ghal

I thought I had a good understanding on this part of step one but PLEASE give me your definition of Surrender as it seems it means different things to different people. I have being trying to stop drinking August and I keep relapsing. I relly need some help

gravity

Accepting, in my heart, that I am an alcoholic. I have absolutely zero notion that I can ever drink like a normal person (I had to surrender to this reality).

This was the first part of my step 1 ("we were powerless over alcohol").

desertdonna

Yes, it means knowing that I'm an alcoholic and that I can never drink safely again.

Ergo, I can never drink alcohol again if I want to live.

Since that's one overwhelming truth to fully realize, the rest brings about how to live an alcohol free reality without undue suffering and turn it around to richness.

Isaiah

I had difficulty with this too at first.

I took a lot of the idiomatic expressions in AA too literally. People told me to stop thinking; the only human beings who are successful at that are in comas. The step says to *decide* to turn your *will* over, it's a contradiction (but paradoxically true!) The thing with idioms is they aren't literal, but I have a philosophical brain that is finnicky with precise language.

So getting to my surrender. My surrender is not dwelling on any thought in my mind that would pertain to drinking. If the question pops up, "why am I sober? could I manage a little drinking..." I will shoot it down as fast as possible. Questioning my motives, entertaining doubts, keeping an "open mind" about alcohol... all that left too many doors open for excuses and relapses.

I look at it as fighting with the addiction. I was trying for that secret weapon that'd let me drink the way I thought I wanted to. Sometimes when I thought I was just thinking things over, I was working out excuses to drink. I really feel I have nothing to think over: I never want to drink again. Having it that simple seems the best way to go, and so I "surrender" to that principle. I don't fight with it.

It's also spiritual for me. Again the "surrender our lives.." is I think more metaphor than literal. No one can take themselves out of the driver's seat. God will not do my living for me no matter how hard I ask. My soul's in this body until my dying day.

I'm open about my Christianity in AA. If I were to put the grace God has given me into words, it'd be, "I made you for something better than a drunk." When I follow that grace and his word it's a sort of paradox where I feel more in control, more me. Rather than say I "give my life to God", I prefer "make my life for God."

For me steps 2 & 3 are wanting to and expressing love. Love towards that higher power, because unlike alcohol, the more you invest in it, the more you'll get back.

CAPTAINZING2000

THAT, CONTINUING TO DO THE SAME THING OVER IS TO KEEP GETTING THE SAME RESULTS!!

HIT YOUR FINGER WITH A HAMMER. HIT IT AGAIN, YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP HAVING A PAINFUL RESULT

When, I was able to understand this, I had to become willing to turn my life over and believe a God of my understanding would take my obsession for a drink away from me.

Are you flying solo with this decision to stop your drinking??

tommyk

I surrender to the fact that I cannot fly from the top of a 6 story building.

I surrender to the fact that I cannot drink in moderation.

I surrender to the fact that I do not WANT to drink in moderation either, lol.

(If I drink.... I want gallons, lol.)

tanyapmc

To me to surrender means to cease fighting everything and everyone.

CarolD

"We surrender to win"

I had to give up the insanity of my drinking
in order to make room for my victory over alcohol.

...Wisest move I ever made!

shaun00

To me its about surendering to the fact that i have no element of control left in my drinking... stripping away any denial

Saying to myself.."do you know what..i cant do this anymore"....
Its also surrendering to the fact........that it isnt cos life dealt me a bum deal..it isnt because ive got no home or job or even because i have no one.

Its because im an aloholic or more too the point its because of ME!!!!!!!

No one is to blame for my drinking....i had to stop blaming people because i drank.......and look at myself......painful stuff..

Then after a while sober....along come the exceptance......my thought pattern changed......it was no longer "i cant drink" and became "i dont want to drink"...........then i started to become comfortable with it..

Today it also means to me........stop trying to control everything......stop trying to bully your way through.....just to get the result you want...or not.

What will be will be....or his will not mine........thats my take anyway..hope that makes sense........trucker

Mark75

I surrendered to the fact that I am an alcoholic and an addict. I surrendered that I must stop all substances that are mind altering. I surrender my will to my higher power.

I surrender to win. To quit fighting and regain my sanity.

Mark

laurie6781

First of all, I didn't and don't look at Step 1 as 'surrendering. I look at it as COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE TO THE VERY CORE OF MY BEING that

I AM POWERLESS OVER ALCOHOL. When I took a drink of alcohol, I was lost, I could not stop and did not until I reached the day that I knew if I kept drinking I was going to die and if I stopped I was going to die, but I wanted to die sober.

