LoftyIdeals

Reggie...I totally get ya. Ive been struggling too. But a funny thing happened. I was struggling with aa not having worked for me upon many attempts over 28 yrs. But I also struggle that I havent had progress either....in life or sobriety. I decided a couple months ago to try smartrecovery, a secular non step cbt model. I like it and will continue, but thats where it gets funny. I hit another bottom last week, and stopped drinking on Sunday. I went to a smart mtg in the afternoon and then came home. My wife was still down my throat and I had to get out of the house. I went to a meeting I had always avoided because it was at a church I had avoided because I had done work there and didnt want to be seen. It was the best aa mtg ive ever attended in my life. Folks with decades of sobriety. I was welcomed with open arms. I wept in both sadness and joy. And I shared. I think I have a new home group. Now Im on day three. I also ran into a friend who is reading The Ragamuffin Gospel, written by a recovering alcoholic who had been a priest. Wow. God is working my recovery with me in a big way. i feel different this time. BTW...I was wondering about you on Sunday and was looking for your truly wise and insightful posts. I am glad you are back. You have a great deal to offer. As you've mentioned before, we are only a couple hours apart. We should try to meet half way some time and play a round of golf.

LoftyIdeals

Btw....forgive typos/ grammar.. kids are hogging internet so im on my phone...not drunk.

yeahgr8

Cmon man how have you worked the steps of AA when the first one is "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."?

If you are looking at recovery as a way of filling your time instead of drinking then you clearly haven't got a spiritual awakening from working the steps and i totally see where you are coming from...why the hell would i just go to meetings and read books instead of being at the bar, if i hadn't of had a spiritual awakening (drastic personality change) as a result of working the steps i wouldn't have stayed sober or kept going to meetings to help another alcoholic.

The emphasis on staying away from the first drink is because they assume you are an alcoholic like them, it is alcoholics anonymous and, to an alcoholic, one drink can mean death...3 people died of alcohol related illness/incidents in my home group in Spain and i was only away for 2 months in the UK!

Maybe you could try one of the other recovery programs out there, one that is a bit more like group therapy without anyone telling you that you have a problem and it will get worse....there are lots of programs out there that will let you just turn up, say your bit and not bother too much if you actually do any work to change...

Good post though, reminds me of when i was 30 and went to AA, i had a lot more drinking to do and friends to see before i came in again at 38!

Welcome back btw:-)

Terminally Unique

Program basher ! :-)

For anyone who was ever alcohol dependent, I recommend quitting for life. The risk of re-addiction is fairly high once it has happened before, and can occur much faster than the initial addiction.

keithj

Reggie, 'staying sober one day at a time' is about most abused phrase in AA, and AA folks that live the program don't walk around with the gun to their heads.

What you are hearing is a bunch of crap spouted by members that are not engaged in our common solution.

I am an alcoholic who can not stop drinking once I start. It ruins my life, ends in lost relationships, families, houses, jobs, etc. I am sure that if I picked up a drink tomorrow, none of those things would happen by Friday. But I'm also equally sure that they would happen eventually.

Today I have a spiritual solution that solves my problem. I don't need to pick up a drink, I don't need to consider picking up a drink, and I don't have to balance my life between AA and other things. My life is balanced because I live (for the most part) in harmony with the spirituality that makes sense to me.

Terminally Unique

Worth repeating. It doesn't usually happen "abruptly" like some people make it sound.

reggiewayne

Well I didn't work all of the steps. I worked them up to step 9. I made one ammends and that's about it. I went to another meeting today and brought up the topic of staying sober for the long haul. Heard some very good things. I also discussed this with a friend of mine from the program and he had some really good things to say regarding the alcoholic death.

The alcoholic death doesn't have to be, actual death. The way he was explaining it was it can also mean the death of the sober life. Meaning all of the optimism, doing for others, focusing on me less and others more, living by spiritual principles, etc... all of that is dead when he drinks. Made a lot of sense to me. I definitely was not nearly as content / happy when I was drinking the last month and half. Also, I know my drinking would have progressed if I wouldn't have stopped.

I do know I am an alcoholic and I do know that when I drink my life is unmanageable. So, why did I drink again? Not sure. I think that I was just not very comfortable in my own skin and instead of turning to the program for answers, I took "door number 2". The ease and comfort that comes at once when we take a few drinks... The problem was drinking didn't provide that. All I got was anxiety, guilt, shame, restlessness, etc...

Drinking isn't really an option anymore because it doesn't do what it used to do.

I think I was obsessing about the fact that I couldn't drink anymore and it made alcohol seem so much more inticeing than it really is.

My plan is to move forward in recovery. To participate on this site and continue working the steps.

Thanks everyone.

aussieblue

Hi Reggie glad you came back to the forum.

WherlingDerbish

Glad you are back ReggieWayne!

Take a drink and you will die, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Try looking at the overall picture and it will hold more validity.

We make the choices that affect our life, if one feels like AA has a gun to their head, then a solution would be to look at the choice that was made that put the gun there in the first place. Wear the world like a loose robe.

Do the next right thing, focus on today. That is all we gotta do!
God loves you!

eJoshua

I am glad you're back. Like others said, I have often found your posts to be very insightful and thoughtful.

SSIL75

^^ really jumped out at me! I too felt like once I 'got it' (through rational recovery) I then had to find things to DO. Like you said in another post - thoughts follow action. I have more time now to figure things out in my head and to have fun. But I don't feel like there is any great Void or Purpose or any great anything really. It's just life. And it is wonderful! Normality is wonderful. THAT'S the big revelation for me.

Anyway I'm so happy to see you back (you too Isaiah!).