sobern2003

Hello,Im Becky and Im an alcoholic. I have been doing poorly for awhile and came so close to drinking the other night. I have decided to surrender and get my sorry butt back to meetings and quit blaming my job for my lack of meetings. Yes,my schedule and circumstances dont really allow for me to go to activities and meetings I want to,but I have let my bitterness and resentment totally take over and keep me from all meetings. I have not spoken to my sponsor in months, I was GSR for my homegroup and I totally blew that off,and my dealings with others at times has been rough,lashing out unfairly. Damn it I miss AA!! I totally do,and now must pry my sorry butt up from in front of the computer where I park it whenever i am not working,and get back into recovery before something really bad happens.I did get to a meeting last Thursday night, it was my home group for many years before my work schedule changed( read..... I got fired from my last job for lousy attitude and being mean... real mean) Time for me to quit blaming everybody and everything for my misery and take responsibilty.
Becky
:rotfxko

Frustriert

Hey, good luck. I went through a tough time about a couple of weeks ago myself. I was just pissed off at the world, irritable and didn't want to help anyone. Just sitting in the meeting room and venting, telling people how I felt...after a couple of times of doing that it helped. I'll pray for you, please take care.

Get out there with some other alcoholics and just VENT! It feels sooooo good to get that stuff out.

bigguyslimm

Stay strong. You've made it way to far to turn back now. Just remember things will get better.

sobern2003

Thanks! Im on my way out the door to a meeting in a little while.it will be good to get to a meeting. Guess I will will be looking for a new sponsor,since i doubt the old one is intersted after all this time. for some reason Im afraid to return to my home group and to see my sponsor.I know I screwed up by just dissapearing and blowing off my committment.It doesnt help that I moved in february across town and cant get out that way often anymore.See how it goes I guess.
Becky

sobern2003

Back from the meeting. Turned out to be a speaker meeting. I really like speaker meetings a lot. I called my sponsor and am waiting to hear back from her,
It was so good to get to a meeting. Last week at this time I was standing in a liquor store debating buying a bottle. Im so glad I left empty-handed.the speaker tongight had 6 years and went back out,and now has a couple months. I needed to hear what happens when people with time go back out. I dont want to be the next one.

PricklyPear

Sounds like you are suffering from untreated alcoholism, your 8 years separated from booze means very little. my advice go through the steps in the Big Book with someone who will point you to real power( It's not meetings).

If you are alcoholic like I am, if you stay in your current state, it's not a question of if you will drink, it's when. judging from your original post you are thirsty. Do some work, recover and have the psychic change-or don't, the choice is yours. I am here to tell you, freedom beyond your wildest dreams awaits you.

You'll get plenty of hugs and well wishers on this site, a few people may actually tell you the truth.

sobern2003

thank you. You are so right. In fact I found myself last week standing in a liqour store. It is nothing short of miraculous I left without buying a bottle. Next time I likely wont be so fortunate,so I best be making sure there wont be a next time.

Music

You know what sobern? What works, works!! I've been where you're at several times. I get all caught up in stuff that bottom line, isn't all that impportant. I know work is important but if I'm not sober, how long is work going to last? I know family is important but if I'm drunk, they won't be all that important when it comes to getting that next drink. Friends are important but I found out that my real friends are the ones who'll tell me what I don't want to hear.....like, you need to call your sponsor and go to a meeting. As long as I don't drink, there's hope. AA is like that! I can always get back on the path and start doing again, what works. Just get back on that path.

EricL

Thanks so much for our share, its always refreshing to hear someone else relate the same experience I had.

This is what my eighth year of sobriety looked like: I was cheating on my wife, lying to everyone around me, gambling online in the motel I was staying at (because I couldn't bare to see my wife due to my actions), manipulating family into giving me money... all while going to 3+ meetings a week, going out to fellowship, and watching people people get restored to sanity. I would sit there wondering "Why? Why am I dying inside? Why is my life totally out unmanageable?"

