Bmac

True. Getting sober also means dealing with feelings that we used to numb ourselves to. I found my feelings the first couple weeks were magnified quite a bit. Sounds like you may have gotten a small case of "kick the cat" syndrome. Been there, done that!

You're in the right place my friend. Keep posting and sharing what you're going through.

Fluffer

PBG,

From what you write about AA, I think you might like books by Allen Carr and Jason Vale. They are both against the notion that you have to spend the rest of your life in recovery.

readerbaby71

Okay, so you "wasted" a week or two going to AA and reading the big book. How much time did you waste drinking? This seems like misdirected anger to me. Just something to think about.

PedroChavez

paintballguy, it sounds like we are at very similar stages of recovery. I'm also a long term alcoholic, just a couple of weeks into stay sober. I'm an atheist and find all talk of god completely off putting.

I've attended AA in the past but with the "god filter" switched on at maximum. Like you, I found a lot of supportive people with some interesting, and often tragic stories to tell. That alone made it worthwhile for me. I probably would attend more often if I hadn't discovered this forum this time round. In fact, at the moment, this forum is my only source of support.

I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to do everything 100%, including booze. I can imagine if I find a way to get past getting drunk, I'll probably become quite evangelical in trying to push that way as the way. For that reason, I'm also trying to be quite relaxed about some people's enthusiasm for their own recovery programme, even the god related ones.

paintballguy

I had a chat on the phone with my uncle. He did AA a lot hit a hard bottom then drugs then again a lot of rehab stints. Hes mellowed out in his old age now he just hits a few cold ones in the man cave now and again. He helped me put it into perspective.

On the "god" thing i am a humanist druid. Part of how i got pissed at my friend is with my beleif system you cant surrender to it, it just isnt congruent. Its an energy thing, love the forest and nature and be attuned to it and it will give you the energy you need. Hard to describe and wont get into it in detail because its complicated but going for a walk thursday i felt i wanted to have a beer and enjoy the beautiful sunny day as it was the first warm day like that since the fall and i went for a powerwalk instead. Hit the forest parkway and my hair stood on end as i went through it on my way and again on the way back. Got home it was still sunny. No inclination to drink when i got back at all. Theres spirituality there but its not something compatible with the steps at all. I wont get into it it just isnt.

There is a smart meeting thursday, im going to check it out. As i said earlier in the thread when i get over this i i may use the aa meetings just for the peer support as the people are really nice and it is not a bad thing to meet more non drinking people. After over 10 years of daily sauce havent got many friends like that anymore.

Re meeting intensity yeah my uncle suggested i just say to these people thanks but no thanks. My friend whos pissed at me and the temporary sponsor were both pushing me to not skip a single day and to keep the momentum up. As im taking this seriously i was prone to following their advice, im only 13 days in and i know i dont know it all. My friend especially was terrified i would fall off the wagon maybe even straight out of rehab. I wasnt even close to that but i guess shes seen it. Heart in the right place but maybe would have been better if she asked more questions about how im feeling rather than assuming where im at. Uncle told me to go to the meetings on my own schedule. "its your program buddy" were his words.

Like Bmac says yes the christian bent to the big book and the program does get under my skin. Being an athiest you tend to get accosted by christians a lot growing up in a small town so maybe the feeling of being tricked or misled into what is basically a faith based program was what triggered my anger.

Those studies really bothered me too as aa is held up as the gold standard and with my friend telling me to skip the smart recovery class in my outpatient program because its anti aa (which i dont think it is) i think finding out the dismal success rate probably stoked the coals of my anger more. If it was a coin toss it probably wouldnt have bothered me as much as 1 in 20.

As for the question about me identifying as an alcoholic but considering whether i will try moderation in the future im a jumbled mess on what route i want to go at this point. Im not even going to try to.determine a decision on that until i have at least 30 under my belt and i have a bunch of fun rewarding non drinking activities in my life. No way i want to go back to coming home from work drinking hiballs until bed every day and if i even tried it until i have positive things to fill my life with i know id be right back for sure.

Im curious about the sinclair method though. It seems to have a very high success rate (80% drinking to nonabusive levels, 25% of that to abstinence - 5 times the absinence rate of aa). I just dont know if anyone will do it in my area. It doesnt work without the right kind of counselling, ill talk to the counsellor on wednesday about it see what they say.

