If you're desperate read this!
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 35
If you're desperate read this!
For some reason tonight I was drawn back onto this forum and received a notice that I hadn't posted for a while and should drop everyone a line so here we are...
Anyway, I decided to read my first post back in July 2012 which made for an interesting read. I was desperate and dead against the NA & AA cult. The mere thought of a Higher Power and God was enough for me to scoff at the idea that I could take the program seriously. Which I might add is rather awkward reading back to myself now considering how much things have changed.
As it would turn out I would continue on for a couple of months after my first post and a particular incident lead to me abstaining from the use of drugs and alcohol for 15 months. I white knuckled it and didn't have rehab or the program for support. It was the perfect antidote for my ego to tell me that "I had this thing licked" and that I could get on with life.
Admittedly, life did get better. I had a good job, I saved money and had earned peoples respect back. However looking back, despite having all those things I was still particularly angry, socially isolated and deeply dissatisfied with life. So I did what most certified addicts do, I had a sea change but on an addicts scale (move to the other side of the world to a foreign country with a language I didn't speak). Within 2 weeks I relapsed and within a year was back home and considered that being an addict was my destiny and death was a seriously legitimate solution to the despair I felt. I was cooked as farrk....
I knew I had to stop and I couldn't fight it anymore, at least not on favourable terms that I saw fit. I rang a mate in the rooms and he took me to a meeting. I sat there, I sat through the social awkwardness and severe discomfort and I came back. Importantly, I let go of all my reservations about what NA was and just kept rocking up. All I knew was that I didn't want to use anymore. It wasn't about a higher power, it wasn't about God, it wasn't about a program, I just knew that Step 1 applied to me. If you don't know what that is: "We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable". Well, that was pretty easy to accept as that was certainly my life. The rest didn't need to make sense, I just knew that I was incapable of sorting my addiction out on my own.
Fast track forward 20 months. What I can tell you was that walking into those rooms was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I wasn't brainwashed and force fed any garbage about God this or that, I was literally that I was going to a room full of addicts looking for a life without drugs. The rest of my recovery has happened very organically. I did get a sponsor. I did start working the steps. I did reconfigure my understanding of a higher power and a God of my understanding (ie took religion out of the equation) and found a spiritual understanding that was workable for me.
I have also made some wonderful friends in recovery. I have a great job these days. I know who I am. I can actually say that I love who I am. If there is anything I could have wanted from recovery, it was the ability to like who I was as a person. It's been the most liberating experience. I've also used the program to uncover what was really going on inside. It wasn't so much about the drugs as it was the internal dialogue which played the record of unloveable and worthlessness on repeat. No wonder I used.
If anyone is new to recovery and feels alone and desperate this place is a great place to start. But do yourself a favour, see if there are any local meetings you can get to and see what happens. It can certainly be overwhelming, life tends to be that way at times for alcoholics and addicts, well people generally. However, if you want to find the tools to arm yourself in your pursuit of freedom from the clutches of drugs and alcohol then I strongly suggest that you need not do it alone.
Anyway, I decided to read my first post back in July 2012 which made for an interesting read. I was desperate and dead against the NA & AA cult. The mere thought of a Higher Power and God was enough for me to scoff at the idea that I could take the program seriously. Which I might add is rather awkward reading back to myself now considering how much things have changed.
As it would turn out I would continue on for a couple of months after my first post and a particular incident lead to me abstaining from the use of drugs and alcohol for 15 months. I white knuckled it and didn't have rehab or the program for support. It was the perfect antidote for my ego to tell me that "I had this thing licked" and that I could get on with life.
Admittedly, life did get better. I had a good job, I saved money and had earned peoples respect back. However looking back, despite having all those things I was still particularly angry, socially isolated and deeply dissatisfied with life. So I did what most certified addicts do, I had a sea change but on an addicts scale (move to the other side of the world to a foreign country with a language I didn't speak). Within 2 weeks I relapsed and within a year was back home and considered that being an addict was my destiny and death was a seriously legitimate solution to the despair I felt. I was cooked as farrk....
I knew I had to stop and I couldn't fight it anymore, at least not on favourable terms that I saw fit. I rang a mate in the rooms and he took me to a meeting. I sat there, I sat through the social awkwardness and severe discomfort and I came back. Importantly, I let go of all my reservations about what NA was and just kept rocking up. All I knew was that I didn't want to use anymore. It wasn't about a higher power, it wasn't about God, it wasn't about a program, I just knew that Step 1 applied to me. If you don't know what that is: "We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable". Well, that was pretty easy to accept as that was certainly my life. The rest didn't need to make sense, I just knew that I was incapable of sorting my addiction out on my own.
Fast track forward 20 months. What I can tell you was that walking into those rooms was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I wasn't brainwashed and force fed any garbage about God this or that, I was literally that I was going to a room full of addicts looking for a life without drugs. The rest of my recovery has happened very organically. I did get a sponsor. I did start working the steps. I did reconfigure my understanding of a higher power and a God of my understanding (ie took religion out of the equation) and found a spiritual understanding that was workable for me.
I have also made some wonderful friends in recovery. I have a great job these days. I know who I am. I can actually say that I love who I am. If there is anything I could have wanted from recovery, it was the ability to like who I was as a person. It's been the most liberating experience. I've also used the program to uncover what was really going on inside. It wasn't so much about the drugs as it was the internal dialogue which played the record of unloveable and worthlessness on repeat. No wonder I used.
If anyone is new to recovery and feels alone and desperate this place is a great place to start. But do yourself a favour, see if there are any local meetings you can get to and see what happens. It can certainly be overwhelming, life tends to be that way at times for alcoholics and addicts, well people generally. However, if you want to find the tools to arm yourself in your pursuit of freedom from the clutches of drugs and alcohol then I strongly suggest that you need not do it alone.
I could see peace instead of this
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Canada, eh
Posts: 2,360
Thank you; loved this post!
My experience was that by the time I got to AA, I was hurting enough that I was teachable. All I knew at that point was that I desperately didn't want to drink anymore and that no matter what I did, I could not stop.
Any resistance or questioning I may have had quickly left when the alternative was to go back out there and try it on my own again. When I applied myself to the program of recovery, my life got better beyond what I could have imagined.
My experience was that by the time I got to AA, I was hurting enough that I was teachable. All I knew at that point was that I desperately didn't want to drink anymore and that no matter what I did, I could not stop.
Any resistance or questioning I may have had quickly left when the alternative was to go back out there and try it on my own again. When I applied myself to the program of recovery, my life got better beyond what I could have imagined.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Lodi, CA
Posts: 80
I went to a few meetings a while ago. I was physically there but not really working the program. I'm only 11 days sober now but I have a sponsor and am working the steps. Already getting so much out of it. I'm going to make it this time because I'm putting in the work and won't stop. I'm also thinking positively.
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