Seared

Each time I binge/relapse, right afterwards I feel I am "ready" to stay sober for good. However, a little time passes (like 2 weeks) and I somehow get "unready" and binge again. This is currently the story of my life! I did go to one AA meeting (even though I hate AA) but I didn't feel like it was a good fit for me, I didn't feel comfortable there. I guess I will try some other, different AA meetings in my area (even though I don't want to) to see if one of those is a better fit. I want to stop this cycle of binging, what do I do?!

NewBeginning010

Seared... your description was me to a T... or should I say B for Binge. If I had a drink & didn't need to stop I wouldn't but in the end I would say that I was truly sick & tired of being sick & tierd.

I used to brush off my alcoholism with the notion that I was not an alcoholic as I didn't drink everyday & could be responsible in other ares of my life. But as time went on the binges got worse along with the hangovers & effects on my health. Let alone the things I started doing while drunk.

A couple of trips to the hospital helped to firm things up for me in regards to finally quitting. These trips were not due to injury from accidents or while wasted they were the results of the next day effects of my prolonged drinking. My binges went from what was only a one day a week thing to a multiple day event, this thing really is progressive.

It is more work & pain to drink then to finally quit throw in the towel on the notion of ever drinking again. In the end just not picking up that first drink can lead to a lifetime of sobriety. Of course there are many things you can do & programs that are filled with people on this journey. This site is a great tool towards recovery.

Keep sharing & let us know whats going on, we understand

P.S. I went to your first post to read about your story in regards to drinking & the negative impacts it has had on your life but didn't get a full picture. Can you share a little more about what brought you here so that others can help you more in regards to relating to your struggles? If you feel comfortable of course ;-)

ReadyAndAble

Next time, remember the way you feel right now. How drinking utterly, completely fails to satisfy you in any meaningful way. It not only fails to fill the void inside you, but it makes it larger and larger, drop by drop. Remember that the next time that lying voice of addiction tries to tell you that you would enjoy a drink.

Not sure why you hate AA (I'm also not sure being comfortable should be among your top priorities). But all that aside, there are lots of forms of support. Posting here is a good start; maybe it's time to broaden the net?

Seared

Well, it's not that I hate it, just that I don't feel comfortable in there.

sugarbear1

stop being uncomfortable, open your mind and listen. everyone in there is trying to save their life by not drinking. it's an action program that needs to be experienced....

best wishes on staying stopped no matter how you do it.

PaleMale

Nothing will "be right for you" unless you are really ready. I was this way for quite some time before I realized it was a life or death thing. One day I realized, I was broken and all the rationalizing in the world couldn't fix it. Sort of like when you break your arm, and you fully realize, "I really did it this time" and ignoring or trying to convince yourself your arm isn't broken. Hope will not heal it. Decisive action will.

All the best to you! You can make it work and get the healing started. It's a process, not a destination.

keithj

Seared, I want to share a quote from AA's Big Book. This was an observation made by a doctor who treated a couple thousand alcoholics. See if it describes your pattern, and if it does, consider carefully that last sentence. It was perfectly true for me.

Seared

Well how do I get "really ready"? Is it my own fault if I'm not really ready? I guess I have just been sitting and waiting for some "magical" treatment, but that's not going to happen. I have been pretty stubborn about not wanting to do the work.

UofI2008

I'm no expert on sobriety, but, if you really want to get sober you will try whatever it takes. That doesn't necessarily mean going to AA either. It might just be fighting with all your might to never take that first drink, picking up some books on sobriety, or non-AA programs. Everything I gather here from the people with a lot of sober time is that when you are willing to quit you will do everything in your power to get and STAY sober.

Seared

Well what is a psychic change? I can't do that myself, can I?

keithj

Psychic change, spiritual awakening, personality change sufficient to overcome alcoholism are all terms used in the BB to describe what those in AA have found as necessary for recovery. The 12 Steps have produced that change for those of us that have recovered in AA.

Carl Jung made the same observation as the Dr. I quoted.
And no, most of us can't produce that change by ourselves. That's what the 12 Steps and the directions in the BB are for. Taking those actions produces that change. It's worked for every single person I've seen really do it.

Seared

But wouldn't one have to experience the psychic change in order to want to even go to AA and work the 12 steps?

Nirvana1

Pray about it. Seriously.

