Hello Dwallace and welcome to the board. I felt the same way that you do about HP not having power over my life or a plan. I'll elaborate on this tomorrow (it's late). Great attitude btw for not beating yourself up over your minor setback. Be kind to yourself, your childhood sounds a lot like mine and it's not fun to think about sometimes.

Dean

Aloha DW...  Good thing you had the 12 years before the relapse huh?  Have you
wondered where you'd be right now if you were opening up the door to the 1st
step?

I read your post like if I were saying it to my sponsors past.  I was happy to be
told that alcoholism is not a Moral issue.  At that time both my exspouse and I
were very well wrapped up in the disease.  I thought she was bad and didn't
drink right just to hurt me.   Blah!!  I was wrong....Good!!

The God issue and the issues with God were all about sanity for me.  I was pretty
well screwed up in the mental department, couldn't see the forest for the trees or
the up from the down.   I didn't know...and I didn't know that I didn't know so I
was nursery or pre-school material.  It took me 5 years of program and college
courses in order to get a hold of information I could hold on to and trust in before
I went to work on the steps for real.  The last word of the 2nd step for me was
key to my condition before I even understood what my condition was.   "Lead me
to Sanity" mean't helped me find the doors of recovery and that process was this;

I tried to get a hold of "Help in Emotional Problems" and they put me on hold,  I
next tried the "Suicide Prevention" emergency number...they were all at lunch.
I next found myself looking at the hotline number for the Al-Anon Family Groups,
had no idea how I got there, had tried 2 meetings months before and pretty
much destroyed both and I got someone in the program that told me not to hang
up because my life would depend on the information she could pass to me.  I
got the "rational", "helping" support from someone I would never meeting
recovery put there by HP and now it was up to me to do for me what I could and
would do for myself.  There wasn't anything left in the house for me to drink and
I was too fearful of missing the meeting the next night so I didn't drink and chose
to go to the meeting.  I didn't destroy that one and I didn't drink so I sat down,
listened, kept an open mind and tried to act sane.  I faked the sane part but pretty
much everyone there knew I was trying to do something I wasn't good at.  I
was born and raised Catholic...In my 37 years of Catholicism I had a God but
never a power greater than myself.  I was crazy and a catholic and an alcoholic
and much more but crazy.  I needed a power greater than Jerry F and his perception
of God to lead me to sanity and I got led there.  It took me years to embrace
sanity or even find a workable definition of sanity "The continuous, orderly, process
of thought"  W O R K; forcible and intentional.  

I learned and accepted that I had/have never out ran God and I ran like the wind
of a tropical storm and when I was all blown out and stopped I felt a gentle bump
on my back and that is when my HP caught up.  Ever so close and never asked
for.  I wasn't in the practice of asking my HP for the right thing so how could I hold
God responsible for me choosing and getting the wrong thing.

When it comes to this disease I don't ever take myself soooo seriously.  Today I
network mostly with relapsers for just the reason you sound confused.  It sounds
like you take the good work you did in the past as a reason you cannot ever get
tripped up.  When you've heard that this disease is cunning, powerful and baffling
that needs to be taken seriously.   Your relapse drinking sounded like one of my
last relapses smoking.  Yes it surprised me how fast I accepted that cigar from one
of my AA buddies who was trying to stop himself but I was surprised for only a
micro second and then I went about doing everything but eating that cigar knowing
"for this I'm responsible".  I didn't hear God complaining or saying God was not
pleased with me.  God hasn't or should I say couldn't get through to me when I
was in my addictions.  That relationship is part of the cunning...I will involve myself
in and with something in spite of my awareness and experience.  I went past the
part of saying NO...to the part of saying Howdy!.  I know how to say Howdy to
alcohol I learned it way before I got to AA, I started at nine and practiced it well
all phases of it and when I drink I am doing something normal for an alcoholic and
nothing takes a seat before the bottle NOT EVEN GOD...GOD IS IN THE BOTTLE!!

The God of my understanding...the new one, the old one, the one who has evolved
between old and new, will not do for me what I won't do for myself.   When I asked
for the compulsion to be lifted it was lifted then and since then I have to keeping
doing what I need to do to keep the compulsion at rest.  I have never lost it and I
have never drank again even when I am aware that alcohol always presents
itself to me as something I can conquer eventually.  God has found me a person
to talk to on the phone who led me to a meeting and the literature and the people
and the serenity prayer and everything else and my part is.....?

