Thanks for everything in this thread. I am more confused and closed minded than ever this morning and that makes me sad. I will go to my meeting tomorrow as usual and try to take in more than what I have been and try to open my mind more. I feel as though my sobriety is safe as I have really had no desires or urges to drink, but I feel sad that I have my self scared now that if I don't do what everybody says I will never be happy in that sobriety. In all honesty, I was becoming more and more happy until I started this thread and that is a hard thing to deal with.

D.

edited out.

choose recovery, happiness, and open minded-ness mama36! we have choices today, if we don't drink or use. it doesn't have to be AA for you. what other people say doesn't have any impact on you, unless you let it. all the best to you!

Oh mama....

You don't have to do everything everyone says.... just get a big book, go through it with someone who can help you "see"... It's just 12 steps, simple. OK, so it's not easy, but that's alright... Get a sponsor if you don't have one... If she's recovered in AA and you want what she has... just do what she says, ignore the rest.

Easy does it, ya know... It'll come...

great post mark. paying it forward. step 12. most oldtimers i know, my sponsor included, keep coming back as much to give what was so freely given to them, as for "themselves". as i posted on the 1st page, thank god for these people, because without them there'd be no NA, and i would likely still be suffering. it's an honor and pleasure to attend meetings and i love offering ESH to the newcomer(newer than me, which is pretty new) and i just love the program. LOVE IT! It's everything i was searching for in drugs and the culture surrounding drugs, but it's real, sustainable, and in accordance with spiritual principles, which when adhered to, life get better!

mama: I have been thinking of your post all weekend!
At first I was annoyed and thought: oh, she is just doing eveyone else's inventory.

But, let me politely say what my story has been with AA. And this is MY story, I am not assuming this is what you are doing. So, here is my story.

I went into aa and transformed the Big Book pronouns to read "me" instead of we". Everytime I read: "we", I saw "me".

A little trivia: Bill W wrote a great deal of the BB and he started out using the pronoun "you". Then he changed every single instance of "you" in the BB to "we". In a way, that has been my journey with AA: from me to we.

I didn't get that in the beginning. I just drank the coffee and felt annoyed if the cookies were stale and "they" were out of sugar. It was me and "them". I had no awareness that someone actually took the time to show up to make coffee and buy sugar and milk. I didn't realize that people signed up to lead meetings. That is how self-focused I was.

(I am not saying you are....this is what happened to me.)

Then....many, many months into the program my sponsor pushed me rudely into doing service. I resented her for that. But actually, as many more months went by, I began to understand the importance of service. Mostly, I wouldn't drink the day I had to do service. simple, rudimentary? yeah. I am kind of rudimentary.

Do I like everyone in the meetings? Hell no. There is a very good saying: if you like everyone in a meeting, you haven't been to enough meetings. hah!
But I digress.
Now, I understand that my presence in the rooms is twofold. If I am having a bad day or am stressed or want to drink, the room is the best place for me to be. I hear shares that anchor me again, give me food for thought, help me grasp the nature of this disease I have. This disease almost destroyed my life. I take it seriously.

And then I know that I need to be in the rooms because I can do for someone what someone else did for me. They took my phone number, they called me. They asked how I was. They didn't judge or preach, they bought me a hamburger and stayed silent and smiled.

I can truly relate to your feelings mama, but I would venture to say that maybe you are moving too fast, seeing things in people that maybe isn't there? Everyone has a slightly different profile as an alcoholic. Maybe some people need more. I don't think that AA is taking over my life. I spend about 1/3 of my time at AA compared to how much time I spent drinking. AA and my sponsor are helping me with skills from managing my time to employment life skills. Not a bad place to be.

We have all had our happy and sad rides with sobriety. If you truly feel AA is not for you, there are alternatives of all kinds. The most important thing is to have something!

Thanks guys, it's 30 days today and I feel really depressed. Not like drinking but just confused and I am letting the opinions of others get me down. I have that tendancy, lol. I have reached out to some people in my life today and I am not hoping that they will tell me what to do, maybe just hear me cry. Maybe I am being foolish or selfish or just plain stupid, but I feel how I feel and today, on a day that I should feel really happy I am not.

