Meeting Fatigue? Honeymoon is over?
 

Hi friends,
I'm 111 days sober - yay! I embraced AA this time around and did 90 meetings in 90 days and got a sponsor and had a very firm program in place because I've tried for YEARS to get sober on my own and it never worked.

Once I completed my 90, I felt incredible. I never thought I could do it because I started out not liking meetings and I didn't even like AA. But it grew on me. Today marks my longest sobriety time since I was probably 13 and I'm 31. I still feel amazing and don't want or think about drinking, but I'm making up excuses - I haven't been to a meeting in a week! My therapist says I'm flirting with a relapse. Self-sabatoge.

I just am having problems getting back into the swing of things. I'm also unemployed (my job laid me off due to my alcoholism hospitalization) and I'm just kinda in a rut. I know I have to go but I'm getting this mentality that I'm not thinking about drinking so who cares - I don't have to go, but I KNOW this is a mid set that needs to be proactively dealt with. I know that answer to my issue - just wondering if anyone else feels this way...

Keep going. We are about at the same time. I have about 100 days. You have made it this far. Stay with the meetings and keep your sobriety.

I know it is not as exciting now as it was in the early euphoria of being sober, but I want sobriety more than daily euphoria. I had a long sober spell (7 years). I think if I had been going to meetings I would not have ended up back with 100 days instead.

Hi! I can tell you from my experience, that at 1 1/2 years, I got complacent. I got rid of my sponsor, slowed on meetings, 12 stepping people, sponsoring, etc. I thought I had it down...that I was secure in my sobriety, and also thought my bf's sobriety of 9 years I could borrow. Life was ok for a while but about a year later, depression, shame, guilt, little thoughts of using popped into my head. I knew I was headed down a road of relapse.....so I prayed and prayed. Woke up one morning and knew the right thing to do...not just for me, but for my children, my new employer, parents, friends and family. I can't do this on my own, and now know...I don't want to! Goodluck and keep going - don't give up!

In 111 days, have you worked all 12 steps? Those steps will help you more than meetings. Studying the big book and working with others will keep you sober.

90 in 90 is from rehabs. There is nothing magical that happens on day 91 or beyond. The big book suggests that our alcoholism always gets worse, whether we are drinking or not, so I make sure I help or talk with a newcomer and I work steps 10-12 regularly. It's not about me today.

I make a commitment to attend at least 2 meetings a week and I stick to that commitment.

I attend literature study meetings to stick with the solution.

Daily prayer and meditation.

Stick with my sponsor and network.

I can't choose to drink again today, it doesn't work for me. Life isn't a bed of flowers, but I am happy and content.

Stick with your higher power. Talk with another alcoholic regularly.

I wish you well on your sober journey!

With love & hugs,
~sb

I've been going through the exact same thing. Got to 4 months, did my first chair and then for the last two weeks, cut way back on meetings. I think we just have to force ourselves to go. I'm considering trying out some new meetings, just to mix things up a bit. Dunno why I'm suddenly missing meetings. I wouldn't be at 4 months without AA.

I'm 107 days, unemployed too.

This is the kind of thing for your sponsor!

Do you have a phone list of people willing to talk to you?

Keep posting here!

This happens and it will probably happen again. Don't beat yourself up about it. I try to make the meetings as fun as I can. I enjoy going but tonight is a speaker meeting and I am just not looking forward to it. I will go and probably do a little reading before I go so my mind is in a better spot. I like the suggestion of trying out a new meeting spot. I have my Tuesday night group that I will always go to but I have been thinking of trying some place new. Hang in there. You can do this.

I get how you feel. Being chained to AA meetings can feel like trading addictions. I was reading the Big Book yesterday and it's disturbing how much they emphasize that you have to be super involved in AA to even have a chance at sobriety. In other words, without AA you are screwed. For an introvert and shy person who doesn't necesarily enjoy others company this is not such good news. AA may be a much healthier addiction and way of life that can't compare to drinking/using, but I get how you feel and somedays I'm not to thrilled about having to do a bunch of stuff just to stop drinking. A simple thing should be simple :( but its anything but. But what is our alternative?

I would be having this conversation with my sponsor. What does he/she say? I find it strange that you have not talked to him/her about it

If you were my sponsee I would suggest living your way into right thinking. Commit to another 90 in 90

I think this is common. There are phases to everything. Ultimately it is our recovery and we need to keep it alive. I have been though phases were I don't want to do it (recovery) anymore. On an intellectual level I know that is a risk, but the "feeling" is still as it is- eventually it passes.

