24hours

Hello,
i live in Europe and where I live, there is not a big aa-community. Wonder if you have experienced what I am going through. I have been sober for 3 years, and done the steps with my sponsor (who I still have).
A year ago I got a boyfriend for the first time in sobriety and I lost focus. Still went to meetings but got a lot of fear for the future (what if I am not sober in 10 years, what if he breaks up with me and so on).
I got a lot of thoughts of drinking and even though I have not been drinking, I dont feel sober, like I did in the beginning. Feel like a newcomer again!!

What can I do to let go of the drinking thoughts? I pray to God to remove them, but they come back every day, even though I dont want to drink.

Do you have any experience, strengh and hope about this?! THank you!!

Sapling

Welcome 24hours....Do you still go to meetings? Maybe take a look at 10, 11 and 12 and see what's missing. If I get in a funk I can always find out why in one of those steps. Good luck to you and congrats on 3 years.

liamsdad

It was just about three years into sobriety that I began wondering why I was still going to meetings. I immersed myself in the steps - I only did step meetings for about 2 years. As my life improved my gratitude kicked in and I stated going to meetings to try and give back what was freely given to me. My account was in arrears - I owed a debt to AA - one that I am still paying. Try and find someone new and help them out a bit - it could even be here online.

Best wishes... sober's better!

Sapling

Step 12 it is...That was going to be my first guess.

24hours

Thank you, yes I go to meeting and do service in one of the groups. I really want to stay sober. I know drinking is not for me, i have never had a normal reaction to alcohol. It helps to look at this website, so many wise sober people!! So I will stay on the road!

Sapling

Good...Don't be a stranger here....We can use your ESH!

aasharon90

I can't drink alcohol if it's not available to me.
Meaning, as long as I don't have it in my home
im good. As long as I don't go to places where
alcohol can be served to me, like bars or clubs,
im good.

If im in a grocery store, i avoid the alcohol isle
and get what i need and get out. No one can
lift alcohol to my lips except me and by the time
a thought pops in my head, and with a recovery
program in place to guide me, i can choose other
options so i dont have to drink. Options like a
meeting, going for a drive and listen to music,
reading, walking, etc. Reaching for healthier
tools to steer me away from buying alcohol or
drinking it.

I have time to STOP. Time to THINK. Time to
AVOID acting on my thoughts of drinking poison
that would and could kill me.

The promises stated in our Big Book will
eventually come true and given to us as
needed in our life. I know this because they
are still coming true for me today, some
21 yrs sober down the road.

What's so exciting about recovery to me is,
i can't wait to see what new thing will be
revealed to me around the corner. What ever
it is it will be exactly what I need to help me
continue to grow on in recovery.

It can for you too.

2granddaughters

We hit "speed bumps" as we go along in AA and unless we are close to our sponsor and groups we will begin to believe our own B.S. judgments about what is happening.

Helping the newcomer always gets me out of me. Pick up an extra meeting until this passes and be sure you are truthful with your sponsor. Stay "on the beam" and all will be well.

In the beginning, AA was my last resort. Today, it is my first resort !!

Wishing you the best.

Bob R

omegasupreme

Last October(a little over 2 years sober) the voices returned; I was going to meetings, had three or four sponsees, working with the disciplines of 10, 11 etc...so what happened?

I was awake enough to know I was asleep...strange paradox. I started finding lots of faults in AA. I live in an area where the AA message is not quite clear as it perhaps could be; so that became my logical scapegoat; the scapegoat to the thing on my shoulders. Long story short I was lead to someone that I thought was qualified to sponsor me. My inventory had 30-40 names in column 1; 8th step list was at least double that, hehehe. Only a couple names left on it now

It was a cool deal to find some folks that were willing to bring the AA message to me no matter where I was...God is not bound by space and time.

Feel free to PM me any time.

What part of Europe?

Spinach

Enjoy your love affair annd be congratulated with your sobrierty.
Youve done the work now live. You are aware of potential falls ,so you should be even better if things go wrong you know drinking isnt for you and you know it hasnt helped .
Good luck.
John

24hours

omegasupreme, thats excactly the way I feel. Awake, but asleep. And still going to meetings, but sort of feel like a stranger, even though I have sober friends and a sponsor. What is happening?! I used to love AA. Six months ago I thought there was "too much AA" in my life, haha. Maybe theres a lack of balance. I am talking with my sponsor several times a week, and she tells me to pray for the thoughts to be taken away. My last sponsee was a year ago. I have recently started working with another, we started reading the introduction last week. So thats good. But I havent been praying regurarly over the last year (not routine, just on the bus, sometimes at work..). I have started making it a morning session from now. It has helped me!!

