sweetichick

Thanks Dee. You were right. I have to pay him back an extra $25 interest. Definitely out for all he can get.

ReadyAtLast

Why are you still in contact with him if he causes you so much pain? I understand if you have young children. If not, maybe a clean break would be better for you.

One thing I've learned on here and during my sobriety journey is that I have the choice whether to allow others to cause me pain or not. Of course, I can't control what others say or do but I can decide how to react, deal with them and whether I want them in my life or not. You're not a victim and don't have to listen to him saying hurtful things to you.

sweetichick

Last night I ended up drinking again over my ex. So today was day one. I went to AA and just couldn't tell 2 of my friends. I have bad liver pain again. I turned up in tears feeling bad physically and mentally. I didn't tell anyone how bad I was feeling just kept quiet. At least I went, I am feeling a bit more positive now.

Dee74

I'm sorry you drank.

Isn't it best for you to tell people tho?

People want to help, but they can;t if you don't let them know you're in trouble.

secrets just weigh you down and make you feel awful about yourself....

D

sweetichick

I intended to tell people but lost my nerves on arriving. Maybe I felt like I didn't know them well enough. Maybe I am just too self sufficient.

sg1970

Keep your chin up Sweeti. It's not easy but it's worth sobering up.

It is funny how it's so hard to ask for help. Not just in sobriety but in anything in life.

The people at the meetings are there to help, not to judge. Very few people walk in and get it right off the bat. Don't be scared to tell them.

Michael66

I'm sorry about that sweetichick. But maybe the real reason your drank was, like the rest of us, because of something inside you and not because of someone else. If we wait for all the world around us to be benevolent and kind to us then I imagine hell would freeze over before many of us here stopped drinking.

I'm glad you went back to AA, and that you posted here (I dropped out for the best part of a year because I didn't want to talk about my relapse; that was a stupid prideful mistake on my part!).

Carpathia

I'm just thinking of an AA saying that didn't immediately make sense to me when I first stopped drinking: the five hundred pound telephone.

It is sooo difficult picking up the phone or talking at a meeting when I'd rather not put it out there. I can handle this, I tell myself.

Until I'm almost certifiably insane, that is!

It feels good and it's healthy getting it out into the open and not holding on to it too long. Keep sharing it until you are no longer held prisoner to it.

Like someone once said to me at an AA meeting after I spoke, "It's good to get rid of the poison. Get that sh*t out!" Amen.

sobersolstice

I think people are wired differently.

I'm agnostic/atheist, which makes AA very strange. Kind of like being asked to do Grace before a family dinner for the first time as a kid at a friend's house. I was literally like "Thank the sky for the water it has brought to grow vegetables so cows can eat and I can steal them from safeway for our families to eat."

My family grew up poor. I remember our dinner table would usually be a carboard box.

I personally do best with my drinking when I think about it the least. I write stuff in my plan binder first thing in the morning when I don't have cravings and set my day to that tune.

My personal experience with AA in early recovery has been a trigger. I start thinking about drinking, and start craving in the middle of the friggin' meeting. To be honest, I have days when I will go, look at the room around me, and just feel like I don't belong there. I don't like holding hands with someone I don't know, and I'm always the youngest one there. Some UFC guy wanted gay sex with me.

No one should ever tell someone to go to AA. I'm ok with the suggestion, but it feels like telling someone who is lost to go to church.

It's definitely not for me, but introspection and writing things down help. I'm a weirdo, and do things that are not perhaps normal. Even in my first few days, I'll go to dive bars during the day and drink water while looking at the people around me. For me, it helps.

I don't really count my days either anymore. I'm somewhere about 3 weeks?

tomsteve

it was a little difficult for me to open up to a group of people i didn't know. when i got the courage and did open up, i got solutions. those people couldn't help what they didn't know.

got phone numbers?
the phone is lighter than a bottle. i found better solutions using the phone. all a bottle did was add to the problem and delay recovery.

self sufficiency got me to the doors of AA. finding a higher power and having people that had been in my shoes help me helped me.

help me help you help me.

canguy

Read your thread with much interest Ms sweetichick.

There are alternatives to AA.....I'm not in any place to suggest, choose, criticise. I accept that for many here it has been life saving.

There is a book, "The Truth About Addiction and Recovery" (Peele & Brodsky)
You can get it for a few dollars on ebay....it has a very interesting take on AA.

It may make sense to you.....it has to me.

Dee74

Good to see you here canguy

D