Raised hand. Ugh.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Oakland
Posts: 561
Raised hand. Ugh.
I'm a serial slipper. Everyone knows I'm a loser. I now understand how much I need to do to be sober. It's so much. 1. Read 2. Pray/ meditation 3. Meeting 4. Check in with sponsor. 5. Step work. 6. Commitments/service
Overwhelmed. I know I need all that or I can't be sober. But wow. Do I wake up at 5am?
Overwhelmed. I know I need all that or I can't be sober. But wow. Do I wake up at 5am?
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,373
I'm not trying to be funny but the day really opens up when you're not looking to drink, drinking, or recovering from drinking 
Your inner addict will try and convince you it's a mountain of work, but it's actually far easier than trying to drink and manage a life
D
Your inner addict will try and convince you it's a mountain of work, but it's actually far easier than trying to drink and manage a life
D
Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: US
Posts: 5,095
I know I spent more than a couple of hours a day drinking. For me its the commitment that scares me and my little inner addict wants me to believe its all 'too much'. Its not.
Maybe start with a meeting each day. Pray in your car in the parking lot. Take it from there.
Maybe start with a meeting each day. Pray in your car in the parking lot. Take it from there.
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 8,674
(Said kindly) - your list could use a little revision. #1 is acceptance that you cannot drink (your life has become unmanageable and you are powerless over alcohol). Daily. Everything else- good work ideas, etc- stems from that.
I spend a LOT of time on recovery work- in fact, I was thinking about the "order" of my priorities yesterday and they are: God/recovery/faith (I now see them as intertwined); my boyfriend and family; my friends; work; everything else. I am 343 days sober and here's my daily/weekly to-dos:
Six morning things: devotional (this year, I am doing Jesus Today by Sarah Young last year I did Keep It Simple: Daily Meditations for 12 Step Beginnings & Renewals - a Hazelden pub that I STRONGLY recommend for newcomers (and I will probably do again in the future); I read pp 84-88/417-418 of the BB; HALT; the daily meditation from Richard Rohr (one of my favorite teachers, a Franciscan, and one who writes many things that echo recovery/AA principles)- you can get on the CAC daily/weekly/monthly email; SR visits (note the plural- throughout the day); and a reading plan on a Bible app (I share this with my bf who is also in recovery- we do a LOT of talk and work together on our recovery, and our faith).
My sweet spot for meetings is 4-6 a week. If I dip down to 2 or 3 for some reason (I don't think it's ever been one- and I did about 82 in 90 when I first started AA), I don't seem to be as smooth on my emotional sobriety and I self-correct the next week. One of these meetings is a lunch "date" with my boyfriend; that is a commitment we made.
Rest (huge) and self-care are now ongoing, daily, regular; reading and learning (all kinds of material) are ever-present; service to others (this has a lot of forms, as I believe even the small stuff like always saying "yes" to help another during a shift at the restaurant).....bread and butter as I live my recovery.
Being sober is my top priority and here at nearly a year, I work hard at keeping my focus there every day. That's my plan - forever.
Good luck.
And, you are not a loser. I quit drinking after a lot of pain, years of suffering, all kinds of truly awful stuff.....as the BB says, "no matter how far down the scale one has gone, our experience can benefit others" - and I would add, most significantly yourself.
I spend a LOT of time on recovery work- in fact, I was thinking about the "order" of my priorities yesterday and they are: God/recovery/faith (I now see them as intertwined); my boyfriend and family; my friends; work; everything else. I am 343 days sober and here's my daily/weekly to-dos:
Six morning things: devotional (this year, I am doing Jesus Today by Sarah Young last year I did Keep It Simple: Daily Meditations for 12 Step Beginnings & Renewals - a Hazelden pub that I STRONGLY recommend for newcomers (and I will probably do again in the future); I read pp 84-88/417-418 of the BB; HALT; the daily meditation from Richard Rohr (one of my favorite teachers, a Franciscan, and one who writes many things that echo recovery/AA principles)- you can get on the CAC daily/weekly/monthly email; SR visits (note the plural- throughout the day); and a reading plan on a Bible app (I share this with my bf who is also in recovery- we do a LOT of talk and work together on our recovery, and our faith).
My sweet spot for meetings is 4-6 a week. If I dip down to 2 or 3 for some reason (I don't think it's ever been one- and I did about 82 in 90 when I first started AA), I don't seem to be as smooth on my emotional sobriety and I self-correct the next week. One of these meetings is a lunch "date" with my boyfriend; that is a commitment we made.
