Sponsor lays down the cards...

Dodsworth · Senior Member

Sponsor lays down the cards...

cooncatbob · Senior Member

I was a pot smoking alcoholics, for me a beer and a joint went together like a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
I always felt that drinking was my problem, pot never caused me to get into trouble.
I got clean through an out patient program, one of the requirements we had to go to 12 step meeting.
A lady in the program didn't want to go to a meeting alone so I volunteered to go with her, since her problem was cocaine we went to a NA meeting.
Best decision I ever made.
I learned about the disease of addiction, that I get no recovery as long as I put any mind altering
substance into my body.
I mostly attend AA meetings now but remain forever grateful to NA.
Your sponsor is right if you aren't clean you aren't sober.

Phil · MIP Old Timer

(Smiling)

Howdy bud.

Some of us hafta get good and sick..before we surrender to the fact..that any mind altering drug will make the brain cells go a bit funny. :)...whether it booze, weed, or pills.

Your sponsor is simply saying..that he doesnt beleive that you are completely ready to surrender....so he is helping you along...to reach a bottom.

If the 20 is not enough...Ill send you another 20.

Been there...done that...and WE CARE.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Dods, what's stopping you from putting down the weed for 6 months to see what clean and sober could feel like?
In the first 2 years that I tried to get sober, most often it was drugs that I relapsed on, or went to after the first couple of drinks. It was then that I realized that I also had a drug problem and, like Bob, I began attending NA.
So I attended both AA and NA for the first 2 years or so. This really helped to get over my denial about drugs.

Frequently I'll hear an AA or NA member (usually a woman) talk about her boyfriend or the father of her child.
They will say something like "He is an occasional drug user, but nothing compared to my problem". Of course this person is relapsing regularly and doesn't "get it". The idea of "casual drug use" is absurd. Using drugs is simply using drugs and being a drug user is something that you have to hide from most people. If you're hiding, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. What kind of self esteem can we gather under those circumstances?
This is a program of honesty. "To thine own self be true". We have to be able to look that person in the mirror and admire them or we got nothing.

Put down the weed and give being clean and sober a try for 6 months. You've got nothing to lose, you can pick right back up where you started from with a lot of cash that you saved in the mean time. Your sponsor cares, he's just at the end of what he do for you, till you decide to walk all the way in the door. Read chapter 5 "how it works" http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_tableofcnt.cfm a few times and see if you hear a voice down deep saying "let's try and do this right".

Dean wink

-- Edited by StPeteDean at 13:47, 2008-09-01

Rosie · Senior Member

Hi Dod, A lot of times in meetings I have heard people talking unsober and the people all start to throw dollar bills at them.

Also I had a person in AA back 19 yrs ago talk to me and as he kept telling me about myself and my defects I kept interrupting saying "I know" "I know" "I know" and he finally said "NO!! you do NOT know!!!!"

I now get what he was saying and why he ended up so frustrated. I feel your sponsor is in the same boat as this man was.

Pot smoking is not being sober. Sober means more than putting down booze. It means sobering up your core feelings and changing in a spiritual way of being and actions in many ways and not to live outside or yourself like people do who use alcohol AND drugs.

The pot will not allow you to feel anymore than the booze. You may not have the terrible hangovers from pot but being strung out from it is the same thing. People who smoke pot do not allow themselves to stop smoking long enough to be strung out but if they go to quit it can be horrible.

I smoked pot a long long time ago (35 yrs ago) for about a year and saw it was not for me. Alcohol is my downfall. But I have seen and done enough to know how it affects people.

I feel you got a good sponsor there and if you really want to be sober then I would try to understand why he is doing this. He does not want you to drink. He wants to make you think and maybe do some shock treatment.

And telling you that you may NOT be an alcoholic is only a way to have you see for yourself that you are. Reverse psychology!

I know too many people who do drugs and say they are sober. There is no way! And those are the ones who make looking like putting down alcohol is so easy. It is just trading one drug for another or settling for just one over the other.

God bless and please listen to your sponsor. I know how stubborn I can be in all of this and it is my down fall also. Rosie

BGG · Senior Member

Hey Dods:

As long as I have Plan A (e.g., weed maintenance program), Plan B (e.g. "fire" my sponsor and get another), or Plan C (e.g. making my own decisions, since I'm "grown" and no one's going to tell me what to do), I've found that A.A. will not work for me.