I have a sign on my office door that reads, "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be". I believe that quote from the bottom of my heart and in my 4.5 years of sobriety I believed that and I lived that and I made others happy. I was not the happiest person in the world, in fact I was quite angry from time to time, but I felt good inside a good part of the time, the majority in fact. I was lonely because I didn't have anybody in my life, but I was happy being sober. I didn't think when I picked up the drink 3.5 years ago about it being a relapse or anything like that because I didn't stop drinking thinking I was an alcoholic even though that is exactly what I was. Now I full and completely accept that I am an alcoholic and can never pick up again and honestly, I don't have a problem with that. I just have this issue about where to go to protect my happiness. I have options open to me and I will use the tools that are there.

I am happy to be sober and I have some decision to make regarding my own happiness and the happiness of my family.

Thanks for all of the thoughts, words, and opinions.

Donna

A few passages from Under the Influence: James R Milam, Ph.d and Katherine Ketcham 1981

Despite it's moralistic foundation, however, A.A. worked as no other approach to alcoholism had before, and as a long-term sobriety maintenance program, there still is not even a distant rival. Thus A.A. stands as a colossal paradox. The fellowship has undoubtedly been the most powerful force in getting society to accept alcoholism as a treatable disease. Yet at the same time, it has become a powerful obstacle to accepting the otherwise overwhelming evidence that biological factors, not psychological or emotional factors, usher in the disease.

Virtually all the effective programs have in common the understanding that alcoholism is a disease that can be arrested but not cured and that the cornerstone of full recovery must be continuous total abstinence from alcohol and substitute drugs. Nearly all these programs also usher their patients into A.A for long-term sobriety maintenance after treatment. But unfortunately, even these programs, which are relatively successful, base their treatment philosophies and stategies on the A.A belief that the alcoholic disease begins with a character flaw or other psychological inadequacy, and this belief is the major shortcoming among otherwise effective treatment programs everywhere.
By treating the psychological problems as primary rather than the physical disease and addiction, programs which could otherwise help 80+ percent of their patients make lasting, high quality recoveries instead can only claim recovery rates half that high and a relatively poorer quality of sobriety for their patients. These programs typically underestimate or miss completely the long-term effects of toxicity, malnutrition,hypoglycemia, and even the withdrawal syndrome in causing or aggravating the alcoholics psychological problems. Instead, the recurring psychological problems are mistaken as evidence that the alcoholic is, at bottom, an inadepuate, depressed, anxious, and self-destructive personality. This view of the alcoholic's character and personality, as stressed throughout this book, reinforces the sick alcoholic's character belief that he is responsible for his disease, increases his guilt and shame, intensifies his anxiety and resentments, and stiffens his defensiveness against both the diagnosis of alcoholism and the proposed treatment. These aggravated symptoms than loom up as the major problems to be "diagnosed" and treated rather than as the symptoms of an underlying physical disease.

If you are considering an alternative treatment center I can give a good reference, please send me a pm.
SH

You're in my thoughts, Mama, no matter what you choose. May you find the best life and happiness that sobriety has to offer.

I've never heard of anyone damaged by working the Twelve Steps. Even among AA's harshest critics, I've never heard of anyone who claims to have actually been harmed by working the Steps. At most, they claim AA is a delusion.

*shrug*

OK, well, the same can be said about plenty of beliefs--religious, political, sociological. People will believe in something. Whether I think it's a delusion pretty much depends on what I believe, rather than what's true. As zbear has in his signature, "Truth is True and nothing else is."

Nevertheless, unless we are perfectly enlightened and see ALL of the Truth, we have to make judgments and assumptions along the way. I see people who have recovered by working the Steps, and they have what I want. Therefore, I want to do what they did. I believe the Promises. I believe them because I have seen them come true for others.

The Steps involve putting aside your own ego, taking responsibility for your actions, being aware of your capacity to help or harm others, keeping your own side of the street clean, being compassionate and tolerant of others, and developing and maintaining a relationship with a Power that enables you to continue live that way. And helping others to learn to do the same thing. I don't see any reasonable downside to it.