Rest (huge) and self-care are now ongoing, daily, regular; reading and learning (all kinds of material) are ever-present; service to others (this has a lot of forms, as I believe even the small stuff like always saying "yes" to help another during a shift at the restaurant).....bread and butter as I live my recovery.
Being sober is my top priority and here at nearly a year, I work hard at keeping my focus there every day. That's my plan - forever.
Good luck.
And, you are not a loser. I quit drinking after a lot of pain, years of suffering, all kinds of truly awful stuff.....as the BB says, "no matter how far down the scale one has gone, our experience can benefit others" - and I would add, most significantly yourself.
Giving up is NOT an option.
Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 7,808
Originally Posted by Dee74 
I'm not trying to be funny but the day really opens up when you're not looking to drink, drinking, or recovering from drinking
Your inner addict will try and convince you it's a mountain of work, but it's actually far easier than trying to drink and manage a life
D
Your inner addict will try and convince you it's a mountain of work, but it's actually far easier than trying to drink and manage a life
D
Forum Leader
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Wisconsin, USA
Posts: 16,945
If waking up at 5am is what it takes, then yes - wake up at 5am. A lot of people get up at 5am even if they aren't alcoholics.
How about making an actual schedule? Use the calendar feature in your phone or even just write it down on a piece of paper. Mark off the time you will be at work or whatever other outside of home committments you have. Then fill in all the rest of the blanks - there will be a lot of them. Start filling them in with sobriety work at first - you dont' have to do ALL of the things you listed every day, but you need some of them.
As Dee says, you'll most likely free up several hours just by eliminating your drinking time.
How about making an actual schedule? Use the calendar feature in your phone or even just write it down on a piece of paper. Mark off the time you will be at work or whatever other outside of home committments you have. Then fill in all the rest of the blanks - there will be a lot of them. Start filling them in with sobriety work at first - you dont' have to do ALL of the things you listed every day, but you need some of them.
As Dee says, you'll most likely free up several hours just by eliminating your drinking time.
totfit
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Ft Collins, CO
Posts: 1,273
Don't make things sound so difficult for yourself. The reality is that staying sober takes no action. It takes action (drinking) not to stay sober. Bottom line is if you do not take the first drink and do something else instead, most anything else, you will not get drunk. Really the only requirement is to not take the action to drink. It is that simple.
That being said there are many things one can do to help. A good diet and exercise are among the most helpful for me. From there you have this site and other support programs that are out there depending on what works best for you. You might choose AA, Smart, a secular recovery program, counseling, all or none of the above. Bottom line is the only thing you have to do perfect is not take a drink.
That being said there are many things one can do to help. A good diet and exercise are among the most helpful for me. From there you have this site and other support programs that are out there depending on what works best for you. You might choose AA, Smart, a secular recovery program, counseling, all or none of the above. Bottom line is the only thing you have to do perfect is not take a drink.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
Posts: 6,902
1. Read
☆ half hour a day is plenty. OR, if you struggle to fit it in some days you could listen to the literature instead. Download onto a little MP3 player and listen in the car or while you cook, or travel on public transport or whatever. There are some great AA speaker recordings available to download as well which helped me to get my head around the program. This site is great for this... http://www.recoveryaudio.org/
2. Pray/ meditation
☆ half hour a day will probably be the extent of this, esp to start off with.
3. Meeting
☆ an hour or two - are you going daily? I didn't (not daily meetings in my area, even with travelling) Maybe talk to your sponsor about if they think you really need to go every day.
4. Check in with sponsor.
☆ ten mins?
5. Step work.
☆ Unlikely to be every day. But time you're spending doing your step work is time that you wont be mentally wrestling with your AV, so will make time easier rather than harder.
6. Commitments/service:
☆ No extra time really - just when you'd usually be at a meeting anyway in the early days. By the time you get to the stage where you're sponsoring you'll have all this working for you anyway and realise that it actually means you have more free space in your head when you do it to deal with the day as it comes, which is really more important than the time in itself.
Yes, the time does add up, but it ends up making life so much easier that it's almost more like hard work to NOT do it.
A man was in the forest chopping logs. He had been chopping for hours and still his pile of logs to be chopped had hardly gone down at all, and he was tired and irritable. To add to his irritation an old fellow passed by, and stood watching him as he chopped and muttered curses under his breath, sweat trickling down his face and neck. Eventually he paused and glared at the old fellow.
