On Monday I realised I had a drink problem and decided to stop drinking, which I did happily on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday I went to my first AA meeting, which was ok.
I spent the rest of the week absolutely committed, calm and happy about my decision. I felt great, and had absolutely no (ok, only the tiniest) desire to drink. If it crossed my mind I didn't even have to try to convince myself that I didn't want to drink, the thought occurred completely naturally. I went to another AA meeting on Friday, which I quite enjoyed.
The problem started about then. At this meeting my friend bought me the Big Book. She said, "Read this, and if you find yourself really identifying with at least 3 things in it, going "Yes, this is me, I feel like that", then you're an alcoholic, and in the right place."
So today, I started reading the Big Book. And I didn't identify with three things. I barely identified with anything, and the vast majority of it I can't really identify with at all. And I'm quite upset! Suddenly I've lost that sense of certainty that came with knowing I had a problem. Now I'm doubting it all, and wondering whether I really do have a problem after all or whether I'm making a mountain out of a molehill (wouldn't be the first time).
I should say that I am not a hopeless alcoholic, more of a nascent one. I only have a problem with red wine, which I drink far too much. I just wouldn't drink pints of beer past the point where I was a bit drunk. I dislike spirits, and if it were only spirits in the world, I don't think I would drink at all. I don't drink in the mornings or at work. I get no physical effects from stopping drinking.
I should also say that I am an atheist. I don't have a problem with other people believing in God, but I really do have a problem with any kind of programme that tries to make me accept that there is a God - and personally I believe a "higher power" to be just as much of a fiction as God (sorry, I hope I don't offend). This I think was central to my dis-indentification with the Big Book. It says that the only way to beat alcoholism is to accept this "power", and to hand our lives over to him, and there is no way I can do this.
So, paradoxically, AA literature has come close to convincing me that (a) I don't really have a problem, and (b) I cannot ever do AA, the steps and everything, because I am unable to accept their views on a higher power.
But I want to do this. I believe AA works, and want it to work with me. But I'm really confused, and would appreciate your thoughts and advice.
Hi Chickpea, and welcome to our board. Your friend shouldn't have told you what she did. There is only one requirement in AA and that is "to have a desire to stop drinking". That's it. No dues, fees, beliefs, come when you want, leave when you want. There are only suggestions and everybody does it slightly differently and their own pace. AA is full of atheists and agnostics and they stay sober and are happy. Keep in mind that the big book was written about 60 years ago when most people went to church and had a faith. The main reason that a HP is suggested in the steps is to get the recovering person out of themselves, not only for reasons of faith in other things outside of their own head, but also to have a place to put place fear and circumstances over which we have not control over (which is most everything except for ourselves). At this point you need only focus on the first step. When you drank your wine, did you experience consequences that would've otherwise been avoidable? We don't come skipping and hopping in here because we just won the lottery and decide to go on a health kick, like eliminating fat from a diet. Easy does it and one day at a time, we stay sober and our lives become manageable and we experience a new freedom. Here's "the promises" in the big book that are roughly after step 9 in the book.
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not.
They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
They will always materialize if we work for them.
Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84
-- Edited by StPeteDean on Saturday 25th of April 2009 05:37:30 PM
Welcome to MIP, Chickpea. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Thank God for this for me as I came in with a wonderfully strong desire & conviction to stop & thought that this itself would be enough. As time went on & I slipped four times in two months I realised that there was more to stopping that at first there seemed & that it wasn't as easy for me as I'd previously assumed.
Like you, I was what we call a highbottom drunk. I hadn't lost a lot, besides my self respect, dignity, friendships & maturity but then there also was so much I hadn't gained either like academic success, driving skills, a happy home & family. My bottom was spiritual, mental & emotional & hadn't got much worse physically than the occasional horrendous hangover. I was suffering with an alcohol induced depression & was simply just used to hangovers which I feel I was able to deal with through youthful health & resilience.