Ironically I did die AFTER putting the plug in the jug.

So, for me, once I ACCEPTED that I could not even have 1 more drink of alcohol, then the second part of Step 1 was easy to accept. I had the PROOF POSITIVE that my life was TOTALLY UNMANAGEABLE as long as I continued to allow King Alcohol to run my life.

Acceptance. The FOUNDATION of those 12 steps. They have allowed this alcoholic to live a very peaceful, mind altering chemical free life for many ODAATs.

J M H O

Love and hugs,

IO Storm

For me?

It was a realization.

I knew..at a point that I was alcoholic.

Sure, I can drink.

But I can't lay it down once I pick it up. I have tried this experiment over

over again. So, I stopped fighting. I surrendered.

Not to the disease, but to the concept of..

"I know I can drink, but I know what happens if I do, so I won't!

This is where my daily reprieve comes in. I "surrender" moment by moment..

And I get strength from my HP..in each moment.

I feel the need for alcohol has been lifted from me..but there have been

"moments"..a few times in the last couple of years, that I have had to

surrender deeper, yet again and really lean on that Strength.

And support from my sponsor, friends in the rooms, and here.

I didn't pick up a drink, or anything else.

Each moment we have a choice.

My best to you,

Good luck!

Rusty Zipper

that i'm a alcoholic, once that first drink is in...

all bets are off...

surrender that its more then just booze, its everything that goes along with alcoholism...

the dopey mental twists, the unmanageability, the lies, the self centeredness, the fears, the low self esteem, the escapeism, the being consumed by it...

and the list goes on...

once that was all accepted, the white flag was raised...

good wishes ghal

sugErspun

Surrender.

I can't stop drinking when I start.
I can't stop starting.
I will drink again. I am doomed.
There is NOTHING I can do about it in and of myself. I have tried and failed time and again. My experience is all I have to look at to see this.

Easy to see in retrospect, at the time I was just hurt, confused, angry etc. I guess it was bad enough that I asked for help and was willing to do what those I asked suggested I do, regardless if I liked it or not.

Like Laurie said - to the VERY CORE OF MY BEING. This isn't something that I could think my way into... I had other people tell me the truth of my condition for years, I even admitted it myself...but it was never to my core. Surrender 'came', I don't know how else to put it into words. I was a few weeks (maybe 6) sober and realized that I am finished..the old me has to die in order for me to live.

They saw it in my eyes and moved me to step two. It was not pleasant, but from it was born a willingness to move into the unknown...to 'jump off' as some might say.

doorknob

I'm flying solo but have the support of my friends and family.

bodychek

Just over a year ago, in the early hours of the morning after closing the bar yet another time when I planned to "have a couple of beers" and be home by 9pm, I stood looking at myself in the mirror with tears rolling down my cheeks and surrendered after yet another failed attempt at controlling my drinking. I surrendered to the fact that I was a drunk and would die a drunk, at that moment I accepted the fact that I had no control over alcohol and I gave up trying to fight it. I had planned on accepting my place as a drunk and an eery calm came over me for the first time in a long time. I hadn't planned on waking up the next day with the obsession lifted and an overwhelming urge to get help to stop drinking.

Here I am 378 days later and feeling the best mentally and emotionally I have ever felt. What a gift I was given when I gave up the fight. I no longer fight anyone or anything, I "quit the debate society" and don;t care how or why it works, I accept that for me it just works. I work the 12 steps and although I don't know what my higher power is, I know that it wasn't my self will that removed the obsession and pushed me into recovery. I now live in the now and have learned to stay out of the past and future and because of it, I have peace and calmness in my life.

What an adventure.

gravity

There is an amazing peace that came with accepting that I am an alcoholic.

Coming to after a 60 hour bender (started as a plan to go for a couple of drinks), so sick & scared, hating myself...yet there was almost a feeling of relief. After years of trying to control alcohol, of so many failures, of the destructive behaviour...there was just no way left to rationalize that I wasn't an alcoholic, that I could somehow learn to enjoy alcohol. The clarity of thought that day: I am an alcoholic, I can't quit on my own, I need to get help NOW.

I used to spend so much time drinking, hungover, kicking myself over my drinking, obsessing about drinking, planning my next drink ("this time will be different"). It was exhausting! All of this was replaced with simple & honest acceptance. I was finally able to move out of the problem and into the solution.