There is a lot to be said for routine- there is also something to be said for adding to the mix, or mixing it up. Just hanging in there has a lot going for it as well.

you climb that muddy mountain and you start sliding back down. The best thing to do is start to grinding again. Go to meetings and be honest with your sponser. It is a grind and it not easy. It beats a jail cell or death though.

I found myself very agitated and wanting to use again at "milestones" 30, 60, 90. I hated going up for my key tags (in NA that's what we used instead of chips)

I hated no longer being a newbie and the center of attention and the one everyone reached out to. I got hooked on the drama of relapse...so people would be interested in helping me etc because at 90 days I STILL had no idea what I was doing or how to stay sober.

And honestly, I got tired of the drama in the main meeting I went to. People vying for attention, flirting and having affairs, gossiping and back stabbing, and the politics etc. I felt like I had better things to do than participate in that.

I found other meetings that focused more on recovery, step study, and literature and simply didn't put up with the other BS. I found those by talking to others who had the sort of recovery I was looking for for myself, and they referred to them as meetings where real recovery is taking place.

I also took more ownership of my own recovery and began to search resources that could help me beyond meetings. I finally realized that my recovery truly was a life or death situation and that I couldn't hand it over to a group, or allow it to be dependent on a group. I had to own it, work it, want it, live it.

I relapsed three times before I said "enough of this BS, do you want to recover or not?" Then I truly did what I need to do for my own recovery, and that included setting aside magical thinking.

90 in 90 is a great way to get introduced to the program, meet people, find a sponsor, and learn what AA/NA has to offer, but I did 130 in 90 and it didn't keep me clean.

I heard about riding other people's coat tails, and thought that somehow, magically, following them around, writing down the aphorisms they used, and attending the meetings they attended would keep me clean. But recovery doesn't magically rub off. Me trying to impress them with my sincerity and how much time I spent at meetings and reading the literature...didn't keep me clean.

It wasn't until I began to work my recovery like no one was watching me, doing it for me, finding levels of honesty I couldn't imagine existed before that I found lasting recovery.

In my experience all meetings, and all home groups are not created equal. I found out there were certain meetings that I was better off NOT attending. I realized that I was using attendng meetings as a distraction from the actual work of recovery.

I am not advocating that people stop going to their meetings, or that meetings are not important to recovery. I am sharing my own personal experience, and it may not apply to anyone else.

While getting and staying sober is like this for some, it most certainly is not like this for all of us. There are many alternatives to AA and 12 step programs, and 'working a strong program' need not have anything at all to do with going to AA meetings, or with AA at all.

I went to meetings and read the BB, and after that I too decided that another route was necessary for me. I am sober now without AA, and I went through a realization on my own similar to How to Quit Drinking without Alcoholics Anonymous: 5 steps and then came to understand that this was AVRT.

SoberRecovery has a forum for discussion of SMART, SoS, LifeRing and AVRT called Secular Connections, and it's for all those other ways of getting and staying sober. There is also information about AVRT at RationalRecovery.

There is only one thing that we must do to stop drinking or using, and this is to stop. It most certainly is simple, and whether it is easy or not is up to you.

Awesome to hear about your success with sobriety. :)

The amazing feelings that come with recovery are just that: feelings. Since there are many ways to become and stay sober and abstinent from alcohol, and all of these ways none of them can prevent any body from feeling kinda in a rut with their mentality, I would look to myself before I would look at taking apart what was working for me.

Recovery is a journey of sorts, with distinct events, accomplishments, achievements, and challenges. Living without alcohol is itself a huge change, and often enough in the early times, more changes in how we live must be created if we are to be happy with our new lives.

Eventually these changes have more to do with our quality of life and less to do with our past drinking. Eventually we make decisions based on a life without alcohol, and so in this way, our recovery becomes a foundation to build our lives upon, and less a survival tool to quit, since we have already done that - quit alcohol.

AA for me was and is just another way to get what I wanted - freedom from alcohol. AVRT, same thing - a skill set used to aid me being me without alcohol. I'm not one to say this or that saved me, or without this or that, I'm screwed, or floundering, or stuck.

Neither my use of AA or AVRT is responsible for my choices on what is a quality life for me without alcohol. All of the quality issues are of my own making. The buck stops with me. :)

I suggest having a realization that success comes with responsibility of sustaining that same success. New challenges will arise. New issues will present. New ideas will come to mind. New understandings and feelings will also be a desired place to be I'm sure, going forward.

Do whatever is right for YOU.