Mama...you need to do what works for you. Slow it down....focus on you and what works. At the end of the day.....YOU are what matters.

I found what helped me get started was not overcomplicating things. I knew I needed help in the form of coping with issues in my life so I chose to do what I felt would be a good thing - counseling.

We are all unique Mama....and you are sober and happy. Don't measure yourself to others and don't spend so much time wondering if you are doing it right. The way you live your life is representative of that and you have done amazing.

Folks are sharing their experiences here and what they have read.

Are you happy with you and how you are doing? That is what matters.

I came here with a goal to stay quit, have support and SR has been invaluable to me. I am in a far better place then I could have imagined. I am happy with me and that is what I lost all those years ago. I am better then that person who was sober years ago because now I have battled the demon and I am a far more compassionate, caring person then I was then.

I see everyday how my life is good because of what I did and my overall attitude is positive because of what I felt worked for me. If it didn't then I would have moved on to something else that would better suit me.

I come here now because I find joy in it to be honest. I know plenty of people were here to help me and possibly my experiences can help someone else.

It wasn't until I began recovery that I began to blossom.

Huggs and stay the course. Don't ever allow yourself to be denied your happiness.

Keep sharing :)

Hi Donna. I wasn't going to reply to this thread, not because I don't think it's a valid thread or anything like that. However I will do as I would hate to see you demoralised into another drink which I feel is totally unnecessary. I can only use my experience.

Recovery is an incredibly personal thing, incredibly personal and the alcoholic is a very vulnerable person. I share this as my own personal experience on my journey, nobody else's.

For me then the whole sponsorship thing was where the pressure was applied. I reached the decision that for my own personal situation then there could be far more damage inflicted on me by opening up to somebody I have only just really met and know nothing about. For me at 23 then there simply was nobody my age who I could relate to. I got over this and decided that I seemed to grasp and understand the steps of AA pretty clearly but dodn;t get hung up on it. By utilising what I heard in step meetings and also by taking such great wisdom from SR then I was effectively able to work the 12 steps of AA to the best of my ability. I actually found that I was working them in my life organically without even realising it, I think this is why my recovery progressed really nicely. I was making ammends and living effectively what I was hearing and reading as the AA prgram in my daily life very early in my recovery. It wasn't a checklist of do this step and then this one, rather a mix. I'm sure i also had other elements of recovery programs I was working to without even realising it!

The 12 steps of AA seem pretty straight forward to me and as I have grown in recovery then I have realised that effectively I have been working them in my daily life, More than I ever could have done if I had of offically sat down with somebody else and had them just force their opinions and experience upon me. It took me until now to really get the clarity and see the reality of this recovery lark and what it's really all about.

I take an eclectic approach to my recovery. There is more to alcoholism than what's written in the BB, however the BB has some great stuff in it. From day 1 of getting the book and going to AA then quotes and the chapter titles ring around my head and I have a great warm feeling when I quote stuff to myself and find it fits my situation and life experince perfectly. I didn't need a stranger to impose their experience on mine. I see very little in the BB about a sponsor.

It's so easy to get caught up in the game of it all but what it really boils down to is that it's the own individual sobriety that really matters. That's why they detach when they feel there own recovery may be at risk.

What I leanred as i progressed was that I was finding that I was happy with what I had and my route that I went and people used to say to me, "man you must have a really great sponsor?" and i just smiled and thought yes it's called SR as well as other things.

Remember that all that really matters is that you stay sober and are happy about that. never forget that... It's very easy to get scared off and it's a shame. I saw that a lot and it happened to me.

The whole sponsor gets banded around a lot and for most alkies then it's required. But certainly not for all and I'm sure so called sponsors have caused a lot of pain to very vulnerable people. I only trusted proffessionals with my stuff as that felt safer to go down that route. Rather than have just one person I used collective wisdom to channel my recovery. Just cause you don't have an offical sponsor doesn't mean that you don't get the promises, far from it. It's all subjective anyway.

In merely conceiving of a HP meant that I experinced the spiritual awakening/psychic change necessary. The more I travel on my journey the more I see that now.

