Hey Dods

I know when people I'm working with are serious when they start walking it and stop talking it.  I can tell people all day long what I'm going to do and why, but until I start doing it, well ....

One of the first thing I was asked by my sponsor was "are you willing to go to any lengths to get sober?".  I was and still am.

Pray for willingness.

Hugs!!

 

Hey Dods,
Just show him. Trust in your HP and follow the program. You and your HP can do it!!

Dods, I for one applaud you saying "I'm done." I hope this means "I raise the white flag and surrender fully." Your posts over the last few weeks had me really concerned about you. Not judging at all...believe me. This last bottom can be the last one. Anyhow, you have been around this program long enough to know that you really can only hang on to today. You have "it" today. I have only ran into 1 or 2 people that have stated when they decided they were "done" they were just so done and it was like God came down and lifted the urge to drink forever more on that day. I will say I had that to a degree, but every now and then a reservation or screwy thought about alcohol (or honestly even drugs though they were not my real downfall) will hit. Either way, the majority of people do not get sober on the first go round and you would be one of very few to actually do this in your 20's. Remember Adam, these people you think might be judging you are all alcoholics too. We all (including me) have lived that life for a long time. Most of us did it for longer than you. At 26 I was fully dependent on my parents financially, I binge drank all the time and was so irresponsible. Imagine going on and being that same way at 36. That is really not pretty...it wasn't pretty. ALL of my "normal" friends had moved on, started families, progressed in their jobs, while I was busy being too scared to grow up and being reckless. I guess the only point I'm making is that where you have been is where we have all been and I wouldn't wish you to keep it up and suffer the consequences of being an active alcoholic into your 30s or 40s like most of us. This is your shot to avoid all of that and have a longer and happier sobriety than most. You aren't doing this so much to make up for the past as you are to have a life in the future. It is scary to step up to the plate and be ready for change and to be responsible, but you need to do it to have that life you deserve. You know that. Go after it with every bit of energy you have, even when you dont have much energy. Praying for you. Also...the minute you start that day count again, You ARE one of us Soberheads. You are no different so try to stop worrying what they all think of you and just do the next right thing. It's your life, not theirs.

Mark

Hi There,

Good to see you climbing back on the Horse. In Silence, and with Prayer, this entire journey is an "Inside Job" Yes other can help for sure, but it is really between you and your Higher Power. Gain that confidence, and then let nothing get in between you and your Higher Power, and dont allow anything to be in front of your Sobriety, you HP has the Power to show you how to do that.

I was a chronic relapser too, and it was in the Stillness with my Higher Power that I choose to call God, is where it really began.

Maybe I was wrong about this, but at times I would feel that others were thinking, "Lets see how long she goes this time".

I will never know is that was true, or only in my fears, and believe me, I had a truckload of those fears. I also had a very healthy and very scarey fear of this not working my own self, but I just kept asking God on a daily basis, sometimes hourly to help me not drink, just in the day I was in. And it worked. The difference I believe came from the Gift of Desperation, and my HP took me in His Hands, and did not drop me ever.

As Jerry Rubin use to say, "Just DO IT!!" I had that book on my shelve when in early recovery, and with the war paint on his face, and bandana, I could so relate. Jerry Rubin was a radical with the movement of the SDS, from the 70s, so you probably don't know who he is/was then.

Lots of Love and Hugs to you, Baloneycakes

PS. About your Post Title, my thinking is that this is the GOOD NEWS!!!
God Bless you dear, these stuggles do actually turn into a Positive down the road
aways, very good learning tools, for what never to repeat, at least that is how I
use them.

-- Edited by toni baloney on Saturday 25th of July 2009 06:59:56 PM

Dodsworth wrote:

---

gosh- i thank you all for the ESH. But, truth be told..I am drunk as a bat and i dont know why. I JUST got through the worst withdrawals of my life and a "friend" showed up with a case of beer literally. I struggled with that for about an hour....took a shower, washed my face...etc....but i drank regardless..

I kinda figured that by the number of mispelled word in your original post.  Dods, if you want to get sober it would be a good idea to pray for willingness.  You're not using the tools of the program.  When this "friend" showed up and you didn't have the ability to tell him to go away, you struggled with the decision whether to drink or not for awhile.  That's the time to call your sponsor or other sober friends and tell them that you are thinking about drinking.  You tend to call after you drank, which is sort of a "have your cake and eat it too" way of doing what you want (drinking) and then soliciting sympathy for it afterward.  Yes you are a poor pittyful drunk, ok does that help?

Right now you appear to still have a few things going for you like a place to live.  It's amazing how rapidly the willingness increases when a person is out on the street, with no job, no money, no food, no car, driver's license....    We all see those homeless people and wonder how they got there.  That's what's waiting for us.  If you look closely you'll see that these street dwellers don't appear to be too mentally healthy either.  That's what got my attention, when I realized that I was losing my mind.  Once your mind is gone, recovery is probably not be an option any longer.  It says that right in chapter 5.

I too used AA like a life preserver  between drunks.  I've compared it to a base runner at first base in baseball that's trying to steal 2nd base (getting drunk) and continually diving back to first base (AA) before the pitch out (insanity, jails, and death).  Every time that I went back to AA, the pressure from family, boss, wife etc... let off and of course AA welcomed me back, but I was using them to mood alter as well.  I'd go in there and whine about my problems for awhile then go out and drink again.   Deep down I had no real intention of getting sober, as evidenced by my actions.  I wasn't honest  enough to admit that to myself or anyone else, it just manifested itself as a deep down and heavy feeling of shame.  Shame that I was failing at what seemed like the lowest level task, that I was the worst of the drunks that were trying to get sober.  I suddenly realized that I was sicker than most, when all along I thought I was better than most that I saw in the meetings.  This illusion was perpetrated by how beat up a lot of them were and I hadn't seen a lot of Yets yet, but they were just up the road for me.  Thank God that I wised up just in time and gave up the idea of stealing second base.

Dods,  take some time and map out on paper, your future if you continue to drink, and then do the same thing with getting sober.  Try and wrap your mind around the fact that you're not just floating in the sea of mediocrity,  but that your ship is leaking and you're in the dead sea.  Your destiny has been delayed by the enablers (the crew of your ship).  Our immature thinking wants to believe that this situation will continue indefinetely if we keep making motions toward recovery but you can only cry wolf so many times.  Your "crew" is now boarding the life boat and you're still on the good ship partytime.  Get on the life boat and hang up your baseball cleats.

 

"By the Grace of God/Higher Power..."

I'll keep you in my prayers Dods.