helluvacook

Just checking in. I'm having a hard time with all of the emotional stuff. I had my first meeting last week, and have been to 2 more since then. I started reading the Big Book, and praying alot. I had 2 drinks when we were out to dinner at Saturday, but that was it. Then last night, I was feeling really edgy and misunderstood by my fiance, and angry that he is not pulling his weight. So I did what I do, and I went and got a bottle of wine. But instead of getting the big bottle, I got the small bottle. Is that progress? I dunno.

It's all come full circle. I used to be the sober one, complaining about the alcoholics in my life. My mother, alcoholic and addict, who has been in rehab for the last 7 years. She has been drunk and high much of my life. My step parents, alcoholics and addicts. My ex fiance alcoholic. I went to alateen as a kid, and then I went to alanon. Now I'm the one going to AA. It blows my mind. I hear myself making the same excuses as I have heard them say. Acting the same way they have acted. I feel like I am not as bad as they were, but it will progress if I don't stop.

This is probably why I am ambiguous about stopping, because I still want to drink, but I don't want to be an alcoholic. Yet most of the time I don't drink like a normal person and I can't control my intake. I'm fully functioning, and I don't miss work, and I haven't hit a bottom so to speak. The thing is, I don't want to have to be emotionally bankrupt in order to see the forest through the trees.

Am I making any damn sense to anyone?

Do I have to start working on my 4th step now in order to prove to myself that I should quit?

Snarf

I think you should work on Step 1 before trying Step 4. It doesn't seem like you've accepted the fact that you are powerless against alcohol ("This is probably why I am ambiguous about stopping, because I still want to drink, but I don't want to be an alcoholic"), and you definitely don't feel that your life has become unmanageable ("I'm fully functioning, and I don't miss work, and I haven't hit a bottom so to speak").

Without that first step, nothing else matters. I'm new to this myself, but that seems to me like attempting to assemble a house and stand it up on sand, with no foundation in place.

Anna

Hi,

Well, it makes sense, in that none of us want to accept that we can never drink again.

But, for me, trying to control my intake, was insanity. Over and over again, I would tell myself that I woud just have two glasses of wine at dinner. And, then I would start thinking about it more and more to the point of obsessing. And, I would never stick to my plan.

You're lucky that you know you need to stop drinking before things get worse.

NEOMARXIST

Seems like you ain't accepted your alcoholism yet. Without that then you ain't gonna quit. Accepting myself as an alcoholic/addict each day is fundamental to my sobriety each day. Before I accepted that then I would just drink again... What would be stopping me?

Peace

least

I feel like I've 'turned a corner' in my recovery because I no longer have thought of drinking when the sh!t hits the fan. I think the advice about going back to step One is right on: you've got to believe that you're powerless over alcohol before you can truly (want to) stop drinking. I hope you come to that point soon as you're right, it will progress, and things will only get worse.

keithj

It would be pointless to consider any 4th Step inventory at this time. The Steps build on each other, with successful completion of the preceeding Step inevitably funnelling one into the next Step.

The formal directions for Step 1 are to fully concede to one's innermost self that one is alcoholic. Therefore, it implies that knowing what it menas to be alcoholic is required. You can find out if you are alcoholic by laying down your own personal experience next the Dr.'s Opinion and the first 44 pages of the Big Book. What happens when you drink? Do you experience the phenomenon of craving as decribed in the BB? What happens when you don't drink?

If, when you honestly want to, you find you can not quit entirely, or, if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic.

One of the hardest parts of using this definition is getting past the delusion of 'I didn't really want to quit', or 'I changed my mind.'

paraphrases from aabb1st

Dee74

This was me - for the best part of 20 years.

In the end I had to ask myself why was alcohol so important to me - it clearly was not good for me, I clearly couldn't 'control' it like I want to - why is it I couldn't just...give it up?

I was ok for most of my drinking too...or I was able to kid myself (and others) I was...

but then I lost it big time - no warning, no big event - I just went from maintaining a job and a reputation, to drinking it all away - and it still seems overnight....

in my bewilderment, I kept drinking for 5 years after that, became the town drunk, and nearly died.

I really recommend you do anything you can do, try anything you can try, to avoid that, 'cook

D

helluvacook

Thanks everyone. I was mostly kidding about doing the 4th step now, just showing how frustrated I am.
I think we all rationalize with ourselves however we can until there is just no way around it any more. I don't know why alcohol has that much power but it does. And the human condition is usually that we can't learn from other's mistakes, we have to learn through our own experience.
I have had enough rotten experience and done enough bad things to tell me that I am on the red wine road to nowhere. I am just struggling with the decision to stop altogether. And you guys know that if it was easy, everyone would do it.

keithj

The decision to stop was very easy for me. Managing that decision was impossible for me. I lacked the necessary power to do so. The people in AA showed me how to get the needed power working in my life.