I'm back, and this time trying AA
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Maryland
Posts: 16
I'm back, and this time trying AA
Hi everyone,
Some of you may remember me from the last November. I quit drinking and did about 40 days sober then. I relapsed really badly. I thought again I could handle just one drink. I was right back to my usual habits within a couple of months. Hence I stopped posting and coming to SR. I felt ashamed I had failed so bad. I was doing great too, felt awesome. I was doing the AVRT thing, and really had no support group or anyone I could talk to in person. These boards were my group. Well my addict voice won, and I had a beer. One led to two, and you guys know the rest.
Fast forward to April, and I got my first DUI. So I decided to give sobriety another go. Being that I was now facing legal consequences, as well as my wife threatening to leave if I don't clean up, I finally saw how big of a mess my life had become (again). It is true what they say about each relapse being worse than the last. This bender I went on was pretty nasty, even by my standards. I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted sobriety badly enought that I was going to go to any lengths to get it, and I walked into my first AA meeting a little over a month ago one Sunday night. I was still kind of drunk when I went, but I wanted to see what it was about. Two days later I stopped drinking and went back sober, and picked up my 24 hour chip. I have been going to at least one meeting per day since. Today marks 30 days sober for me. Again I feel great. This time around I will continue to go to meetings, and am in the process of "shopping" for a sponsor. I am ready to also do the step work requried. Over the past month I've heard enought sucess stories to know that the program works, and I know I can't do it alone. There is something very special about two or more alcoholics sitting together and discussing their problem face to face, it really is a more tangible version of this board. I'm going to do both to keep sober, read *& post here, and work the AA program.
Last time around, I was completely against AA, and never wanted to go to a meeting. I honestly thought I could do it myself, and I had power over alcohol, but since that failed, I guess I can now say I've completed step one of my recovery. The god aspect of the program is what kept me away, but after reading the Big Book, I'm ready to have an open mind. In the book there is a line that reads something like "who am I to say there is no god", which hit me pretty good, I just need to find this higher power.
So I'm back here and trying hard to stay sober, one day at a time. I now have AA as my support system, and will be going to a meeting every day as I have been. It really helps me find a peace that is lacking right now, with the absence of alcohol. So 30 days again, and trying to stay strong. Wish me luck guys. I HAVE TO suceed this time. The next dirink I have will litterally kill me.
Dive2Deep
Some of you may remember me from the last November. I quit drinking and did about 40 days sober then. I relapsed really badly. I thought again I could handle just one drink. I was right back to my usual habits within a couple of months. Hence I stopped posting and coming to SR. I felt ashamed I had failed so bad. I was doing great too, felt awesome. I was doing the AVRT thing, and really had no support group or anyone I could talk to in person. These boards were my group. Well my addict voice won, and I had a beer. One led to two, and you guys know the rest.
Fast forward to April, and I got my first DUI. So I decided to give sobriety another go. Being that I was now facing legal consequences, as well as my wife threatening to leave if I don't clean up, I finally saw how big of a mess my life had become (again). It is true what they say about each relapse being worse than the last. This bender I went on was pretty nasty, even by my standards. I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted sobriety badly enought that I was going to go to any lengths to get it, and I walked into my first AA meeting a little over a month ago one Sunday night. I was still kind of drunk when I went, but I wanted to see what it was about. Two days later I stopped drinking and went back sober, and picked up my 24 hour chip. I have been going to at least one meeting per day since. Today marks 30 days sober for me. Again I feel great. This time around I will continue to go to meetings, and am in the process of "shopping" for a sponsor. I am ready to also do the step work requried. Over the past month I've heard enought sucess stories to know that the program works, and I know I can't do it alone. There is something very special about two or more alcoholics sitting together and discussing their problem face to face, it really is a more tangible version of this board. I'm going to do both to keep sober, read *& post here, and work the AA program.
