The importance of maintenance. Fortitude In praising their success with AA, people sometimes overlook the importance of maintenance. AA not only helps us achieve sobriety, but it can also help us maintain our sobriety for a lifetime. Members often touch on this matter when they admit that they were able to sober up hundreds of times, but didn't know how to stay sober. It is staying sober that makes all the difference between life and death for us. Our tools for staying sober___ for maintaining our sobriety___ are the simple ones that put us back on our feet in the first place. We continue to admit that we're alcoholics and need the help of fellow members and our Higher Power. We also continue to attend meetings and to carry the message. We remind ourselves that we're never out of the woods permanently, no matter how much our lives improve. I'll take the routine steps today that are needed for the maintenance of my sobriety. Doing this will help protect me from the terrible consequences of returning to drinking.
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. "
Ooohhh did I need to remind myself of this today. With the days being shorter and colder the last thing I want to do is go to a meeting! Im happy all curled up after dinner watching tv with my family. But for me, getting away from meetings, isolating and just generally feeling lazy can be life threatening! Ive seen and heard it a gazillion times how people forget to "maintain" their sobriety and are back out there!
I never want to have to go to my "first" meeting again!
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. "
Shorter days, colder nights, brrrrrrr. Im comfy on the couch with a hot tea watching my favorite TV show. Aint no way I wanna go out to a meeting, but sometimes I do. steps 10, 11 and 12 are the maintainence steps for me. the ones that tell me I need to 'keep on truckin' !! I pray I never, ever forget what it was like to be at my first meeting.
woweeeee....... did I ever benefit from THIS post!! I like the language of it, no fluff about it... "the routine maintenance" is about it right now for this cookie. Routine being the operative word. Thank God for that routine, or I would be sunk. It is the staying sober that I have always had the problem with! And going back out over and over again is how we die, if we keep doing it. Plain and simple.
I can whine and complain all I want about the weather, my headaches and aches and pains, and everything else under the sun... but when it comes down to it, I trudged through 4 feet of snow to get "what I needed" back in the day, so who the hell I think I am complaining about the weather when it is time for a meeting is beyond me.
I went to a meeting Saturday morning. The lead was sooo emotional and heartfelt, and yet I felt nothing. But this too shall pass, and I know I need to keep going no matter how I FEEEEL, even if my ass falls off. (and it is getting pretty saggy these days...)
This post was a nice whack upside the head for me, of which I currently need. (correction, I OFTEN need...)
Joni
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
