snitch

I am 7 and half months sober and my programme of recovery is AA.

This is the longest period of sobriety I have had in 20 plus years. My last drunk nearly killed me and I have a solid step one. I have admitted I am powerless over alcohol and my life was completely unmanageable. I have a sponsor, a home group, go to regular meetings, have service and am about to do my step 3 tomorrow with my sponsor so am still quite early in in the steps.

OK, so what do I need thoughts on?? .....

On Saturday I was putting my christmas tree up and the thought of a drink popped into my head (As it regularly does). However I let it sit there instead of taking action to remove it and before I knew it the mental obsession had started and I was thinking how on earth can I never drink alcohol again and maybe I will just drink this christmas then start again in January. What the hell. There is the insanity hey? I just kept saying to myself... Just for today. No matter what, I won't drink today. I talked about it that evening with my sponsor and she said get on your knees and pray. I did. I went to bed sober. Sunday morning I woke up and was in a great mood and I took my daughter to my friends kids birthday party. There was alcohol there and I wasn't expecting it and my friend and a couple of others were drinking and I suddenly felt like the odd one out and that need to take a drink just to fit in came on me. I knew I couldn't stay there so I asked another mum to watch my daughter and I hit a meeting. Fast.

Now here's the part I need thoughts on. There is a pub near me that does the most beautiful christmas decorations. It really is like a winter wonderland and I had arranged to go after school with a friend of mine (who drinks) and our 2 daughter's for food and a catch up. Now, obviously a pub serves alcohol and I know I was on shaky ground at the weekend so I thought I will see how I feel and if I feel shaky I won't go. However I felt quite the opposite. I prayed to my HP this morning. I went to my meeting and then had coffee with a few of my fellows and I felt very connected to my HO and so I decided to go. I had 2 pints of orange juice and lemonade, a delicious red thai curry, followed by a cup of tea and a really good catch up with my friend. In fact I had a lovely evening. I didn't want to drink in fact I was so grateful that I didn't NEED to drink to have a really pleasant evening and I have to add christmas is my favourite time of year. I love all the sparkly lights and decorations and candles. Alcohol WAS always a big part of christmas for me but it also ruined EVERY one of my Christmases.
So you may be thinking am I mad to go to a pub? Well my sponsor certainly did. She told me she thought I was crazy and that why am I putting myself through this?? I said I actually had a really lovely evening and I felt very spiritually fit today and able to be around alcohol. I live in a very buzzing city in England and it wouldn't have mattered where we had gone for food this evening, there would have been alcohol and I said whilst I will be vigilant I also don't want alcohol to ruin my life more than it has done and stop me from living. She replied that when she got sober she had to change EVERYTHING and stay away from anywhere and everywhere where alcohol was available and anyone who drank alcohol. However alcohol is readily available everywhere and I wanted to drink Saturday in my own home where there was zero alcohol . Am I 100% safe anywhere??

But this is the bit that confuses me the most. She said that she was hearing a lot of "I think" and "I want" from me and that I need to be aware that my thinking is f#@ked and that I don't know what is best for me and that I can't think for myself as that is self will run riot! But even in the Big Book it says God gave us brains to use.

So now I have gone from feeling really great that I had a lovely Christmassy evening out to really deflated and thinking IS my thinking f#$ked, can I never make a decision by myself again, am I doomed to becoming a social hermit. I am so confused and anxious and to be honest I feel more like drinking than ever now.

Please give your thoughts on this?

I just would like to add I really adore my sponsor. She has helped me so much and I can share anything with her (i will share this with her tomorrow) but just wanted to get a few perspectives or experiences please.

plop

I have no experience of AA, but I think your sponsor is right in saying that sobriety requires a lot of lifestyle changes. On the other hand, I think you are on safe ground as long as you don't let your guard down. Whenever there's alcohol available, you need to be conscious of that and keep sobriety in your mind at all times. (If you sit in a pub and get cravings, just leave.)

Personally I avoided bars and pubs in the first months of recovery, but nowadays I have no problem going and drinking sparkling water or soda. Sometimes it's just the most practical solution to meet someone in a bar, but other than that, I really don't want to spend my time in bars.

D122y

Snitch,

AA is a way to get and stay sober. But, staying sober is a personal thing. The success rate of long term sobriety for any system is in our hands.