Here like the us its pretty 12 step biased as i said we were forced to an aa/na/ca panel nightly right in the detox, and with all 12 steps come the god talk which is what got me into this funk in the first place.

Finally on the guilt yes you are right. I am not really one to dwell on guilt... But... These aa people have all been so nice to me, like the temporary sponsor and my friend and even the people who came uo and offered me their cell numbers, the group that gave me the welcome package with all the male members numbers. Coming out of detox facing the real world sober was scary, even scarier going to the first aa meeting alone. They have all been so kind. I hate to feel as though im rejecting someone who is offering to help me. I may sound like i rail on aa in this thread but its about the premise of the step program not the people.

Ok this response is long enough for now trying to answer everyone . Thanks again for your quick responses today was a tough day and its getting better. Despite a few spikes in the fk its i have managed to keep my powder dry and not go out and buy any booze. In just over an hour the liquor store shuts down and tomorrow will be a new day - my first 2 weeks sober in probably close to 20 years starts in the morning.

LadyinBC

Okay I am just going to throw this out there and I am by no means telling you what to do or how to do it. I am not religious either.

Is there anything from the big book or the program that you did like or agree with? All it has to be is one thing. I focused on what I understood and agreed with. Can the energy not be your higher power in a sense? I go to AA meeting just cause I want to be around others. That is basically why I go. I focus on what I like about AA.

Also during early recover I was asked to do lots of things I didn't want to. So I starting asking myself "would I have done this if i had to do it in order to drink" . The answer was yes, yes i sure would have. I wouldn't have cared what was said at any meeting I would had to go in order to get my booze.

This is just something I did for me though, I am not being pushy, just offering what I did in the early stages that kind of helped me deal with it. Instead of focusing on what I didn't like I focused on what I did like.

As others have said there are lots of programs out there I actually focus on 3 of them .

Coldfusion

This sounds like a really good idea to me. If I didn't like the meetings in my area, I would certainly put out the effort to go to at least the occasional meeting for a program I support.

paintballguy

TBH the beginning parts about addiction in general i liked, like the jaywalking story on page 37. As the chapters went on i found the religiousity grew and i liked it less and less. It was at "how it works" past the 12 steps i started to get annoyed. I had to put the book down for a few hours i was getting so rattled because thats where it started to come on with the god stuff pretty thick.

Like you what i do like about the meetings is the peer support. Even though i find a lot of the people are near obsessed with aa and pretty miserable, there are a few in the crowd who are a bit more light spirited. It seems in my area there are a lot of old timers who hit every meeting in town, theyre 10+ years sober and most of them are the miserable ones, they keep getting called up to speak and share and they tell the same story every time, even finding a way to say the same stuff in a topic meeting. One lady talks about how she can pay her bills now, when she speaks she must say that phrase like 50 times, and shes over 25 years sober. It wears thin pretty fast the first time, ive heard it 5 times.

When they called me up to the podium i had them pissing their pants laughing for the full 10 minutes. Gotta laugh at yourself a bit.

paintballguy

Yeah if i bail on aa or only go for the social aspect im going to need a program that works for me. The 12 step turns me off so i have to find something. Apparently smart has a higher success rate as well.

Dee74

I'd forget all about the stats if I'm honest paintballguy.
The only stat any of us needs to worry about is 100% effort and 100% success

Try SMART, you may like it. LifeRing too. Maybe your eventual plan will be an amalgam of everything, including a little AA? who knows?

Find out what works for you and use it

D

LadyinBC

Well you are one up on me as I don't do podiums! LOL

There is no set rule that you can only do one program or have to do all the steps. The fact we just go to me, is just as important. I just take what I need from them and leave the rest.

You are trying and feeling your way around and that is great!

