MemphisBlues

I'm having difficulty with them. I'm approaching five months of sobriety, the first five months in 40 years.

My sobriety has been the most humbling experience of my life. I'm attending an AA group here, and have yet to find -- or ask for -- a sponsor. But I'm trying to work the steps as best as I can.

One place I'm stuck at is my resentments; I don't have any, though throughout my life I was a resentful, acerbic, total a--.

Mr Brown, my former supervisor? I want to apologize to him (her). My ex-wife? An alcoholic, who recognized it and got sober 10 years ago through AA? She invited me along that path and I shunned her. Resentful? No, I'm grateful she saved her life, saved the lives of our two precious daughters -- who are sober so far -- and, if it weren't for her leaving me a decade ago, I wouldn't be sober today.

I've lost it all; I'm on disability. I own the clothes on my back, a cheap laptop and a few books. Am I resentful? I can only blame myself.

Am I wrapped up in my own pity party? Sure. But I'm stuck. How can I get to the point of making amends when I'm still so precariously pinned between steps two and three?

I'm powerless over alcohol and drugs.

I have finally accepted that there is a power greater than me -- or I would have died during withdrawal, or a couple of times before that. But I'm stuck. Why would he/she/it forgive me for all the wrong I have wrought? And for the first time in my life, I've felt God's hand: First from a simple line of encouragement found here, then from an AA meeting, where the act of one man asking me out to coffee with a group of other AA members was a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. That was last week.

Have I turned my will over to God? I'm not sure. I have turned over that portion of self that demanded drugs -- whether booze, pot, or those dispensed by a psychiatric -- over to God. The temptation is there, the obsessive compulsion to use has evaporated. Have I turned over my material plight to God? I have no other choice, just waiting to see what comes down the road.

Have I made a searching and fearless moral inventory? Every wakeful minute since I woke up in a psych ward, after going stark, raving mad in an abrupt detox from a killer dosage of tranquilizers washed down with booze. I'm stuck: my inventory keeps slapping me in the face: dude, what an a-- you were (are?).

Admitted to God, ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs? I'm at the "ourself" part, breathing it, swallowing it, choking on it.


MB

MsCooterBrown

Hi MB. I don't do AA but I know they have support for the steps here...try this..I hope it helps!

Alcoholism-12 Step Support - SoberRecovery : Alcoholism Drug Addiction Help and Information

CarolD

MB...
how about asking the guy who invited you for coffee
to be a temp sponsor?
Go to BB meetings and share that you need one.

Also...the Amends step is 9. You are not there yet...
They are in order for a reason...and more will be revealed
as you move forward.

Hope this helps

newby1961

OMG I am so glad that you shared the steps are in order cause that was exactly what I was told. I was told I might think I was doing the steps by thinking about them and reading them off the wall but IMO and many many people in AA it is not the way to work the steps. If I am relying on myself to take myself through the steps I am in trouble. I had an experience with trying to make an amends and I did more harm than good. I have 7 years and I still have a sponsor and she and I work the steps together. At 5 months my God I was barely able to understand Step 1 and 2. I have seen so many newcomers relapse after doing the program their way, not the way it is designed. I went to a bunch of BB mtg's and step mtgs my first few years and thank God I eventualy found a sponsor. I wouldn't recommend someone wait as long as I did, cause by the time I got one i was almost ready to go get loaded. I had to remember I was still very toxic the first year or so and my head was still out to get me. My best thinking had got me into all my messes. Anyway this is just my ESH from being around and seeing what has worked for me and lots of others. Keep the Faith

Rusty Zipper

another ism

i sponsor myself

MB,

do yourself a huge favor,

if your going to do A.A.

find a good sponsor

and one that wont tell you want you want to hear,

one that has the knowlege and wisdom of what you need to hear

good wishes to you

LexieCat

Yup, a sponsor will help keep you focused on the Step you are ON, and not let you boomerang off into ones you haven't gotten to yet (and aren't ready for).

I started off doing it exactly the way you are doing it, and had the same problems.

Ask for at least a temporary sponsor--you can always change sponsors if the relationship isn't helping you to grow.

joedris

I hate to say this, but you're not working the steps. You're looking at the topics. An alcoholic who works without a sponsor is like a lawyer who represents himself. Both have fools for clients. You need a sponsor. Just go up and ask someone. You can always change to another one if you so choose. It's not like getting married.

And for God's sake, stop where you are in the steps until you do get one. Stop thinking ahead. These things have numbers and for good reason. Amends? Don't even go there. You need to work through a few importasnt steps before that one. And don't ever, ever make amends without a sponsor's input. You could end up causing more harm than good.

And oh yeah. Stop with the pity party. Suck it up. Your experience isn't unique. We've all been there. Get someone to help you.

MemphisBlues

Thanks one and all. I have a meeting tonight and will put the word out there. I knew I was in trouble with these issues, trying to just do 'em in my head and getting nowhere, except deeper in the woe-is-me crap.