Your sponsor is only human and offers her version of AA. Living my life through someone else's viewpoint is like trying to fix my face while looking in a broken mirror. I live for me.

I go to restaurants, shows, and parties all the time. It was hard at first, but now it is better. My idea of fun involves going out. Staying home or in meetings is also a way to have fun, just not for me all the time.

Right now, booze has no appeal to me except for a short escape from reality. I get that escape from other ways now, because I know booze fries my brain and hurts my body.

We are addicts for life and we have to stay clean by any means necessary.

There is no mystery in addiction, it is science. But, I still believe God has helped me, but that is because I am a religious person.

Sr and the internet have taught me all about what I am feeling mentally and physically. I am this clean and I am still learning to cope. Booze is a neurotoxin and it alters our dopamine etc. That is why we crave.

We have to find other ways, plus a few years clean, to get back to normal. Awareness of this make the journey bearable.

Again, there is nothing a person is doing wrong in sobriety except drinking. Having awareness of what is going on is a key.

I obsess a bit, but not like before. I try to come to SR daily and read and post to help myself and others however I can.

Hope this helps you keep it together.

Thanks.

Dee74

Hi snitch

I'm not in AA so I can't really offer anything about the response you got from an AA perspective.

I can say if it had been me, I wouldn't have risked the pub had I been squirrelly a few days earlier.

I was probably over protective of my recovery but even looking back I don't think that's a bad thing.

The decisions I made then have led me to staying sober today.

The few parties and get togethers I missed don't play across my mind 12 years later.

Obviously tho, my experience is not universal but it's all I have to share.

From a human standpoint I'm guessing probably that what your sponsor was trying to do too - share her experience - but sounds like she got a bit scared for you and freaked out. Maybe she projected some of her own fears too, who knows?

I can kind of see the point that a sponsor might make tho - recovering alcoholic and pub is not often a good mix.

With each of us, the buck stops with us tho - and the results show that you were able to deal with this situation, so congrats.

I'd treat each situation on its merits like you have here and think it out

I'm not actually on board with the idea that our thought process is always forever inherently screwy - it certainly was when I was drinking and for a little while afterwards, but I regained my right mind eventually.

The real trick was listening for it in amongst all the babble, and then trusting it again

D

August252015

Ha, I could have sworn I responded to this yesterday! So - what Dee said

Also - as an AA person....I was (like Dee, or more so maybe - he's been sober much longer so he's the expert!) VERY conservative with what I did. In short, like I just said on another thread about the holidays, I have never regretted saying no to ANYTHING. Nothing matters more than my sobriety. My first sponsor was very literal about her recovery and helped instill really good discipline in me about a lot of things - one thing she really emphasized at first was "no is always a complete sentence" - and if we choose to do something or go somewhere, always have a plan for being there and even more importantly, a reliable exit strategy. And if we aren't willing to USE that exit strategy- don't go in the first place.

I stressed plenty inside over decisions that might hurt people's feelings, especially fam, and I'm sure in retrospect I make it sound "simpler" than it felt. But again - protecting myself like I am even doing right NOW at 2 yr almost 10 mo sober, after hugely upsetting fam drama of the past six wks, has to be my priority.

Good friends have understood why I need to make the choices I do and those are the folks I want in my life. Stick with us and keep asking good questions- and making the next right choice for you. Like dee said, the bottom line is that no one else, a sponsor or friend or SR pal, whomever, can choose for us. You can do this.

Threshold

I probably wouldn't have gone to the pub so soon after feeling shakey in my sobriety, because my own personal experience has taught me that's a bad time to put myself in a place where drinking seems like the perfectly natural thing to do.

That's me. There are times I go to restaurants with bars and don't even glance at the selection, and other times it makes my palms itch and my heart race. I have to make a judgment call based on how I am feeling and the surrounding circumstances. What tempts me might not tempt another and vice versa.

I never drank or used at concerts so going to one doesn't tempt me. I have friends who can't attend those events (yet) because they have a lot of powerful associations attached.

I think your sponsor's advice was prudent, but of course in the end we, with the help of our network and HP, make the final call. I think it was real smart for you to duck out of that party and hit up a meeting instead!

