CommunityDawn

I tried AA a couple of years back but wasn't ready to accept that I couldn't drink. I returned to drinking almost every night and got away with it, but am now having to face how unmanageable my life really is. I am just breaking through all the denial which has been clouding my life. (Prior to this, I believed that I was OK - emotionally regulated, non-violent etc. I focused on what was right about my life instead of looking at what was wrong.) I don't like what I see.

I am in a great relationship with another person who is in AA. If I don't stop drinking, she will need to look at ending our relationship. I am a loving mum, but routine and discipline are almost non-existent. I risk losing everything that is important to me. My partner means the world to me, and I'll do anything that it takes to hold on to our relationship. Yet I know that I have to approach this recovery with the right reasons. I need to do it for me this time, but I'm really struggling with finding the motivation.

During the last 6 months or so, I have tried repeatedly to stop drinking. I only ever succeed for a few days at a time and I'm down about it. I have been to a couple of meetings in the last few weeks, but slunk out early without sharing. I feel ashamed and embarrassed, like AA's worst case of revolving doors.

Can anybody help me or provide me with some encouragement? This is a really lonely place to be and I want to get my life back on track!

MythOfSisyphus

Hang in there! I can't help much as I'm a nOOb to the whole sobriety thing but there are lots of folks here who've walked a mile in your shoes. All I can say is for me I just tell myself that if I pick up a drink, I will die. For me it's that simple. I won't kill me instantly, that would be too merciful. It will first take away everything I love.

I thought I loved alcohol and that it loved but, but it's really a demon that wants my soul.

Dee74

Hi and welcome back CD


There's hundreds and hundreds of success stories here - I think the common element is wanting more than anything else to be sober - more than shame, more than embarrassment, more than fear.

Be prepared to so whatever you have to do - making your recovery your priority and you can turn your life around too

D

Natom

Perhaps now you are ready to to accept your problem you should try going back to AA. It works if you work it. The first bit is admitting you can't deal with your problem and it looks like you have done that.

RobC420

No reason to feel ashamed or embarassed. Every person in that AA meeting has been exactly where you are at. They are there because they stuck around and kept coming back. Keep going back. If I could do it, you can do it.

Sapling

Hey CommunityDawn....The only encouragement I can give you is AA works...It's kept this hopeless alcoholic sober for 15 months. You're going to have to do some things you may not want too...Like staying for the whole meetings and getting involved. You don't have to say anything...Just listen and learn. Get a Big Book and read the first 164 pages...Then read it again. Find a sponsor...Someone to guide you through it. You have an amazing support system at your fingertips...USE it. You can change your life CommunityDawn....I know because I changed mine. Take a look at this site and continue reading and posting here.

Your First AA Meeting<

CommunityDawn

Thanks to everyone. I admit that one thing which has stopped me from returning meetings is this feeling that most people in the room either stayed sober from their first meeting (or at least managed to string together decent periods of sobriety during their time in AA). I have often felt like the room's biggest failure. Eventually people stopped asking me to share, probably because I was slipping on a regular basis. I am slightly resentful because I get the message that I am supposed to "take the cotton wool out of (my) ears and shove it in my mouth". It makes me feel lonely and isolated in the rooms as I return, although I know that I'm imposing this upon myself.

The truth is that I want to want sobriety. Yet I can't seem to want it enough. I wish that I could make it the main priority in my life, but stopping at the bottle shop is always so easy. I also live in a community where I'm always offered drinks and I find myself saying `yes' in spite of my best intentions. Quitting requires so much vigilence and, with my busy life, I am struggling with keeping up my resolve.
How can I want sobriety enough to stay safe? I've had it. I don't want to drink anymore but I feel that I need to drink.
Sorry about venting like this. I just feel lost, confused, and frustrated with myself. I really appreciate the support!

Sapling

Very few get it on the first try....You're in good company. And nobody has to ask you to share...You can share whenever you want. It's there for you....Go get it.

CaiHong

Hi CD,
The key is wanting to stop and I don't know how you do that. It seems like you don't really want to quit, alcohol still holds some appeal for you.

This is a difficult one, perhaps go back to basics one day at a time, read the BB, inundate your brain with all the bad things that alcohol does to you and all the good sobriety gives you. Make it a full on brainwashing campaign.

All the best to you
keep coming here reading and posting, both AA and SR keep me sober
CaiHong

Dee74

a lot of us feel that ambivalence.
From my experience I know I can feed my recovery or feed my addiction.

It's the same for all of us.

The choice is ours, y'know? It's like the feeding the wolves thing:

the message is a powerful one - especially for early recovery

D

CommunityDawn

OK. I will give it another try. I will try and inundate myself with pro-recovery information. I will try to feed the right wolf.

MythOfSisyphus

I think that's the key- at the innermost core of you you have to want to quit. Many times over the last 20 years I've felt ashamed and humiliated by my drinking, and I wished I didn't have a problem with alcohol. But that's not precisely the same thing as wanting to stop. My wife left me, but I still didn't want to stop, I just wanted to control my drinking. I was arrested for DUI, but all I wanted to do was make sure I never got behind the wheel drunk again.

George Carlin was a genius! The way he described drugs and booze was dead on. He said in the beginning they're fun, a lot of pleasure with very little pain. But as you keep doing them the balance shifts. Eventually it's almost all pain with very little pleasure. I can't explain it; for me I just snapped. I finally reached the point where the pain was constant and the pleasure was fleeting. In a moment of disgust I decided, FU BOOZE!

I've gone for up to six months without drinking before (maybe 13 years ago), but never at any point in there did I think I was really quitting. No amount of time will make stopping quitting, if that makes sense. You can only quit when you decide you really want to.

It took me 20 years to decide to quit, but actually quitting was instantaneous.

CommunityDawn

"I've gone for up to six months without drinking before (maybe 13 years ago), but never at any point in there did I think I was really quitting. No amount of time will make stopping quitting, if that makes sense. You can only quit when you decide you really want to."

Thanks, Myth. I think that's just it. I racked up a couple of months of sobriety here and there during my previous stint with AA, but I could never make the final decision to quit. I'm sorry that you had to suffer as much as you did, and for as long as you did, before you were able to make the right decision for you. I am hoping to learn from your experience as I am terrified of hitting a bad bottom!
Thanks again.