The only thing that helped me when I was still drinking was praying.

When I started praying regularly I got a lot of "extra help" that made quitting easier.

keithj

I didn't. I had to get beaten badly enough by my alcoholism so that I didn't see a way out. I was willing to go to AA and start taking the Steps because I couldn't bear facing another day on this earth with the misery I felt.

I went to AA because I had sincerely tried for a long time to stop drinking. I went through doctors, counselors, medications for anxiety and depression, outpatient treatment, inpatient rehab, jails, etc., and still couldn't stay sober.

I went to AA because I was hopeless, and I was convinced that my crappy wasted life was never going to change, and would probably get a lot worse.

phil

Hello and welcome, for me when I went to my first AA meeting I was uncomfortable as well. My expectations of what I thought it was going to be like was way off. First of all I thought there were going to be a room full of miserable drunk still detoxing and a load of people to grab ahold of us and teach us what we needed to stay sober. Instead I found a bunch of people cheerful and kinda snobby to be honest. Speaking a language I didnt understand.

What it took was this.. I had to get into a frame of mind that I are trully powerless over alcohol. Anyway you look at it you have got to drop both feet in or better yet crawl into it. I felt at first like.... I want what they have but this isnt for me, but I kept going learning day after day kept trying. Still expecting someone to come shelter me and show me the ropes...never came. Not until I became willing to ask for it then I got the treatment I neeeded. It was the foundation I was looking for and you will find it too, but its up to you on when this happens.

We all take different journeys some faster some slower but if you want it you can find it in the rooms. You may not like it, you may not agree with it at first. But it will work if you work it and keep going back.

Btw I joined this forum some 8 years ago sitting and just as scared as you are. Today for some reason after not even so much as logging in in the past 3 years I came today. Maybe to talk to you about this.

Psychic change ? whats that? Im kinda wondering what your thinking it is? It is in fact you, you You cannot do this alone You need to re-awaken and believe and Trust that god will help you thru your alcoholism. It is a heart felt gut wrenching love and trust between you and your god that will pull you thru this. More importantly will keep you sober everyday you believe it. Its a lifestyle, its a everyday occurrance that you keep believing every single day. Leaning closer, trusting more and believing its true. every morning, every night, every minute every second of everyday. Oh and heres the best part for your whole life. Scarey isnt it? But its true. Its going to be the toughest thing you have ever done. It gets easier and after 8 years sober myself or just about. I can tell you I wouldnt be here without going thru everything I just described. I was scared as hell and proud to say it today. Later to move on to chair meetings and have done many leads very active in a program that I thought was a bunch of AA idiots the first day I walked in. I now run groups thru church not affiliated with AA but will forever be in debt to a group that saved me.

Good luck to you and keep going

artsoul

Hi Seared -

I hope you give yourself some credit for being here and wanting to work on this. Frankly, I never felt totally ready. One part of me wanted to stop and the other part just wanted to keep drinking, no matter what.

I just finally made a commitment one day after lurking on this forum for a couple months. I decided that it didn't matter if I was "ready" - I knew I was going to have to stop at some point, and I didn't want to wait until something bad happened. I figured "why not just go ahead and stop now?"

At first I had to take it one day (one craving) at a time. Coming here every day kept me motivated. After a while it got easier - I got used to being sober and started feeling more positive about my life.

A couple of quotes that resonate with me:

onlythetruth

May I suggest a different way forward? Try SMART Recovery. It's possible that you won't feel any more comfortable there than you do in AA, but it's also possible that, like many SMART members, you'll find a different approach appealing. And you can use SMART alongside AA, if you want. There's nothing wrong with combining approaches.

SMART has tools to assist people with "becoming ready". This is because we view the recovery process in stages which begin before you actually decide to quit for good...specifically:

Stage #1: Pre-Contemplation

Unaware of problems associated with behavior. Certain that the positives of the behavior out- weigh the negative. Not interested in change. Unwilling to change. No intention to change.

Stage#2: Contemplation

Becomes aware of problems associated withbehavior. Ambivalent regarding positives and negatives. Explores the potential to change. Desires to change behavior but lacks confidence and commitment. Intends to change before 6 months.

Stage #3 Preparation

Accepts responsibility to change behavior. Evaluates and selects techniques for behavior. Develops a plan. Builds confidence and commitment. Intends to change within one month.

