Obsession still there
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 464
Obsession still there
I got 8 months sober new sponsor starting step one again. The obsession is still there in the back of my mind to have a ice cold beer or a few drinks. I do my readings and attend meetings and talk to people. I don't know if it will ever go away. But I'm not going to pick up a drink again ever. I was going to join a reading group and go to the meetings but people drink socially and it is still hard for me even though I got through the holidays and my birthday sober. I'm afraid relapse. Does the obsession ever go away?
Fellow Traveler and Seeker
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 2,408
Originally Posted by Anoronha 
I got 8 months sober new sponsor starting step one again. The obsession is still there in the back of my mind to have a ice cold beer or a few drinks. I do my readings and attend meetings and talk to people. I don't know if it will ever go away. But I'm not going to pick up a drink again ever. I was going to join a reading group and go to the meetings but people drink socially and it is still hard for me even though I got through the holidays and my birthday sober. I'm afraid relapse. Does the obsession ever go away?
If you're honest, willing and open-minded and work the program of action outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous steps, that mental obsession leaves you. It happened to me just after step 3, which I took in the same afternoon I took step 1. Launched into step 4, and so on. It was great to just wake up and not feel the need for a drink. It was amazing. Still is. It can and will happen to you if you do the work
~sb
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: MD
Posts: 15,967
1-7 in one day and 8-12 the next, practicing 10 + 11 daily and 12 every time I talked to another person attempting recovery (online and in person, to the best of my ability, which continually keeps changing for the better --I hope!--it's still a challenge....Today step 12 is wherever I am and with whoever/whomever is in front of me---being useful to others)
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,539
Here are the first two sentences from the second to last paragraph of the” Dr. Bob’s Nightmare” (big book first edition).
“Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me.”
I don’t think anyone would argue that this co-founder was not working the best program available to him at the time.
Live a principled life and the obsession will be lifted, and far more likely lifted sooner than without it.
“Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one-half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me.”
I don’t think anyone would argue that this co-founder was not working the best program available to him at the time.
Live a principled life and the obsession will be lifted, and far more likely lifted sooner than without it.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: northern michigan. not the U.P.
Posts: 15,281
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
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.
love them step 10 promises
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.
love them step 10 promises
Guest
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 3,452
I talked with a good friend from AA the other day.
Who knows why some people have to add to their story and have a hard path to sobriety.
She said that she had a moment of clarity, went to AA, got a sponsor, and is sober 8 years.
That is her experience.
That is not my experience.
Mental obession to drink has driven me for many years.
I find the obsession is lessened when I take the time to seek God, and submit to the process of the program of AA along with prayer and meditation.
I also learned yesterday, that I am not my mind.
I can have a thought to drink, and that is a mere thought. A part of me.
I am learning how to recognize and dismiss those thoughts.
To discard those thoughts when they come and replace those thoughts with my tools of AA is what helps me.
A body (and mind!) burned by alcohol takes a long time to heal.
I am not my mind.
I heard Mark H. talk about how the mind is constantly running like windows...and lots of stuff is appearing...some things we are not going to hit print on...but discard.
I think that as I see the truth, as I realize and identify...oh...that's alcoholism...that's the obsession....thanks mind...thanks for sharing, and discard, pray, ask for help, turn and help others instead of giving power to the obsession....I change.
Knock knock, alcoholism at your door.
Don't answer it.
Day 20
:ghug3
Who knows why some people have to add to their story and have a hard path to sobriety.
She said that she had a moment of clarity, went to AA, got a sponsor, and is sober 8 years.
That is her experience.
That is not my experience.
Mental obession to drink has driven me for many years.
I find the obsession is lessened when I take the time to seek God, and submit to the process of the program of AA along with prayer and meditation.
I also learned yesterday, that I am not my mind.
I can have a thought to drink, and that is a mere thought. A part of me.
I am learning how to recognize and dismiss those thoughts.
To discard those thoughts when they come and replace those thoughts with my tools of AA is what helps me.
A body (and mind!) burned by alcohol takes a long time to heal.
I am not my mind.
I heard Mark H. talk about how the mind is constantly running like windows...and lots of stuff is appearing...some things we are not going to hit print on...but discard.
I think that as I see the truth, as I realize and identify...oh...that's alcoholism...that's the obsession....thanks mind...thanks for sharing, and discard, pray, ask for help, turn and help others instead of giving power to the obsession....I change.
Knock knock, alcoholism at your door.
Don't answer it.
Day 20
:ghug3
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 557
I would have to agree with all the other comments. The obsession is lifted as a result of working the steps. This is why a lot of people advocate doing the steps quickly at first, when the obsession is so severe I'm not likely to get through the day without drinking. Most people repeat the steps many times in life. Even if people don't advocate repeating the steps per say, steps 10, 11, and 12 are essentially repeating them daily anyway. I wish my current sponsor had moved me a little more quickly, but I think maybe she just figured I have some sobriety so the obsession isn't as severe. I don't know if she would have treated me differently if I was brand new in the program. But I trust her and did what she asked of me without complaint because I agreed I would go to any lengths to stay sober.