For me, it was because I had boxed god out of my life. As if to say "Thank you god for helping with the whole drinking thing, but please, stay out of my sex life, stay out of my gambling, stay out of my relationships. Those, I can handle on my own."

Eventually I found myself at the jumping off point where I was living without any solution at all. Alcohol at one point was my solution, later god and the AA program became my solution but I now found myself knowing I could not drink (though the obsession was creeping back into my life). Though at the same time I was leading a totally self-reliant life, no spiritual solution what-so-ever. The only feasible solution was becoming that of suicide.

One night I was sitting in my car, outside a bar after leaving my regular Thursday evening meeting, and thinking that one of two things was going to happen that night. I was either going to go into that bar and see what happened, or I was going to go home and kill myself. I don't know what happened, but a thought sprung to mind from a speaker tape that I had listened to years prior, it was in reference to finding a sponsor, "...I prayed for god to put a teacher in my life, and why would he refuse to put someone in my life to lead me to him." This was the point of my surrender. I surrendered that night to the idea that I didn't have any clue as to what I was doing, and that I needed that vital spiritual experience I was watching you all have.

So, I went home, prayed and two days later I met my current sponsor (who coincidentally I came to find out later, had the exact same experience as I did around his eight year mark-coincidence, I think not), and dove back into the work with a whole new perspective.

I now am constantly reminded of that third step question that I took for granted for so long "God is either everything or he is nothing, what is your choice to be?" Over the last couple of years I have seen my life changed dramatically, yet again. My wife and I reconciled, the gambling stopped, I live a transparent life, and have made financial amends and direct amends to people I harmed.

Today, I feel the nearness of my creator in my everyday life, and through the 10th and 11th step disciplines I continue to grow in my relationship to god and have the privilege of passing this experience on to other men and women in AA. I get the privilege of showing up my family's life, the privilege of being of service to society, and also to AA.

I never want to go through that experience again, that pain, but it provided a bottom where I had no other choice but to resurrender to this process and have another experience with god that revolutionized my life. I urge you to do the same. Meetings are great, but get back into the work. Have an experience with god. Get to that place the book calls "recovered". It truly is wonderful.

gr8ful42day

Always remember:

langkah

Good stuff guys. I get a charge when people turn back to the program instead of going on a path that leads back to the nowhere we came from. What you learn from that helps others. Hugely important and useful.

sobern2003

My sponsor called me back today. We talked for awhile about this and that. I relly want to sit down with her and talk in depth and to get her help in getting back into living the steps.
I feel like all the time I have been sober my sobriety has been a sham. Oh i have abstained from drinking and drugging,but what has been tearing me up on the inside all this time is the way I have been living and the secrets I keep to myself. the only.....only way I will ever find true peace is to come totally clean with someone about my life..no holds barred. while I continue to keep stuff to myself due to fear and to unwillingness to change I can expect more of the same of what I have been getting. As for the God I have spent so much time cursing for not letting me die peacefully in my sleep? Guess I better be getting humble,asking for forgiveness and asking for his help to get me willing to go to any lenths to stay sober.Cause at the rate Im going I aint gonna make it!!
Going to a meeting tonight and anothe one tomorrow.
I need help bad. I need to be honest and willing.
I went to the local intergroup and bought some AA literature to replace what I left behind when I moved last february from my house. Im gonna get back all that I lost due to my untreated alchohlism. my house and marriage are gone for good,but I still have something to work with thank god.Time ot move on...

sobern2003

ok back from the meeting. It felt so damn good to be sitting in a room full of people who are like me. the only people i have really interacted with are coworkers,and none of them are in recovery,so I have been alone! I love being with other alkies like me,people who truly understand me,and who I understand.
Next up is to involve myself fully with my homegroup once again if they will have me. I understand from my sponsor that they have not had anyone to take my place as GSR,so perhaps I could still do that.I will see Monday night when I go.

