tricky164

Good luck with that !!

mumbai78

I didn't even consider working the program until my second year of sobriety.

It is true that a lot of people that bash AA have not really worked the Steps. They don't want to actually. What they truly want is a constant pat on the back - love and support is what they call it these days - so every time they relapse they can walk to a meeting and have people reassure them that all will be fine. Take a hard line with them and ask them to the work the steps and they walk away claiming that AA is useless.

yeahgr8

Isn't that the truth, it's all about fear of doing step 4...and of course the greatest excuse to keep going out, refusing to accept the concept of a HP! And also the amount of people actually in the meetings who have not had a drink for years and years who haven't done the steps....i know one with 20 years?! Their shares are always doom and gloom and their lives are totally unmanageable still, all that is missing is a glass in their hands! It's a hell of a motivation for newcomers to have people like that in the rooms though...i'm sure there are a few in every room, real shame...one day hopefully they will get it though:-)

coldhouse

I like that. It reminds me of something someone at a meeting told me "maybe your life isn't [U]so[U][U] bad, but could it be BETTER without alcohol. Wouldn't you like freedom"

kelsh

Hi Pilgrim,

Your experiences with sobriety sound simular to mine. I concentrated on living sober, working & my 12 year old daughter the first year of my sobriety. Then I went back to college to get my BA Degree in Psychology. I went on to get a good job & life was beginning to feel like I always thought it should.

I still deal with depression but that is a life long problem first diagnosed when I was a teen. I have a doc, psychiatrist for med management, & a counselor if I need to see her. All three of them work together when I get a so called "Melt Down".

AA helped me in all aspects of my life by taking what I felt would work for me to put with my other tools I had picked up over the years. I did a lot of work researching my depression & alcoholism ( family predispositioned) & the meds for my depression on the Internet.

I actually knew more about me & my diseases than my doc did at times...It was my body....& soul....which is different but yet somewhat the same as others that struggle with alcoholism & depression/anxiety....the alcohol just made everything else worse.

I admire any & all people that try to get sober & stay sober...some don't make it...one day at a time works best for me.

kelsh

jgull2010

There are a lot of ways to achieve sobriety. Recovery involves much more than just not drinking/using. Throughout our using careers we developed a lot of self defense type mechanisms that appeared useful at the time but ultimately turned out to be self defeating when we got sober. We need to -recover- our own selves as much as just not drink.

Once addicted, always addicted. It might be possible for medical science to come up with a "cure" someday but I personally am not going to wait around for it! Abstinence is my only answer for the physical addiction. To manage my spiritual self I use meditation and focus on others rather than myself.

As others have noted, arguing about a specific recovery program doesn't help but actually harms us. We need to let go of our pride, arrogance, and attempt to control as well as our fear. It is easy for me to be humble when I compare my sober self to the drunken, senseless fool who could not control his drinking. I'm only one drink away from that fool, every day.

J.