Reading your post leads me to believe that for the briefest of time you said yes
and the disease had another AHA!!   Your 12 years isn't the 19 year relapse that
resulted in a funeral of one of our past members.  It doesn't matter...That you
found the extra power or higher power to stop and come back here, hurt, confused
resentful and whatever to look around for missing pieces, more help, greater or
higher power so that your prior twelve years will go on is what matters.

My God, My Higher Power showed up at the morning AA meeting in the form of
one member pouring out a brand new, freshly uncapped, bottle of vodka while
30 other drunks at the meeting had their own private reactions.  I held my breath
and thought the scene was insane, surrealistic, unimaginable for me (I've never
poured one out or thrown one away.  Although convinced I will never beat
alcohol I never stopped because I've had enough.  There was never enough and
maybe you have that part of the disease that some alcoholics still have, like me,
the thought regardless of how tempered, that there will come a day when I might
drink like other men even though it has almost taken my life.   Maybe.  Maybe you
are wrong about Higher Power or not as convinced or have never surrendered or
abandoned yourself.  Maybe you were the "There will come a time" man and the
time came for you and you said yes in spite of all you know and have experienced.
Maybe.   I can tell you this, just for me and without attempting the role of a most
arrogant, spiteful, asshole I used to be, that you have come back in from a relapse
is the love of HP working in the life of JerryF.  Your journey back in is sponsorship
for me and you have one third the time I have.   Time isn't anything for us who
choose to live one day at a time.  Years of continuous sobriety speaks alot for
creating the habit of not drinking but it says nothing about the same amount of
time the disease lurks and it does lurk.

God has always been there for me.  I know that.  I accept that.  I don't have to
do God's part of my sobriety.  I have to do my own.  Those times when beyond
my own awareness of need and beyond my own ability to respond to crises that
the crises didn't take me (I didn't say happen) I know I was awarded extra and
higher power and I choose to call that God or in the culture I embrace Akua.  In
all of the times I had the awareness and the ability and the opportunity and didn't
do my part that has nothing to do with God or no God.  I made a bad choice, I've
done it before and since and the chances are I will make poor choices again.
With more practice of this program the chances for that get less and not impossible.

This is long and your post was inviting and encouraging for me.  I would like to tell
you about the spiritual response I got when I relapsed suddenly the last time on
smoking.  It took me by so much surprise like yours took you that when I sat in
my next meeting and reflected on how very fast I was subdued this thought arose.
"I'm glad that wasn't a Tangeuray on the rocks with an olive and an onion." 

Maybe the sanity at the end of the 2nd step is gratitude that you get another
run at sobriety and another 12th step (besides the one you've done with me)
and that the 12 years you've done already are good years and that even if you
haven't known your HP you haven't out distanced your HP.

From my lessons on faith, in recovery, "Faith is not so much believing without
seeing but accepting without reservation."

I am grateful you have shared your recovery here where I can do something
with it.  I get to stay sane.  I believe you are an instrument of my HP.

JerryF  

I read your post over and over again last night. One experience that I had that probably came close to yours was when I was 18months sober(dry drunk). I had hit a bottom in recovery. I too was sponsoring and also had a sponsor. I was attending AA meetings and skimming through the Big Book. I probably was attending about 2 to 3 meetings a day at this time. Of course I thought that I was on the right track until the bottom fell out. I was having all kinds of problems that i kept to myself and did not know how to solve them. I did not drink but i hit an emotional,spiritual, mentally and physically bottom in recovery. I found out that I never took Step 1. The mental obsession and the physical allergy is what makes us powerless. I had overlooked "that our lives had become unmanageable" part. Now I am aware "unmanageable" is part of step 1. With a sponsor and step study meetings, I was able to understand and accept Step 1 wholeheartedly.Then I moved on to step 2. I came to believe in my sponsor, the fellowship which I considered as a "Power greater than ourselves" at that time. Later on in the process of working the steps, I found a power greater than my sponsor and the fellowship. That Power is God. I appreciate you sharing your story. You have helped me in my recovery. Keep Coming Back. Keep It Simple.

Howdy bud...

Youre not alone...

This shit is cunning baffling and powerful...and I beleive that, that little monkey sits on our shoulder...It doesnt matter if one has been sober 30 days, or 30 years..

And they are right..when they say that resentment of any kind is the number one killer..

I was sober 22 years..and pissed off with myself and a few things that were just not going my way..and was still trying to control it all..