AA is the way, all the way.

Peace!

Boleo

Oh Really LOL!

Can you not think of one single person, celebrity or institution which you find distasteful, stupid or ridiculous?

LexieCat

And without a sponsor, you might find yourself worrying about how to make amends to Paris Hilton, fer god's sake!

FrothyJay

I think it's all been said-- you can't sponsor yourself. And the steps are not concepts-- they are a series of spiritual actions which bring about a result. So you can not have someone take you through the steps who has not had an experience themselves.

By experience here, I do not mean some sort of white-light, booming voices epiphany. More often it's slow change, over time, and it manifests as different things for different people, but one thing you should get is relief from the desire to drink. Sanity.

The Big Book says we have lost the ability to discern the true from the false. We are insane. The steps restore us to sanity.

Now, in terms of how to do the steps: I do not believe there are "many" ways, or everyone's path is different. The Big Book says "To show other alcoholics precisely how we recovered." My experience is only with the black part of the page in the AA textbook. When there is a set of instructions, we do them.

This traditional approach is called Big Book Step Study. It started in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in the 1980s. There is a website here.

You might find meetings in your area.

It's not for everyone, just utterly hopeless alcoholics.

Mark75

I was kinda stuck there for a while... I found that I was not really doing that inventory thing correctly. Usually I was making it a lot harder than it had to be. Once I followed through... Did the writing... How did these resentments make me choke? They affect my _______ ? What was my part in them?

I found that my pride was most often affected.

Doing step 4 and 5 properly lets you get done with them and move on.

MemphisBlues

OK...Resentments? Filled with them. Paris Hilton? Please.

I was referring to past resentments -- I always thought everything wrong in my personal world were all the people in it; I was the director in the Big Book, wishing everyone in the play would just do as I say.

Now, of course, all those resentments have turned to regrets. In doing my personal inventory, I realized my responsibility in all my trashing of relationships. The blame was always outward when I was drunk or stoned, and now it's directed inward.

As another here in recovery said, I have to learn to blame the booze and pills, but I can't get beyond the fact that I'm the one that crammed the things down my throat.

For example, I was prescribed an incredible dose of tranquilizers -- 20 milligrams of clonazepam -- for anxiety and panic attacks for many years.There's an FDA petition in the U.S. spearheaded by victims of tranquilizers seeking to have labels changed warning patients of the dangers of longterm use and of withdrawal procedures from them. I asked my ex-wife if I should send it to my psychiatrist. She said I should send him anthrax!

Do I have resentment toward my long-time shrink? Yeah. But I played him to get the drugs, pure and simple. And the horrors I went through going cold turkey from the benzos and booze is what has scared me straight, and for that I'm grateful

I can't thank you guys enough for responding. Every post is revealing. Recovery is about hard, blunt, painful truth, and I need shovels full of it.

I'm just now getting my brain wrapped around another wise post here: "Guilt is a form of selfishness." Or at least i "think'' my brain is getting it.

Narcissism has many shapes. I'm going to read more of this "self" biz in the BB.

And there's a meeting tonight, and the guy who invited me to coffee after the last meeting would be a great temporary sponsor. I keep forgetting it's a fellowship -- and why.

Another question. I had a chance to get sober a decade ago. I went into rehab for three weeks. There I was the poster child for recovery. The BB I'm reading is filled with writings from more than a dozen people in rehab with me, about how much I helped their recovery. Of course, it wasn't more than 30 days after I was out that I went back to clonazepam, and a few weeks after that I began drinking again. Then came the pot, and out went my marriage.

I realize now that I spent so much time helping others "get it," that I never spent time getting it myself. As with many AA meetings, there are a slew of youngsters there who show up only because they are made to by a court, family, what have you. This time I steer clear of them. All I do is hope that when I share, they learn. I'm placing my sobriety before theirs. I guess that's not a question after all, but I would appreciate any thoughts on that.

As one person said in my last meeting, he at one time was a two stepper, working one and 12, forgetting to work the ten in between. I hope that when I ask for a temporary sponsor tonight, he's the one who steps up. He's been sober for three years.

Corri

Memph:

I listened to the folks in A.A. It took me a few weeks to find a sponsor, and then when I picked the woman I wanted, she had to think about it -- LOL!!!

I also got 'stuck' on Step Four. I had seen a shrink for many years, and put many, many 'ghosts' to rest. I had no idea what I resented, except for myself. But, as my sponsor said to me, there is no 'rush' to do the steps. It's not like you get a certificate at the end saying you graduated from AA Step Work, Go and Sin No More. So... will me nill me, I slowed down simply because I HAD to. As soon as I did, as soon as I stopped searching for the 'right' answers, they began to come. I can't write them down yet, but I accept that this is a process, one that works in its own time. Now, as I allow the process to work, as I allow my sponsor to help me, I see doing exactly that is what is revealing to me what I need to know. (Did that make sense?)

You are exactly where you need to be. Slow down, open your mind, and allow it to help you.