SelfSeeking

Drinking *just one* recently has really thrown my inner world into some chaos. I'm angry... frustrated... resenting all my responsibilities and loved ones because they stand in the way of me, my room, and bottles of alcohol. I just wanna drink.
Step 1. Powerless over alcohol. Life is unmanageable. I find that my life is unmanageable NOW. Was unmanageable, leading up to the drink. Sober and when the sh!t hit the fan, life is still unmanageable. Leading to step 2...
2. Came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Ok. I'm still here. After all the thought about finding a power greater than myself (a big invisible hypothetical one anyway, not, say, a person who outweighs me by 20 pounds, or an earthquake, or the court system, or a professor), I am back here. No invisible power grabbed that bottle out of my hand. I could have put it back on the table and walked away, but I didn't. I made the choice to drink. Yesterday I made the choice to not. I would have, but I went to an AA meeting and talked to a bunch of drunks! And the craving left... today it's back but less.

My feeling today is that my "higher power", if I can continue with steps in AA at all, must be something in myself. A little seed... a part of myself that wants to be sober, has always wanted to be sober. I need to nurture it and make it stronger.

I don't know how to fit this into AA steps. I still see value to its principles. But I am done trying to force myself into belief in a god.

Dee74

hey Katie,
not an AA guy as you know, but your post touched me.

My life is still often unmanageable too in a lot of ways - some of that's down to me and my unrealistic expectations or lapses of judgment or whatever human frailties...but some of it is just plumb down to fate and things that happen...ups and downs.

It's how I deal with it all that matters, and I know sober I'm more likely to manage the vagaries of existence than I am drunk.

I deal with nothing if I'm drunk - everything's put off til tomorrow. I have to deal with everything sober - and that's the rub.

As for the God/HP thing - as you probably know I'm a believer, but I prayed my ass off for years and not a lot happened apart from me getting drunker.

Consequently I wasn't a believer when I started this recovery thing, and even now I still believe I was given hands heart and a mind for a reason. I had to humble myself and take some direction sure - but ultimately the hands that got me into this got me out too.

As I see it now, maybe I had some lessons to learn...and I did - ones that ultimately only had a tangential connection with drinking, but have had everything to do with me becoming a man who doesn't drink anymore.

I dunno if the idea of learning stuff appeals to you right now - it wouldn't have filled me with joy had I realised I was 'character building' either.....but everything I've been through has undeniably made me who and what I am, and I'm a lot more comfortable with that than I used to be.

You made a mistake - don't catastrophise it.

There's a world of difference in you now from the SelfSeeking I met here in your first weeks.... and you'll never lose that now you've got it.

It's common to say I know you can do this here....but I'm lucky enough to know some ppl well enough so that I can say it and *know* it's true.

You can do this. You have the 'stuff'.
Nurture that seed, K

hugs
D

keithj

From AA Big Book, We Agnostics,
"We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found."

I was in exactly the boat. Life long atheist. I believed that faith in a higher power was a nice crutch for the weak minded, or a tool of social control. I found that my beliefs did not get in the way of recovering via the 12 steps. I just took the steps, nothing special.

Along the way of taking the steps, a concept of a higher power formed. I didn't necessarily choose it, it just had some resonance in my life and gained some traction. My concept has evolved since then, but it still isn't very concrete or what most would see as a classical god concept. Not sure what it is, really, and it really doesn't matter.

I just blindly took the steps because there was nothing left to do and I couldn't go on living like I was. Got on my knees with a sponsor and said the 3rd step prayer and felt absolutely nothing except silly. But, I kept working the steps and it all came together, slowly over time. Hope you find a way to make it work.

Ananda

SS...the 12 steps are very open....you will find your own way within a range of choices (hug)

as I think you know i use a number of higher powers in my program, the law of cause and effect being I think the most important for me and the spiritual path i am on being another biggy.

The truth is...doesn't matter what mine is for you.....point for me is it was by working the steps that i found out who I am, what i believe and became capable of living with my beliefs in a somwhat consistant way.

I did the "by the book" version of the steps, but I found that the journey has been far more than that. The second step for me included alot of reading from diferent spiritual ways of life and leanring from that what i did and did not believe.

I started out a believer in god in AA and became an athiest/agonostic

point is...i found out what my beliefs were so i could take them with me through the other steps

you'll find your path SS (hug)

SelfSeeking

Well, I've been to a meeting every day since last Saturday and have gotten a lot of support and guidance. I spoke with my sponsor today about how pissed off I have been feeling and that I thought I was dealing with second step stuff. She said it sounded more like step 1... when I worked it originally my back was up against the wall. Life was basically a sh!t storm. She likened it to a jailhouse conversion Now things have improved so much; school, relationship w/fiance, finances. And yet... I am still an alcoholic. That drink last week set off some vicious cravings. I think it through: I don't have work so I could drink tonight, but I have somewhere important to be in the morning and without a doubt I'd be hungover and mentally, slow as molasses. There's just no good time to poison myself. I want to drink, but I don't want to lose the things I've gained, and I know that I _will_ lose them if I drink. Including my health and who knows, my life? My past experiences prove to me that I have the capacity to drink myself to alcohol poisoning.

I *know* how alcohol effects me. Now I need to do the second part and accept it. Right now I'm shaking my fist at my HP like, wtf, where were you? (as much as you can shake your fist at a concept, I guess.) And shaking my fist at the nature of life, at the cards I hold. It is not helpful.

You know what IS helpful? Gardening! I planted seedlings yesterday. Veggies and herbs. It feels good to get my hands dirty and going out to check on the plants. I'm doing container gardening and gonna do a second pot in a few minutes.