Stage #4: Action

Engages in self-directed behavior change effort. Gains new insights and develops new skills. Consciously chooses new behavior. Learns to overcome the tendencies for unwanted behavior. Active in action stage for less than six months.

Stage #5:Maintenance

Masters the ability to sustain new behavior with minimum effort. Establishes desired new behavior patterns and self-control. Remains alert to high-risk situations. Focus is on lapse prevention. Has changed behavior for six months.

Lapse or Relapse

This is an event, not a stage. May occur at any time. Personal distress or social pressures are allowed to interrupt the behavior change process. Temporary loss of progress which resumes at an earlier stage. Experience is educational to help prevent further recurrence.

Stage #6: Termination

Adopts new self-image consistent with desired behavior and lifestyle. Does not react to temptation in any situation. Expresses confidence and enjoys self-control. Appreciates healthier and happier life.

Based on what you're saying, you are either in the Contemplation or the Preparation stage of recovery, or bouncing back and forth between the two. Tools that might be useful to you at this point are the Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Hierarchy of Values. For further information, head on over to the SMART Recovery website:

SMART Recovery® | Self Help for Addiction & Alcohol Abuse

Zebra1275

Well, a lot of good advice has been written so far. Here's my 2 cents.

One AA meeting probably won't do squat for you. You need to go to a lot of meetings (some people recommend 90 meetings in 90 days). And you need to study (not just read) the Big Book, especially the first 164 pages.

And yes, you can do a psychic change by yourself (although the help of a sponsor would be better). Psychic change is really kind of archaic language from the 1930's when the Big Book was written. Don't expect a lighting bolt to come out of the sky and zap you in the butt. I suppose that may happen sometimes, but it hast happened so far to anybody I know.

Psychic change is really personality change (as noted in a Big Book appendix) or behavioral change. It's more about your attitudes and how you react and interact with the world. In other words, I believe it is basically learned behavior, and you are capable of learning new behavior. In fact, AA is sometimes referred to as a design for living, and people who are in AA for a long time often report that they have found a new way to live.

RobbyRobot

Sure, ideally yes. And you might be closer to the truth than you realize, you know?

The thing is, I would have died drunk waiting for my positive happy all inclusive spiritual experience to happen so that I could attend AA, rehab, therapy, fellowship, service, sobriety, and so on and so on.

As an alcoholic, I drank because I felt way better drunk then I did sober. My mind worked better drunk then sober. My actions seemed to have more purpose drunk then sober. I was more me drunk then i was me sober. Life was manageable. Absolutely.

Yep. That is of course until I wasn't any of those wonderful things drunk. Yeah, the other side of chronic alcoholism. The pain side. After that I drank because if I didn't drink I felt so bad that i would rather be dead. Getting bad when you have to stay drunk because if you don't you feel like offing yourself.

Yeah, but it still got worse. Eventually, me being drunk, or between drunks, in jail, or in hospital, or waking up in a ditch and knowing that the only thing that would make me forget my troubles was some more booze and with just a few drinks I was again in that insane reality where living on the streets made wonderful sense. But it wouldn't last. Within hours of any drunk, I was again just totally lost and hurting and angry and drunk. And alone. Very alone.

Let me tell you, not all spiritual experiences are fun and enlightening, and nourishing. There are also dark experiences; experiences which suck the life outta you, shred the fabric of your mind, and evaporate your feelings like an impossible blast furnace. You find yourself at the edge of the horrible inner abyss within chronic alcoholism. You hesitate. And then you jump anyways. Now I was beyond all human aid. No more passing go. No more hope. No more reason. As an agnostic at those times, all I had was the horrible realization that faith made the most sense to me than anything else. And my slowly realizing that lousy truth just made me drink all the more of course. Still though, my journey was coming to an ugly end one way or another because booze itself was just not working for me anymore. I was dying.

When being drunk isn't enough, and sobriety is impossible, then all that you got left is a lonely wasting death. These kind of experiences also bring on psychic changes in there own way too. Yeah, it wasn't all cake and honey, and I just happily decided to get my ass sober, lol, after feeling all warm and fuzzy from some spiritual experience.

Have a courage and be of good cheer because before it gets better it can easily get worse while you wait for it to get better and so obviously waiting is the worst thing to do in any case.

Taking5

No, the change is the result of working the steps, not a prerequisite for working the steps.