Oclaf

I totally agree with a lot of your points about AA. It took awhile to get some time so I wasn't under the "early soberity syndrome". What I found was most people tell you to attend this meaning meetings and work steps etc etc, yet in the big book it tells you to pick what you want and leave the rest. There's even a chapter on working with others that most people in AA completely forget about. It never says 90 and 90 in the big book only something people hear at meetings and use to pry onto the newcomer. Honestly use whatever you believe works for you as long as it produces results. If you don't stay in recovery then you might have to change up your program. Also I believe that only believing in the concept of God helps you separate your emotions and gives you more self-confidence in your action. I don't believe God came down from the sky and choice alcoholics as his chosen people. It took me a long time to finally read the book for instructions on what to do. It turned out that many of the people in the meetings were wrong and used the process of having "longer" recovery to push their beliefs onto others. You should do what you feel comfortable with, as remember everything is but a suggestion and AA encourages you to go and look into any other ways to recovery. If you do like certain things about AA don't let those who are salty and bitter about how you should run your program. keep the faith!

paintballguy

Thanks everyone. The liqor store is closed and im calm. No chance of falling off the wagon tonight now. Ill make it to day 14 and it will be a new day.

Interesting comment oclaf

You know of people extending their recovery to push their beleifs?

Obviously everyones recovery time is different, how would i know if someone wqs extending it?

Dee74

Hi and welcome Oclaf

I presume you mean old timers using their sober time as some kind of justification for whatever it is they believe.

I've seen it happen, and not just in AA - but honestly it's not the norm & you'll find very little of that here

D

BadCompany

paintballguy, check out the AA book "living sober". I am pretty sure it does not mention God at all.

As for the big book, the authors intent was to be as inclusive as possible, please read it in that spirit.

My two oldest sponsees are far different from each other spiritually. One is a solid calvinist, there at church every time the doors are open and the other is a spirit of the forest kind of guy. They both have long term sobriety and are doing well.

Gottalife

I think I might feel as you do if I had been mislead like that. It is what is called a temporised message, temporising meaning that we don't tell the whole truth, instead playing for time, sugar coating the message, to get you hooked in. It's a bad strategy because it is dishonest and I'm not surprised it has left you feeling as you do.

I didn't get that when I came in. They told me that the program was based on the premise that we are beyond human aid and will therefore need the help of a power greater than myself. I rejected that a few times. The whole God idea drove me away, but the booze kept driving me back.

Eventually I looked a little closer and saw the phrase "unsuspected inner resource which we later identified with a power greater than ourselves" I could go for that. The fact of the matter is that AA is about God, our own conception of God, not anything to do with religion in my experience. It is one method of recovery, a spiritual method. There are others. I wonder if anyone has success rates for other methods.

JaneLane

Hi Paintballguy (I love paintball by the way!)

I work a mixture of programs. I go to AA meetings and go to my local addiction centre which is group meeting based, nothing to do with religion, 12 steps etc.

Definitely explore other options. I have just ordered the book Rational Recovery which is about the AVRT method (lots of information on this forum and online), you might like to look into that.

Oclaf

Being AA is an anonymous program it is hard to get any accurate data on it. Statistics I have seen seem very skewed and biased. Whatever the success rate might be I have boiled it down to whatever program you use real success depends on you. That said I myself appreciate being in AA, working steps, going to meetings, and participating in my recovery, but in the beginning I was so against it! It's not for everyone and that's something that some people struggle with, yet I'm glad I stuck around. Maybe find some different meetings with a different crowd that can help you relate better. If you don't know where your going any road will take you there.

bookmaven

I prefer to think of the God they talk about in AA as a Group Of Drunks.

If I'm at a meeting and it's my turn to read the steps sometimes it's so hard for me not to replace God with Aphrodite and say the word Her rather than Him. I get a smirk on my face and giggle to myself, but in the end it would only make others angry with me. I'm codependent so I must make sure no one is ever mad at me lol. So I just think about how awesome it would be if someone else came in and did it instead of me.

Same with the prayer at the end, we could be singing kumbaya for all I care. I just hold hands and look around the room and think about the cookies over on the snack table.

I'm a year sober. I don't follow anyone else's program, I didn't do any steps. Your mileage may vary.

tizzkins

Helo paintballguy i have just read your post and found it to be very powerful and from the heart. I love people who say what they think as i am one of those who sit on the fence too scared to jump one way or another. I too was under the impression that aa was the be all and end all. I wont go there also because of the religious side of it as i am not religious. I am only on day 2 but previously i have managed 7 weeks sober with just my own determination and the support of these lovely people here at sr. I dont know if i can do longer i will try and maybe i might not be doing it the right way but other than this way i am not sure what else to do i just keep telling myself that if i am capable of 7 weeks then i can do 8 or 9 or even a year who knows. If you want someone to talk to who is not using aa i am here. Take care. Tizzkins