

i dont think any of us knew anyone at the meetings when we first walked in.
you wont be expected to say anything and ya dont have to say anything.
who will be there is a mixed bag- there could be people very early in recovery, people sober for years and years, people court ordered...
basically you find a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help other to recover from alcoholism.

yes, staying sober has been easy. again,though, it wasnt easy gettin to that point. i had some days where fighting the mental obsession was all i could do. i was really glad to learn i didnt have to get on my knees to pray or there would have been days i never got off my knees!
but i kept going to meetings, reading the big book, and working the steps.
and as the program promised, this occurred:
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

lots more promises of the program that have occured for me and in my life,too!

waynetheking

As long as you keep trying your not a failure. Take it one day at a time. It gets easier. The cravings and triggers will get weaker. You just have to give it time. Stay busy and get into action. Alcoholism is no joke. You have to get busy. Standing around with your hands in your pockets will get you killed. Get busy and quit worrying about relasap. It happens. So what. Move on and keep going.

Stayingsassy

Yes: it’s not a joke or a game...we’re on, we’re off, we’re good, we’re bad, we’re sober, we’re drinking....just keep checking where you need to be and be there. People die from this. Don’t drink no matter what. Get sober support. Eyes forward.

Obladi

SoDear,

Your older "2 weeks" thread just popped up again...
I didn't see that one before.

Now I really dislike it when people quote me back to myself so I won't do that but I'd like to ask you to challenge that this bottle of wine at the restaurant came out of nowhere. Didn't you post just a few hours earlier that this is exactly what you wanted to do to fill the nothingness?

I am no A-Team Sobriety Team member (yet!), so take me with a grain of salt, but if I'm understanding the sequence correctly you did have warning. You had some tools at your disposal, but they were not adequate to combat the beast. Basically, you could have posted here (which you did) and you could maybe have called your therapist, but that's not enough.

This is why you need to look for Every Single Resource you can use in your recovery. Two options is simply not enough. A recovery support program adds at least two more - meetings and phone numbers from people who want to support you.

"I just hate not knowing anyone or who will be there or what I'll be expected to say or do, etc. But, I might have to go after all, it appears."

No one is telling you what you have to do; people are simply offering the tactics that worked for them. But hating the uncertainty of a program full of people that only want to help? Think about it - how could that possibly be a worse prospect than the terrifying uncertainty of what might happen the next time you drink?

I hope that doesn't sound like a lecture - I don't mean it that way. I just feel like you really want this and don't want you to waste the years I did by not really Going For the Gold!

xoxo
O

jwal616p

When I went to treatment some people had been to 5-7, 30 day rehabs before its common to slip up a few time. Just gotta keep at it. You'll get there!

Redmayne

This is just a personal observation, based on the premise,'Live and let live'. I attended meetings for many, many years at intermittent intervals but for regular periods until after being handed a copy of 'Joe & Charlie's:Big Book Study Meeting', To be listened to whilst holding my copy of 'Alcoholics Anonymous'. Now heavily marked, annotated and highlighted in parts.I realizes as Joe McQuany did that the Fellowship of AA, for whatever is said about it good, bad or indifferent exists as a support organisation for 'problem drinkers'. No one got sober at an AA meeting,right!

The real key to recovery is in the content of the book 'Alcoholics Anonymous' with particular reference to 'The Doctor's Opinion' and Chapter 3,'More About Alcoholism'...once I understood this and them, Charlie Parmley and Joe McQuany, I made progress as did the many thousands of others they helped over their lifetime..

Just a thought, ok but it worked for me and many others and these two men have my eternal gratitude...as has the guy who passed a copy of their words to me otherwise I'd be dead or in a similar position to what you're experiencing now. Given that was coming up for ten years ago,probably dead...a sobering thought!

Gottalife

I am a bit of a rebel in this regard. The AA that saved my life was started in my country by a man who was two years sober, just with the book, before he managed to find another drunk to form a group with and they had their first meeting. Early next year we are having our 55th annual national convention. He had been hospitalised a few times and may have been in hospital at the start.

The question I have for you is would your brain be up to studying the big book? Could you take in more than one page without losing the thread?

If you can do that (I couldn't) Then a rigorous study of the first 103 pages Big Book would be an excellent way to start in AA. There are two stages I would suggest.

Stage one, filter your own experience through the book. From what you have said you are so similar to the real alcholic the book refers too, you may well find your experience matches almost every page. You will find many similarities I am sure.

Stage two, head to some meetings and listen. Filter everything you hear through your experience with the Big book, and that will tell you who to be listening to, who will be the most useful in helping you.

I so totally relate to the snap decision to have a wine. That is how most relapses happen for the real alcholic. We lack the power to keep up our guard 24/7, and all it takes is one thoughtless insane moment. I have seen it happen so many times. A complete failure of all defenses that should have saved us. Calling someone or playing the tape through just does not come to mind in these moments of madness.

The solution is to find a 24/7 defense. I have one of those, I found it in AA. For me it has never come down to choice, as in being in a situation and choosing whether or not to drink. I lost the power of choice so that was never going to work. As you have discovered, it is so easy to make the wrong choice. The 24/7 defence I have means that it never occurs to me to drink. I dont have to think about it, it just doesn't come up no matter what else is going on. The problem has been removed. I have been placed in a position of neutrality as far as alcohol is concerned, safe and protected. Drinking is redundant.

Obladi

I just want to say that AA isn't the only way people have found helpful. Personally, I have, but when I was feeling so torn and ambivalent it was a very tough sell for me. So it's important to know, SoDear, that there are any number of other options available to you. The most important thing that I am reading (perhaps my own bias) is that you need in person support from a group of people that understands this madness. At least it's worth a whirl, right?

I read the Big Book, read around on SMART Recovery, learned about Rational Recovery and did a gross amount of studying in general. All of that gave me a platform to help me come to my own understanding of addiction and recovery. And it was good. I just spent far too much time in fear and intellectualization that was really kind of a waste now that I feel the relief of being on the other side with a strong support network in and out of AA.

SoDear, I think in the end the key to me was letting go of the secret. Telling safe people what was going on with me and allowing them to help me. Much of that help was offered in ways that did not compute and I needed willingness as well as clarification to be able to accept. It's hard, all of it. But nothing, NOTHING is as hard as continuing to live in secrecy, despair, self-loathing and addiction.

I am pulling for you, girlfriend!!!

xo
O

Sohard

Thanks, all. I'm certainly thinking about everyone's words of wisdom. On day 2 and feeling good about that. Obviously I do need more support for when those cravings/urges seem to come out of nowhere. I have a tendency to - in those circumstances only - think "I'm not REALLY an alcoholic", which, if you knew me, is insane. And the rational part of me KNOWS I am an alcoholic. I just have to figure out how to make sure I NEVER forget it.

tomsteve

for now, put some notes around your house. one on the fridge, mirror,dresser.
in good eyesite

IFheweresaught

Alcoholics have no mental defence against the first drink. We drink because we can't not drink.

Lack of power is our dellima.

One we admit complete defeat and surrender to God , we are reborn of the spirit. God then shields us from the drinking provided we stick close to him