Sounds to me like you've got a really good sponsor: one who understands the disease of alcoholism and has found "the way out." No matter what the substance is that we use (alcohol, weed, cocaine, speed, etc.--I used them all in my life), we cannot begin the process of recovery until we first concede to ourselves that we are powerless over all of them and cannot successfully use any of them in any form at all.

Like others have said, your sponsor is trying to get you to hit a bottom, because A.A. can't work for you until you do. Ask yourself: How is the "weed maintenance program" really working for you? Only you can really answer that question.

In the meantime, please keep coming back.

Love and Blessings,

B.G.G.

cooncatbob · Senior Member

My drug counselor told my group that he'd rather deal with a junkie or a skid row drunk then a marijuana addict.
Pot doesn't take you down to a hard bottom like a lot of other drugs do.
So Marijuana addicts have very strong case of denial, they think they can quit booze and other drugs but keep smoking pot. This is known in the recovery world as the marijuana maintenance program, it can work for a while but the addict is almost certain to return to other drugs and booze.
Why?? Because when you're stoned you can't get it.
What is "IT"??
It is "Recovery"

BGG · Senior Member

cooncatbob wrote:

the marijuana maintenance program, it can work for a while but the addict is almost certain to return to other drugs and booze.
Why?? Because when you're stoned you can't get it.
What is "IT"??
It is "Recovery"

Simple and perfect, cooncatbob. idea

Dodsworth · Senior Member

I know you guys are right. I guess I'm not upset at my sponsor, im frustrated because what he is suggesting might be, and probably is, true.

The paradox of alcoholism/addiction is confounding! I DON'T want to go back to the drinking lifestyle, but I cannot stay permanately sober unless I drink again. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one. I can either suffer on the verge of drinking, or i can drink like i was (like a drunk) and ruin my life, and then after THAT I can find the peace and willingness to put the drink down for good, but of course by then I would have let alcohol rob the vital years of my life. It seems like a lose-lose situation. I guess I'm not ready to be rational about this yet (hence the whining)..

Anyways, thanks everyone for your insight and wisdom.

-- Edited by Dodsworth at 00:05, 2008-09-02

Rosie · Senior Member

Hi Dod, I feel your sponsor has got you thinking and that is a good thing. It is scary when someone seems like they are pushing us to drink when we would usually be trying to fight against people telling us we need to sober up confused

I hope you can get that being sober is not just putting down substances but also about working on ourselves to self care and to change our ways of being on the earth.

Pot seems so innocent but it is just as lethal as booze. It is illegal and can ruin your life by being busted and it costs a fortune and keeps you in an unreal world. A very unsober unreal world.

That is what scares me is to be so checked out of life. That is really been scaring me of late and I feel that life at this time is extremely precious and that I have been very lucky that worse things have not happened while I was checked out.

I hope you can grasp this dear soul. I feel you are lucky to have such a sponsor who is willing to open your eyes this way. And it looks like you are really thinking and digesting what it all means biggrin

Take care Rosie

-- Edited by Rosie at 02:39, 2008-09-02

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Dodsworth wrote:

The paradox of alcoholism/addiction is confounding! I DON'T want to go back to the drinking lifestyle, but I cannot stay permanately sober unless I drink again. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one. I can either suffer on the verge of drinking, or i can drink like i was (like a drunk) and ruin my life, and then after THAT I can find the peace and willingness to put the drink down for good, but of course by then I would have let alcohol rob the vital years of my life. It seems like a lose-lose situation. I guess I'm not ready to be rational about this yet (hence the whining)..

Anyways, thanks everyone for your insight and wisdom.

-- Edited by Dodsworth at 00:05, 2008-09-02

Dodsworth,

I think that this has been said, but if it hasn't let me say it now. Nobody wants you to go and drink again. You don't have to drink again. You sponsor was symbolically trying to point out to you that if you don't think that this disease (which we assume that you believe that you have given your past experiences) kills people, ruins lives, ruins families. And that if you can't accept your powerlessness over the disease, then you may not have had your last drink. He was hoping to change your mind by, in a round about way that's contrivesial at best, by calling your bluff. In my opinion, he went to far.

