New today
 

Hi,
I've lurked on here for a few months trying to get the courage to post and previously a few years ago for a few months. I went to my first AA meeting today and met a someone on the way in who took me aside and gave me courage to enter the room. He is the only reason i have the courage to post now. I sat through the meeting listening and relating crying and feeling like I wanted to die. The guy I mentioned related how his reason for attending his first meeting was how he was thinking how he could give a speech at his (current age 6) daughters wedding in ~25 years time. I wept. I couldnt stop. I' ve 3 daughters 11, 10 & 6. The meeting at the start i couldnt wait to finish. At the end I didnt want it to stop. I related to so many preople from all walks of life in terms of alcohol was astounding to me.
My wife doesnt know. She knows I drink too much. Commented on it so much I started to drink secretly. Hiding the empties, rotating the location to purchase the booze etc. All the cliches. I recently realised if i didnt change I'd have no money to buy Christmas gifts. So i started to drink the cheapest sh1t i could. Rock bottom.
Dry wretching all day long just to get home to chug down the rot gut stuff I'd bought.
I've an appointment to see the doctor tomorrow for my drinking, he told me not to go cold turkey but he would explain. I've another AA meeting with the lovely people i met today on Friday and I cant wait but I struggling to badly. Anyway thanks for all the super threads for inspiration I hope I can live up to some of them.

Phil.

Phil71els I think you'll find plenty of people here who have been in the same or very similar situations to you. I can certainly remember blubbering my way through my first AA meeting.
You've taken the first step & I hope you're able to find guidance & inspiration with AA & the good people you meet here on SR.

Good one Phil! You have embraced the whole spirit of productive recovery. I keep in touch with my GP (gen health/depression), a psychologist (CBT- to change how I think, feel and behave) do meetings and use SR.
Keep posting and lets us all know how you are doing. A good way to get involved with the SR community is to join in some of the newcomer threads- like Class of November 2018. I joined the CO March '16, and use SR every day- but especially at night.
Support to you.

Welcome, Phil!

AA meetings are very important to my sobriety. I also read and post daily here. These are a couple good threads to join:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ml#post7065115

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ml#post7064697

Welcome to the family Phil! :) I know you'll find lots of support here. :grouphug:

Wow, you've got a lot on your plate. So take it easy, one step at a time.
Congratulations on making that first meeting. I know how hard that is, believe me.
Best to you. You can quit. You're doing all the right things. I don't think you'll go wrong. I have faith in you.
Oh, and thanks for finally posting. You helped this drunk stay sober today.

Welcome to SR Phil - you're among friends here :)

D

Good Man Phil
 

Dear Phil,

I am absolutely moved by your story. I too have a young family with 2 kids!!! Please keep it up and give us updates

Wales, UK

Welcome Phil! You can be the father you want to be, and we do understand how hard this is.

Great to meet you, Phil. I drank 30 yrs. & couldn't imagine my life without it. Being here gave me the strength & courage to get free. I'm really glad you are seeing your dr. Let us know what happens - we are with you!

Thanks for all the support!! Its nice to know that others have made this journey already and found joy at the end.

I've seen the Doctor who was kind, patient and understanding. He told me that I am doing all the right things, asked me how much I drink (2 bottles of wine per night) and how I'd got here.
I explained a lot of things, my mother was an abusive alocholic (her mother was too) who would send soul destroying text messages to me (when she was drunk/had taken a months worth of diazapam in one day) over night to wake up to some mornings.
How after my first child was born my parents started to visit which caused friction between her and my wife and in anticipation of this, to reduce the anxiety, I'd have a few beers which gradually became a bottle of wine. When she died 7 years ago I stopped but realised I enjoyed the evening after a few glasses. Which eventually led to now. I told him I went to my first AA meeting yesterday also.

He prescribed me librium to take for a week, less and less each day. I've to eat a more nutritious diet, start exercising again (I used to run) and be more positive about things, which I tend not to be.

I feel like there is hope after all, because until yesterday I felt so trapped and controlled by drinking.

Later I plan to keep busy, I know I cant drink while taking librium and I dont want to but there is a habit to break as well as the addiction. I am a person who likes a routine and this will massively alter mine. I've a list of things I can do to keep me busy. Since I've had no energy from hangovers or just sitting drinking in the evenings over the last 5 years my house has gone from a lovely place to a sh*thole. Its untidy, dirty, piles of laundered clothes everywhere, kids toys everywhere. It needs decorated and replairs done too which I've been promising my wife I'd do for years now. Plenty to do.

Phil- welcome to SR. I am glad you went to the doctor to get some help. That is great you like the AA meetings. I hope you get back into running or another form of exercise. My gym membership has helped me tremendously. Pace yourself on everything now that you are sober you will have plenty of time to do everything you want too. :)

Hello Phil!! Congrats on joining SR and going to AA. This forum is great! Everyone is very friendly and not judgmental at all! I am starting day 1, again!! I look forward to seeing you in the December class!

