Isn't it amazing how much worse it gets and how much quicker when we pick up again!! Cunning, baffling & POWERFUL

Good luck with the rehab.

My prayers are with you.

Best of luck to a new start!:c011:

Thanks all for the kind words and support, it really does mean a lot. Well i feel more human today, got 19 days till i get checked in and have to make a decision on one of two centres today. Got emails from both last night! I feel good about this, my one and only question will be regarding AA, sober living, one day at a time, serenity etc...has to be what the hell are you talking about, i simply don't get it? I think if they show and tell me everyday for 28 days some of it has to sink in :smashfrea, i am going with a completely open mind and willing to learn so i have high hopes!

I think it is time to be more honest with myself, going back to my plan of moving and taking time of work to go to AA meetings and work on my recovery sounds great but at the moment it is BS! I know i won't go to meetings so why kid myself, i have done it befoe on several occasions, i remember leaving London in 2001 for 9 months locking myself in a lovely rental house and trying to fix myself, didn't work, then moving abroad, same thing didn't work etcetc fast (or should i say slow) forward 8 years...

I was thinking about things that i say, my favourite is i wouldn't give a bucket of **** for my memories, that's so wrong. We only live once and do die eventually you would think anyone with half a brain would be enjoying themselves lol even my cat makes the most of each day lol I'm glad i have made this decision and am not going travelling, to find myself, for a couple of months as planned, which would be just a total waste of time...again!

Will keep you all updated, hopefully this will be the fresh start i so desperately need:-)

Thanks again for your support :c017:

Yeahgr8~

Im glad you have made the decision to take care of yourself! I wish you nothing but the best. Keep us updated if you can.

:bday8

Cliff, this rang a bell -

I'm very familiar with it. Last time I posted to you a word I used was "underestimate" as in "don't underestimate alcoholism". I'm saying it again. Don't underestimate what alcoholism can do to you and what it can take from you. Nothing is sacred. Someone once said to me "there's a part of me that wants me dead". Bill Alexander wrote something similar - that active addiction is an act of "monstrous self-hatred". Put aside all the bollocks that's spoken around here by people who don't know any better about "choices" and "rationality". These things ONLY have a rightful place in recovery AFTER we are able to acknowledge at a profoundly personal level the truth of our condition. That we are insane and we need help. No-one willingly admits they're that sick - but circumstances will, sooner or later, force us to accept that truth, and that's where I have to reiterate - don't underestimate how bad it can get. Don't underestimate the despair, fear, anguish, terror, confusion that this condition can bring to you. Don't underestimate how much you can lose, of yourself and of your life.

In rehab or in AA, be ready to acknowledge your condition. Or be ready to just keep being surprised at how much worse it can get.

Good luck

Well done on this positive step, Cliff. :)

If it's any consolation, I am an expat lost in the middle of nowhere and I don't really have "a home" to speak of.
I've spent the last 20 years if my life wandering around like a gypsy in Europe, South America and several addresses in the US. I used to be amazed at how quickly I would move around, I don't think I had the same address in the US for more than 6 months at a time for years. And alcohol was right there behind me. I wasn't really alone. I always had that bottle.

I had a F2F meeting with my AA sponsor for the first time Monday morning and I left her apartment feeling like I was on top of the world. Then I felt like I was on the bottom of it. I have never had two more conflicting emotions ever, I hated myself and I loved myself all at the same time.

One of the things we talked about is how I am probably a codie: I give my two alkie brothers money all the time. There is always a new excuse.
She told me: STOP that behavior.
Well, sorry I am rambling here.
I guess I am trying to say that AA has been one of the best things that ever happened to me.
My sponsor may as well be a highly paid psychiatrist who gives the best advice I've ever been given at the cost of thousands of dollars. But, I don't pay a dime. She is incredible.
This week has been really hard for me because I finally understood that I'm codie plus an alcoholic and it was hard to accept that maybe I am not the recipient of the love I was expecting. I wanted it but I didn't get it.

