renaldo

Hello all,

First off, thanks for all your kind feedback. I've been to a number of AA meetings - some voluntarily and some by court order for DUI. I like talking to people before and after meetings, I like how friendly, open, and honest they are, and I like when they talk in the meetings from their personal experience. It makes me feel less like a misfit.

However, 2 things bug me:

1) The repetition! I've heard the rules and some quotes from the Big Book so many times that I don't feel like I can get any more out of them. It takes up half the meeting before people even get around to talking like fellow travelers rather than cultists clinging desperately to someone else's words.

I read around through the Big Book when I first bought it. Then I read it from cover to cover. Then at people's suggestions I read it from cover to cover again. I've never even read the Bible from cover to cover once. Are Bill W. and the other writers supposed to be prophets?

People have said, "read it again." Good Lord! How many times do I have to read and hear it read aloud? I met one guy who said he'd read it 500 times.

2) The higher power thing and the "powerlessness" motif. Being raised in a Southern Baptist household, this leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I know I'm an alkie, but do I have to forever be suckling at the teat of a doctrine... "turn it over," "let go, let God," etc.

I know they say, "take what you need and leave the rest," it's just that all the slogans bug me.

That being said, I am grateful for all the people who have helped me in AA... talking to me on the phone, sharing from their personal experience, giving me rides to meetings, etc.

I've been to one LifeRing meeting and one Smart Recovery meeting. I liked their approach, but I didn't feel as much camaraderie and they seemed to not have the emotional content that is there when people talk about their personal experiences at AA. For example, one speaker at AA said he was really nervous about going to his first meeting because they might find out he was an alcoholic. Everybody cracked up with the irony of that statement.

I know there are other secular meetings listed on this website. I'll have to check it out, but I know AA has the most meetings. I'm calling around today to check out affordable and comprehensive rehab places. I need medical attention as well as meetings. Perhaps brain scans to make absolutely sure that the 3 seizures I've had are due to alcohol consumption without eating and alcohol withdrawal, or if I may be developing epilepsy or some other condition. And I'm probably going to need some non-habit forming medications to quell the Jones and help me sleep.

Anyone have any recommendations for facilities in the Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Penngrove, or Petaluma, CA area? I probably need an inpatient program, but I don't have much money. I guess anywhere in Sonoma or Marin County would be OK if I don't have to drive back and forth there every day. Perhaps the Mary Isaac House in Petaluma has something. Last time I called them to see if I could live there if I got really down on my luck, they had a 6 month waiting list.

I didn't have the deathly fear of attending my first AA meeting as another poster on this forum does or an outright refusal to check AA out, but I do have a justified fear of having another seizure. This last one screwed me up big time and 4 days after the fact it's still limiting my mobility. I also have a fear that this time I'm really going to have to say goodbye to beer forever. "Forever" is such a scary word.

My parents are going to help me with the expense of the rehab and I've failed them several times before - slowly starting drinking again after a break until I getting up to the point of having health problems. I don't want to be disrespectful of their kind offering.

I know plenty of you have gone through similar things, so even if you don't have a specific recommendation, just hearing your story will help me out. Thanks very much.

onlythetruth

Well, here's one suggestion. It sounds as though you are finding the social aspect of AA helpful, but not the philosophy. So why not try this: go to the AA meetings for the social aspect, but use SMART Recovery or another secular program to get your sobriety tools. It's actually not at all unusual for folks to do that.

freshstart57

Renaldo, I relate to 1) and 2) in your post and I'm sure that others do too. If 'take what you need and leave the rest' means that you go to meetings for fellowship and support, that is a valid approach. Of course there are options just like OnlyTheTruth suggested, and SR has a forum for alternatives to 12 step programs called Secular Connections. You might find what you are looking for there.

ru12

Hi,

I think that AA is really the steps, the meetings are the fellowship. If you are committed to AA get a sponsor and start on the steps as if your life depends on it. There are certainly other options and programs. For me I tried AA but it wasn't for me. I studied AVRT, SMART Recovery and Alan Carr's Easy Way. I finally got serious and just quit drinking. And then just refused to drink again. That works for me.

renaldo

Thanks onlythetruth. That's a good suggestion. Since I've only been to one LifeRing and one Smart Recovery meeting, there might be others in the same programs out there with a different vibe anyway. I might as well check out all the different programs. First things first though. I need to get detoxed in a safe medical setting. I've spaced out 3 beers over 12 hours between last night and this morning just to stop the Jones. Of course if I had a fourth, I would be chugging it as we speak.