CaiHong

Sobern

Thankyou for your wonderful honest post, It does me good to be reminded that getting sober is not just putting down a drink and attending meetings. I am at the point in my life where I need to fully embrace the AA program. I can see the petty, nit picking, resentful, judgemental person emerging. Alcohol would help push that person down, most of the time.
Also the meetings I have gone to I have not been that impressed with some of the members sobriety and it has sort of put me off a bit. You have given me insight into what may be going on and I won't be so worried about their sobriety or manifestation of, as much as my own from now on.
I finally made a meeting yesterday after a 3 hour bus ride, a long walk up a mountain. What an adventure, the meeting wasn't spectacular in the sense I was overwhelmed by a welcoming crowd, it was just real, a room full of alcoholics there, to get sober. i love the meeting room the most wonderful comfortable sofas. The magic in those rooms, today I am feeling amazing.
Next week I will try to make more meetings as time allows.
Sobern if you have time please post more about your journey with the steps.

CaiHong

shaun00

Where are you with the steps ?.....and where are you with god ...?

I can blossom and recover if i maintain my spiritual well being...

But i can tell you from experience that life can get pretty uncomfortable if i fail to do the above and seek instruction in the steps.

Life quickly becomes sharp edged......restless irritable and generally a pain to be around.....before long ill seek ease and comfort....maybe not with a drink at first.
I may start bouncing cheques...or gambling...or seeking comfort in the arms of a female....

Finally i arrive at the point where all that remains is the old solution..... spiritually unwell , the old obsession and insanity returns ...... im without defence and ill walk into a bar completely convinced it will be different this time..

just my experience.

NYCDoglvr

When I cut back on meetings I get withdrawn, self-involved, self-centered and depressed. A week of daily meetings brings me back to sanity. Good luck

DayTrader

Thanks Sobern and EricL for sharing your stories. It can't be easy to admit stuff like that - especially when you've had quite a while since your last drink. While I'm not glad that you're hurting (or were hurt - in Eric's case), a guy like me at 4 1/2 years needs to hear that for a couple reasons. 1. To be reminded that the same can happen to me should I start to ease up on my work (which I've done a little of lately.....) 2. To be reminded that, no matter how bad things get.....there's still hope as soon as I'm willing to ask God for it.

sobern2003

thanks everyone for your replies to my post. As for where I am with the steps an with God, I have not worked nor practiced the steps in so long,and I have allowed myself to become so angry with God and blame him for my misery. cursing him and calling him names for not taking me in my sleep. Yes I have mental health issues in addition to alcoholism.
I have been to meetings the last three nights and I feel much better. And talking to my sponsor and others,seeing other recovering people has made a difference.Im still fearful and nervous about my financial situation etc. but I dont feel quite so angry and wanting to die.

uncle holmes

Sobern, I go through what you described from time to time. The resentments and bitterness builds up. It dominates my mind instead of clear, spiritual thinking. And if I don't catch it before it's too late, I don't necessarily think about drinking, but rather I burst out and get in trouble for things I say at work or with family.

Just wondering if you've done a fourth and fifth step lately? I know for me when it really builds up, my attitude gets bad, it's time to do a fourth and fifth step. That means writing down on paper my resentments, fears, and my own selfishness. Then sitting down at a table with my sponsor or another AA person I can trust, and sharing those defects with them. It truly does relieve a lot of that tension that builds up and I feel better. Good luck.

XbrenbrenX

when i feel sorry for myself, i make a list. two columns, on the left side, the cons, on the right side the pros.

example of cons: i don't have much money, i'm depressed, i'm thinking about using.

example of the pros: i have my health, my sobriety, my family loves me, i have my dogs, my house, a job, a spiritual connection, my life, etc

the pro's ALWAYS outweigh the cons if you go about the list honestly. i find it quite therapeutic.