Consequence?

I pulled into a beer store one day and went for a country drive with a six pack..and that started a spree...

Hard to give up to some kind of a Higher Power..
For some of us..and its still the same way..Some days I can..some days I cant..

But..

I sure as hell know what the consequences are..if I dont..

Another Day..Keep smilin!!

thanks Phil. It is nice to know others have HP issues even after working the steps, repeatedly. I just don't hear that, well ever, from my local groups. Great people I love'em but sometimes it seems like I am the only one who doesn't have GOD on speed dial. Wow amazing what a relief something so simple like your message could produce.

appreciate you

Hi DW, and a big welcome to you.

As a CURRENT survivor not only of relapse, but of the afflicted gray matter bouncing around in my skull, I have myself had to take a long hard look at what was "missing", post-stepwork, post-long term recovery, post-dumb decision to drink.

What I had gained from it is this: There is no one step that was missing or incomplete which led to my picking up a drink. It was a combination, which led back to a singular attitude, which was the attitude of "indifference". I can only speak for myself, but for me, it all came down to a moment of selfishness. Step One, "Admitted we were alcoholic, and...." -BUT AT THIS MOMENT I DON'T CARE. Step Two, "Came to believe that...." -BUT AT THIS MOMENT I DON'T CARE. And so on.

I knew damn well, after a length of sobriety, that there was a Power greater than myself that COULD restore me to sanity. He/It had done so for how many thousand days prior, in sobriety? But on one day, at one moment, I DIDN'T CARE. It was time for me to look at the things in my life that I DID care about now (pretty much everything), relationships/family, work/financial capabilities, freedom, health, mental stability, etc., and recognize that these moments of selfishness were a surefire way to make the whole darn thing come crashing down AGAIN.

And to make USE of a bit of "selfishness", aimed in the right direction. I am too selfish about my peace of mind, my friendships, peoples' trust in me, my trust in myself, my stability in life, to GIVE it all away to Alcoholism again.

In that moment where I didn't CARE about myself (i.e. I ventured to pick up a drink), it opened up the obvious neccessity for me to quit fooling myself (again), and be a little more selfish about my recovery. Is there any foolish emotion I am allowing myself to revel in (indifference?), that corrupts the way I hold onto what sobriety has given me?

Like you, I refused to beat the hell out of myself for it. While there was a healthy fear of returning to the old life (the "oh shit moment"), that proved to be the defining moment of a return to healthy thinking. You are doing such now, as you seek understanding and help with this choice you made.

If you feel there is a problem with Step 2 here, I honor that. You know yourself. But it sounds to me like, after 12 years sober and active in AA, you know "what's going on", and you just allowed yourself to not give a crap for a few moments.

Keep it simple. Re-leanr what you already know, and make the commitment again.

Take care and thank you so much for sharing with us. Everyone's replies here are really helpful, including your topic itself.

Hi DW,

I was sitting here and re reading all the great responses, and felt that I left out my input to the HP issue...........so here goes........

In my early sobriety I just went to a meeting everyday, and yes I did read the first three steps always, never read further...I needed to do this slowly and I did.

From all of my years at Relapsing, in the very back of my mind, was this notion that the God of a particular Religion was a God that surely wanted NOTHING to go with the likes of me.

So for that first year I let the meetings be my HP, putting that old inner feeling of an HP on a shelve somewhere. And as I listened and listened to the stories, so many I could relate to, starting feeling differently about HP. Not my old way of thinking of HP, but a very Loving HP, that surely had played the major part of my staying sober.

When I first asked God to show me a different way, it was to an HP that was just there as in a theory only. Then when I reached my first year of continuous sobriety, it was truly a major awareness of a Power Greater than myself....doing for me what I Could Not Do for myself. And that awareness brought tears to my eyes, later when I was at home, after my "AA Birthday" celebration, and threw out my old ideas of an angry God, and now had a new HP that was there in my life everyday. I also had that little Black Book on 24 hours a Day, and that book was my little bible.

So I felt in my previous response I had missed the mark on what you were saying and needed to respond to you and your request for help.

Hugs to you and Welcome again, hope to see you soon.

Toni

If you have the insurance coverage, long-term rehab may help old-timer relapse. 

-- Edited by jpmger on Tuesday 29th of December 2009 10:46:24 PM

-- Edited by jpmger on Tuesday 29th of December 2009 10:47:17 PM