There's so much to my story I won't share right now but suffice to say I discovered I couldn't stay stopped on my own & I did identify that I couldn't control the amount I drank once I started. With these I was well on my way to realising that though there was a lot of places my drinking hadn't taken me I knew that here was the potential for my drinking to progress & worsen as I heard had happened with so many others. I was grateful that I hadn't done some of these 'yets' & I allowed myself to learn from the experiences of others.
I didn't understand the BB at first, the way it's written, the content, all the seeming highvoluted theology but with time it started to filter through & as my recovery lengthened & deepened so did my understanding of the significance of what is written. I do BB study meetings which has helped tremendously. Maybe our mutual friend tried to say something to you that can take a lot of us quite some time to understand. I resisted a lot in the BB as I wasn't identifying with it but 2.5yrs on & it has become so relevant to me. I'm now able to help others to understand it too.
The driving force for me has been my unyielding desire to stop drinking. If this is still true for you, hold your seat in the rooms & simply listen to the stories you'll hear. Though there may be many you may not identify with you will still gain much inspiration to stay stopped too. If this is what you want.
I've heard it said that the 'God' bit may push members out of the rooms but alcohol will push them back in. It may be your own experience that teaches you the meanings of what you will read & hear. No one will tell you if you're alcoholic. That is for you to decide. If you have an honest desire not to drink you deserve A.A. as much as anyone else. I hope this helps. Keep coming back & sharing where you're at. You're most welcome here too, Danielle x
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Progress not perfection.. & Practice makes Progress!
I can relate to what you are saying. I had the same question, I posted a topic "stuck on step 1." On March 1, 2009, I quit drinking. I didn't go to my first AA meeting for over a month after that, but I didn't drink. I struggled with wheather or not I am an alcoholic. I know now that I am. I'm new to this, but I know that all of our experiences with drinking and sobriety will be different. I didn't do the 90/90, there are some people that would not have made it without the 90/90. There are many atheists in AA, I don't think that I would be able to stay sober without God. We are all different, I think the Big Book is just a guideline, not written in stone, and I have to admit, I've only read parts of it. Usually when I have a question and someone here says read chapter so and so.
At first at the meetings, I was so uncomfortable, and at times I still am. All the readings we do at the begining and everything, I just don't get that. It's not reading the 12 steps in a meeting, or the big book that will keep us sober,although they may be important, it's the desire not to drink. That's what most of us have in common here. If I look to God to help keep me sober, that's OK. I have a friend that keeps a picture of his kids in his truck, when he think of drinking, he looks at them and knows what is important. I know people that keep their "chip in their pocket with their money. If they go to buy alcohol, they see the chip and that reminds them.
People's reasons for not drinking can be as different as their excuses they used for drinking. It is really whatever works for you.
I remember doing all of that "thinking" and shaking my head sideways. I did it for a very long time. I spent alot of time looking at why I was different (without knowing what the word denial was and how it pertained) than the poor drunks around me. I didn't arrive at the early acceptance you have here...the acceptance that you would want to stop doing "your drinking" regardless of what it may cost you or "require" you to do. It's too early yet. If you are concerned about your drinking that is enough for you to hang around and meet with those who were also concerned and learned how to arrest the drinking and the concern. You are in the right place for the right reason. Get to the other questions later. Go to your meetings and sit inside the circle, then keep a wide open mind. As the meeting goes on "Take what you like...what fits for you now and leave the rest for some other time." This is not a rush recovery. I've been around it for a very long time. I haven't drank or used any "party" substances to get outside of myself and the planet. I am not an athiest however the family I was born and raised in and practiced a mutual religion thinks I've been blasted into another dimension on that point. We got slogans..."Easy does it", "One day at a time", "Let go and Let...something bigger than you or a bottle of your red wine take over", "This too will pass", and more. The entire program is supportive of recovery, sobriety, a much better and happier way of living. AA can take you much much farther away from red wine. I was a "spirits person. I use to love ordering a "Tangurey on the rocks with an olive and an onion" (a drink and a salad) LOL. My very first introduction to something more powerful than God was a glass of Portugese Red. The perfect key to my lurking addiction. I was 9 years old at the time. Soooo harmless, just a small glass of Portugese Red. Go figure!!
