Stay on SR daily - a little posting and helping others really helped me forget my own health anxiety for a while?

D

It helps to do the steps with a sponsor. My sponsor has helped me delve into each step on a deeper level. I’m only on Step 10, but have gotten way more out of it than when I read through them on my own. Plus, I feel more accountable when I know I’m going to be speaking with her every week.

I've tried to do it by myself.

I've tried going to AA meetings and just not drinking, no steps

I've now been through the 12 steps and all the rest of what goes along with it.

The results I got =

Option 1 -- awful, always ended up with classic dry drunkenness, no matter how many self help books I read, no matter how much I went to the gym.
Basically I couldn't out-read and out exercise my alcoholism.

Option 2 -- a bit better than option 1 but it only prolonged things really, dry drunkenness came back full force, actually came close to suicide this time, and I hadn't had a drink for 2 years.

Option 3 -- this is what I thought sobriety would actually be like, it's great. Funny thing is, what looks like the hard way, is actually the easy way.
What looks like the easy way, just don't drink and hope for the best, was actually the incredibly hard way.

I highly recommend option 3 👍

I never planned or made a promise to quit.

I lost every good thing and every good person in my life. I could no longer function on my own.

I took getting sober very seriously. I could no longer work, so it became my primary activity. What else was there to do after losing everything?

I listened to suggestions from other people who got sober. I worked with a sponsor. I worked on the twelve steps. I made amends. I learned to be grateful. And I made no big plans for life after sobriety. I was done, and my modest goals were the best I could do.

I was in group therapy with other people working to get sober, and I worked with my therapist in individual sessions. I turned down nothing that might have strengthened my sobriety. I was on a mission. I experienced several disappointments and setbacks along the way that may or may not have made me stronger.

When I was able to do so, I started to build a life that would make it difficult for me to drink again. But I don't believe it ever works that way. I went back to school, started training in martial arts thirty-seven years ago.

I went to graduate school. I made healthy relationships with friends and made honest attempts to do the same thing in romantic relationships. I had mixed results. I lived what, at the time and in retrospect, was for me a remarkable life.

I had my first episode of major depression about fourteen years in. A few months later my father died at my now current age. I had shortly before his death ended a long-term relationship that was accompanied by sadness, regret, and a lot of pain. I felt as though I might have been dying.

None of the things I did came with a guarantee for anything. Getting sober was an act of faith made less complicated by my increasing desire to make something of my life. Why would I give my focus and energy to anything else?

I used a series of setbacks as an excuse to start drinking again after twenty-five years of sobriety. Besides, I didn't feel as though I was having very much fun anymore. Didn't really need an excuse; I like to travel light.

I lost everything and everyone again but not before I put myself through a living hell for three years. I was hoping that I would die in my sleep.

It was so much harder to get sober the second time around. Like every moment. I felt much more beaten down. I was twenty-eight years older than when I got sober the first time.

I didn't fail because of the things I used to get sober; I failed because I stopped doing what I needed to do to stay sober. So I did the same things that I did when I first got sober. That was eight years and a half ago.

Life has gotten more complicated in some ways and less so in others. I was able to get back into my field of work by first teaching college students and then working in research. I may have missed a few days when I did not send out job applications over a two-year period before I got the kind of work I was looking for. I caught one other interview during those two years.

Very few people were looking to hire people closer to retirement than to college graduation. Plenty of articles back then to confirm my nightmare about not hiring people in their fifties and sixties. The only thing to do was to keep on going.

I found SR about one year and eight months later. I read a lot here and then started posting. I received tremendous support from some very good people. I admired many of the people I met here. Helping others made getting sober a little more bearable than otherwise. And it helped me to change my life for the better.

When we age and our health falters, our memory is not as reliable as it once was, and we may have more difficulty getting around. The thing to do is to remain or get active. Physical activity makes for better brain functioning. As does a healthy diet and regular interactions with supportive people.

The goal was to keep on moving and to do what works; the result has been consistently better than what I'd gotten by standing still.

But nothing at all changed for me until I worked through my massive resistance to getting sober. Regardless of possible outcomes, the attempt itself was transformational and powerful. I could never have done this by myself.

Sorry. Double post.

After all this time...:e052:

I never planned or made a promise to quit.

I lost every good thing and every good person in my life. I could no longer function on my own.

I took getting sober very seriously. I could no longer work, so it became my primary activity. What else was there to do after losing everything?

I listened to suggestions from other people who got sober. I worked with a sponsor. I worked on the twelve steps. I made amends. I learned to be grateful. And I made no big plans for life after sobriety. I was done, and my modest goals were the best I could do.

I was in group therapy with other people working to get sober, and I worked with my therapist in individual sessions. I turned down nothing that might have strengthened my sobriety. I was on a mission. I experienced several disappointments and setbacks along the way that may or may not have made me stronger.

When I was able to do so, I started to build a life that would make it difficult for me to drink again. But I don't believe it ever works that way. I went back to school, started training in martial arts thirty-seven years ago.

I went to graduate school. I made healthy relationships with friends and made honest attempts to do the same thing in romantic relationships. I had mixed results. I lived what, at the time and in retrospect, was for me a remarkable life.

I had my first episode of major depression about fourteen years in. A few months later my father died at my now current age. I had shortly before his death ended a long-term relationship that was accompanied by sadness, regret, and a lot of pain. I felt as though I might have been dying.

None of the things I did came with a guarantee for anything. Getting sober was an act of faith made less complicated by my increasing desire to make something of my life. Why would I give my focus and energy to anything else?

I used a series of setbacks as an excuse to start drinking again after twenty-five years of sobriety. Besides, I didn't feel as though I was having very much fun anymore. Didn't really need an excuse; I like to travel light.

I lost everything and everyone again but not before I put myself through a living hell for three years. I was hoping that I would die in my sleep.

It was so much harder to get sober the second time around. Like every moment. I felt much more beaten down. I was twenty-eight years older than when I got sober the first time.

I didn't fail because of the things I used to get sober; I failed because I stopped doing what I needed to do to stay sober. So I did the same things that I did when I first got sober. That was eight years and a half ago.

Life has gotten more complicated in some ways and less so in others. I was able to get back into my field of work by first teaching college students and then working in research. I may have missed a few days when I did not send out job applications over a two-year period before I got the kind of work I was looking for. I caught one other interview during those two years.

Very few people were looking to hire people closer to retirement than to college graduation. Plenty of articles back then to confirm my nightmare about not hiring people in their fifties and sixties. The only thing to do was to keep on going.

I found SR about one year and eight months later. I read a lot here and then started posting. I received tremendous support from some very good people. I admired many of the people I met here. Helping others made getting sober a little more bearable than otherwise. And it helped me to change my life for the better.

When we age and our health falters, our memory is not as reliable as it once was, and we may have more difficulty getting around. The thing to do is to remain or get active. Physical activity makes for better brain functioning. As does a healthy diet and regular interactions with supportive people.

The goal was to keep on moving and to do what works; the result has been consistently better than what I'd gotten by standing still.

But nothing at all changed for me until I worked through my massive resistance to getting sober. Regardless of possible outcomes, the attempt itself was transformational and powerful.

I could not have done this by myself.

Almost 9 years here with AA and Sober Recovery.