New Plan
 

On my way to an AA meeting. My first. Hungover. Time to stop going it alone. Will be posting again soon. Wishing everyone here a sober Memorial Day weekend.

Embrace that meeting as if your life depends on it, because it does.

Good for you!!!

Welcome back, hope the meeting is great. Check in later and let us know how you are doing.

Glad to hear it early riser, congrats on making the decision to try something differrent. Hope you can check in later and let us know how it went.

Congratulations on making the decision to help yourself by getting help from others. Please let us know how the meeting went! Wishing you the best today...

Well done. How did the meeting go?

You can do this

How was the first AA meeting, earlyriser?

Feeling better?

hows it going earlyriser?

D

Soberly checking in here, and very touched by the replies to my post. My first meeting was exactly what I needed it to be. The discussion topic of powerlessness really resonated with where I am right now as an alcoholic, as well as a mother and wife. And I was truly amazed at how such a disparate group of people could each have something to say that I could relate to. I knew a couple of people there, and one of them, a high school classmate, reached out and gave me her number, and recommended a couple of meetings she thought would be a good fit for me.
Sadly, a friend of mine who had talked about attending a meeting with me, told me he was already drinking when I texted him about going to a 10 am meeting. He later showed up drunk on his party boat (we live on a lake) and asked me how it went.
I know it's my first day for this shot at recovery, but a boatload of drunk people seemed so sad to me.

So glad the meeting went well for you. Regarding ladies who gave you their numbers yet, the point to it is to just stay in touch. So please do that and don't ever feel like you're being a bother. You really aren't. I never used the numbers for the first 6 months (when I could most have done with it) because I thought it was for if I was about to take a drink and needed help that way. If you do have numbers then a nice way to start using them might just be a quick text later today thanking them for making you welcome and saying when / where your next meeting is planned to be, and ask any questions that you might have thought of. If you get used to using them when you're not desperate then you're more likely to use them if one day you are. The phone numbers are like the fine blade knives in our tool box. We need to keep them sharp.

You know, as far as your friend goes, the AA public relations policy is based on attraction rather than*promotion, and that policy can be applied here as well. If you keep going, and get well, hopefully sobriety and AA will seem a more attractive plan for living to him in the future. All you can do is keep your side of the street clean, doing the next best thing at any given time. It may seem uncaring to adopt such a stance, but as powerless as we are over our own alcohol consumption, we are even less powerless over others. And yes it is sad - I think the same about my partner when he is being a drunken idiot every weekend, staggering around in blackout and not remembering how the evening ended the next day. No point dwelling on it though. That's his choice and I have to practice acceptance on that. And a little but if swearey name calling if he wakes me up of breaks stuff lol.

Well done!

I will be headed to my home group meeting tomorrow am (where I attended my first 2 and 1/2 months ago). Haven't had a drink in that time, and am attending two meetings a week and checking in here every day and evening.
I have a sponsor and have begun working the steps, reading lots of AA literature, and listening to AA speaker podcasts. It is working for me. Somehow I don't feel real qualified yet to give advice - I have had it it in my head I should get past my previous sobriety record of 8 months before I consider myself successful enough to tell someone else what works. But then I see others newly sober, maybe on their nth attempt, and find their advice and insight is very helpful, so I will try to feel freer to share myself.

It's Friday night and I am hosting a dear friend's special needs son. He was my neighbor for years, and his son has been part of our life since he was 14. He is now 22, but still like a 14 year old in many ways. He has numerous issues, having been born to a drug abusing mother, and he endured some unfathomable things while in foster care, including having hot oil thrown at him by a psychotic foster parent. My friend adopted him shortly after this, when he was 4. They moved across the country about a year ago and the son has been very unhappy there, and misses his life here. We arranged a week long stay with us, which included some very tense moments, as he flew here alone, on Delta Airlines, in the midst of the whole computer shutdown they experienced. He is ecstatic to be here, and it is wonderful to see his joy in revisiting his old haunts.
The point of this is that while I may have wanted to help out, if I were drinking I would never put myself out there for this. I'd have been too concerned it might disrupt my drinking and partying, and would have settled for some sympathetic words of BS for my friend, but no real action to be a true helping friend.
But I am sober, and can be totally present for this, thanks to SR, AA and my HP I am reconnecting with. I am so much more useful sober. And I eat a lot more ice cream.

Love, love, love this Earlyriser!

Congratulations on two and a half months!!!!

great update earlyriser :)

D

Earlyriser,

Congrats!! Sounds like you are making great progress. Thanks for the inspiring post!