Greetings to all. I've been a member here for a few weeks, and always look forward to reading all the great things here. I'm hoping you all can share some of your experience strength and hope with me.
I got out of rehab 3 weeks ago today, and have 111 day behind me. I started trying to get sober about 5 years ago, and have been to rehab before. It took me hitting a very hard bottom to finally get me to the point I'm at today. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. This time just feels so much different than before, and I feel like I'm finally understanding the AA way of life. I love being sober today, and don't want to drink anymore. My problem is this...
I feel so good about myself and my sobriety. I have hope for the future. My life with my family is slowly starting to improve. I don't often have a desire to pick up, and when I do, it's usually gone before I know it. I remember that feeling of being on the "pink cloud" and feel that way today. In rehab they talk about the stages of recovery, with the wall stage coming next. I do remember hitting that wall about 80 days into my recovery, and how it felt. I don't feel that way much anymore.
Here's where my problem (or maybe it's not one) comes in. I worry that I shouldn't feel this good. I was told that it's hard to get and stay sober, but it does get easier with time. It all seems so easy to me right now. Don't get me wrong, I know what I have to do, and do it every day. I go to at least 4 or 5 meetings a week (and sometimes, every day), I have a great sponsor who is working the steps with me, I go to the after care program at the treatment center, and I'm not in the least bit afraid to pick up the phone and ask for help (I've already done it a time or two). I KNOW I have a disease that is incurable and fatal. I know that even as I sit and type this, it's getting worse (out there doing push ups again lol).
Someone in my home group last night said something to the effect that "the promises will start coming true half way through the 9th step". I feel like I'm already seeing some of those promises come true for me, and I'm not anywhere near step 9. I need to remember that this particular person has one of the biggest ego's I've ever seen in a person in or out of AA, and I've heard other comments from him about how long it takes for us to really start feeling good obout ourselves. He has a few 24 hours sober, and I really have to wonder if he's working the program, or "white knuckling" it. I love my home group, and always look forward to going to meeting. I'm learning to take what I can get, and leave the rest in most situations in and out of AA.
I don't look at this as being complancecy on my part. I know I have to go to meetings, I know I need the help and support of other AA's, and I know that I can never pick up another drink/drug again. I'm alright with all of that. I accept it, and am willing to go to any lenght to stay sober. Can it really be possible to feel this good, this early in my recovery? Is this my disease trying to trick me once again? I can't, and most of all DON'T want to drink again, and can't help but think that maybe I'm kidding myself about being where I'm at in my recovery. Any advice and experience wouls be welcomed. I'm going to sit down with my sponsor soon and talk to him about how I'm feeling. Maybe it's me once again trying to make a simple program too complicated.
Brian, I have been there, wondering about my happiness, and "waiting for the other shoe to drop".
Stop.
Stay in today. If you are happy today, then be happy! Do not worry about tomorrow. When tomorrow pops up and you are hitting that "wall", if you have been doing all the things you are doing now, you will get through it and be fine.
We can make ourselves miserable and paranoid by worrying about what is going to happen, when, how we are going to handle tomorrow's problems..... Never did us any good, and never will. When we are doing this, we are not trusting the process.
We are told over and over again we cannot think our way out of our present tendencies. We have to act. When I start worrying about this, I have a few words with myself. One of the things I think of is "Nope!!! Not today, negativity and worry!! Out of my house (brain)!!! Get out and stay out!!!!"
I try to laugh at worry too... helps a lot. Who the hell am I to predict and try to plan out ways of coping with stuff that hasn't even happened, and therefore is NO PART of REALITY TODAY???
Enjoy your happiness. There will be plenty of life's usual difficulties to come, and you will walk through them and learn from them. We get addicted to feeling "good", and we worry that someone or something will take our "good" away from us. Phony Baloney, as people get through hard stuff and still maintain the ability to feel some goodness. And so will you.
Stay in right now!! Today!!!
Joni
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
First I have to say I have never heard of that "Wall stage", and also have never experienced what others have had, a Pink Cloud. (Would imagine it to be a wall we crash into, when coming down from a Pink Cloud, but only guessing, will you tell me how the couselors describe that, very curious)
Working the Steps with your Sponsor, in order, slowly and diligently, and keeping a clear and bigger than life itself memory of your last drunk, and the bottom you described, and the gut wrenching pain that was there with it, is very important, at least it sure was for me. Or rather IS, still today. as the saying goes, if we forget our pasts, we are likely to Repeat them.
