KiKi0615

I went to an AA meeting today & people kept talking about how they couldn't get sober until they finally "surrendered". How do you do this? Is there something your supposed to do? A prayer? What? Just wanted your opinion if you don't mind. I'm determined to live a sober life...

Thanks!

MIRecovery

Surrender is a life time journey not an event. There are so different facets of surrender you could write a book on it.

In early sobriety surrender for me was believing in my heart I would never ever be able to drink like a normal person. That when I drank the first drink it would set off a chain reaction that would only lead to more misery.

Anna

Well, for me, I had to accept that I couldn't control my drinking. I had to surrender the belief that I would be able to manage it. At that point, I was able to begin to move forward.

Kallistia

I surrendered to the knowledge that I (or my av of you will) was only feeding me enough nonsense to convince me to keep engaging in and unhealthy and dangerous behavior that I was allowing to ruin not only my life, but my sons, my career, my relationships, and my health...

And I surrendered to the idea that I can't have alcohol. I can't. It will take me down the same road of destruction and wreckage.

Surrender to me, I am not a member of AA so I am only speaking from personal experience, was that...surrendering the struggle to continue to living as a drunk. Surrendering the idea that I can control that which I cannot (drinking for me I have found was directly rooted in control and attempts at control)

Kallistia

I had to surrender to move forward - you will find your own meaning - it may take time or it may hit you all at once, but you will find your own idea of what surrender is for you.

Again, not a member of AA so I may be perceiving your question in a manner that is different from your meaning or the answer that you're looking for

Delfin

It took me a long time to understand what people meant when they said "surrender", and I was someone who really needed to understand it and do it. Surrender was the moment when I stopped fighting the truth about my problem and the solution to my problem, sobriety. Like Anna, I was finally able to move forward once I surrendered to that truth.

Glad to hear that you're determined to live a sober life. It's a better life!


Delfin

Lorax1981

We're all fighting sobriety when we're drinking and using and our DOC's (drugs of choice) are our guns. When we surrender, we finally put down our guns and stop fighting against sobriety and go with it:-)

MelindaFlowers

Accepting that you can not and will not ever drink alcohol again and you're actually okay with that decision.

Soberwolf

I like what Anna said

Lucie29

I've had a constant battle with alcohol my whole life. I've tried every possible way to keep it without letting it destroy me, but once again, I've lost. I'm exhausted. I give up, or surrender to alcohol and its power over me. I believe surrendering is finally accepting that I can never drink again. It is a losing battle that no alcoholic will ever win.

InTheEnd

I agree with everyone here. Surrender and/or acceptance. I had to realize that there was no more compromising with alcohol. No more middle ground. No more "one or twos". No more thinking I could go back to the way it was years ago. Alcohol will always "win" everytime and my AV will win every battle in my head if I choose to try to listen to it's reasoning to drink.

I finally realized that after a few attempts. I accept the fact that I just can not drink. I surrender to alcohol. It won everytime when I believed I could "tame" it. The only way out of the misery was to cut all ties with it and get it completely out of my life.

I have this weird thing that I almost think of alcohol like a really abusive relationship that I was hanging on to even though it brought misery day in and out. I was trapped, no way out....so I thought. I could fix it, I could make it better. If only I drank differently, alcohol would be nice to me. As in most abusive relationships, that didn't work. The only thing I could do to fix it is to remove myself from the situation. Get the "abuser" out of my life. I finally cried "UNCLE". I gave up trying to fix the abuser (alcohol) realizing that it will always "win" if I stayed around it. I accepted it, surrendered, got it out of my life and will move forward remembering all the way that alcohol is never an option. It will ALWAYS bring pain no matter what "it" says.

tomsteve

means i stopped trying to control my drinking. i stopped battling it. i was out of denial about what alcohol did to me.i admitted alcohol beat me up. it was bigger than me, wanted to stop, and wanted to change who i had become.

ScottFromWI

To me it means accepting the follwing as true, unchangable facts:

1. I cannot control my drinking once I start.
2. I will never be able to change or fix the fact stated in #1
3. There is no answer as to WHY I am an alcholic, I simply AM an alcoholic.

Fly N Buy

Good question and thanks for the post!

Surrender for me is allowing other forces to help me in my sober journey. These are both temporal and spiritual. The act of surrendering in terms of AA is one of the recovery paradoxes - surrender to win - how do I do that?!?! I give up to win?? Not exactly.......

As others have eloquently posted, part of surrender is acceptance. Along with that however, for me it's deeper than simply accepting I can't control my drinking. Many accept they can't control their drinking, but do not want to surrender to the solution. We read it here every day - it what drives SR. Lack of surrender to the solution.

I find the 3rd step prayer particularly helpful in surrendering my will to other forces. It is part of my meditation daily - my sponsor suggested I memorize it, which I have. Release me from the bondage of self so that I may better do thy will.....

