BarbW141FL

Today is my first visit to Sober Recovery and I feel SO grateful to
have stumbled upon this site. As a practicing alcoholic, I always
drank too much, too fast & then I vomited & passed out. I never knew
how lucky I was. Last year my oldest & dearest friend lost her son due
to this cunning baffling & powerful disease.
My gratitude today is in remembrance of her son. I'm alive today
because I didn't pass out first and vomit next. He died because he
drowned in his own vomit. I have so very, very much to be grateful for !!

degadar

Hi Barb,

I lost my best friend to alcohol. He died of pancreatitis. I didn't blaim the alcohol of course at the time , just carried on headed the same way as Deg . Degadar was my friend's nickname, I'm using it for him now. He'd find that funny.

Are you sober now? How was it for you? Questions Questions Questiuons, feel free to tell me to mind my own business.

Deg.

paulette

I am Grateful to have met the most beautiful people in the world.
You guys are so great.

I am so grateful for this site, for without it, I would not have found you guys.
God be with you all, and keep you safe............

Like they say, Keep coming back, it works, it really does works.

BarbW141FL

I'm happy to meet you Deg. and Paulette, fellow AA's. In answer to
your question Deg; yes - I am sober - my sobriety date is 9-1-85.
These have been the greatest 18 (going on 19 with the grace of my
higher power) years of my life thus far. With recovery in AA, my life
has changed so much. At first, all that changed was that I didn't have
to drink anymore. Then as my recovery continued I didn't need that
drink to feel "comfortable in my own skin" anymore. Gradually, as the
years have gone by, I managed to attend AA social events without
the degree of discomfort that I felt early in sobriety. Now, I can even
attend non AA social events and feel "comfortable in my own skin". I
believe this is just one of sobriety's greatest gifts.... the
ability to be comfortable in life AS MYSELF. Without the need
to change how I feel by adding alcohol ! How it has been for me?
In my experience, being sober wasn't always comfortable - in fact,
there were days when I felt like a total & complete zero. During
the early years of my sobriety I was completely dependent on my
sponsor & on other people's approval. But the old timers promised
me that if I kept coming back, a miracle would happen. The miracle
was; that how other people perceived me was simply none of
my business. These same people promised to "love me until I
learned to love myself." They promised me that one day - I would
be happy to have you like me - but if you didn't; it wouldn't make
any difference, because the true measure of ME - was within me,
not outside of me. I am so very happy to report that they were
right in that prediction. If someone doesn't approve of me or
like me, well - it's their loss - because I believe today that I
really believe I am an exceptional person. I know that my life is a
miracle. I would never "FEEL FREE" to tell you to mind your own
business Deg and I'll tell you why. If my recovery is going to have
any meaning, I must be willing to "give it away" as freely as it was
given to me. So - you couldn't ask me a question about recovery
from alcoholism that I wouldn't attempt to answer from my heart.
It's become second nature to me at this point to freely share what
was given to me. It IS a gift & I believe that I owe my life to AA.
I was married & had 3 daughters by the time I was 21 years old.
By 25 I was divorced - from an alcoholic. ( I was a non-drinker
at the time). That man died about 6 months ago from cirrhosis of
the liver at the relatively young age of 55, but then, he had been
trying to drink himself to death since I knew him. It didn't take
very long - only the last 30 years of his life. He never even
wanted to get to know his own daughters. And, to be quite honest,
my daughters didn't really want to know him. Six months after
the divorce was final, & on the last occasion that I ever saw
him - he was drunk and he put me in the hospital for 2 weeks
(with a compressed skull fracture).
Looking back at it now, I can see that alcoholism is truly
"the family disease." I grew up with an alcoholic mother, so
naturally I married into alcoholism, and then, when I got rid of
him; I began to drink myself. So I quite naturally qualify for both
AA and AlAnon. And believe me, I need all the recovery that
BOTH AA and AlAnon have to offer. I have been the obsessive
AlAnonic - so caught up in what "the alcoholic" is doing, that I
ignored my own needs & the needs of my children. My daughters
are grateful that I found AA, and I am praying that one day
THEY are able to find recovery also. Each one of them has their
own issues with the "family disease" of alcoholism. But they
were teenagers when I got sober and they used to tell me:
"Mom, don't you need to go to a meeting?" whenever I was truly
out of sorts & cranky. I'm so grateful that they know where a
solution can be found, IF they are ever able to see their own
disease honestly. But then, denial is the biggest obstacle to
overcome, isn't it? Denial is the single WORST SYMPTOM of
alcoholism in my humble opinion. If you took these simple 12
steps into any cancer center & told those dying folks that all
they had to do, in order to recover from cancer, was to work
12 simple steps; they would be jumping all over each other to
work the steps. Why doesn't it work that way for alcoholics?
Mostly because it is the very nature of alcoholism for the
alcoholic to believe that she/he doesn't REALLY have a disease.
So - it really IS a miracle that I have found the gift of sobriety
and been able to keep it!