"Clean House, Trust God and Help another"
Perhaps looking for and finding a Prayer that humbles you, use it, and say it often. The Third Step Prayer, or any of the wonderful Prayers we will find, in the Big Book and well as the 12 x 12.
111 days is a lot of time to put together in that first year. 1/3 of you first year.
Hugs and please let us know how things are progressing. ok???
Toni
-- Edited by toni baloney on Saturday 25th of July 2009 06:53:18 PM
I have also heard that the promises only come true after the 9th step. With that said, I have seen people who have "worked" all 12 who are miserable. I have seen some people who don't have a sponsor and just go to 2 meetings a week that seem to be happy and have stayed sober. I don't know why what works for them or doesn't work for them is the way it is. I only have the knowledge of what works for me and what doesn't and that's really all I can share. The pink cloud thing comes and goes with me. I also have moments of ripping myself down because I am scared if I get too happy or think I am not all messed up still, I will wind up going out. I agree that being happy today is all the really matters and I wish I could follow that better and not project as they say. I do think that part of this happiness you are feeling is that the program is clicking for you now and you know it. You had years of knowing how the program works and now you are finally doing it the way it's supposed to be done. That might be why you are seeing and feeling fast results. Either way, it is good to be happy and it means you are doing something right for today. I heard someone say alcoholics are the only group of people that, when they find something that works, they stop doing it. I guess it's an innate self-sabotage gene or something. I am working on letting that go. I remain full of many fears and self-doubt myself. Hopefully we will both get better at staying in today, trusting our higher power, and just keeping it simple. The promises state things like we will no longer fear financial insecurity and we will gain interest in our fellows. Those things have happened for me already and I have not gotten to the 9th step. The promises also states if we are fearless in our recovery we will be amazed before we are halfway through (I'm not looking it up, but I think that's basically it). This could get into a crazy hairsplitting debate that will do nothing but drive me/us crazier than we already are. Halfway through? We are never through in AA so when would the promises happen? Before halfway through? If I take that literally, then the promises should come true prior to getting to step 6. Whatever. Recovery and the trajectories that we are all on are amorphous. AA works and that's all the matters right? Keep up the good work Reff. If you do hit a "wall" it's okay because you don't have to drink over it and that "wall" you might experience is still better than the wretched pain you've been through already right? Hence, you can be confident you will make it through whatever comes your way if you keep that frame of reference.
Mark
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Hello Brian!! I spent my first year soooo happy to be sober. I say enjoy it!! For me part of it was that I knew it was a miracle I wasn't drinking.
Some said things to me that made me feel that I shouldn't be feeling so good. Finally spoke with an old-timer who told me some of those comments were jealous comments or people not able to understand and that I was right where I was supposed to be.
Sounds like to me you're doing all the right things, so just keep it up.
Thanks to all who replied. When I think back to how I felt before I got sober, and compare it to how I feel now, it's no wonder I feel so good. You all hit the nail on the head. I need to take it one day at a time, and quit beating myself up for no reason. I spoke about it with a counselor last night in a meeting, and he said pretty much the same thing I've read here. I'm clean and sober today, and I'm going to enjoy it!!! After all, why should I try and make myself feel bad for feeling so good today, right? Thanks to all!
Just enjoy the moment and embrace it, one thing I was taught a long time ago, always stay with a feeling, for it will turn into another feeling. And hope your next feelings are just as good.
Sometimes well meaning AA old timers irritate me with all of this "pink cloud" or you're going to "hit a wall" stuff. I understand that their heart is in the right place and that they're speaking from experience but it's from their experience...maybe they had pink cloud moments and maybe they hit a wall but that doesn't mean that you or I will. I have often found myself infuriated by those who seem overly eager to tell me how I should be feeling or thinking.
It seems that over the years AA has evolved to include a lot of new philosophy, dogma, catch phrases and alleged wisdom that isn't a part of the program of recovery as outlined in the Big Book. I think that newcomers are often confused by the differences between the "Fellowship" and working the "Program" of recovery.
My guess is that your feeling exactly the way your supposed to. In fact the Big Book has a number of stories that talk about people having almost immediate and permanent changes once the obsession was removed. Listen to the Big Book and tell the people so willing to rain on your parade to save their cliches and anecdotes for bumper stickers.
