choublak

Does your mom know about you being drunk last weekend?

MeSoSober

I am now sorry I ever disclosed that, since it's not relevant to the reason I started this thread in the first place, but yes.

Grymt

For me:

I learned about alcoholism and AA as an option at school (in sweden).

My act of going to an AA meeting in my early twenties (in australia) was because I felt I had a problem with alcohol. I went to one meeting and no more and was sober for 9 months.

20 years later I had been in and out of various therapies, Primal(Janov), Vipassana(Goenka), AA meetings, et.c. . In all of these I learned something.

I gave up alcohol, coffee and tobacco at the same time one day in early 90's and stayed sober for the next 8 years.

In late '99 I had a nervous breakdown, after a few months I gave up and started drinking again. The next four years I was in and out of detox and rehab with varying periods of sobriety and ended with a continuous 6 month binge.

I stopped again in mid '04 and had a 24 hr bust in '09 and I haven't drunk since.

Through all this I listened to many many stories and advice.

A few things stand out to me as being central to my finally seeming to lose the urge to drink.

1. I drank becuse : I could not not drink.
2. The only way to not drink was : to not drink.

Then : all the experiences and little hints I'd gathered over the previous periods of my life came into play to help me deal with a life without alcohol.

It helped me to snap out of my '09 bust.

I'm still learning, and my learning has got a boost from becoming active on SR.

By trying to be honest here I start to drop all the little dishonesties in the rest of my life.

I feel stronger day by day and I, becuse of all the other experiences, do not take my sobriety for granted. The vigilance is not hard anymore, it has become a habit.

I've never had a sponsor, unless I think of life as it has been as being one.

I believe in a higher power that is not me.
I'm powerless over alcohol.
Sobriety is a vocation, not a hobby.

choublak

Well that's probably why your mom thinks you need a sponsor, especially if you were drinking with your friends. Maybe she thinks that with a sponsor, you can find sober people to hang out with.

MeSoSober

Actually, my MO is to hole up and drink alone. For days. No witnesses to my idiocy.

But not anymore!