Hi and welcome! Glad you're here. :)

Phil, I'm glad you have talked to your dr and are following a plan. I think that being a person who likes routine was very helpful for me. It does take a few weeks to break a habit and I think you need to substitute something else in its place. It sounds like you're doing well.

I also want to thank who ever it was how bumped this yesterday. I is amazing. I went through both threads and cut and pasted the ones in there that most resonate with me (dozens btw). I put a copy on my phone so that if am in a bad place I can open it up and read them to inspire me to try to resist urges.

I also have felt hungry for the first time in months. I mean starving. I've hardly been eating for a long time due to wanting to throw up or drinking taking its place. Proper food!! It feels good.

This is a bumped thread I mentioned is the Reasons to drink today 1 & 2

Just had my second AA meeting just now. Many more people there than last time. I didn't get asked to share which was a relief as I am still working out the format etc. but I felt much better than during the last one. I got a number I can call if I am struggling.

My alcohol counselor left the job, and I got transferred to someone else, who told me she wouldn't talk to me unless I went to AA because it seemed to work better than anything else. So I'm sitting there wondering, "If I go to AA and it keeps me from drinking, why would I want to talk to you?"

But with that ultimatum, I decided I would suck it up and go to AA with the alcoholics. Sheesh! I hated that word. So she gave me a list of meeting places and times and I headed to a meeting that night, with one day of sobriety under my belt. I got there early and sat outside waiting until just before 8:00PM when cars started pulling into the parking lot. Strangers were getting out of their cars and walking into the building, and I was really nervous.

Not knowing what to do, but knowing that each meeting time had a contact person to call for more information, I decided I should call first to let them know I was coming, and I drove off. OK, silly, but I was looking for a reason not to go in there. That was on a Wednesday, and the next likely meeting would be on Friday. On Thursday evening I called a guy from the contact list named Dean, and told him I might have a problem with alcohol, and I would like to attend the next meeting.

He was encouraging and suggested that I show up and check it out, and if it was something I thought could help, I would be welcomed to attend. Surprise, surprise, he wasn't pushy and didn't tell me all about the horrors the bottle. He was just friendly, and told me he would be looking for me.

So on Friday, now with three days under my belt (the longest I could ever go without a drink), I was sitting in a restaurant across the street from the liquor store, which would close in a half an hour. I'm holding on with white knuckles with a half hour to make a decision about buying a quart of whiskey. Just before the liquor store was closing, I decided I could hang on until the meeting, and that I could still go to a bar and buy a pint at some outrageous price after the meeting at 9:00PM.

I made it to the meeting, expecting to see a bunch of would be drunks whining about how much they needed a drink, but here's all these happy people from high school age to one foot in the grave, sitting around celebrating sobriety. When at the start of the meeting, they asked if any newcomers would like to introduce themselves --- Now I was the obvious only newcomer and everyone is staring at me waiting to hear something or other --- so I introduced myself and told them I might have a problem with drinking, but I wasn't sure, and everyone yelled out at once, "Hi Dave," which kind of sat me back in my chair while, I'm thinking, "Now what?"

So people started taking turns talking about some aspect of their drinking, and I could relate to everyone of them in some way. Not knowing that AA frowns on cross talk, I would respond after each person talked and expand on how that related to me. Then someone else would talk. Then I would talk, and bla, bla, bla, here I am scared to death and pretty much dominating the whole damn meeting by myself.

People were laughing and smiling, perhaps a little too much, but they let me go on blabbering away, and no one seemed angry or upset. It wasn't until a later meeting where someone explained to me the AA protocol and avoiding cross talk, but god knows I needed to talk that first night, especially to people that I could finally relate with on an equal footing.

At 9:00 PM, the meeting ended, and I drove by the bar thinking I could probably make it one more night, and then I'd have four days under my belt. This was on Friday night mind you, the one night I could drink with impunity in reward for living through another week. Not that my usual pattern didn't revolve drinking every night just as heavily as on Friday, but on Friday it seemed like drinking was absolutely a forgone requirement.

My sobriety date was January 3rd, three days before that first meeting, and it remains so today, although I'm not sure about the exact year. Now that I think about it, January 3rd might be my last drink, so I don't know if that's considered a sobriety date or not, but that is now semi officially established (by me), and that's the date I use. In the last few years, January 3rd comes and goes, and I don't even stop to realize it's important.

I have no idea why I just posted all of this, but there you are. Thanks.

Oh one more thing, several months later, I met the alcohol counselor that sent me to AA on the street, and she asked me how I was doing. I told her I hadn't had a drink in 6 months, and she seemed pleased even though I never came to see her after that first meeting. Really, I just needed to quit. Processing all the other crap in my life, I could do on my own.