We surrender each day by not picking up that first drink, opening our hearts and minds to others and become willing to change.

Finally, many alcoholics are control freaks - wanting to be the director of everything and everybody. If only others would do what I want, my life would be great! The serenity prayer is helpful in this regard many have found. I particularity like the long form of the prayer......

Glad you're here with us, friend
keep coming back!

entropy1964

Hi Kiki
I remember my first AA meeting 12 years ago....or rather the 9 months that I spent sober while attending AA. I remember feeling exactly what you're feeling... 'What is this 'surrender' thing?'. How do I go about 'getting it'? And the term was thrown around, and seemed to be so understood and I sat there like 'wha?". I even frequently confused the word with submit. I just couldn't grasp it. And for whatever reason this surrender got all jumbled up with the higher power 'thing'. Every one seemed to be talking about dropping to their knees and begging for their higher power to show them surrender. More 'Wha?'. I couldn't grasp a higher power or what my concept of that would be. And the more people said it could be anything, the group, nature, a tree....more mass confusion.
Fast forward 12 years. Frankly I had to get good and beat up in the fight between Frick V. Alcohol. Alcohol was killing me, beating me senseless...but I kept fighting. Life was a fight. I had to get to a point where I simply couldn't fight anymore, I had to surrender that alcohol had won, and if I kept fighting it would kill me. And probably after taking everything I hold dear....and in the process of giving up the fight, I have started to understand 'spirituality' as I can embrace it.
I think through acceptance that I'm an alcoholic, always will be, and I can never, ever drink (and at this point I don't even want to) surrender starts to take shape.

Nowsthetime

I remember the exact moment when I surrendered, when I just threw my hands up in the air and gave up trying to control my drinking and realized that I just WILL NEVER win. It was when I finally decided in my heart that I could never allow myself to be put in a situation where I would feel just so low. That's when it "clicked". I never wanted to feel that way again, it was unbearable anymore.

Now I'm happy with the fact that I am a non-drinker because the positives outweigh the negatives.

Surrendering wasn't about losing to something, it was becoming empowered acknowledging a fact.

thomas11

As you can see, I think there are many interpretations. Personally, I believe being an active alcoholic is a lot of damn work. You are in a constant state of motion. That motion is either drunk, or recovering from being drunk, all while trying to work, spend time with family, be social etc...when I eliminated the madness that drinking does to my brain, everything calmed down. Wish you the best.

LexieCat

For me it meant simply giving up the struggle. The struggle to drink normally, the struggle to drink abnormally but not hurt myself too much in the process, the struggle to think my way out of my alcoholism, the struggle to keep trying to change my perspective to avoid reality.

I simply gave up, accepted that I can NEVER drink again (that was important--those mental reservations keep the obsession alive), and focused on how to live sober, happily, under those conditions. No more analyzing why I couldn't drink like normal people--I couldn't change that fact, and it was just a distraction from the reality that I could not drink like normal people.

Makes life far more simple and pleasant.

RedManc7

Good question and really interesting thread this - some top explanations, I think for me surrendering as the word suggests is to stop fighting again your condition/addiction. For me it was all about denial - I was in denial about my addiction not in the sense of admitting I was an addict but definitely in the sense of denying the implications of this (I know I'm an addict but I'm not injecting/I know I've got a bad drink problem but it's not like I'm drinking whiskey for breakfast) so surrender was/is about admitting my addiction but more importantly the implications of the addiction & that anything other than knocking it on the head, now and forever, no excuses no exceptions ("what if I won $50million on the lottery? You mean I couldn't have a glass of champagne to celebrate?" No RedManc, the parties over pal "what about if I was in Afghanistan where there was pure opium & a tribesman offered me some, surely just to try the quality of it, wouldn't do any real harm would it?") So surrender was about Accepting that when my head came up with scenarios that would challenge being clean/sober that I had to accept and acknowledge that this acceptance had no caveats or discretionary power - surrender is absolute - took me a good while to surrender as I had parts of me still fighting (if I do 12m clean I'll smoke heroin again as I'll have shown I'm not addicted & it the buzz will just be like the early days etc) - sounds daft looking back but seemed to make perfect sense & the unconditional surrender seemed to final and absolute it took time to accept.
Apologies for the verbose reply hope it makes sense and maybe helps.

KiKi0615

All of your posts were amazing. I read each of them several times. Thank you so much! After reading and absorbing, I think surrender for me probably means really & truly believing that I am an alcoholic. I have an incurable disease. It will NEVER get better! It will never be fun. It will never go away. It will always hurt people I love and most importantly, I will never be able to stay sober by myself. This disease has knocked me down and I can't fight it alone. It's soooo much bigger than me! It's really hard for me to admit complete defeat because I have always been so strong in all other areas of my life. I guess somehow I thought I could control it, beat it or stop whenever I wanted. To be honest, I am so exhausted. I just want the poison completely out of my life forever. It's killing me physically and emotionally. I surrender!