Last time around, I was completely against AA, and never wanted to go to a meeting. I honestly thought I could do it myself, and I had power over alcohol, but since that failed, I guess I can now say I've completed step one of my recovery. The god aspect of the program is what kept me away, but after reading the Big Book, I'm ready to have an open mind. In the book there is a line that reads something like "who am I to say there is no god", which hit me pretty good, I just need to find this higher power.
So I'm back here and trying hard to stay sober, one day at a time. I now have AA as my support system, and will be going to a meeting every day as I have been. It really helps me find a peace that is lacking right now, with the absence of alcohol. So 30 days again, and trying to stay strong. Wish me luck guys. I HAVE TO suceed this time. The next dirink I have will litterally kill me.
Dive2Deep
Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: South East England
Posts: 8,008
Great to have you back!!
I'm only 6 weeks sober tomorrow and am also using AA. I really find it helpful.
Keep posting, I hole to share the highs and lows of this journey with you.
The very best of luck to us both x
I'm only 6 weeks sober tomorrow and am also using AA. I really find it helpful.
Keep posting, I hole to share the highs and lows of this journey with you.
The very best of luck to us both x
Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 2,308
Divetwodeep,
It,s great to have you back. Good for you for leaving your pride/ego at the door and giving AA a go.
AA was such a great support to have, especially at the beginning.
I hope a lot of people who are new to sobriety read this post and realize that it is nearly impossible to do this on your own and to give everything a try if need be.
You sound in a great frame of mind and strong in your sobriety. it is so wonderful when people who have relapsed come back and share their experience they really help us all.
Love
CaiHong
It,s great to have you back. Good for you for leaving your pride/ego at the door and giving AA a go.
AA was such a great support to have, especially at the beginning.
I hope a lot of people who are new to sobriety read this post and realize that it is nearly impossible to do this on your own and to give everything a try if need be.
You sound in a great frame of mind and strong in your sobriety. it is so wonderful when people who have relapsed come back and share their experience they really help us all.
Love
CaiHong
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Maryland
Posts: 16
Thanks everyone for the kind words. Just got home from a meeting. I'm really starting to realize that not only are the meetings helping to keep me sober, they're a place I feel at home. The stories are different but for the most part exactly the same. I feel like I'm understood at these meetings, and starting to share a bit. For the first couple of weeks I didn't say anything because I wanted to learn as much as possible from others speaking, but now I feel like when I share, I heal a little bit every time. Everyone at tonight's meeting was very supportive, and I received many a "congratulations, that's awesome!"
For as negative as I was towards AA, it is a miracle in itself that I now look forward to my daily meeting. Now I just have to find myself a sponsor, and put in the step work required for long term sobriety. I really want what those people in the meeting have. They are all happy, and seem very well adjusted to life without booze.
D2D
For as negative as I was towards AA, it is a miracle in itself that I now look forward to my daily meeting. Now I just have to find myself a sponsor, and put in the step work required for long term sobriety. I really want what those people in the meeting have. They are all happy, and seem very well adjusted to life without booze.
D2D
Diez de Mayan
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: The Hinterlands
Posts: 109
I used to hate AA when I first went. But over time I actually started enjoying and looking forward to meetings.
I did not want to go at first either, but it is and was the best thing I could have done for myself!
Congrats on 30 days!
I did not want to go at first either, but it is and was the best thing I could have done for myself!
Congrats on 30 days!
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
AA and SR make for a powerful combination to recover. I started with a hospital detox by my own decision that I had had enough. I hated my first meeting that was forced by rehab, which I quit over that issue. I was a volunteer not an involuntary person under court or other orders. I quit rehab as they were actually threatening my recovery and I joined SR a week later and AA a week after that.
D2D I understand how you feel about face to face as opposed to being alone with it. I joined AA and just being able to talk without covering up exactly what I was and had done, with others that accepted me for what I will be, not what I had been, was simply amazing.
