sammybee

I am a 22 year Old male. I got sober in 2009, after my inability to stop once I started cost me too much to keep on drinking. Since being sober I worked the 12 steps (only once) and have sponsored 2 other young guys who have gotten their years (after which both moved on and got other sponsors, probably a good thing considering my current thinking!) I have gotten back into school, and have been very successful, I have also regained the trust of my family etc.
Basically the promises have come true. But I am currently battling with the strongest desire to drink - or just to be normal - that I have had since being sober.
I am currently studying abroad in Chile, where I haven't gotten my a$$ to a meeting yet. I am going through the following rationalizations in my head
1) I got sober at 19, I was immature and that is why I was a problem drinker
2) I just want to be normal like everyone else, I am tired of coming up with an explanation for my not drinking.
3) I am abroad, I have had so much success in other areas of my life, whats to say its not worth another try
4) I know AA works, so if I DO decide to quit again, I know where to go.

I know that all of these things are flawed in some way, but I figure if I put it out there maybe I cant get some advice from others on what they have done to keep their motivation to work the program up even when away from meetings, and in strife. And also how those of you who got sober young answer the rationalizing thoughts. I have been praying, which seems to help. I probably need to find someone to help . . . . but as I said my motivation is so low.
Thanks in advance,
Sam

pinkdog

I am an alcoholic. I can either have everything or alcohol. I choose no alcohol. It is your choice. Try to remember the reason you quit to begin with. I'm never gonna drink again. It doesn't matter to me if everyone else drinks, I know, for me it's not a good idea. I hope you remember why you quit. Best thoughts to you. Sobriety rocks! :ghug3

omegasupreme

I am a 28 year old male. I got sober July 25, 2009. At 18 months sober I had worked the steps, and sponsored two guys...both eventually relapsed and moved on. At 18 months I was too scared to get up and get a chip...at two years I am barely able to get out of bed, skipping class (college student) and barely going into work. The noise is killing me internally, but if anyone asked I was doing just fine. I sit alone at my desk and write letters to anything and everything out there to help...I wanna drink...but suicide sounds better...yup, 2 years sober and I want to off myself.

So what did I do? I had been through lots of folks in AA looking for help...all across Texas...Austin, Houston, Dallas, hit up some guys in Cali, thought I had a lead in Colorado once I think it was... following every breadcrumb to any speaker I had heard that I thought might could help. Lots were honest up front and said they couldn't help. Others, nothing against them but they didn't seem to have much that was useful to me...it's also highly possible I was so asleep and so resentful I couldn't hear what they were saying...either way...I called one more guy...said "I was tired of taking a thimble to the ocean, I need some help!"...and he said "no, but call my sponsor, he can help you." And I did...that first inventory with him I had 34 resentments I think it was...and hundreds of amends. Today, approaching 3 years sober, just a handful of those amends left...

I had to get honest. I saw that I had been lacking that..perhaps I didn't have the capacity. Perhaps the unmanageability finally created enough heat on my behind...whatever the magical combination of selfishness and self-centered fears was...it brought me to a place where I had to make a decision...either this deal is going to be everything or nothing...ain't no in between for this guy.

I made a decision in the third step that's brought me where I am today. Things are okay with the employer, evaluation was exceeding expectations...he thought it was because I had quit smoking, lol. I don't go off on the ex wife anymore. She's remarried, has another child...get this...I wished him happy father's day this year and I sit through my son's little league games that he coaches. Rest assure I wasn't doing stuff like that a year ago. Going to class, doing my homework, passing! Professors know me, talk to me, ask me if they can help me. Had to clean up lots of stuff in the fellowship too...my presence is, for the most part enjoyed at meetings now.

You can have some too. How free do you want to be?

Lenina

[QUOTE=sammybee;3459395]
Basically the promises have come true. But I am currently battling with the strongest desire to drink - or just to be normal - that I have had since being sober.

Sammy,

What's normal about the way we drink? I've had long periods of not drinking, years even, but every time I'd pick up, the drinking was worse than ever. For me, it truly was a progressive process. Please consider this. remember the stories you heard in AA. If you've got your BigBook handy, reread some of the stories in the back. I don't know anyone who got better with drinking.

Love from Lenina

CarolD

Welcome...

Good to know you are praying and hope you will soon find serenity

The final paragraph on page 43 in our BB might interest you.

