curlykerry

So I am only two days sober...but feeling like tackling this booze problem with vigor.
I tried my very first meeting tonight and it was...ummm, interesting.
There were two guys who talked A LOT! So I learned everything about their addictions...
And all the people in recovery had alcohol problems, but many also had hardcore drug problems (and crazy stories to go along).
It kinda made me feel like I had no problem at all!
I mean, I just drink at home. By myself. And sometimes out with friends. But never been in jail. Never got a DUI. Never moved on to drugs. Never went bankrupt.
I kept thinking "I haven't hit rock bottom, but if I keep up my current lifestyle it will eventually catch up with me."
It was weird.
But I bought a handbook and I will read it. Maybe try another meeting on a different night.

CAPTAINZING2000

You don't have to hit a rock bottom to stop.
Funny , you mentioning yet.
I've got a friend in recovery he said the same thing. In a span of a couple years he's lost two jobs, gotten divorced been through several treatment facilities and unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.

least

Look for the similarities between you and them, not the differences. All have an addiction and are striving to live sober.

And yes, do try different meetings. Each one has its own personality.

deeker

Big Book Online Fourth Edition

Linked with Permission Of AA World Services, inc

Tamerua

Relate, don't compare. That is what somebody told me after my first meeting. Just keep going, you will always get something out of it.

TigerLili

I sat in AA meetings for about three months before I decided I was an alcoholic as described by AA. I already knew I needed to stop drinking but I didn't know if I was an alcoholic because I didn't drink as much as some people, had never been in trouble with the police, I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home etc.

What turned the tide for me was listening to how people described how they felt during their drinking and it was often things like "miserable" and "wanted to die" and that was how I felt. My story was different and my drinking was different but we shared the same emotional experience.

Taking5

You mentioned you bought a "handbook". Was this the big book aka "alcoholics anonymous"?

Mountainmanbob

was that the AA Big Book
if so
it has a lot of good information for the drunk (such as myself)

Mountainman

curlykerry

It was actually a SMART Recovery meeting handbook.
But I also have a copy of the AA Book too, thanks to deeker!

FreeOwl

I find it helpful to hear those stories and talk to 'those people' and look at it like an elevator ride.

Each floor you go down has a set of things on it;

one floor might be getting in a fight drunk
maybe there's a floor where loved ones are expressing concern
could be a floor where you've promised yourself you wouldn't drink after a wicked hangover and were drinking again within a few hours
another floor might be a couple brief blackouts or passing out
another floor maybe a DUI or some other run-in with the cops

....Keep riding that elevator you eventually get to hallucinations, terrors, total inability to stop drinking.... blackouts that last for days... prison.... killing someone....

How many floors sound familiar in those stories?

Where do you want your 'bottom' to be?

Do you WANT to lose your job, your marriage, your family, a couple limbs.... your life?

Can you see in the stories around the tables or written on these pages the descent in your own story?

sugarbear1

I was like you at my first meeting.

In time, I was able to make those not yets happen. I suggest you hold on to your chair and try to relate in and not out......

FreeOwl

yep... me too.

My first encounter with AA was court-ordered after a DUI in 2005.

I was able to have many more 'not yets' and continue riding the elevator down through another DUI and a lot of other awful stuff.

I don't wanna get back on that elevator... I'm taking the stairs back up.

ErikT

only you can determine if you are an alcoholic. Don't decide if you are based on other peoples stories. You went to an AA meeting. People who don't have a problem don't even ever have to CONSIDER going to a meeting. Trust me too....drinking alone at home is a miserable existence. Every single alcoholic on the planet can say that at some point in their addiction they didn't have consequences.....yet. I didn't have health problems....employment issues....or DUI's.......until I did.

whiskeyman

i thought the same when i first went, but then they did come true, a bit at a time.

and I agree with someone else, dont compare, could you relate to anything anyone said.
How about the thinking about drinking

rove27

My first meeting was four weeks ago, and I can relate to how you feel. Everyone there had a horrible story, DUI, blackouts, arrests, divorce etc.
ME? I drank at home alone hidding it from everyone, no arrests, no divorce, no DUI......YET!
The way I look at it, alcoholism progresses. Before I quit I drank more than last year, and last year I drank more than the year before, so it is just a matter of time before I will have to face the divorce, the DUI, the arrest and possible death. Why wait for those to happen?

heath480

Please try some more meetings,look for the similarities not the differences to others in the room.

What hasn't happened to you is a yet,those things will happen in time if you continue to drink,that is if you are an Alcoholic.

Alcoholism is progressive,has it got worse for you over the years?

Wishing you well.

Carlotta

I too drank alone and since I am single no one knew I was an alcoholic.

If you keep going to AA you will meet others like us who have a "high bottom" and never done any hard drugs and have no horror story (except for the one which played in our head). Read around on SR, you will see that you are not unique and that others (like me and Rove) have similar experience.
Our bottom can be as high or as low as we allow it to be. For some unfortunately, rock bottom is death

Also look for a good steps meeting where the focus is on working those steps (which are the program) rather than on drunkologues and the competition to see who was the baddest of the bads or the lowest of the lows.

We can advise you to identify and not compare all we want but I understand that for some, hearing those horror stories actually give their AV ammunition (especially in early sobriety when the AV is quite active).
Then that little voice will start saying:
-You do not belong, you were not that bad.
- You never smoked crack and beat up anyone etc. etc.
If comparing is an issue with you, avoid those meetings for a while like you would avoid going to a bar.
The bottom line is that you have a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol and drinking is a problem for you so the logical thing to do is to quit.

FreeOwl

this morning at my Early Bird meeting one old timer spoke of his perspective on this issue. He said he feels it's his calling to help "raise the bottom".

His point was that as AA evolves and grows, as awareness of alcoholism broadens and deepens, collectively and individually we should be able to contribute to a 'raising of the bottom' - meaning more people realizing early enough the dangers of alcoholism, its progression and the ways to avoid a true "rock bottom" that we see less and less of those hopeless cases....

ClearLight

I can't offer an opinion about AA but I know about drinking alone.

I did that for a couple decades and it turned me into a hermit.

No real friends. No wife. No girlfriend. Just me and the alcohol and the TV.

Everybody else got to go places and do things and I never did anything.

I don't want to live that way anymore.