Sounds like you are willing to go the distance. There will come a time for you soon where you won't be fighting the alcohol anymore, just yourself with any leftovers. Then you are recovered from living a lie, and living a life instead.
D2D I understand how you feel about face to face as opposed to being alone with it. I joined AA and just being able to talk without covering up exactly what I was and had done, with others that accepted me for what I will be, not what I had been, was simply amazing.
Sounds like you are willing to go the distance. There will come a time for you soon where you won't be fighting the alcohol anymore, just yourself with any leftovers. Then you are recovered from living a lie, and living a life instead.
Guest
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 3,452
"Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things make us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will prejudiced for as long as some of us were."
Alcoholics Anonymous, We Agnostics
~
"In this book you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist. His story is so interesting that some of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing, and moving.
Our friend was a minister’s son. He attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide—these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point to self-destruction.
One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend’s gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: “If there is a God, He certainly hasn’t done anything for me!” But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: “Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?” While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:
“Who are you to say there is no God?”
This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.
Thus was our friend’s cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. Save for a few brief moments of temptation the though of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.
What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker—then he knew.
Even so has God restored us all to our right minds. To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.
When we drew near to Him He disclosed Himself to us!"
Alcoholics Anonymous, We Agnostics
Alcoholics Anonymous, We Agnostics
~
"In this book you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist. His story is so interesting that some of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing, and moving.
Our friend was a minister’s son. He attended church school, where he became rebellious at what he thought an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter he was dogged by trouble and frustration. Business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide—these calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him. Post-war disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse, brought him to the point to self-destruction.
One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience. Our friend’s gorge rose as he bitterly cried out: “If there is a God, He certainly hasn’t done anything for me!” But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: “Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?” While pondering the answer he felt as though he lived in hell. Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else:
“Who are you to say there is no God?”
This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees. In a few seconds he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood. The barriers he had built through the years were swept away. He stood in the Presence of Infinite Power and Love. He had stepped from bridge to shore. For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator.
Thus was our friend’s cornerstone fixed in place. No later vicissitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away. That very night, years ago, it disappeared. Save for a few brief moments of temptation the though of drink has never returned; and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.
What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker—then he knew.
Even so has God restored us all to our right minds. To this man, the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.
When we drew near to Him He disclosed Himself to us!"
Alcoholics Anonymous, We Agnostics
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
Well...I too tried the AVRT thing, and I think it might have worked for me if I really had the desire to stay sober. But I obviously didn't, and my "relapse" lasted for a decade."
I didn't have the complexities of a DUI or lack of professional success. Actually, once I surrendered to be a full-flung active alcoholic l, things were pretty good. Awards, money, you name it.
It wasn't until I totally surrendered to my powerlessness over alcohol and realized that there was some real core issues in my entire process of thinking and living and took steps to come to terms with them that I was able to chalk up some sober time, like nearly 600 days now. I don't count them, but once in a while I plug in my sobriety date to see what the sober calculator says.
Some of us just really need that extra oomph to deal with our addictions, and for me that entailed meetings and working the steps. If you have been in AA for 30 days now, I strongly urge you to at least get a temporary sponsor, someone you check in with every day to foster a relationship where you know you can call them if that beast raises it's head and screams it's thirsty.
I didn't have the complexities of a DUI or lack of professional success. Actually, once I surrendered to be a full-flung active alcoholic l, things were pretty good. Awards, money, you name it.
It wasn't until I totally surrendered to my powerlessness over alcohol and realized that there was some real core issues in my entire process of thinking and living and took steps to come to terms with them that I was able to chalk up some sober time, like nearly 600 days now. I don't count them, but once in a while I plug in my sobriety date to see what the sober calculator says.
Some of us just really need that extra oomph to deal with our addictions, and for me that entailed meetings and working the steps. If you have been in AA for 30 days now, I strongly urge you to at least get a temporary sponsor, someone you check in with every day to foster a relationship where you know you can call them if that beast raises it's head and screams it's thirsty.
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