"I know a good place to get that axe sharpened" the old fellow said. " If you like I can take you there now."
The wood cutter laughed bitterly. " No thanks. I have no time for going to get axes sharpened. I have all this to do, can't you see?"
I pray every day that I will remember the wood cutter and make sure that I take the time to sharpen my tools of recovery. The time and effort spent on this - the prayers, reading, meetings, speaking to others in recovery - all give me a serenity and kind of peace that putting my feet up and watching TV would never afford me.
Wishing you all the best for your sobriety and recovery. BB
☆ half hour a day is plenty. OR, if you struggle to fit it in some days you could listen to the literature instead. Download onto a little MP3 player and listen in the car or while you cook, or travel on public transport or whatever. There are some great AA speaker recordings available to download as well which helped me to get my head around the program. This site is great for this... http://www.recoveryaudio.org/
2. Pray/ meditation
☆ half hour a day will probably be the extent of this, esp to start off with.
3. Meeting
☆ an hour or two - are you going daily? I didn't (not daily meetings in my area, even with travelling) Maybe talk to your sponsor about if they think you really need to go every day.
4. Check in with sponsor.
☆ ten mins?
5. Step work.
☆ Unlikely to be every day. But time you're spending doing your step work is time that you wont be mentally wrestling with your AV, so will make time easier rather than harder.
6. Commitments/service:
☆ No extra time really - just when you'd usually be at a meeting anyway in the early days. By the time you get to the stage where you're sponsoring you'll have all this working for you anyway and realise that it actually means you have more free space in your head when you do it to deal with the day as it comes, which is really more important than the time in itself.
Yes, the time does add up, but it ends up making life so much easier that it's almost more like hard work to NOT do it.
A man was in the forest chopping logs. He had been chopping for hours and still his pile of logs to be chopped had hardly gone down at all, and he was tired and irritable. To add to his irritation an old fellow passed by, and stood watching him as he chopped and muttered curses under his breath, sweat trickling down his face and neck. Eventually he paused and glared at the old fellow.
"I know a good place to get that axe sharpened" the old fellow said. " If you like I can take you there now."
The wood cutter laughed bitterly. " No thanks. I have no time for going to get axes sharpened. I have all this to do, can't you see?"
I pray every day that I will remember the wood cutter and make sure that I take the time to sharpen my tools of recovery. The time and effort spent on this - the prayers, reading, meetings, speaking to others in recovery - all give me a serenity and kind of peace that putting my feet up and watching TV would never afford me.
Wishing you all the best for your sobriety and recovery. BB
Member
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Originally Posted by Dee74
I'm not trying to be funny but the day really opens up when you're not looking to drink, drinking, or recovering from drinking D
D^^^^This is so true. You start to really feel free when you are not thinking about drinking so much. Its true freedom.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2017
Posts: 66
for me it was like every day was 3 times as long. I was so used to wake, drink, sleep, repeat and losing hours and hours of time in the process.
I find the challenge now to be more of 'what constructive things can I do with this free time'. My go-to was to drink if I had a spare second, I had to substitute it with meetings, reading, actual work, anything but drinking.
I don't even want to think about what my situation would be like if I had the last 10 years of heavy drinking and time loss back again
Also, you are not a loser. You've discovered a way out. The losers do not. On my way to my local meetings I have to walk past a pub I used to drink at regularly. There are the same old crew, haggard, wrinkled, drinking there every single night. 50,60,70 years old. At first I felt envious of them. Now I feel empathy and sadness and gratitude that I've found another option and received the gift of my life back. Maybe one day the time will come when I can help one of them find the way out as well.
Keep at it, you are doing an awesome job and it is not easy. Be proud of yourself.
I find the challenge now to be more of 'what constructive things can I do with this free time'. My go-to was to drink if I had a spare second, I had to substitute it with meetings, reading, actual work, anything but drinking.
I don't even want to think about what my situation would be like if I had the last 10 years of heavy drinking and time loss back again
Also, you are not a loser. You've discovered a way out. The losers do not. On my way to my local meetings I have to walk past a pub I used to drink at regularly. There are the same old crew, haggard, wrinkled, drinking there every single night. 50,60,70 years old. At first I felt envious of them. Now I feel empathy and sadness and gratitude that I've found another option and received the gift of my life back. Maybe one day the time will come when I can help one of them find the way out as well.
Keep at it, you are doing an awesome job and it is not easy. Be proud of yourself.
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