Fandy

One of the best things that a new person to these forums can see is that they have choices to help them figure out their own recovery.

When I first found the forum, I had never heard of AVRT or other programs besides the big one i don't follow. I just wanted to stop drinking because I felt sick and it was exacerbating my reactive depression...(my mother was slowly dying and I had just ended a LTR). it took a while, but the answer to my life couldn't be found in the wine glass.

I stopped with the encouragement, help and kindness (and gentle guidance) from many people (especially CarolD and Anna)....no one told me what "method" I must follow or program, or how *damaged* I was...(that came later when I heard that I was just dry or the color of my knuckles, )

but I like myself sober/dry much better than when i was drinking...I'm happier and more logical. I don't "work" at it, I just LIKE being a non-drinker. there are many more positive things in my life to focus on...booze isn't a part of that anymore.

Who KNEW? I will always be very thankful to everyone here who really helped me figure out that I don't need to drink.

for the record: I was a 2.5 pack a day smoker at one time....I quit that addiction with no outside help too. but I will not quit the coffee.

jkb

If someone is looking for an answer to the question "how do I quit drinking"... ONE answer is "Study RR, learn separation from your beast and make a BP." It will work.

I would rather have continued in drinking than to have been forced to work the AA program... HOWEVER, I have nothing but, respect for the program and how many people it helps. It is simply not for me.

With that said when I learned that it was possible for me to "just stop drinking" and that lots of others had done it I was thrilled. Once I read and practiced the method.... I was like "wow this works and I don't need to dwell on "recovery". Now I can just live my life with the knowledge that I have made a decision never to drink now and move on. "

This method saved my life as it sounds like AA saved yours. So for some people this information that I was discussing on the area of SR designed for discussion of this and other non-AA methods may be what they need to hear as well.

I will shout from the rooftops "after years of struggling with alcohol I have found a way to live my life without alcohol or steps, inventories and meetings." I will continue on with "I am not a "dry drunk". I am happy and feel so very proud of myself and I take all the credit every day for my actions."

I question why you feel the need to come to the secular side of this forum and put our way down?

Jeni26

Hi Ken.

I hope you don't mind me popping in!

I would just like to say as someone who has watched your journey from the beginning and shared in many of your early ups and downs, it has been really interesting for me to watch the stages in which this has developed for you. In your early posts, you talked about your AV a lot, yet it still seemed to 'sneak' up on you, as though you couldn't see it coming and it blindsided you. Would you say that was an accurate interpretation?

Over time, you have seemed to have gained such an acute awareness of your AV, and now to describe watching it as though from afar and just choosing to disregard it is awesome.

Great post Ken, thank you.

Keep doing what you're doing my friend x

RobbyRobot

I'm a recovered alcoholic. And I've been recovered for more than 30 years from my alcoholism. My statement alone, and my identification with the statement, I doubt either make you cringe, visch. I'm not saying you don't cringe over whatever about "being recovered", I'm just saying MY being recovered is not the cause of your cringing. You likely cringe from your own uncomfortable ideas and feelings about YOU being recovered is likely more real then you projecting your cringing onto the experiences of others I suspect.

Or perhaps from your perspective visch, you may want to suggest my own 30 years of successfully being recovered from my alcoholism is patently unimportant and just more misinformation on the internet??!




I take it you yourself have no positive experiences with being recovered, and if so, to each their own, no problem. Folks staying in recovery rather then declaring themselves recovered, does not maker me cringe, but rather I celebrate their recovery no less my own. Being in perpetual recovery is not my choice, but others making such a choice is absolutely not a problem or concern for me.

Also for many folk, there is nothing to recover from -- no illness, no alcoholism, no recovery required. They just quit, and get on with living. Again, no cringing from me with this either, and I celebrate their quitting drinking no less then my own.

When folks quit alcohol, for whatever reason - and they declare themselves happily quit, and they have personal experience with successfully quitting - I don't need anything more as evidence for me to happily celebrate their awesome achievement!

freshstart57

It seems that encountering a group of people who are secure, happy and content in their permanent, unconditional, never-drinking-again-buster sobriety is a new and uncomfortable experience for some visitors here. The transition from 'in recovery' to 'let's get on with this, then, shall we?' is not a part of everyone's experience. It is certainly not necessary for everyone, but it is for me.