Congratulations on your recovery time...forward is always the correct direction.

tomsteve

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done." These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will

i remember who i was when i walked into the doors of an AA meeting. it takes less than 3 seconds for a drink to get from my lips to my stomach, then my past will become my present, only worse.

tomsteve

"I worked the 12 steps (only once)"

beings how the 12th step says,"...and to practice these principles in all our afairs" we arent to just go through the steps once. by learning what the principles of each step are, it has simplified living the program to its simplest form for me, and by practicing the principles in all my affairs, i dont end up getting complacent.

digderidoo

Well done for posting here before taking a drink. Keep posting and get to a meeting, at some point you will realise what you have now compared to what you will have in drink.

Db1105

I got sober one month before my 18th birthday. That was a long time ago. Wanting to drink to be "normal" is not "normal". AA works by giving me a daily repreve from my drinking based on my spiritual condition. If I don't continuously work the steps then my spiritual condition goes in the toilet. I may have another drunk in me, but there is guarantee that I have another recovery in me.

The only advise I can give you is get out your Big Book, start working the steps, and get to a meeting.

uncle holmes

Sammybee, my advice to you is don't drink. I first sobered up at 18 yrs old. And I thought similar to you - that if I drank that I could always go back to AA and sober up. Problem is that one time of drinking turned into 10 more years of drinking while going in and out of AA. In other words, just cause you make it back into AA doesn't mean you'll maintain sobriety. And trust me, it did get worse and harder to quit each time I went back out. Almost didn't make it back. Luckily for me, I now have 20 yrs sobriety. But I've seen many others who weren't quite as lucky once they went back out.

Remember, we're dealing with a disease that we have no control of once we pick up. The craving of the body and obsession of the mind will surely take over once you pick up again. My advice to you is get back to meetings. Get a sponsor. Work the steps. Pray first thing in the morning. Read 2 pages out of the BB every day starting with the preface to page 164. Call at least one alcoholic up every day. Act as if your life is on the line. This will more than likely wipe out your thinking of taking a drink.

I'm willing to be your online sponsor if you want.

UpperbucksAAguy

I got sober at 22, and have battled with the idea that I could drink for several years ( I don't battle it anymore). I can only tell you that in my case, God tapped me on the shoulder and revealed that I wasn't. I have advised my friends to follow what the Big Book suggests if prayer and helping others doesn't work.

We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly.- BB page 31

I hope you don't need to go to that length, but if you do, I hope you find what you need to find. A few of my friends who got sober young were not really alcoholic and despite the rhetoric you hear in meetings about only an alcoholic would question whether or not they are alcoholic, some people get to AA by mistake

DayTrader

Sammy-
Bob D from Las Vegas (a popular AA speaker) referred to DELUSION in one of his talks as "psychotic wishful thinking." I get it......say something enough times and I can start to rationalize it being valid. Spent a good portion of my first year convincing myself doing some coke would be OK since I was "only" alcoholic and not a real addict.

I found myself in a similar boat to the one you're in Sammy and the one Omega was in - I was on my way out of AA and deep down I knew that spelled trouble. So it was decision time: go back out (bad idea), stay in the middle-of-the-road solution I was in and try to tough it out (that already wasn't working too well), or step my game up in recovery and see if there's more to this recovery stuff.

I couldn't find a strong message in the meetings around me.......so I went online. Found open talk speakers on aaspeakers.org and xa-speakers.org who were talking about a WHOLE lot more in AA than I'd ever experienced. My eyes started opening - I had only been seeing a very small part of AA and recovery but now I was seeing a whole lot more. I was missing A LOT of what AA had for me. The program wasn't failing......I was failing to continue to grow. -- and that's ok.....it's common. We grow for a while and, sometimes, come to rest on our laurels. (sometimes I go the other direction and find myself trying to do TOO much - and burn-out gets me......but that doesn't seem to be the case for you Sammy).

So with that said, Sammy......you seem to be at a similar crossroad. Try so soldier on as you have been (probably won't work for long), go back out, or see if there's more to this recovery lifestyle that you're missing. I recommend door #3.

FlyerFan

Thats the disease rationalizing things in your head. Don't listen to it. You had a problem drinking not because you were immature, but because you are an alcoholic! Don't throw away what you've worked so hard for! You can beat this! It's all in your head.

Veritas1

I can share that I first got sober when I was 23 with the help of treatment and AA.