Stick around, even if you have to employ the MJ mantainence program for a bit longer, till you're ready to let go of that. You just might need to find a new sponsor. The risk of going out and drinking again is that you may not make it back. There's a reason that you are here now. You didn't just open the wrong door one night

The fact that people are getting to AA much earlier (younger) now, then they did in the first 30 years of this program is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because many people are avoiding decades of pain, loss, and suffering. A curse because many more come in before receiving the gifts of desparation and willingness which leads them away in search of "an easier and softer way" which they later find out, though trial and error, that this Was the easier softer way, or not. I was one of those, came in at 27yo, floundered for about 2 years. I experienced pain,loss,suffering watched a couple of my friends die and go to prison, watched a couple more lose their mind (that's what scared me the most). I was on their path waiting my turn, meanwhile I was going to meetings and having periods of "sobriety". Really I was just dry and I wasn't "getting it".

One day enough perverbial black cards rolled out of my deck and I surrendered.
Fortunately I new where to go and what to do, but I had those opportunities previously. I just couldn't conceed to being powerless over alcohol, and admitting that my life was unmanageable. Over that period of time when I had one foot in the program I saw people changing for the better. I takes going to the same meetings for while to see this, but it was the proof that I needed. Stick around Dodsworth it get's better. I liked this saying when I first started coming to meetings- "Keep bringing the body and the mind will follow".
Keep coming back. wink

-- Edited by StPeteDean at 06:41, 2008-09-02

Dodsworth · Senior Member

Thanks Rosie.

Dean- I remember thinking awhile back that in an alcoholically logical way (tongue twister) it has been a curse of sorts to have such a quick fall...Yeah, I've lost some friends, been to jail, been to the hospital, been to rehab, failed out of school and yet those losses are still not as big as what many others experience, so part of me wishes I had not found AA when I did, that somehow i would have kept drinking which would have brought me to a more definitive low point...but i digress..I'm thinking too much about this again... You said you found AA when you were 27 and you weren't serious for another 2 years...that is how i feel. I started classes today...the stress and doubt over my ability to be a responsible student is strong...Oh man, I am not looking forward to Friday night like the rest of my college mates...they will mostly be drinking with impunity and i will be white-knuckling the whole weekend...aargg...I think I will start going to many more meetings now that Im alone again in my apartment and back in school. Thanks Dean for your thoughts...much appreciated!

ps--i will say one thing: since i quit drinking, sad bluegrass/country sounds good!! I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not...ah well ;)

Dods

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Hi Dods,
thanks for returning to your thread. I actually was serious about getting sober at 27, I just didn't think that I had to follow directions (never had up until that point). I didn't think that I was as sick as most of the people that I saw in the meetings probably because I was a bit younger. I thought that I could do it my way and lead sort of a dual life keeping most of my old friends and hangouts. It was amazing, looking back, at how many times I failed before I got tired (youth). A series of unfortunate incidents helped me to realize that I really needed to get sober and that I was now willing to do whatever it took. Text book I know, but what can I say, I turned out to be just a garden variety alcoholic. The good news is that the stigma about excepting that label turns from one of
remorse to one of gratitude in not too long of a time. Being a recovering person is something you can take pride in. Btw, I've been a bluegrass fan most of my life, growing up in the great state of Virginia.

Keep posting and let us know how you're doing.

Dodsworth · Senior Member

Dean- I think what you said about accepting the label of garden variety alcoholic was crucial, and is something I haven't done yet.

I went to the bluegrass festival in Galax a few years back. I'm in southern Indiana, so plenty of bluegrass here as well! You should check out the Bill Monroe bluegrass festival if your ever in Indiana :)

Thanks

Dods

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Galax has been have festivals since at least the 70's. They had one in '76 that was bigger than woodstock. I building a mountain home about 45 min. away from there, in Boone, NC. There is a lot of bluegrass music and festivals in that area as well. Doc Watson is one of my neighbors Cove Creek NC

-- Edited by StPeteDean at 06:51, 2008-09-03