I am grateful for each new opportunity to express my thoughts, values and experiences with secular recovery so that some newcomers might benefit from them. After all, that's why I'm here.

Onward!

Received

13 years "recovering", without drinking, thinking I had a disease and doomed.
5 year "relapse" cursing my "disease".
Coming here, learning about Rational Recovery/AVRT and making my BP "I will never drink again and never change my mind" ....priceless.

I am recovered and living large.

Morning Glory

Please remember that this is the Secular Connections Forum. One of the reasons that AA is off topic on this forum is so others from non-secular programs don't post their opinions and beliefs here and initiate debates. This is a safe place for like minded members to post about their secular approach to recovery.

Weasel1966

Fandy.... Very well said.

Jeni.... Thank you so very much. I feel a bit more like an adult these days. A lot has happened for me over the last year. A lot is on deck for the next. Things at home here are changing. I am getting the will and strength to make a really big change.

The biggest change in me is my sense of hope. Hope is much broader than it was a year ago.

Also, I am brighter if that makes any sense. Brighter in the way I am around people. It's like I am enjoying this and I am gonna take everyone I can along with me.

Anyway... Always good to see you!

GracieLou

This is me and I too do not want to make this mistake either.

Just as I take my recovery one day at a time I take this gift one day at a time. I am grateful and it keeps me humble.

I have it today, I may not have it tomorrow. I must apply this gift everyday and never take it for granted. This for me, is unconditional.

Fandy

Weasey! amen! (cafe Verona this am... ). thankfully you, me and many others share our hopefulness...not slapping others down, preaching doom and gloom.
we talk about how life has opened up, we are off our buttisimos, living, hoping, smiling.
that is my sobriety too.... (bring me a sammitch from a good deli in the city please)

ReadyAndAble

Such great stuff here. And "brighter" is such a great way to describe it, Ken. I feel exactly the same way. I think maybe the biggest reason is that now I feel so much better about myself, and that in turn makes me feel so much better about other people, the world, basically my whole life, even the tough parts.

Fallow

Wow Ken. What a fantastic post.

Are we left to dream where this was headed initially?

Was my AV born at first drink? First attempt to moderate? First attempt to quit?

Or another time?
Is there a way to silence the AV entirely?

DoubleBarrel

I got really sidetracked by this thread.

What I wanted to post, is that I can actually remember my AV coming online.

It was a distinct moment. The night it was born.

I was fifteen, and had already been experimenting with drugs and alcohol for a couple years.

I was drunk, and went into the bathroom at a house party, and when I looked up into the mirror, I spoke out loud, to myself. I almost didn't recognize my own face in the mirror. this sense of inebriation changed EVERYTHING. Thinking about it now, it was creepy, almost disembodied.

I don't remember what I said exactly, but I remember that I thought that this, this feeling, this high, was the GREATEST FEELING IN THE WORLD. I (or my AV) said that to my own reflection out loud.

And I really think that was where it was born.

I never EVER reached that fantastic level or feeling ever again, chasing after all those years, and the AV urging me onward to reach for it all along.

Finding a name for it, and recognizing it for what it is, has been a HUGE part of my recovery.

mecanix

It is possible to see this body and ego from a different perspective, one where although I exists, I can also be seen as unreal a learned identity .

When i look deeply i find i am built out of non i elements , i am my father and my mother and yet i am not the me who was 5 years old but in another way i am ....

From where i sit today the alcohol battle is over .. i could pick it up again but it would be a certain kind of crazy ..
i certainly don't see how it could fit with trying to be a compassionate and loving person ... It only seems to cause pain inside and out for me in exchange for a blackout ..

there wasn't much of a buzz to it at the end , more just a release , i used to have the first bottle within 10 mins then onto the next to get to that release , then i was on the edge of passing out ...

There is no AV here , sometimes when i think deeply there isn't even an I ...

Bestwishes, m