thanks for the intake. 38 years is an amazing amount of time!

My question is are there people who have been through a.a gotten sober and then moved on with their life ? or do most people go for the rest of their ? Its a hard pill to swallow that I might potentially be going to meetings 30 years from now not that anything is wrong with it but I will be depend on it for my sobriety.

zoomi,
yes, there are people like that. my neighbour K is one of them: got sober through doing the steps, left AA after a couple of years and is a very cool contented vibrant woman with over 30 years.
the thing about what you hear people in meetings say is that you hear it from people in meetings:)
you don't hear there from the ones not in meetings and fine.

and my neighbour, for example, i see practicing "these principles" as far as i can tell. not attending meetings doesn't mean she's not living by those principles.

if you are still going to meetings in 30 years, or if you are still going to meetings in one year, i do think chances are good you'll be going to pass things on , and not because you "have to" but because you want to.





__________________

I'm only a month sober and I asked myself the same question, is this my life now? I go to about six meetings per week at the moment, and although I do enjoy them and find I get a lot from them I must admit to a slight sense of panic at the thought that I would be going to them forever. Then it occurred to me that six meetings is only six hours per week and I spent a heck of a lot more than that drinking yet never felt the need to question if that was a worthwhile use of my time. So now I feel at peace with the idea of going to meetings, for as long as I need them, and then for as long as they need me.

To be honest, if I start thinking about doing anything that I do now for the rest of my life it seems a bit overwhelming. Ego. What? I'm going to have to carry on making dinner every night for the rest of my life? Huh? I'm going to have to keep cleaning the bathroom for the rest of my life?

When I start thinking in such terms I know that I'm returning to my addictive perspective - the one that leads me to get overwhelmed and let's my AV start chiming in with ideas like just having a couple to make this whole difficult life thing easier. I mean, who wouldn't drink when they've got to clean the bathroom for the rest of their life???

And that is why I try to stick with the whole keep it in the day thing. Maybe I will and maybe I won't still be going to AA meetings in several years. (If I'm still alive after all that housework). But today I am going to a meeting, because i know that the alcoholic perspective is still there, and meetings remind me of what happens when I stop recognising how damaging that can be to me if I don't challenge myself off that thinking and turn it around.

Zoomi - I am so glad you raised this because what you said at the start is exactly how I feel. When I went into AA I really needed it. My mental and physcial health was a mess and I wanted that support so much. Now my life has changed dramatically - new job, new wife, regular exercise etc. I'm still aware that there was a period when I had a big problem with drink so I'm avoiding alcohol altogether at the moment. But I envisage that there could be a situation I could enjoy alcohol in very limited amounts responsibly - glass of wine with dinner, pint of beer after playing sport for an hour etc. My rational mind has been boosted by all the thinking I've done in AA and it actually suggests that the theory that I have some defective genes which force me into alcoholic madness every time I take a sip of wine is probably not one that makes sense.

Having said that I don't want to put anybody off AA. It's enriched my life enormously and the very fact I'm here and joining this disucssion shows that I hold it in great respect.