That's my modus operandi. Buy only as much as I intend to drink and if I haven't finished them all before it's time for sleepy-bye, chug the rest as a reward for being so temperate. So, it's only a half truth to answer the question, "can you stop drinking once you start?" with a "yes."

I make it so I have no other option. I can't buy a beer anywhere at this time of morning.

The addictive mentality should be blatantly obvious in this approach. I'm not fooling myself, that's for sure. The rub is, will I take the 5 min. walk to the liquor store and buy some more when it opens and thus have to limit myself to activities not involving driving today?

I've probably blown the possibility of driving for today anyway because we're talking three 24 ounce 8.1% alcohol beers. Still, that's an improvement on six of them in a five hour period, getting 6 hours of sleep and then showering, eating and driving to work the next morning. What was I thinking? I shan't make that mistake again.

When I think of all the times I could have killed someone by accident, the old shame rises it's head, but it's time to forge ahead and be thankful that I never did. Never even gotten in more than a minor rear-ending which was so minor that the other motorist decided just to let it go. There was only minor cosmetic damage to the bumper of the car in front of me.

You only get so many chances though before your number comes up, especially when it comes to your body.

Damn! Wish I had more beer. Thanks for responding. It means a lot to me.

There are certain quirks of thinking that only alkies--either dry or wet--get.

renaldo

Thanks ru12. I've had 4 AA sponsors. The third was really great. Unfortunately he died of heart failure, but he never went back to the booze. He used to drink a gallon of vodka a day. He bought a house in a blackout once. He found the deed in his pocket the next morning. He said, "actually I made a good deal."

The other 3 sponsors I drifted away from. I wasn't as committed to giving up drinking as I was with sponsor #3. But it's never too late for a second childhood.

renaldo

Thanks freshstart57. I will check them out when time allows.

Mark75

Yea me too...

And, like you, sometimes the whole slogans, readings, etc... can get a bit much, but I don't let it bother me, anymore. And some of that "doctrine" begins to make a lot of sense, at least it did for me, after I got some sobriety.

If you want what they have, then consider doing what they did... You don't have to be a big book thumper, or hardliner, or prophet, LOL, to get sober and happy in AA. At least, that was my experience.

Welcome to SR and good luck to you in your journey towards sobriety!

wpainterw

Renaldo: I share many of your reactions to AA, although I have benefitted from the program, having, for many years, attempted unsuccessfully to attain sobriety by myself. Alcoholics,like you and me, have developed a dependency, not only on alcohol, but on other persons, fearful of what others might think, etc. This seems to come out very strongly in AA meetings, where some persons seem to be very dependent on the Big Book, Sponsors, AA doctrine, traditions, etc. These are all helpful if taken in perspective but folks in these programs sometimes get a bit compulsive and obsessive, spinning the prayer wheels and setting up their sponsors as icons, people to be followed slavishly and without any kind of thinking on their own. It may be more understandable if you look at it this way. We've had an illness, we're still ill in some ways and we're trying to recover. This may mean in the long run coping with our dependencies, not only on alcohol but on other persons, places and things. So AA is very helpful, if you can see that these folks are trying very hard for one thing, that is to get sober and remain sober. That's what draws them together and that's why they can help each other, if everyone realizes that it takes a long time to work on dependencies. It's probably wise to be dependent at first, since the early days of recovery are very difficult and risky, but as time goes on people can work on gradually becoming more self reliant, more sure of themselves.

W.

2granddaughters

renaldo, I'm assuming you have Googled and read AA's "The Doctors Opinion" and "How It Works".

I would think that if you were able to kick this on your own you would have done it by now..... AA enabled me to kick it.

All the best.

Bob R

MycoolFitz

Well maybe like the Pledge in school when I was a kid. Who knew how the school day would go but you knew how it started.