My obsession was taken from me when I honestly did Step 3 (and this was just a prayer; a moment in time, not all the written work my sponsor also had me do). I think sometimes God gives us a little relief there in early sobriety to sort of encourage us through the rest of the steps. But I took it as, "Ok, I don't want to drink anymore, so I don't need to do the rest of the steps!" I was definitely wrong.
The obsession returned even stronger. I think this was God's way of telling me, "Ok, I gave you some time, but now you're going to have to do things my way and really surrender!" I had to get back into the work. I'm in the middle of Step 9 now, and I still have fleeting thoughts every once in a while to have a drink. But it's not an obsession by any stretch of the word. Like Veritas said, just because it occurs to me that I might like to drink doesn't mean I have to. When I was drinking, I was childish and impulsive. I felt I HAD to act on my feelings. This is just simply not true.
My obsession was taken from me when I honestly did Step 3 (and this was just a prayer; a moment in time, not all the written work my sponsor also had me do). I think sometimes God gives us a little relief there in early sobriety to sort of encourage us through the rest of the steps. But I took it as, "Ok, I don't want to drink anymore, so I don't need to do the rest of the steps!" I was definitely wrong.
The obsession returned even stronger. I think this was God's way of telling me, "Ok, I gave you some time, but now you're going to have to do things my way and really surrender!" I had to get back into the work. I'm in the middle of Step 9 now, and I still have fleeting thoughts every once in a while to have a drink. But it's not an obsession by any stretch of the word. Like Veritas said, just because it occurs to me that I might like to drink doesn't mean I have to. When I was drinking, I was childish and impulsive. I felt I HAD to act on my feelings. This is just simply not true.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Houston Texas
Posts: 1,003
I think I had to come to a place where I understood, deeply, that I was an alcoholic. Alcoholism always gets worse, never better. I knew that. I wasn't going to be the unique case where that wouldn't happen.
Once I deeply knew that, the gig was up. I couldn't get back to denial, where somehow, alcoholism wouldn't play out like I really knew it would. At that point, I needed help for real. At that point, it was life or death.
Today, I have no envy of those who can and do still drink. I simply got to a place in my own life where life drinking was completely hideous, nothing BUT pain. I didn't even get to shove away the fears anymore by drinking.
When I got there, which in my opinion, is a pretty bad case of alcoholism......then I was ready to get in and stay in treatment for it.
I can't explain why, but that same ego pride that drove me while I was drinking now keeps me hopping, cause I want to die sober. It's become my goal. I used to want to drink and run faster than the obvious consequences.
Still the same bratty ego here, but now it's pointed in a different direction. That determination is now more of an asset than a defect.
The other key change for me, anyway, was that I truly got that my surrender wasn't about alcohol at all.....it was obedience to spiritual principles. I had been defying the laws of the universe. Doesn't work. Never will.
This path is easier, even if I balk at times. Today I know....I'll surrender eventually and be glad I did.
Once I deeply knew that, the gig was up. I couldn't get back to denial, where somehow, alcoholism wouldn't play out like I really knew it would. At that point, I needed help for real. At that point, it was life or death.
Today, I have no envy of those who can and do still drink. I simply got to a place in my own life where life drinking was completely hideous, nothing BUT pain. I didn't even get to shove away the fears anymore by drinking.
When I got there, which in my opinion, is a pretty bad case of alcoholism......then I was ready to get in and stay in treatment for it.
I can't explain why, but that same ego pride that drove me while I was drinking now keeps me hopping, cause I want to die sober. It's become my goal. I used to want to drink and run faster than the obvious consequences.
Still the same bratty ego here, but now it's pointed in a different direction. That determination is now more of an asset than a defect.
The other key change for me, anyway, was that I truly got that my surrender wasn't about alcohol at all.....it was obedience to spiritual principles. I had been defying the laws of the universe. Doesn't work. Never will.
This path is easier, even if I balk at times. Today I know....I'll surrender eventually and be glad I did.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Western Canada
Posts: 540
It will go away, that's the AA promise. Go to meetings, work the steps, and it will happen, based on my experience and the experiences of so many others. Don't give up! You will one day enjoy the amazing freedom from the obsession! I know it. I couldn't start my day without drinking, my entire day revolved around alcohol, drinking was the most important thing in the world to me, yes, I had an obsession with alcohol! about two months into AA, the obsession was gone. Totally. Im about 5 months sober now, and I couldn't give a hoot about booze. Seriously. It amazes me. I can go to parties, drive past liquor stores, go into liquor stores to buy a bottle of wine as a gift for someone else...no biggie. This is only because of AA. This is what AA has done for me. I still have a lot of work to do, but I promise you it will happen. Don't get discouraged!
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