The holidays can be a weird time. We are bouncing along just fine and bam, we turn a corner and walk face first into a trigger, and sometimes not in the form we have been looking out for. I've been surprised by some of the things that suddenly got me squirrely for a drink.

As far as the "I want" and "I think" issue...I guess we need to ask ourselves if we are making sure our HP is involved in our thinking and wanting process or if we've been using too much EGO (Easing God Out). Are we saying "I want to stay sober" as often as we are saying "I want to experience a good old fashioned Christmas with all the trimmings!". Or "I want to be able to do everything just the way I used to!" which probably isn't practicle.

You are still in VERY early days. Not sure if you've rooted out what took you back to drinking this past time but I can see why your sponsor is encouraging you to be cautious. Is this a new sponsor or one you've had from a previous period of sobriety? How well does she know you?

DreamCatcher17

Hey Snitch,

I am so happy to hear you are 7 months strong in your recovery, that is AMAZING!

For me,
I think for me, I do for me. No one person is going to stop me from thinking and doing. Not a million people will stop me from doing what I am to do. People can give advice, it is up to me to think for myself and decide if I want to take that advice or not.
Yes, we think for ourselves.

I feel like in AA (no offense to anyone) it is a bit brainwashing in the fact that saying 1 can't think for themselves is ridiculous, you have had a good amount of sober time under your belt, you have been in situations you have overcome without the drink. The longer you (we) are sober the easier it gets. I understand that this mentality may work for some people, people who are so gone in addiction they literally can't think right. BUT you think just fine, and you don't/didn't succumb to the bottle, experience, situation. - Be proud of that.
What worked for your sponsor may not be your path, what worked for you may not work for me.

All I know for sure is that if I EVER drink again, I am going to lose everything I have worked so hard for, and there is NOTHING worth me losing everything. SO I choose not to drink.

I have run into a situation this week that triggered me the most in 14 months, all I wanted to do was go to the bar and say F it all, F you, and F me. Once I was able to recognize what I was thinking the: WHO, WHAT, WHY, I then changed all of those things. I was fortunate enough to remove this TRIGGER from my life, sometimes it is not that easy, but I will not allow Triggers in my life. I can't live close to threats (people) no matter who they are in my life, they must go so I can be the best me, the sober me.

Self-awareness is HUGE and you have it, way to go! Don't ever let that go.

Enjoy Christmas, Sober and AMAZING!

I wish you the best,
DC

Kid50

DriGuy

Well first that was one Hell of a fun read. I laughed at the end where you went from feeling so proud of your success to feeling like a deflated failure.

Seven months is great. Whether that is a guarantee that you can handle pubs and drinking environments, I can't say. I think I could have handled that at 7 months, but I always tried to err on the side of safety and in such cases I never forgot about the escape routes.

I don't know if you are in a better position to judge the strength of your own sobriety than your sponsor. But you did well. Were you just lucky or are you solid enough? I don't know. I would have passed because while it was nice, it really wasn't necessary, but that's just me.

I don't know that you are mad to go to a pub. It would be considered by most recovering alcoholics in AA as a high risk situation without a doubt. If you do it again and end up drinking, you will have learned something important, but yuk, what a hard lesson.

I've done that sort of thing once that I can remember. I was something like 18 years sober when I was in Hawaii and staying at a yacht club dock for a few weeks. They had bar and dances every week end, and I attended the dances without drinking. I noticed that a few others weren't drinking, although they were the exceptions.

I was rafted next to a big power boat during the time, and I struck up a memorable relationship with the owner and his buddy, two guys who were as thick as thieves, and the owner's buddy was living on the power boat in between deployments to sea as a merchant seaman.

One day they invited me to the yacht club bar, where they were getting ready to watch the annual Kentucky Derby, a race that lasts all of 4 minutes or so, which is about the same amount of time I spent at the bar, and I informed them that I was an alcoholic that didn't drink. No problem.

The merchant seaman was a heavy drinker who would frequently tie one on. I developed a warm if not odd relationship with him. He rode a Harley with tank and fenders painted in flames and he had flaming tattoos on his arms to match.

He wanted to tie one on one night and his buddy wasn't around so he asked me to go to a bar with him. He also sincerely promised that he wouldn't expect me to drink. I went with him. He got plowed. I drank diet cokes. He almost got into a fight with a guy, but it turned out to be macho things that got diverted before any fists were thrown, and the three of us ended up at the bar together.