I thought I was too young, and was missing out.

I returned to drinking.

My life got worse.

I wish I stayed sober since I was 23.

I am quite sure all of the bad things in my life would not have happened if I had never returned to drinking.

Return to drinking is a return to misery at the very least.

Don't fall for the delusion.


"We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people, or presently may be, has to be smashed."


More About Alcoholism

chicory

Please, don't do it, Sammy . It won't be worth it.

Hugs
chicory

Boleo

RATIONALIZATION, JUSTIFICATION, MINUMIZATION and DENIAL are the exact tools addiction will use to draw you back into the game.

tomsteve

rationalization-giving a socially acceptable reason for socially unacceptable behavior, and socially unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity.

RobbyRobot

Hey Sammy,

Big congrats on your sobriety since 2009. Awesome! Getting sober while still young is a real achievement. I got sober at 24. I'm 55 now.

I first tried quitting at 18, but no way, epic fail. I ended up totally surrendering to a supervised detox, and then doing a 3 month rehab, and AA, and gestalt therapy. That worked for me, finally, and I lost nothing by getting sober at 24.

Before 24, the six years after 18, where i would struggle, were hell. It could of been different, had I not questioned myself about my drinking, whether I was really alcoholic?, could I moderate and control my drinking?, yada, yada.

1) Age 19 is way past being a cause of you being a problem drinker. I was seriously drinking at age 12. That was a problem. By 15 I was completely alcoholic and drank even more moving into the hardstuff routinely.

2) Normal is as normal does. Make your own game rules on what is or is not normal. Drinking or not drinking has nothing to do with normal. Normal is a dial setting on a washing machine.

3) Failure is to say. Big time failure. Let's be honest, you admit yourself to not being able to control your past drinking. Well, just because you're sober a few years, nothing saying it won't be the same thing again: no control. You can of course pretend things will be different, but you're sounding like you don't believe that nonsense.

4) Yeah, AA works. And it will be there whether you drink or don't drink. So what. Since you already know AA works, you gain nothing by returning to drinking, because your drinking will be absolutely ruined anyways. There'll be no peace for you, no respite, no victorious drinking and being all social and whatever normal is to you with AA running in your head. Total apocalypse and a complete undoing.

Now if you didn't know AA worked, if you return to drinking, you'll re-discover at least whatever got you to stop the first time... so again, epic fail.

Stay with your sobriety, Sammy. Work out whatever is troubling you while staying sober. You'll never regret what 'drinking fun' you missed while you work out your present difficulties. Believe me. Quitting can only get harder, not easier, from more drinking. Drinking can kill us, on so many different and personal levels, and that's just plain truth, not matter how young or old any of us were yesterday, today, and into tomorrow.

Make the right choices here. Do the right thing. Get past this trouble, and keep moving forward into the better life you know deep down to be right. Keep taking the higher, less travelled road, to a lifetime of happiness and sustained success!

FredG

If you want to lose it all again - go for it. Just pray to whatever you hold dear, that you make it back to the program. Rationalize all you want, you know the facts. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. If you quit taking your recovery seriously, and start again, you WILL START in the exact same place, (or further down the path) that you left off.

Remember where you left off?

Jersey Nonny

I happened upon this thread while surfing around the board, and I'm very glad that I did.

Sammy...you started this thread yesterday. I do hope you're in a better frame of mind today...that something, someone here, had to say registered with you and gave you the impetus to maintain your sobriety.

I've known a few people who relapsed and managed to make their way back to AA. Not one of them ever said they had a great time or that they were able to drink "normally." We almost never hear about those who go back out and never make it back. "Hey, remember ______? I wonder what ever happened to him." "Don't know...I sure hope he's okay."

I quit drinking in 1979 with the help of detox and AA...this year, God willing, will mark 33 years of continuous sobriety. Fortunately, I had over 25 years of continuous attendance at meetings and had learned to live the steps before I wound up in a nursing home where I've been for the past 5 1/2 years. Thank God for SR, which has now become my "daily meeting"...often two or three times a day.

An oldtimer, Jim Mahoney (he always used his full name), gave me the honor of speaking at my 10th anniversary. He always closed in the same way, "If you are looking for sobriety, pray God you find it. If you have found sobriety, pray God you keep it."

Thanks for starting this thread, Sammy...and, thanks to everyone for sharing...this was so very similar to being at an honest to goodness AA discussion meeting.