On the other hand, I get the love from my sons and husband despite being a complete drunk *******.
Wow, alcoholic 101: want love where you don't get it and disregard the love where you have it.

Cliff for many of us it takes rehab to get a foot hold on sobriety, when you go to rehab do as you said you would, keep an open mind, also be honest and willing to do what ever it takes. I can assure you that they are going to tell you to do something in rehabe that at the time is going to sound like the dumbest thing you have ever heard of in the world, it will leave you wondering "What in the world does this have to do with staying sober?". Don't fight it, just do it, one day you will have an Aha moment and what they had you do will make perfect sense.

As you have already discovered, the hardest part is staying sober, not getting sober!!! Keep that in mind when you get out of rehab, go to meetings, get in the middle of AA and not on the outskirts of it. It is hard to fall off when you are in the middle of AA, it is easy when you are on the outer fringes.

I did not do rehab, I went through medical detox and then threw myself into AA, over 90 meetings in 90 days and got a sponsor the first day out of detox. Rehab was an option open to me, but in speaking with my IOP guy he said I appeared to be doing well with AA and he assured me that if I felt I needed rehab it was there for me.

Stay in touch and do not back down, this is really a matter of life and death!

Thanks guys, i have contacted them and i am meeting with my friend tomorrow from AA who is looking after my cat from the 6th May, i guess i will be checking in from 11th May. It's totally based around the 12 steps so i hope this will give me the want to go to AA upon leaving! When i did the 5 months my counselor said from he start go to AA and i didn't, my friend has taken me down to AA and i haven't been back, some of you guys with years of sobriety and happiness have said go to AA and i don't, surely even someone like me can get some sort of message at the end of 28 days!

Seriously though i know i am sick, i can see that now and i'm not laughing anymore, i'm totally clueless on how to live and i will be doing what they say without question, even if i think it is BS and stupid, which i probably will until i get it!

My friend finds it 'amusing' that i don't go to AA, the miracle has happened for her and she is 3 years+ sober, but i can't see it and she can't, as much as she tries, explain it to me (sponsor, steps, meetings), this is so something i must do and am doing!

It is good to come to SR and pòst and read at a time like this, hopfully i can start giving instead of taking in the future!

Well you are right where I was at before I went into detox, I felt totally hopeless and clueless as to what to do, but I like you was damn sure willing to do what was suggested because I did not have a clue any more, I had tried everything I could pull out of my rear, I knew at that point that my will power alone just did not cut it!

Keep the attitude you have right now, you will find the solution! Just keep in mind it does not happen over night, you did not wake up an alcoholic, that took time, getting better will to.

(((Cliff)))

I wish you all the best in rehab and afterward. YOu CAN beat this disease but it takes time and effort. I"m glad you're going to rehab. It could be just what you need to stay sober. Keep us posted on how you're doing please. We care!

S***t i thought you were doing ok.

Treatment sounds like a plan...i admire your passion for wanting to get and stay sober.....wherever you find the answer.. i wish you well.

I have pals that got sober same time as me .....a couple managed a month or two and returned to drinking....and are still drinking nearly nine years on.

Some never get that desire to get back......im chuffed you have.

God be with you.......and guide you...................shaun

Good Luck.

and dont spare the horses.....im on my through in september and i could do with a lift to your local meeting:c014:

keep posting... don't worry... you "give" by "taking"... you'll see!!!

Mark

Wouldn't that be quite a thing Shaun! Thanks Mark, wish i could leave today as the centre insinuated but need to temporarily rehouse the rat cat first, sod it only a couple of weeks to go:-)

Hey man-
good luck. I am on your highway also, and plan to take an exit. just need to pull off the road.
dub

i wish you well,if you do go to AA with total willingness and openmindedness,things should be different.

Absolutely i should go down to AA with an open mind and heart but i won't, this 28 days in an AA 12 step program will make me do the 'meetings' i don't want to do then when i leave can get down AA, seems like a long way around but i need it obvously:-)

do what i suggested before and all u need i a desire to stop drinking! thats it!