I felt solid in that situation, but I recognized it as risk, and I was ready to leave if I was tempted in the least. I don't know that 18 years of sobriety was a guarantee or not, but I do have a high level of confidence and commitment to sobriety. I felt safe. How much assurance that offers, I don't know.

In the end, we make our decisions, and we face the consequences or revel in our success, whichever comes first.

Gottalife

Hi Snitch, I just have a couple of thoughts for you on your first two paragraphs.

To me it reads like your fellowship for recovery is AA. In terms of the steps you have identified the problem, step one, selected a solution (the AA program) in step two and you are about to make a decision to take action to put the program into effect in step three.

I am happy you have lasted as long as you have at this rate of progress. Like so many who don't get past step three, my experience was the window of opportunity closed and I was drinking again after just a few weeks. The time we get is different for everyone, but no one knows how long it is.

The AA program says that we suffer from a terminal illness from which the only lasting recovery is found through a spiritual experience/awakening which comes as the result of working the twelve steps. Until that happens, we are at certain times, without defense against the first drink. In other words we are in just as much danger as we were before we came to AA. The fellowship itself has no solution. One of the most commong things among relapsers is that they were going to meetings, that's how we know they relapsed. One of the other common things among relapsers is that they never got past step three, and sometimes they never make it back. Action on the steps is the only solution on offer in AA. When we fully understand all this, which is the true implication of the first step, when it sinks in that unless we get moving we are doomed, then we have a solid first step, solid enough to propel us through the steps at a pace that would suggest we are in fact taking our perilous situation seriously.

It's great you survived a social occasion. I did thing like that too. The only thing the Big Book says on the subject is to go or stay away, whichever seems best. It also talks about solid spiritual ground but. as far as I can tell, that is not reached through a solid first step.

You are the best judge of what you should do in any given situation. The AA book shares experience as in - we tried this and got this result or we found this helped and we found if we skipped this or delayed, it caused us problems.

Me, I couldn't get close to seven months until I began working the steps. As I work with sponsees these days it typically take us two to three hours to get through steps 1-3. It took me three months to get to step nine, and my life really changed by that point.

All the best.

DontRemember

I'm kinda confused why it's taken so long to get to step 3 (5-7mo in)? I was court ordered to AA,but made some decent friends from the meetings and respect what they do..That just seems like a waaayy too long of a time for someone, with a self-admitted drinking problem, to get to 'work'..

snitch

Thanks Dee,

I have decided it is waaaay too soon to be visiting pubs. Especially my old drinking venues! So I have made the decision to stay away and find new places to go to socially where alcohol either isn't present or at least less dominant. I mean it is everywhere now isn't it but going places where I used to drink frequently is clinging to my old ideas and I need to let them go.

As far as my tbibking is concerned, I dont feel like my whole tbinking is screwed actually however I can see it is warped when it comes to alcohol, I have just proved that to myself by thinking it was ok to go to the pub so therefore I need so guidance and advice and others experiences. I love AA and I love my sponsor but I will do what is suggested and take what I need and leave the rest

I love this site too. It is great to be able to come here for others experiences too. The power of recovery is pretty awesome, the selflessness of one alcoholic/addict wanting to help another is just priceless.

Thank you.

snitch

Tbanks DC!

I love your post,! You are an inspiration to me as I have said before and your post makes great sense to me . I have to trust in myself and when in doubt I can come here as I am overwhelmed by the responses I have, each one has given me something I needed.

Have a great sober christmas yourself and your little 😘😘

snitch

Thanks everyone for talk g time out of your busy days to respond. I appreciate and have found helpful each and every one of your responses.

bodhi01

I'm not well equipped enough to advise but I can give my opinion. Recovery for me has to be about empowerment. Developing a future labelled as a helpless victim to alcohol will cause you to live a life in fear of it and as we know, living in the UK, you'll end up fearful of almost every street corner and home in the country. I think facing the pub was very admirable. Who's to say that conquering that situation hasn't made you even stronger in the longrun? For me temptation through environment or peer pressure has never been the issue, it's my mind convincing me I can control alcohol again. It's fooled me many times after long periods of sobriety but not this time. The more tools and armour I build now to face that demon when it rears it's ugly head again the better, I will NOT be afraid of it though. All the best.