Keep coming back (another slogan) this works when your work it. You already know that. (((((hugs)))))
Something I forgot when I was all miserable last night was all the times I've talked to alcoholics, at meetings and among my friends, and identified completely with them. No, I didn't identify much with the Big Book, but I think that was largely the God thing. I think I am one of the lucky ones who has realised that I have a problem before it gets really bad. It is comforting to know that AA can still be for me.
I think what I need is a sponsor, and perhaps to really get my teeth into step one. I want that certainty back, and I am determined to keep going to AA. Apart from anything else, I enjoy it, and I like the people I meet there (and have met here!).
I was fearful AA would be full of what I thought were "God freaks" at earlier stages of my life. I would have agreed that religion is the opiate of the masses, started almost all wars...that is is really a refuge for simple minded and scared people to find their values because they can't find any other reason to be good or do the right thing on a daily basis. I still agree with some of that. Thankfully, nobody has ever pressured me to believe in THEIR God at an AA meeting. I also never heard the word Jesus either. Higher power only means something larger than ourselves. If you identify with the people in AA, then that can be your higher power. That is why they say God for some people = the Group Of Drunks (yeah I heard it said like 50 times before I was like "Hey that spells God!") funny. Same thing with Good Orderly Direction. It's a lifestyle of sobriety that I want. My mind was open though and I wanted wonderful and beautiful things to happen to me after a period of so much intense suffering. In that aspect, I have seen AA work what I might call "miracles" in my life. As those stack up, my faith grows. I can't always say what exactly my faith is in. Sometimes it is still the Group of Drunks, sometimes it is that AA has given me Good Orderly Direction so I know it works in that way, and as time goes by it is slowly turning more into a "somebody must be looking out for me" kind of thing....which would be a more standard view of God. I used to think I would need to see Jesus or God and for him to come up to me all glowing and be like "Mark...Believe in me...You're all wrong about this agnostic thing." Now I'm a little more convinced and open to a broader idea of God working through people to help me and flowing through me to help others. That may just be the brighter side of human nature and not God per say, but either way, I think it's pretty divine.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
You sound like me, many years ago, the Big Book and those Steps on the Board ALL might as well been in Greek, I did not understand any of it. And I KNEW I had a major problem with Alcohol.
And that surrending of one's will, that was a real problem for me. Once in a therapy session, I mentioned to my Therapist that i was beginning AA, for my drinking, and her words to me were confusing. She said I think you are going to have a very difficult time in AA. and of course I asked her why she commented like that. (Dont mean to go off topic here) But for some of us, and where we came from the only way we survived was by sheer will, and to give that UP, well no small task.
And so she was so corrent, I continued my drinking for several years after that, and I was definitely NOT what you might call a high-bottom case.
But throught that incomrehensible demoralization, came a desire to Live, and not die of this Disease.
If you enjoy the meetings, please continue to go, and what another said is so true, The only requirement for membership is a desire to quit drinking. Think about that, nothing else matters for now, and in time you might begin to feel like part of that meeting, and getting to know other there.
Oops, just hit the wrong button, so i had to come back to finish.
Just hope to see you here again, and certainly hope that your feelings of not "getting" the Big Book, and the Steps, will not deter you from what else is there in those meetings.
Wishing you the very Best Toni
-- Edited by toni baloney on Sunday 26th of April 2009 12:07:42 PM
Thanks for sharing. There is an AA pamplet called 44 questions which can sometimes help you determine if you are alcoholic. Maybe it is online somewhere.
Chances are you came into the rooms for a good reason.
I to had a problem with God when I came in, they said bring the body and the mind will follow. Keep comming back!
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