If you do the work and are rigorously honest then you won't go far wrong. If you meet a great sponsor who you really connect with then great, if not don't give up. It's all about daily action. It's not a theory but a lived reality.

Keep sober and don't give up!!

Go to as many meetings as you do or don't want to go to. It's guaranteed that those that make you feel uncomfortable at AA would be the first to scorn if they saw you drinking again and probably would comment about it. I realised that at the end of the day it's just alkies trying to stay sober and improve their lives. So I would make sure I did the same.

This is merely my experience.

Peace

Oops, sorry, Donna,

Congrats on the 30 days--seriously. Sorry you are feeling depressed and stressed.

Remember, you don't have to have everything figured out to keep moving forward.

Hugs,

Donna- You will find what fits for you.

Happy 30 days!!!! I'm going to celebrate just a little for you. :a122: :c011:
I knew your 30 days was coming up soon; I just did not know the exact day.

I do think lots of emotions are normal and good in recovery. Feel what you feel; just let the feelings flow through; and know you have a solid center and grounding. Remember to breathe. Pray. (I remember you saying your relationship with God is important to you.)

Figuring out what path fits for you can seem difficult. There are so many valid ways of recovery- so maybe you cannot choose wrong as long as you are choosing recovery over drinking.

Be gentle with yourself today!!! (and try to sneak in a little celebrating- unless that just feels completely wrong)

Congrats on 30 days donna! There are as many paths to freedom and truth as there are humans on this planet. May you find yours!

Mine is 12 step centric, but there is much more to my recovery than NA. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

I'm suspicious of this 5% success rate - even in my own experience here the success rate seems higher than that.

I see folks here 'get it' just every day - some use AA, some don't.

I know myself - 3 and a half years ago, I was an all day every day drinker. Sunrise to Sunset. Apart from my trip to the bottle shop daily, I watched TV or drank with my drinking buddies.

That was my life. Everyday.
I was dead - dead in mind and body...I just didn't know it yet.

Now I'm not.
I call that a bona fide miracle.

If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone else reading this too.
It is possible :)

Don't discount any way you have of maybe getting there - not without trying it first, anyway.

Congrats on 30 days Donna :)
D

Thanks, I feel a little more positive now, thanks so much Neo and Oak and Lexie, well all of you. Thanks so much.

I have some ideas of a good plan that will incorporate AA, the steps, my counselling and SR. I am going to slow down a bit and stop trying to make this happen over night.

I have had some great comments from you guys above and some really wonderful private messages sent to me...thanks for that. I got myself pretty worked up and upset but am feeling a bit better after reading above as well as sitting down with my DH and talking things out over a cup of tears. I gotta tell you, crying feels wonderful to me right now, and not in a horrible poor me way, in an omg what a relief way...like it releases some of the pain and confusion.

In looking back at some of my threads, I have been doing awesome and staying positive and had a good plan for support. I fell off of that track here and let myself worry about the what if's and the why's.

I am not going to give up on AA, I am just going to fit it into my life and my world. I have read most of the BB and have the 12 and 12 started.

It's a good day and a bad day all at once...but it's 30 days and that is the bomb...BOOYAH!!

Donna

they ususally have cookies and pop at my meetings. That alone is worth my time

Cookies and pop??? I'm tempted to bring in a raw veggie tray and some bottled water at my meetings and watch the revolt! LOL!


Mama, did that make you smile? Come on, smile! :)

Yes all, I am smiling. Why is it that all of the posts end up on the topic of food? I love food. I feel much more positive and happy now and I have a bit of a plan of action for this next week that I am feeling good about. I am NOT giving up on AA, just fitting it into my life as I said before. There is so much emotion, both really great and not so good in this recovery. I have learned a lot about myself and my life and some of that is hard for me...but here I am gaining strength and courage and going on.

I am very appreciative for all that I have and all that I am. I was thinking on my drive to get my Boy...maybe the 30 days is a bit of a milestone for me and that too makes me emotional. 21 more days til my birthday (when I was born) and I am actually excited about that...weird but I am. Might have something to do with the new camera that hubby has for me in his office...lol.

Thanks to all.

Donna