I live in Norway - we have meetings every day, 2-3 of them are step- and bigbook reading-meetings. The other meetings are mostly "talking-meetings", but they are sometimes ok, too.

Thanks for this website!
and all yours comments.

omegasupreme

In short, it's called the reconstruction of the ego. The ego is an amazing machine, regenerates like a lizard with its tail cut off...except each time it grows back bigger, meaner, and uglier than ever. It gets a lot more crafty, more subtle. Like a ninja. My resentments no longer appear to be resentments, because that word is to harsh for someone as spiritual as me right? I have some time sober now so it's alot harder for me to admit that I might still have some current unmanageability. If I use words like "smug sense of superiority" or "better-than-ment" then it describes my thoughts and actions perfectly. My insides stop matching my outsides.

Those that I am better than or superior to went in column 1...it's amazing how the rest of the columns fall in place after that. Simply praying for the voices to leave never did much for me, short of p*ssing me off because they wouldn't leave. If your an alky of the same type I am I suspect the same will be true for you. To drink is to die is my truth in step 1, and I don't have the power on my own to pull off not drinking.

So what to do about this trap I can't seem to spring? Back into the work; God's help is the only way I know, the only thing that ever worked for me. Had to be more than just prayer for me though; takes a strenuous course of action.

How long since you have written inventory? Current with amends? etc?

RobbyRobot

Losing focus would make it more difficult to feel and think the same about sobriety as you had been before your getting a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend is much different then not having one of course, and perhaps you've not as yet really explored and appreciated the meangingful differences? You speak about fearing possible future outcomes, and so perhaps your ongoing fears are misleading you from being honest with yourself about the real value of your relationship with your boyfriend?

Your struggles seemed to have begun after your relationship with your bf began. I'm not saying the stuggle is the problem, often struggles lead to better outcomes, but I am saying you would do yourself some good to have a new and different appreciation for your sobriety while having a boyfriend as being very different then when you didn't have a boyfriend.

For you to feel like a newcomer after three years, and to have struggled with these fears and feelings for a year now, leads me to think you have some difficulty in adapting to changing circumstances, and this diificulty also points to why you're having ideations of future failures with both sobriety and your relationship with your boyfriend.

Food for thought, if nothing else. Hey, congratulations on your three years!!

DayTrader

I didn't have a big "want to drink" urge but I sure faced a LOT of depression and confusion that started around 1yr and went on to my 3rd AA b-day. During that time, I was trying to deal with a lot of changes to my lifestyle (forgiving others, thinking of other ppl before myself, coming to grips with my past, and so on) and a BIG part of me wanted to go back and use my "old tools" (lying, manipulating, threatening, stealing, playing the poor-me game, looking for power/control, etc).

Going through the steps is great.....going through them again and again and again is greater, IMO. A mistake I've made is deciding to apply the stuff I learn in AA to my current problems so I start with step FOUR and go on from there. What I'd encourage you to look at is your current unmanagability and how it relates to step ONE....then look at step two, three, THEN four........and so on through the rest of the steps.

If you're not sure how to do that, there's a 12-Step section here on SR with a lot of AA folks who've had to do exactly the same thing.....several times actually. I'm in the middle of the same "work" myself.

As far as "looking for balance" goes... from what I've experienced and heard, it's an ongoing process. I always hoped I'd, sooner or later, "get" there.....yanno....get there and stay there, BE balanced. Truth is, life is dynamic.....ever changing......so we're going to have to adjust what "balanced" looks like and what we do to feel it. Those adjustments used to make me feel like I wasn't really EVER balanced.....like I was screwing up and didn't know it. What I see now is that the floor of life is always moving and tilting so what's balanced today won't be tomorrow........that doesn't mean I was off the beam yesterday, it just means I have to re-balance today.

eJoshua

I only have one year sobriety, so I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I can tell you that it seems in my experience so far that seasons like that come and go. The important thing is to wait them out. I think we as alcoholics are not always very good at thinking about the long term implications of our actions and it's too easy to reach for booze without thinking it through first.

Hang in there, things will improve I'm sure. Don't worry about ten years from now, just worry about today.

eJoshua

One other thing too: It's likely you are going through these emotions because it's the first time you've had to deal with the emotions that come with being in a relationship since you got sober. I don't know about you, but for me anytime I feel outside of my comfort zone I tend to think of drinking instinctually.